Ultimate Adventure 2007 Jeep JK Wrangler - 5.9L Cummins Diesel

With the location of the starter solved, the firewall under the pedals was finished with some additional notches to clear the fuel filter. And with the original dash substructure back in, most of the firewall sculpting is unnoticeable other than the new heated footrest on the passenger side.

Since the rear of the newly shortened Dodge frame kicks up, we also needed to do some massaging to the rear of the Jeep tub. To start, the AEV crew took an old hot-rod trick known as channeling, where the floor of the car is moved up to allow the body to sit lower over the frame. AEV simply cut out sections of the tub where the frame kicked up into it, and re-boxed them in so the JK didn't look like it had a 6-inch body lift. These new floor pieces will be under the rear seats mostly and won't deter from footroom much at all.

With the tub modifications finished, the entire underside was coated with Lizard Skin Ceramic Insulation. This single-stage coating sprays on easily with an air gun and then dries to a dull finish that will help seal the floor and act as a heatshield and noise barrier. The official definition is "an advanced, water-based composition of high-grade acrylic binders with air-filled insulating/reflective and sound-absorbing particles." We just hope it helps us hear each other in the cabin of the Jeep and keeps our passenger's boots from melting to the floor. It also covers all the fresh bodywork and gives the firewall and underbelly of the tub a uniform finish.

We had to move the factory transmission crossmember to a different location since the engine was moved backwards. Also note the 1/4-inch fish plates attached to the inside of the framerail crossing over where the framerails were cut and shortened. Once painted it will be hard to determine from the outside where exactly the frame was cut apart and rewelded. Look closely and you can see where the crossmember was notched for the transfer case to be clocked down.

Body mounts were added to support the Jeep JK tub on the Dodge frame, and gussets were added to the rear spring hangers. If you didn't catch it already, not only will this Jeep have a Cummins diesel but it will also have leaf springs in the rear just like the original Mega Cab. We decided to go this route because it's a tried-and-true system that Dodge uses. Our suspension sponsor Superlift offers a similar leaf-spring rear, coil-spring front suspension for Jeep YJs known as the X2 kit, so we thought we'd see how it would work in our JK.

In the rear of the frame a small notch was needed to clear a major body rib in the Jeep tub, plus the rear-spring shackle mounts were lowered a bit to clear the tub and tailgate. Long sections of the front and rear frame are remaining until we get ready to install the Fab Fours bumpers. This will allow us material to work with when attaching the Jeep bumpers to the Dodge frame. It may sound incredibly simple, but unlike many of the previous projects that AEV does-where they simply move digital drawings of the different parts around on the computer till it all fits before cutting anything on the vehicle-this build meant every notch and weld in the body and frame involved multiple repetitions of putting the body on the frame, marking points that interfered, pulling the body off the frame, and then cutting and fixing both. It was an incredible amount of work, but truly the best way to make everything work together.