Project Tomb Raider PT. 3

Hey, welcome to trucks and the final step of project Tomb Raider. Yep. Today I'm gonna finish this thing off and bring the owners back and give them a big surprise. Now, if you haven't been following this build up, here's what's going on started with a completely stocked 2003. Jeep TJ,

the kid that owns its name is Galen Davis. Both him and his father

completely sign this thing over to me and have no idea what I'm doing to it.

Yeah.

Now, since Galen is a beginner to off roading, like a lot of you viewers are, the purpose here is to build a rig that's very tough, very capable off road, something that he can upgrade as he gains more experience. But on the flip side

still needs to be street legal, still needs to look good.

Now, I know that can be kind of a tough order, but

you can build a Jeep like that if you shop the aftermarket. Matter of fact, the Jeep from Tomb Raider two

was built using aftermarket parts. So

purpose of this build up is to show you how to do it.

The first thing I did was get rid of that old stock suspension and in its place, put a hard core four inch rock ready suspension kit

and 35 inch tall tires and cool rims.

Now to help cover those tires,

we threw on some big wide

bushwhacker pocket flares

and finally the stock seats were tossed in the trash

to make room for some Mastercraft suspension seats

and some belts.

All right. That brings everybody up to date. Let's move on to the new stuff. Now, since most four wheelers like to play around in the water.

Being prepared for deep water is always a good idea.

That means using some sort of a snorkel on your air intake. Now, for that, we went to quadratic, got the Safari snorkel

that not only includes the snorkel system

that brings the air intake up above the driver's head,

but also includes all the hardware to hook it up under the hood. This is how to do it.

The first thing we'll do is remove the stock air cleaner assembly from the rig.

Next, we'll take the template that comes with the kit

and mark our holes.

Ok. Since the next step is to take a hole, saw

and cut a very large hole right in the side of the rig,

you need to make sure that you check and double check and triple check your measurements. So you're putting in the right place. Look Galen eyes closed.

No, just kidding.

Ok. We are way past the point of no return here because we have a huge hole cut into the side of a brand new Jeep.

So let's take a look at this snorkel, see how we're gonna cover that.

Now, here's your mounting bolts. This is your air outlet.

You have a molded in spot here for your antenna. Now, if we've cut everything right,

it should just slide right into place

and it does

then mark and drill your holes for the A pillar bracket.

Finally bolt on the snorkel,

followed by the air in list

to modify the air filter box. First,

we're gonna get rid of this stock intake elbow. Goodbye.

Then we are going to plug the hole with this plate that comes with the kit.

Then using the supplied template, make your marks for your new air intake and cut it out.

Then we'll mount the new air inlet to the box. Now, make sure that you use a good amount of silicone on these plates before you rivet them in.

So you have a good solid waterproof seal

with the air box back in the rig. We'll take the hose, run it from the snorkel,

then just connect it to the air box,

put it all back together and you are pretty much ready for some deep water as far as your air intake is concerned. Now, your axle vents and your electrical system that'll all need to be sealed up too. So don't forget to do it

or you'll still end up stranded in the water. Now, speaking of electrical systems, we are going to upgrade our battery to this optima Deep cycle yellow top, that's gonna give us the power. We need

to run all those accessories you haven't seen yet.

Ok.

All right. You can't get serious off road with those bumpers. And if you do get serious, you know, you're gonna get stuck because

if you're pushing the envelope, you are gonna get stuck. That's part of the fun of it is knowing where that line is. Fortunately, Warren has got an answer for both those problems with their awesome winches and bumpers. Take a look at these. First up are these super tough rock crawling bumpers. Now, these will handle whatever punishment you wanna throw at them. Trust me.

Now, they're tough, but they're not too big to be cumbersome. You still have good approach and departure angles, little narrower. So they don't get out into your tires and

look at this. We got big tabs welded on for D ring shackles.

