My Wrangler Renegade (Jenny)

How it began:

In the winter of 2004 I just finished high school and the car craze sets in, I managed to save up about $3,000.00 and I was out shopping for a car. Driving in the middle east a 4X4 is a must, as the traffic is intense. You might also find that repairing a 4x4 after an accident is cheaper. That’s when I decided it has to be American, hard as $H!T. At the point I have never even heard of wrangler renegade, and I was looking for a trailblazer or Cherokee. I found a post for a wrangler going for $2,300.00 with only 100,000Km on it and I thought hey, lets go have a look. My first impression was, “WHOA.. I can see my reflection in the black paint”. And I thought to my self that this has the grunge and aggressive look of the original wrangler, yet it still has some sleekness and style to it. I immediately fell in love with the car and I had to have it.

For those of you who don’t know:

From 1991 until 1994, Jeep produced an options package on the YJ Wrangler listed as the "Renegade Decor Group". Initially, all Renegades were White, Black or Red. In 1992, Blue was added, in 1993, Bronze. The Renegade Decor Group was a $4,266.00 option over a base Wrangler in 1991 and included special alloy wheels, exclusive body flares, along with many other features. Renegades were also the first wrangles which had Hi-Output Engines, and to have a center console with cup holders mounted in-between front the seats.

I have a mental illness:

If you haven’t guessed already I do have the jeep syndrome, you will only understand it if you have it, basically the more they give you $H!T the more you love them. I spent $2000 on changing differentials, which I sadly have done 3 times now, Einshalah the XJ one will hold! Will I change the diff again? Hell yeah. I have more fun with this car than hassle so why not. There is nothing like speeding up and down a 30m sand dune, and there is nothing like feeling that 6cyl 4.0L roar like beast as you fly down the highway.    

              I built my jeep!

My Sound System:

First thing I did when I got the car, installed a moderate sound system. Even though I could afford to put a leading brand system, I thought against it. I go camping all the time and I take all my speakers out of the car and we have a beach party. So if one of my lovely speakers gets wrecked because of the sand or dumb/drunken fools.. no biggy. I got a 4 channel 444WRms amp with two 10” and 6” subs. And I have some midrange and high range speakers just to fill up the sound spectrum ;).  Have a look at my Sound System Section 

I just bought a brand new sound system all polk audio 1200WRMS, 2Farad tsunami capacitor with a rockford wiring kit and all street wires wiring. I still need to take photos and include them, but my camera suffered the last offroad trip, got run over. lol, was fun!

My Neons:

In most countries around the world do not permit you to install under glow neons in your car, in Qatar they don’t really care. I thought it would be look really cool. And to my amazement it looked real cute. I then later found out they are exceptionally useful when you get stuck in the sand in the middle of the night. Now to make the car complete, I installed 2 blue neons under the dash, two blue LED strips underneath the seats and one LED strip in the center console, so my floor glows blue, and you can see inside the center console at night. I then also installed 4 black lights around the rollcage. Have a look at my Lighting section

Perhaps DVD?:

I later on then got my self a new JVC DVD player, my intention was never to actually play DVD movies. I just wanted to put all my mp3’s on one DVD and we are off, sadly it’s kinda difficult to find one song out of 2000 when using such a small display. So I bought a TV so that I can have an mp3 list.  Have a look at my Sound System section.

 Bluetooth Phone Kit:

In Doha, if you get caught talking on a mobile and driving you automatically get a $1000 fine and could do up to 1 year in jail. As that’s a big no no.. and my buddies phone me normally when I’m driving, I spent a measly $125 and got a Nokia Bluetooth car kit. It has a mute wire which connects to the player and mutes automatically when I have an incoming phone call. Have a look at my Bluetooth section.

