Time to unveil the wheel and tire choice for this build....I chose a HELO wheel with a chrome finish.. I had one heck of a wait to get them...I'm talking over 6 months {prepaid} wait with no actual delivery date from the manufacturer... I bought 5 rims so I had the spare... I'm glad I waited these rims are so cool !!!
The tire of choice is Mickey Thompson's BAJA MTZ P3 in a 33/ 12.50/ 15.... I've actually had these rims and tires from the beginning of this build thread...Like others I jumped the gun and bought the rims and tires first instead of the parts needed first...LOL... I guess it gives the incentive to get it done...
Anyhow here's the rims and tires on the vehicle...I got some highway test driving in today{dust and all} everything is great !! No vibes,shakes, noises , etc... I'm a happy guy !!

 

Seeing the finished product, I sound like the old man in "A Christmas Story" talking about the leg lamp... "It's indescribably beautiful! It reminds me of the 4th of July!"

 

I miss my MTZs - I wish they made them in a skinner 33 that wasn't Load Range E. What backspacing are those wheels? I may just suck it up and get those wide tires for my next set after I get tired of my 255/85R16 Bighorns.

Jeep's looking good! What's your plan for the rear bumper?

 

Thanks Guys... I was just looking up the specs on the HELO 791 MAXX wheel and guess what ?? They no longer offer the wheel in a 15 inch !! Anyhow the width is 8 and the backspacing is 4... They didn't offer them in the magic 3.75 BS like everyone shoots for...Maybe that's why I had such a long wait for the rims I probably got one of the last sets made...If I needed more backspacing I was considering a spacer but after seeing where they sit with the bushwacker pocket flares I'm happy with what I have...They'll pass state inspection now...
The rear bumper will be stock for now... I'm thinking of making up a receiver spare tire carrier ...

 

get yourself a Curt universal 2.5 receiver hitch ... 62 inch ....buy some .5 inch structural angle iron and drill and attach with grade 8 up thru your rear "frame" rails as far forward as is flat or you can go.
drill up into the bed for max and add plate up there or floor sheet. weld or bolt to your angle iron frames to hitch tube preferably under
​​​​add ubolt on reciever tubes any where on tube for spare, roof rack etc...in addition to center welded 20,000 lb tube!

have fun put one up front too!

 

Time to move in to the interior...First on the interior hit list is the headliner...The past year has been a downward spiral for the original headliner material..Once it started letting loose it really took off... So the trim was removed, and the hardboard was dropped out for the process. I've got a new sound system for the jeep with bigger, upgraded speakers that are JBL components with a separate cross over...So the hardboard got modified for the tweeters..They'll look like mini versions of the original speaker mounts when done..

 

I thought I had a good pic of the finished hardboard... I thought wrong...LOL... Here's a pic of the finished piece but it doesn't do it any justice.. I'll get a better one..

 

Anyhow, what I wanted to show is I picked out a darker color than the original light gray it just didn't match the agate interior.. I took on the sunvisors thinking it was an easy job... Wow, they are way more involved than I was expecting...The best advice I can give on those are to use a hot glue gun to tack the material in place to aid the process...But here's the better color comparison of the light vs darker gray... A much better color match for the agate interior pieces..

 

The hot glue gun is a pretty straight forward deal.. Just keep the glue inside of the gripping teeth...After it's glued around the whole perimeter install the mirror and snap the halves together...Last pic with the mirror shows just how much darker the material actually is from the original shade..

 

Next up was the overhead console...Here's what I've got to work with...

The teardown was a straight forward process

After stripping the old material I wiped down the frame with lacquer thinner to remove any remnants of the foam..The old glue needs to sit over night after the wipe down to let the solvents evaporate...


I used a piece of material that would be big enough for the console..

 

And the finished product after polishing all lenses and screens...Not bad...And check out the original, never used velcro for the garage door opener...I like the small details..

 

And a few shots of the headliner and all the components coming together after cutting the holes needed for each one... The tweeters look as good as I hoped..The JBL speakers will look right at home up there..

 

With the headliner and accessories done there's one step I want to address before it goes back up into place...I've noticed on a hot day that the AC works hard to keep up...

So some roof insulation is the key to solve that..
I chose some 1/4 closed cell foam with a foil liner... This stuff has adhesive already on it so it's a "peel and stick" install...And man does this stuff stick !! I marked the centerline and made sure it was centered before application... No rollers needed just some hand pressure...You only get one shot at placement it'll rip the foam before you get it back off..

Here's the finished install...I didn't overlap the sides over the reinforcements to keep the air circulated and not trap moisture above the headliner..

 

I also covered the rear speaker support so I have good quality sound with the upgraded system...That should cover it...

And lastly, it's time for the new speaker wiring to go in place...I've also added back-up camera cable and ran the bluetooth phone microphone up front before the hardboard goes back in...

 

where'd you get that insulation from? I've got to redo my headliner soon and might as well insulate while I've got it open.