You

already have holes set up for a worn winch and you've got holes here for some auxiliary lighting. That's the front bumper. Now, the rear bumper,

same shape so it matches,

has a receiver hitch built right in

and you've got a pivot point here for a swing away spare tire mount for a real spare tire,

not that little weenie that came on. I think stock

to mount the bumpers is really easy. They just basically replace the stalkers and pull right to the frame rails for a super strong installation.

Like I said before, the swing away, spare tire carrier allows us to mount a matching pro comp wheel and tire and still get in the back of the rig.

Ok. Now, we're ready to talk about this winch. Now, when you say the word winch

man, the word Warren is never far behind because they pretty much wrote the book on these things. Now, this is the new Thermometric 9.5 T I. And it is an awesome piece. It's got a new generation electric motor

gives you quicker line speeds

allows you to make longer pulls without overheating,

gives you 9500 pounds worth of pull. That is plenty. Now, it's all wrapped in this heavy duty housing. So even if you take it under water,

things still gonna work on you. That's nice. Now, we got this mounting bracket that goes right down on that new bumper.

We have the remote to control it

and then we have this accessory bag that's got gloves and a snatch block and chain and straps. Everything we're gonna need,

put that winch into use. Now, unfortunately, this brings us up to a break but

don't go far because I still have some other cool stuff to put on this Jeep before we give it back to Galen

and we see his father's reaction to our big pile of junk.

Hey, you're back. That's because I told you, I'm gonna finish up this Jeep project today and I'm going to, it's almost done. But first let me bring you up to date on what I've done so far. Put on a snorkel system.

Then I upgraded to some big hardcore bumpers

and I'm finishing up the install of this winch. Now to put on a winch in this case is very simple. You just bolt it to the bumper

and then make your two electrical connections. Now to protect that winch a little bit,

we also got this optional grill guard that Warren makes specifically for this bumper.

All right, we got our protection in the front, got protection in the rear. How about the sides? Yeah.

Well, for that, I wanted something tubular that could act as a side step. Also needed to be strong, strong, strong.

So for that, we went to Daystar products got what they call the rock rails. Now, these are tubular,

have a very unique design

and they are strong. This is the same stuff that most people build roll bars and bumpers out of

these will actually prevent a rock from coming up and destroying the body of your rig.

Now, this kind of bar is a completely different approach than those chrome side bars that was on this thing when we started

to put them on, just clamp them in place and drill your holes in the frame. And the body mount support

and then bolt them on with the supplied hardware and that's it.

Now, what about some off road lights for when we're running at night?

Well, Warren's got us covered there too with these S DB 160 spot driving lights. Now, look at this.

These have a super bright H four bulb and wrapped around. That is a very tough shock, water resistant housing looks cool too.

Now, these

will allow you to switch from a driving light to a spotlight, just a flip of the switch. Now, I'm going to mount two sets of these on two down here low on the bumper. So we can really see the trail in front of us.

The other two are going to come up here on the windshield utilizing these brackets that we got from sun performance.

Now, these lights will throw light way down the trail so we can see some obstacles before they become a problem.

The lights come with their own harness and relays and it's just a matter of hooking those up and then mounting the switch and you are done.

One of the cool things about driving a Jeep is that you can not only take the top off, but you can also take the doors completely off and drive down the road that way, that is so cool. Now, there may be some of you out there that may not be comfortable doing that. That is a lot of open space. Now, if that's you, that's all right. I have got a door for you.

This

is your doors. These are called Safari doors and they're from Quadra

Tech. Now, they're basically just a frame

that slides right into the hinges

and latches like a door. Look at this, you've got pad for your arms rear view mirror, all the comforts of home, but you still have the feel of an open cockpit. These are great.

Of course, every piece that I put on this vehicle has a specific form or function, but this next one,

no, it just looks really good.

It's this polished aluminum fuel door from Smitty built. Now, putting this on is super easy. Just slides right over the stock filler.

It's held in place with the stainless steel screws that go right down in the four original holes. It does not get any easier than this.

Hey, you're back. Yeah, I knew you would be because Project Tomb Raider is done

now, just in case you've forgotten what I started out with. Here, it is

a stock 2003 Jeep TJ about as bland as milk

and here is what we've got now,

a tough capable off Roader that you can still drive every day

and it looks awesome.