HID xenon:

Not to long after I got fed up with these B@$T@RD$ with their xenon blinding me, so I got my self a HID xenon kit (I became one of them). You have no idea how much it improves your battery life and how much brighter the road/surroundings are.  Have a look at my Xenon section

How about power windows?:

My window rolling mechanism was creaky and stiff so I went to the dealer to find out how much that would be and it turned out “Al-Manna Motors” rips of their customers, $200 for one. I then found a company that sells electric replacement ones for $350, why not I though it’s a hassle to open and close the passenger window. I got them and installed them, I found that it was far more difficult to remove the original mechanisms than to install the motorized ones, took me 3 or 4 hours to remove the stock ones and about an hour to install the motorized ones.  Have a look at my Power Windows section

Of course I still have a lot of wiring left to do. While installing the new window mechanisms I realized that ill have to find a way to get wires to the door, stock wranglers have no wires leading into the doors. So I cut up some pleather and had it sowed up into good looking flexible wire sleeves. I then thought to my self, while I have the door panels off why don’t I install a central locking kit; they are only about $40. The kit includes keyless entry and the 2 front servos and a controller. Have a look at my Central Locking section.

Now you might think I’m not able to remove my doors, but it’s no different apart from the fact that I have to pull out the wires with the sleeving until you reach the connection, just unplug it and remove the door as you normally would. It takes 2 minutes extra.

Funds were bone dry:

I then stopped doing stuff to my car for about 8 months, due to a lack of funds.  I had to change 3 Dana 35C's, just to find out that i had axel warp.  If your a real jeeper you know all about D35's, and im not talking about mellons ;). By the summer I finished paying off my debt and had nothing better to do, I hated TV and I was pissed off at my PS and PC so I decided to add a front camera, rear camera and a GPS. I got my self a Garmin GVN-52, making it a part of the car; it would mute the music playing and give me directions when needed, afterall i already had the tv installed.

Have a look at my GPS section.

Qatar                                                                                              My House

Amp, A/V Switch & GVN-52                                                     GVN-52 & Fire Extinguisher

A bit of Electrics:

At this point my wiring resembles a crow’s nest, partly due to the fact these upgrades happened over 2 years. And I didn’t like powering all these non-stock devices of the stock harness. I mean I’m pulling at least an additional 10 ~ 25 amps, so I got my self a Painless 7circuit fuse grid. It comes pre-wired with a relay, circuit breaker, fuses and a nice thick cable that connects to the battery through the circuit breaker. Definitely $50 well spent, I can now sleep better at night not having to wonder if my car is going to burn down. Also it simplifies the process if a fuse blows, the original fuses were all attached next to the components, which means if a fuse blows I have to open up the dash. Have a look at my Auxilary Fuses section.

My latest project is a monster in the undertaking; it’s a lot of digital, electronic, electrical, and mechanical and FIBERGLASS work. Yes, I got 2 BMW 3 series mirrors and I didn’t know what to do with them, well after a couple of drinks I was looking at my jeep and said to my self I now know what to do with them mirrors...

Now the mirrors, stow away, adjust, heat and dim. I only had to manufacture a new aluminum base mount; I still need to finish all the fiberglass work. It's the fiberglass work that makes me regret taking this on.

As for the electronics:

I am an electronic engineering student; I am almost done with my program and my knowledge of MicroControllers is vast. So when the mirrors are complete, the wires entering the door will be +12V, Ground and a Bi-directional Data line. I can then add other features, just by adding code to the CPU I can lock the doors if I am going 10Kmh, fold out the mirrors automatically, mirror position memory and many other Features. It wont be far of what you get in a Mercedes. I am not trying to turn my jeep into a Mercedes, I will probably use that as my Theses project, and I developing a universal system you can install into any vehicle to perform the same tasks. Have a look at my Custom Electronics section.

NV4500 Transmission Conversion:

Early November 2007, I drove around town as usual. I got to a rounabout, I downshifted from 4 to 3 and there was alot of noise and vibration and then the wheels locked up. This all happened in rush hour, which was a lot of fun I have to admit! The crappy AX-15 seaced for no apperent reason, which is why i wont get another one I'll just change it with something better! The NV4500 conversion. Have a look at my NV4500 Conversion section.

