1997 Jeep Wrangler TJ - Project Teal-J II, Part 7

Project Teal-J II, Intro
Project Teal-J II, Part 1
Project Teal-J II, Part 2
Project Teal-J II, Part 3
Project Teal-J II, Part 4
Project Teal-J II, Part 5
Project Teal-J II, Part 6
Project Teal-J II, Part 7
Project Teal-J II, Part 8
Project Teal-J II, Part 9
Project Teal-J II, Part 10
Project Teal-J II, Part 11
Project Teal-J II, Part 12
Project Teal-J II, Part 13
Project Teal-J II, Part 14

One thing that you usually learn the hard way after hitting the trail a few times is that your rig needs protection. Investing money in axles, lockers, suspension and tires is great, but if your rig comes back after a few trail runs looking like it had an encounter with a sledgehammer-wielding Mike Tyson, you will be a bit peeved. Not having the right armor often limits where you can go or where you want to go, without mangling your ride.

When it came to our '97 TJ, we did not want to limit where we could go. Plus, we knew that we would be hitting the trail--that's why we're doing this rebuild, after all--so it was time to add as much armor as we could to keep our Jeep from getting bashed. However, in keeping with the theme of our Project Teal-J II, all of our parts needed to bolt on easily and take no longer than a weekend to install.

We came across Poison Spyder Customs, which offers a wide range of armor for Jeeps, and we decided to utilize their Crusher Corners, Rocker Knockers and new tube fenders to protect the sides of our Wrangler. To protect the nose and tail of our project, we turned to Warn, whose new Rock Crawler bumpers look stout. We also selected the new Warn 9.5 XP winch to pull out our rig from the inevitable stuck. Follow along as we show you the highlights of our latest weekend wrench session.

TUBE FENDERS

The first step to installing the tube fenders from Poison Spyder Customs is to take the supplied stencil and lay it out on the stock fender.	Now comes the fun part. We broke out our favorite tool, the Sawzall, and went to work. Basically, to install the Poison Spyder fenders, first you cut out everything except the part that is under the stencil.	The cut also needs to be continued down the inner fenderwell until the whole outer part of the fender can be removed.
After you're finished cutting, what is left of the fender should look like this.	Then the new tube fender basically slides over the fender and attaches to the existing bolt holes that the stock fender attached to. We found the best technique was to attach the four bolts in the fenderwell loosely, push the fender over until we could sneak a bolt in its front mounts, and then snug everything down. Once that was accomplished, the fit of the tube fenders was excellent.	A look at the front of the tube fender shows that the stock turn signals no longer exist. We plan to put some CJ turn signals into the grille of the TJ to remain legal. Our new front tube fenders can now take a major beating.