Did a bulb check, and while all the critical ones were operational, I had 6 exterior bulbs out: high mount stop light (didn't even know this was there!), 3 (of 4) rear parking lights, and both side repeaters. Love some easy fixes for a change. Thinking about upgrading the 03-04 headlights to philips VisionPlus (or one of the other brighter ones) but I read reviews that they burn out pretty quickly?

 

From what I've heard they do burn out more quickly. 6 months to a year usually.

If you really want to upgrade, go all in on an HID projector retrofit. That's what I did. It's a little costly, but it's a huge upgrade.

 

TaDa.

Everything came apart really easy, i was surprised how not tight the head bolts were You can see in cyl #7 where the HG failed -- just a tad bit of surface rust in the bore.

 

Today was semi sunny so ball joints it was, out with the old in with the new. Almost have all the previous owners neglect cleaned up

 

The VisionPlus I recommend, but would avoid the X-TremeVision (or any other tinted bulb). My pair of VisionPlus bulbs in my 2000 D2 have been going strong for near two years, so I'm definitely happy with them.

 

Thanks. Maybe I'll give them a try.

Pulled out all the middle and rear carpet. Also yanked the last rear seat. Building a floor section tomorrow, and re-organizing the whole rig top to bottom... tools, recovery, camp, etc.

Gained 1" lift with all the gear removed
not looking forward to re-fitting the new tire and carrier, worried I'm going to sit too low again.

The compressors look a little odd sitting there, but they nestle nicely under the fridge when its installed.

 

 

Man I should really keep a build thread maintained!

Door panels are pretty simple. Strip off all the factory plastic clips, and install 1/4-20" rivet nuts. Panel is made of 1/4" King starboard (plastic, available at TAPPlastics, amazon, etc). Then simply screw it in. I also added molle panels from Greyman Tactical.

You can get a bunch of useful storage space in the rear passenger doors. Perfect for longer tools like breaker bars, wrenches, etc

For speakers I went a little custom. Rear doors don't have speakers, I put in the wakeboard style speakers instead. Driver speakers are component speakers, installed using PVC schedule 80 pipe.

 

Speaking of your stereo system, how's that working out for you Jeff?

 

Very good! No complaints, everything is awesome. The fridge pushes the rear of the subwoofer tower forward about 1/2" when locked, to provide forward-to-back stability. It's super solid. Apple carplay is the bees knees