Exterior mods have come a long way. Unlike the days of triple-double chrome “rollbars” and neon shock boots, most modern exterior upgrades are a blend of form and function. For some, heavy-duty bumpers and sheetmetal armor serve as a way to break apart from the herd, while others are simply seeking out a way to make their rigs more durable wheeling machines. No matter what category you fall into, there are plenty of exterior options that will up the look and performance potential of your 4x4.

The previous parts of our ’12 Wrangler buildup have focused on mostly mechanical upgrades to make our Jeep more functional on the trail. With these upgrades we have built a Jeep that is just as comfortable off-road as it is on the highway, achieving the goals we set forth from the beginning. In this installment, we’ll wrap up our initial buildup with products that contribute more to daily functionality.

When it comes to building a project vehicle, we are always looking for ways to challenge our minds, but not our bank accounts. It’s sort of like those choose your own adventure books that you read as a child. If you put X part here, then you’ll have to make room for Y part there. Building our latest ’95 Jeep Wrangler project vehicle has been a refresher of that in many ways. Last month we introduced you to our YJ project, appropriately named the Rescued Wrangler.

Our ’12 Wrangler Sahara is starting to take shape. Last month we spent some time at the shop transforming it from a staid stocker to a dual-purpose machine capable of taking us deep in to the backcountry. While the suspension, wheels and tires, and axles are in place, we still needed to protect the Jeep from those errant mishaps off the highway, so in this story we’ll focus on armor, as well as a few other upgrades we’ve found helpful.

Last month we brought you the foundation of a buildup on our ’12 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara. You’ll remember that we wanted to make a durable daily driver, a capable family hauler, and competent trail rig. The plan was to overbuild the JK for our needs using quality components, ensuring reliability in the backcountry. This month we’ll focus on the items we installed at the shop before turning to our driveway upgrades in next month’s installment.

The ’12 Wrangler has proven to be one of the most successful products in Jeep’s portfolio with production at capacity and a pace to build 120,000 units for the ’12 model year. Aiding the Wrangler’s popularity is a brand-new drivetrain that includes the powerful and efficient Pentastar 3.6L V-6 and a new five-speed automatic transmission option. While these upgrades make for great performance in the stock world, what does it mean for modifications?

We tried to avoid it, we swore to ourselves when we got this truck that we were going to leave it alone. But “inch-itis” reared its ugly head. When the time came to replace the 285/75R16 Goodyear Silent Armor tires that we originally put on our ’94 Dodge Ram, we decided we wanted something a bit more aggressive, and why not put a slightly bigger tire on it while we were at it? After some careful measuring of the old tires, we decided that we could likely fit a set of 315/75R16s on the factory rims. We wanted more aggressive, though, so Goodyear MT/Rs got the nod.

Until the JK came along, steel was the favored choice for all types of body protection on Jeep vehicles—and for good reason, too. Steel is resilient and offers unrivaled protection for bodywork. The compromise to steel is its mass, and its propensity to rust if left unprotected. Tipping the scales at nearly 5,000 pounds (hardtop) in stock form, the JK Unlimited can benefit greatly from low-mass aluminum accessories. Thankfully, the aftermarket has addressed this concern with a virtual smorgasbord of bolt-on aluminum parts. Utilizing aluminum in place of steel can shave significant weight off a build. But is the weight savings worth the vulnerability to rock rash? It’s a question we’re out to answer with this project.

What is good on the trail is not always good for the street. Case in point: fender flares. Many states have rules pertaining to the coverage fender flares provide over the tires, including states such as Utah and California that require that the entire tire be covered. Wide fenders are great for the street, but they simply get in the way on the trail, catching on trees, dragging against obstacles and smashing against rocks. But what do you do when you have wider axles or higher-offset wheels that push the rubber away from the Jeep?

Of all the new products we spotted in Moab at the 2011 Easter Jeep Safari, one of the coolest was the new CRC Link from Full Traction. The bolt-on kit replaces the factory rear track bar arrangement on any ’07-and-later Jeep JK, and changes the way the rearend is located laterally. Mechanically speaking, the setup utilizes a variation of the roughly 200-year-old Watt’s linkage design originally developed for steam engines. Throughout the years, automotive engineers have adopted the technology to improve the handling of road racing vehicles. Full Traction is the first aftermarket suspension company to apply this technology to an off-pavement 4x4 application.

Moab was looming, and we were looking to give Project ’Con Artist a little suspension freshening. Our previous suspension system, while it served us well, had been on ’Con for over four years. With nothing left to prove, we decided it was time to kick it up a notch and install a system that would evolve our JK project to the status of apex wheeler.

When in the backcountry for an extended stay, it is important to be comfortable. Basic human needs like food, water and shelter can be hard to come by, unless you bring it along with you. Of course this is no problem—if you have the space. This month we focus on how we incorporated our camping necessities, while maximizing cargo space and expanding our outdoor living area.