Now, you've heard me say the name Quadra

Tech a few times throughout this build up.

The truth is almost every product that I put on. This rig is available from Quadra

Tech. So if you're working on a Jeep and you wanna upgrade it,

you need one of these catalogs.

Ok. There's no doubt that this is very similar to the Tomb Raider Jeep. But

there are some major differences. The Tomb Raider Jeep.

Well, it was a movie prop which means,

well,

well, here's what you saw on the screen,

but here's what was actually going on.

Oh,

uh, yes. The magic of Hollywood. This Jeep. on the other hand, this is the real thing. It's not gonna need to be pulled around by some 79 Dotson pick up. But before I can prove that to you,

we need to show Galen his Jeep or what's left of it.

The first thing we did was introduce them to the parts that came off their Jeep.

Is this some leftover parts? We didn't have any places for it.

Now, I

know you're wondering about warranty. You know,

this is all still covered under warranty.

Oh, great.

As you can see at this point, neither father nor son quite know what to think about that

huge pile of parts sitting in front of him.

One thing's for sure though, dad's not real happy

in your seats.

So your seats are not in your Jeep.

It has no suspension

but that all changed very quickly when I drove that sucker in,

both of them crawled all over the thing like kids in a candy store. These seats are incredible.

Well, I'm looking at all the stuff you've got on here.

Even Maury changed his mind about the winch from this. What do you want to winch on? What are you gonna winch

to this?

You know,

we could have used this this morning when your sister wrecked her car to drag her out of the ditch.

Uh, yes, the Tomb Raider project was a tremendous success, but maybe they wouldn't have been quite as excited if they'd have known about the little road test they had planned because after all, they can't just look good. They got to perform too

after the break

with the build up of our project. Tomb Raider Jeep completed. There's only a couple of things left to do one

to take Galen out, show him some of the tricks and features of his new Jeep

two

to show the viewers what a rig like this is capable of.

So the first step was to run it down the road to prove it's still as roadworthy as ever.

This not only gave us a chance to check out things like handling and road noise.

Oh

my gosh, this is,

but also performance and fuel economy, things like that

to prove that this is really something that you can drive every day

with or without a top.

But the real test game when we rolled this thing off the pavement

to see how the Jeep and Galen handled it when things got rough,

this gave me a chance to put the suspension to work and see how it flexed

and to see what kind of ground clearance and fender clearance we had,

believe it or not through all these obstacles, those big 30 fives never rubbed the fenders,

but they sure covered us with mud.

Oh, man,

of course, Galen had one more surprise coming

because I had one more obstacle and one more piece of advice to give it. The only thing that you need to remember by going through a big hole like this

is to put your top on first.

Oh,

yeah,

Jalen has been baptized and off roading

and so ends the project and the lesson.

Here's something new for you. Now, I know what you're thinking.

Oh, no, man. You are not gonna talk to us about antifreeze.

Well, yeah, I am because most people know that when it comes to vehicle maintenance,

you wanna keep a 50% mixture of water and antifreeze in your cooling system

to give you maximum protection. Now, the problem is keeping that mixture right? Because everything gets low.

Well, you pour in some antifreeze if you've got it or you stick the garden hose in there or you dump buckets of water in there, whatever you've got

pretty soon your mixture is out of whack and it cannot protect the way it's supposed to.

Then you wonder what happened when you overheat in the summertime or you crack your block in the winter time.

Well, Prestone has got an answer for that in what they call quick fill. Now, this is a 50% mixture of water, 50% mixture of antifreeze exactly what you want

all in one convenient container. You just pour it in.

Problem solved. Very simple solution. Now, some of you may be thinking, oh man,

they're fooling you. You are paying for water. Well, you know, you could look at it that way,

but if you do look at it that way, I've got a question for you. What do you think the main ingredient of this is? That's right. Water. And it serves a purpose, doesn't it? Well, so does this convenience? Give it a try? You'll like it.

We'll see you next week.