Gladiator - Take 3
- Thread starter AdamH
- Start date
- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
When the bed rack you want comes up for sale used for less than half the price, you drive 3 hrs round trip and don’t think twice
Rebel Off-road full height rack. Guy lived in the middle of nowhere. Traded his JT in on a full size and took this off to sell. Had it sitting beside his shed for months due to no one wanting it and willing to drive out to him. Everyone kept asking him to meet halfway or something.
Decided to install and clean it up later.
Rebel Off-road full height rack. Guy lived in the middle of nowhere. Traded his JT in on a full size and took this off to sell. Had it sitting beside his shed for months due to no one wanting it and willing to drive out to him. Everyone kept asking him to meet halfway or something.
Decided to install and clean it up later.
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- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
I’ve honestly never seen a JT with both a soft top and bed rack. Maybe I’m 1 of 1! Lol The hard top is strictly used during the winter months along with the full doors. With our move to the coast I won't sell the hard top but it may become garage ceiling decor from here on out. I do plan to swap back to full doors however during the Winter months.
Anyway with our upcoming move to the coast I wanted a way to carry a set of fat tire bikes without taking up bed space / hitch carrier. Rebel Off-road makes a mount kit but not for fat tire bikes. A little fab work and here we are.
Had to make new wider rear tire plates. Also decided to color match them red to the factory tow hooks. They are just at the right level to hit your shoulder / head. Maybe folks including myself will see the red.
We are building on Topsail Island. It is a 26 mile long but very narrow island near Surf City NC. Roughly 45 mins north of Wilmington. While we will be able to jump on the bikes from the house and ride on the beach I wanted to be able to pack up and head to some other parts that are more remote / less vacationers. Also my daughter is all about us getting a roof top tent and heading to the OBX for long weekends. The bike racks are adjustable to extend out past the fender flares to accommodate RTTs
Anyway with our upcoming move to the coast I wanted a way to carry a set of fat tire bikes without taking up bed space / hitch carrier. Rebel Off-road makes a mount kit but not for fat tire bikes. A little fab work and here we are.
Had to make new wider rear tire plates. Also decided to color match them red to the factory tow hooks. They are just at the right level to hit your shoulder / head. Maybe folks including myself will see the red.
We are building on Topsail Island. It is a 26 mile long but very narrow island near Surf City NC. Roughly 45 mins north of Wilmington. While we will be able to jump on the bikes from the house and ride on the beach I wanted to be able to pack up and head to some other parts that are more remote / less vacationers. Also my daughter is all about us getting a roof top tent and heading to the OBX for long weekends. The bike racks are adjustable to extend out past the fender flares to accommodate RTTs
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- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
Note - once we’ve moved permanently to the coast to our rental house I’ll swap over to the half doors for the Summer. Multiple 4.5 hr trips back and forth recently I wanted the option of full doors. Even in modern times and advancements with engineering a set of half doors utilizing soft half uppers due to weather issues isn’t fun on long trips. Those with past experience with half doors ...... remember when you had to use the uppers and between the wind noise and rain finding its way in at highway speeds??? Yea that still happens, better than in the past, but still happens.
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- City
- W-S
- State
- NC
Howdy neighbor! We're all the way at the South end.......
- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
Since you are familiar with the area, we are building in Accolade. It's about 2 miles south of the Surf City bridge on the ICW side of the island.
- City
- W-S
- State
- NC
I’ll DM you
- City
- W-S
- State
- NC
When you get to the end of the road, put on your right blinker!
- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
Are you there full time or is it a vacation home?
- City
- Surf City
- State
- NC
First the Wagoneer - now the JT. Hopefully the JT doesn't meet the same fate as the Wagoneer and get the boot.
2022 model year with 49k trouble free miles. Only issue I've ever really had were the two batteries going bad on me at the first of this year. Replaced them both. Sadly, these days having original batteries that last more than 3 years is unheard of.
Last week I was halfway into a 4 hr trip back home and the JT got unhappy. Lights on the dash, chimes, etc. I pulled over, scanned the codes, cleared them, and was on my way without issue. I knew this wasn't the end of my issues - just wanted to get home.
About an hour later it happened again. This time the JT was offended. Offended I didn't take things seriously the 1st time. Same issues as before but this time the truck decided it was going to pout by only allowing me to do 9 mph! I pulled over, cleared the same codes, and somehow was on my way again. I got home without further incident.
I decided I needed to drive the wheels off it to get it to act up again and see if I could fix something and/or "gasp" take it to the dealer. I drove it everyday everywhere leaving the JL and JK to sit. No issues at all - until this past Monday. So 6 days after the first round of battle. Monday I had the same scenario as the 2nd time last week. Lights, chimes, and limp mode of 9mph. It was SO MUCH FUN this happening during rush hour traffic with my daughter with me trying to get her to dance class. Once again I was able to clear codes and get it almost home. Happened again while turning into the neighborhood.
This final 4th time was different, however. More codes and more lights. Even the shifter lights changed to all orange. After parking it and shutting it down I tried to clear codes and crank it. The JT said, "no soup for you!" and would not crank. The cherry on top of this fun was that it would also not shut down. It stayed in the RUN mode with everything working except the starter. The only way I could get it to shut down was to disconnect both batteries. I reached out to @rubclt for help and he was able to use Grok to come up with some tests to perform. Sadly, none of the tests would fix the JT. We tried everything from checking the battery voltage, cables being tight, chassis grounds in good order, etc... Error codes essentially say the TCM is in time-out and not talking to anyone and the entire can-bus system is on Spring Break.
Off to the dealer it went yesterday. And of course I am out of warranty. You can see how happy I am watching the tow truck driver take it. More to come.
2022 model year with 49k trouble free miles. Only issue I've ever really had were the two batteries going bad on me at the first of this year. Replaced them both. Sadly, these days having original batteries that last more than 3 years is unheard of.
Last week I was halfway into a 4 hr trip back home and the JT got unhappy. Lights on the dash, chimes, etc. I pulled over, scanned the codes, cleared them, and was on my way without issue. I knew this wasn't the end of my issues - just wanted to get home.
About an hour later it happened again. This time the JT was offended. Offended I didn't take things seriously the 1st time. Same issues as before but this time the truck decided it was going to pout by only allowing me to do 9 mph! I pulled over, cleared the same codes, and somehow was on my way again. I got home without further incident.
I decided I needed to drive the wheels off it to get it to act up again and see if I could fix something and/or "gasp" take it to the dealer. I drove it everyday everywhere leaving the JL and JK to sit. No issues at all - until this past Monday. So 6 days after the first round of battle. Monday I had the same scenario as the 2nd time last week. Lights, chimes, and limp mode of 9mph. It was SO MUCH FUN this happening during rush hour traffic with my daughter with me trying to get her to dance class. Once again I was able to clear codes and get it almost home. Happened again while turning into the neighborhood.
This final 4th time was different, however. More codes and more lights. Even the shifter lights changed to all orange. After parking it and shutting it down I tried to clear codes and crank it. The JT said, "no soup for you!" and would not crank. The cherry on top of this fun was that it would also not shut down. It stayed in the RUN mode with everything working except the starter. The only way I could get it to shut down was to disconnect both batteries. I reached out to @rubclt for help and he was able to use Grok to come up with some tests to perform. Sadly, none of the tests would fix the JT. We tried everything from checking the battery voltage, cables being tight, chassis grounds in good order, etc... Error codes essentially say the TCM is in time-out and not talking to anyone and the entire can-bus system is on Spring Break.
Off to the dealer it went yesterday. And of course I am out of warranty. You can see how happy I am watching the tow truck driver take it. More to come.
What DTC codes were you getting Adam? When you were stuck at 9 mph, it sounds like you were in powerfree. There's only a couple things that should do that. Basically internal failure of ECM or TCM module.
CAN bus is a bugger. If TCM and ECM aren't communicating, then engine won't start. There's a hand shake between RF Hub, BCM, and ECM, then another handshake between ECM and TCM. Of course if CAN bus is down, none of those are going to happen. Hopefully it's just a loose connector somewhere, if any of the module connectors on the bus has an open or short condition, it takes down the whole thing. Could be a pinched wire too. They'll have to ring out all the CAN lines probably, that's time consuming.
Good luck man, that thing was starting to look like a real Jeep.
CAN bus is a bugger. If TCM and ECM aren't communicating, then engine won't start. There's a hand shake between RF Hub, BCM, and ECM, then another handshake between ECM and TCM. Of course if CAN bus is down, none of those are going to happen. Hopefully it's just a loose connector somewhere, if any of the module connectors on the bus has an open or short condition, it takes down the whole thing. Could be a pinched wire too. They'll have to ring out all the CAN lines probably, that's time consuming.
Good luck man, that thing was starting to look like a real Jeep.