I screwed up and bought my first jeep

As I said I screwed up and bought a jeep I don't think has a snowballs chance in hell of passing inspection. I don't intend on really driving it on the street that much but a few surf fishing trips and once in a while to the local store but I want it to be tagged. I like to get in on a couple trail rides but would probably trailer it. From what I'm reading my bumper height has tow be 22" and I also see a listing B that said 30" in "not covered in section A". Section A is passenger vehicles and I would assume a jeep falls under that standard. My current bumper height is 28" and I think I would be hard pressed to get to 22" with just swapping wheels. Do you guys now which standard a jeep falls under?

This jeep has about 6"-7" of lift and non stock axles as well as tube fenders up front. My wheels tires protrude 6" in the rear and 9" up front as there is no flare at all up front. I know I'm screwed on that account as well. I'm looking into stock fenders for the front and 6" flares all around. This would bring me down to about 3" of protrusion if I run the current tires. I'm about to purchase a set of used tires and rims to get it through the inspection lanes. With the temporary tires I suspect I will come in 1" or less protrusion. Will 3" of protrusion running 6" flares attract attention on the street when I make a quick trip to home depot or down to the beach?

Have any of you bought any of the $130 stock replacement fenders from rock auto and have an opinion?

I think I basically saw big tires and wheels and didn't give much thought to anything else. As I said I basically screwed up.

Any thoughts on one DMV versus another? I live in Middletown but would not be opposed to driving to Dover if it will be an easier process. As it sits now I will get the tltle transferred with out tags and run it through inspection when I think I have a chance.

I hope to get in on a trail ride in or two 2016. This will actually be my second jeep if you count my 99 Cherokee but that was my daily driver. This current one is strictly a toy and that is basically it only purpose. Sorry about a second post with more questions and no content.

I actually have a yj. The fender pricing at Rock auto had 4 different price levels. Anything from $119 to over $200. It depended on what you picked.

How stringent are they on tail lights? This jeep also has recessed led tail lights with no reflectors. I see two contradicting laws on the dmv website. One says no modification outside of the taillights intend purpose. The others is just rules saying two red reflectors, tail lights and a plate light.

All I would have to do is put two reflectors on the bumper and add a light on the flip down plate mount.

These rules seem subjective on who you get at the dmv

Ok, rear tail lights are flush mount LED and certainly don't meet the definition of visible from the side so I will chuck a set of stock ones on for inspection. I will put the LEDs back after the fact as the are recessed into the body and have large openings through the body for that purpose.

Looks like I will be undoing 60% of whats been done to the jeep to get it through inspection. Not feeling really happy about that but it is what it is. If I go through all this and put stock front fenders back on I will probably leave it that way until one of them gets damaged.

Thanks

Quote from Slimer

With 6" to 7" of lift on leaf springs I'm guessing it has a spring over axle conversion, or possibly a spring over axle with lifted springs. Post pictures so we can see what you got. I'm also wondering if you have wider axles, spacers, or wide wheels to get the tires sticking out that much.

I will post some pics in the next week or so. It has a combination of all the things you mentioned. It has 4" springs, spring over axle conversion a ford 8.8 in the rear with spacers in the back and a dana 44 in the front with a high steer kit. 4.56 gears and Detroit lockers on both ends and manual locking hubs on the front axle. It has a 5x5.5 bolt pattern on the axles with the addition of the spacer on the rear axle.

As I said it's my first real jeep and was bought as a toy. I don't know a lot about jeeps but there is no rust to speak of on the tub or frame. This may have been an impulse purchase but as a toy I can tolerate breaking it and messing with it.

It's not the prettiest to look at but was in the nicest shape out of all the ones looked at in the price range aside from clear coat peeling on the hood. Most of the others were a little rougher in shape and if they had a lift they were stock gearing with a little larger tires. The other jeeps modifications all seemed cosmetic where as this jeep seemed to be the opposite.

The one bonus was the guy I bought it off of had a build book for it with receipts so I kinda know what all the misc parts are.

Here is a picture. It's the best I can come up with as it is shoved in the corner of my garage with two boats.

Time will tell if I made a impulsive move and will wind up regretting it.

The tires are 12" wide so if the flare over hang is only counting the tread it isn't as drastic as the tire side wall is about 2" wider then the tread. The tires are 12 x 35. My initial measurements were from a straight edge on the side wall.

Quote from Slimer

looks like the wheels you have might be 10" wide or more (judging from the depth of the mounting surface from the rim edge). If that's so going to an 8" rim will suck the tires in a little bit.

I will measure them and I suspect your right. These are 15" wheels and realistically this jeep would need 16" or 17" rims to allow different back spacing and get around the calipers. I don't know if I want to buy another set of 15" wheels and would prefer 16" rims in the future. At this point I'm also not wanting to have the added expense of new tires to fit the 16" rims. These tires are in good shape and would be over $1000 to replace and unlike most of the other jeeps I looked at, this jeep has a matching spare.

I can't find the receipt or instructions specifying the springs this jeep has but I have no reason to doubt they aren't 4" skyjackers as I was told. There are other documents for skyjacker components although many have been swapped out at this point. This jeep has gone through two iterations of build according to it's paper trail. I believe it went with a 4" lift kit with a 1" body lift at first go through and then went with a spring over set up when the axles were changed.

On paper that put this jeep at around 10" of lift. Would you guess it is that high from the picture? Those tires are 35" x 12.5" on a 15" rim. I will see if I can find some specs from axle center line to frame of a stock jeep to see what the final dimensions are. It is high and I don't necessarily think there is any benefit to it as "according to the internet" I can fit the 35" tires nicely with 6"-7" of lift.

Is there any reason/benefit to lower it? I would not be opposed to swapping out the springs since they are about 14-15 years old according to the paper trail. I would assume lowering it will make it ride nicer on the street. Right now it is not horible but there is no way I would call it a daily driver. It is high an soft so it has a lot of body roll. It also has no sway bar and there is an oversize steering box occupying the path of the factory sway bar.

If I drop it 2"-3" will any of steering components need to be changed? I see that Rusty's has a 1.5" spring specifically made for a spring over axle lift. This would bring me down to 7" on the suspension and a total of 8" overall. This jeep also has a traction bar on the rear that I would assume all the mounting points would have to be changed once this is lowered.

As it sits right now I'm looking for a used set of Dodge Ram 1500 wheels for inspection. They share the same bolt pattern and are 16"-17" dependent on the trim level and year. These wheels should tuck the tires in substantially for inspection.

Well I dug around and crawled around the underside of the jeep a little more today now that I had some free time. There is no way it has 4" sky jacker springs. If anything I think they are the Rubicon Express spring over axle springs. They have the down turned eyes on the ends and I don't see any others out there like that.

I found a set of rims that are 7.5" wide and a set of 32 x 11.5" tires that have 85% or better tread. One of the tires still has the paint stripes down it. I actually would have preferred a little skinnier tire but I couldn't find any used ones that weren't either complete junk or one or two loose tires. I'm $310 into my "street" tires. Dodge wheels won't fit due to the hub through hole diameter.

I rinsed the road salt off and took it for a quick spin with the new wheels. The speedo is off by about 10mph at 55 now. It was right on the money with 35" tires. The tires are supposedly only 1" narrower but the new rims sucked the wheels in by 3". I think I can get away with a slightly larger flare in the back and some of of those flexy flares on the tube fender to get me down to 1" tread protrusion.

Hope to catch up on a trail ride in March or April. I want to put a few miles one it before I trust it.