In the last installment (June ’11), we tapped ATS Diesel Performance with a rebuild of our Ram’s slipping slushbox. While we were in rebuild mode, and the T-case was out of the truck, we decided that we’d go through that vital drivetrain component as well. We expected the 175,000-plus-mile NP241 to be in the same sad shape as the rest of the truck. However, once we got through the ½ inch of 17 years of accumulated road grime and cracked into the T-case, we found a much different story.

Crunch! It’s the sound of rocks imprinting their shape on the rocker panels of your favorite 4x4. Heading into obstacle-strewn trails without protection could mean costly body damage, especially if it is on your daily driver that you intended to keep pristine. The answer: quality rocker protection.

One the hardest parts of conceiving a project vehicle is to figure out what gear will be part of the project, and finding a place for it all on the build. On Project 4Runner Backcountry, we knew we would be a carrying a ton of gear and wanted enough cargo capacity and gear stowage to be self-sufficient for up to a week with two people on board.

Meet the newest member of Four Wheeler’s project vehicle fleet. The Silver Bullet is an ’07 JK Unlimited that we plan to transform into a nimble trail machine throughout the coming year. The build strategy for this one will adhere to a strict diet of aluminum, chrome-moly, and other feather-light materials to prove the concept that lighter is better in virtually all trail scenarios. Through the use of advanced weight-saving componentry, we’ll show you how to make a 6,000-pound SUV perform like a buggy in the real world.

With every new project, we get it running and on the road, and once we do that, we start improving it. As soon as we make an improvement that isn’t related to the driving of the pile, Murphy’s Law of downtrodden vehicles kicks in and something dies. In this case, seemingly in the middle of the paint job, the transmission decided to start slipping really bad. The seller had told us it was slipping, but we hadn’t had a single problem with ituntil it was all painted and pretty-looking.

In our previous installments, Project 4Runner Backcountry gained an ARB roof rack and front Bull Bar. With the roof rack and bumper mounted, our foundation was in place to add one of our more significant upgradesauxiliary lighting.

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray," or so the saying goes. So, too, was our plan to paint our '94 Dodge Ram, affectionately known as "The Clunker," quickly and easily at home. The plan was quite simple, really: Paint the truck in a three-tone to mimic the factory paint scheme, making use of some paint that we already had from Summit Racing for another project. However, we wanted to make the hood a darker color to reduce eye strain on those long drives, so we decided we'd move the upper belt line to just below the windows.

Project 4Runner Backcountry is progressing nicely, and after the first round of mods, we now have greater ability to "get there." While getting there is half the battle, we felt it was time to figure out what to do once we are there. This month's buildup will focus on the installation of the ARB Touring Style Roof Rack and Series III Simpson Rooftop Tent, which will provide us with shelter for those extended backcountry expeditions.

When building a vehicle to enter the backcountry alone, it is crucial to plan for the worst and, in the immortal words of the Boy Scouts, "Be Prepared." In this case, that means having the ability to self-extract if we get stuck because nothing can ruin your day as quickly as immobility. We wanted to install a Warn winch on the front of our 4Runner, but were faced with limited options until ARB informed us that they had a brand new Bull Bar application that was compatible with the fifth-generation 4Runner.

One of the best features of the fifth-generation 4Runner is the availability of a selectable rear locker straight from the factory. This option is one that can really help the 4Runner get into deep terrain, but our 4Runner isn't just going in to deep terrain on exploratory trips-it has to get out, too. To ensure we have maximum traction when we need it, we decided to add a selectable locker to the frontend.

Getting Project 4Runner Backcountry off the ground started with a comprehensive outline of what the vehicle would and would not be. We settled on the objective of overlanding, making this a rig for backcountry exploration more than extreme wheeling. Once we narrowed down the mission, we immediately began researching products that would enhance the 4Runner's capability without taking away from what the 4Runner is.

Regular readers of this magazine will recognize this silver 4Runner as our latest project rig, which we'll be transforming into an overlander in the coming months. (See last month's issue for more details.) We're still waiting for parts to be delivered (our buildup is slated to begin next month), so in the meantime we thought we'd take a few days off-yes, they do give us vacations every now and then-to wheel the newest member of our family in the hills and ridges of the central California wine country.

A few months ago, we found ourselves wandering the vendor showcase at Overland Expo-the annual consumer show for backcountry recreation enthusiasts that's held each year in Arizona-surrounded by lots of cool old Toyotas and Land Rovers sporting the newest parts and products aimed at this fast-growing segment of the 4x4 marketplace. We've always been big fans of the "backcountry lifestyle," but as we spent more time at the Expo, we realized that we'd never actually built an overlanding project for this magazine, or at least one that we could recall. We thought of several vehicles that could serve as a credible platform for such a project build, but one that we'd driven recently leapt readily to our minds for a few different reasons: