Not Wrangler related, but happy to report that the Waggy got almost 20 mpg (19.8) on my trip to the Philly airport, driving the turnpike at ~75 mph there and back in "sport" mode. It's not a Honda, but from a trip planning perspective it matches the GC mileage almost exactly, and will serve us well for our upcoming family trips to D.C. and Chicago.
Also in what I'm calling the "Win of the Century", we convinced my daughter to start driving the Grand Cherokee (instead of the Islander) this summer and back to school next year. She goes to school near Philly and the traffic there, as well as the overall quality of drivers, is insane. You've got Philly people (who generally know where they're going), mixed with Delaware people who think they're on a Sunday drive during evening Rush Hour traffic, sprinkled in with plenty of out-of-town students and visitors. The Mrs. (and myself too if I'm being honest) simply were not comfortable with Charlotte taking the Islander down there on the highways. The 2017 WK2 is much safer and more stable. Thankfully, there wasn't much of a fight...
With winter (almost) over, it means it's time for some maintenance, first of which was some new shoes. We had great performance, but TERRIBLE life with the Cooper AT3x tires. They wore out fast and got noisy quickly. They also never wore smooth, despite plenty of rotations and checking the alignment three times on this Jeep over the past 6 years.
I don't tend to go with "budget" options, especially when tires are involved, but I went with these "Online Only", house-brand of tire sold by Discount/America's Tire (made by Saliun) thanks to a few recommendations. They are
significantly quieter than the Coopers (even when the Coopers were new, they still very much sounded like an "A/T" tire) and so far have had great wet weather grip (I've done some heavy brake tests just to make sure I was comfortable with them). The tread pattern also very closely matches the pattern of the Evoluxx Rotator tires on the Islander, which have proven to be really good for snowy/icy roads here in the country.
Assuming they last a while, I think these will be a good option for her. We got all four installed for $413, thanks to a $$ credit we got back due to some of the Cooper tires wearing out significantly faster than their warranty mileage.
Also part of that deal was to swap out the baby radio/screen to something with CarPlay.
I had wanted to do this for some time, but could never justify the expense (at least not as of a few years ago when these upgrades were $2200+). I was able to find a 2018 Grand Cherokee 8.4" UConnect with updated "Media Center" (to replace the factory one that only have a single USB port and a SD card slot). I got the radio, color matched trim ring, and media center for ~$800.
A whopping 30 minutes later to install and let update, and it now has CarPlay, a remarkably faster BT connection, and a bigger backup screen.
The WK2 has just clicked over 110,000 miles this winter, so once it really warms up outside, I'll have some more maintenance to do before Charlotte heads back to school. It should be mainly diff service and spark plugs, though I still need to check what else Mopar recommends. It had a small radiator leak at ~85,000 miles, so it had a flush and fill back then, so I'm good there for now.
Speaking of radiators, I'm working on getting mine sorted out with the Hemi swap. I will need to make/modify some of the brackets to work with the OEM 392 JLUR cooler (above), but this looks fairly simple. Unlike the OEM transmission cooler that is integrated into the bottom of the A/C condenser, the 392 JLU unit is standalone and is at the top of the radiator, instead of the bottom.
This is a good thing since it gives me a lot of room to locate the PSC fluid cooler:
I may order the PSC "dual pass" version, which has both the inlet and outlet fittings on the same side. Given how tight the radiator and hoses are down there, it's one less thing to have to "fit"...
I test fit the Pentastar radiator fan and as expected, I have ~3/8" clearance between the fan motor and the water pump pulley. This is excellent news as it means I won't have to move my grille support at all and will eventually be able to do a proper front "chop" bumper.
With the fan fitment confirmed, I'm moving my attention to finding/making some radiator hoses. Since my hope is to run the OEM JKU radiator, I need something that connects the lower Hemi outlet (1-3/4") to the radiator inlet (1-1/2"). Thankfully, the upper hose for a Durango looks like it will not only work for the upper hose, but with a chop and union, might be perfect for the lower hose too! I've got some unions coming today, so I hope to play around with this and cross one more thing off my list...
Before I can really begin to button up the front end, I still need to figure out what I want to do with the power steering pump/belt clearance. I did some massaging of the PSC Big Bore with a 120-gri flapdisc:
This gained me maybe another 1/16" of clearance, putting me at ~1/8" total. It's better, and some people run it this way, though a number of people have talked about clearance issues and belt rubbing. I will admit that one of my frustrations with the Hemi swap has been the complete lack of DETAILED information and solution options. Many people, especially on social media, constantly shout "do a search" or "check the BOM", which time and time again shows up to have little to no meaningful solutions provided (though there are lots of questions!). Some of the solutions also seem to only help ~50% of the time, with this PSC big bore box clearance being one that seems to work for some and not others.
I needed to get some PSC parts ordered, since again their "Hemi Kit" leaves a lot of be desired and is 100% outdated and specific to one type of Hemi install (topic of another discussion/frustration). I'm going to order their 4.5" pump pulley, which they described in an email as "not working", though others have (at PSC's direction mind you) had great luck getting some extra clearance here.