Summer of 2008:
It is summer yet again, I have a summer job and I give you one guess what I did with all that extra money. Yes I spent it all on my jeep. It started with money I saved up for a Borla header and cat-back system. I then figured while I’m working, why not extend that order. So I phoned up Quadratec, made an order so massive that just the shipping of 86Kg’s of parts is over $400. Hahaha. So I the following, will be clearly illustrated and explained the how’s and why’s for installation of these parts for those of you who want to do the job your self. Borla Header, Borla Cat-Back, AiRaid TBS,K&N FIPK,K&N Filter Wraps, Jet Performance Chip, Performance Distributor kit,E-3 Diamond fire plugs, Mean Green Alternator, FlowKooler Water pump, Griffin Aluminum Radiator, Flexalite Electric Radiator Fan and an Oil Cooler.

Have a look at my Performance Section.

Yes I know I spent a "Crap Load" of money on my jeep, I could have gone and bought a new one. But hey, we true jeepers know, the new ones are loosing out to these Toyota FJ’s. I tell you My YJ has gone over terrain, which FJ’s were lost in, taken by the desert. Sure I have a lot of gadgets installed, but I can unplug and remove them any time, which is how I designed my modifications, the car can and will live with out them. On road, she has more gadgets than a Merc, off-road shez a barebone raw power machine with nothing else attached. Doors, Roof everything else removed, Id remove the spare tire and seats if I could get away with out them.

Car impounded

Now this happened, and to this day I am unsure of why.  The car was taken from me at a car wash.  I don’t know if someone saw this page, and felt the need to report it.  I’m not sure of what exactly happened, everyone tells me a different story at the car impound and the police station.  This car has been modified keeping California specification in mind.  All parts used on this jeep were intended for California use as I want to take the jeep to Canada when I leave here.  California is has the strictest laws on emissions and noise pollution in the world, so I don’t know why it was taken.  I wasn’t street racing, nor was I doing anything else illegal. It was probably people jealous of all the hard work I put in, people who felt the need to break me down so that those people can feel better about them selves.  How sad does one need to be to do that?  Well I learned a valuable lesson “Edit out your plate number on all your pictures”.

Jeep Dawg 

I adopted Jacky at about 7 months old in October, she’s my jeep dog.  Every time I get in the jeep she jumps in and goes along to all the off-road trips, or to just cruise around town.  I sometimes spend like 15 minutes in the morning trying to keep her out of the car when I’m going to class.

Winter 2008:

I sent everyone my Quadratec wish list for Christmas, and guess what.  I only got jeep stuff of Xmas, how cool as that?  I was as happy as a child! Lol.  So I ended up with a set of clear parking and side marker lamps, as well as those InProCar Crystal-Eyes LED tail lamps.  Got a CB radio and antenna with a rear tail light mount.  Unfortunately I will only be able to install them once the Jeep’s paint is fixed. 

 I nearly strangled my dog (Jacky) when I got home from England.  It would seem like she had an endless party on the jeep.  Since she wouldn’t listen to me I figured that’s the last straw, your getting a parameter collar bitch.  So I got the dog a Xmas present as well, lol.  People might say its crewel, but she has caused me a lot of damage.  Besides, it’s a training collar it would warn her before shocking her and the shock increases gradually if she doesn’t pay attention to the warning.  So if she gets a shock it’s her own damn fault, the collar gave her ample warning.

 So far the collars have worked amazingly and she keeps of all the cars.  I'd recommend these collars to every one you can get them from this website.  Have a look at my Lighting section

 Jeep Mascot - Bob                                                                      Bob on volcanic rock (Comoros)

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Page Index:
1.) About my Car
2.) Camping Trips & Duning
3.) Sound System & Bluetooth.
4.) Light and Neon Effects.
5.) Magna Donnelly Rearview Mirror.
6.) Power Windows & Central Locking.
7.) HID Xenon.
8.) Garmin GVN-52.
9.) Auxiliary fuses.
10.) Custom Side Mirrors.
11.) Custom Electronics & Wiring.
12.) NV4500 Conversion.
13.) Performance.
14.) Custom Power Top.