Ok. After hearing many people complain of the hood lifting on their JK at speed, I finally had mine jump. The catch being that I was travelling 80+ miles per hour with a 15 mph headwind gusting to 25.. and then I passed a semi. Slammed the hood solidly against the safety latch. My old CJ5 hood used to lift and hop, but I dont think it ever did that... but then again I dont think I ever went over 70 in that thing either. :-)

So, with that in mind.. I set to find a remedy of sorts. I located some 1/2" square tubing I had laying around, cut a 2" section, slipped some polyurethane vaccum tubing to prevent chafing the two zipties I used to secure it to the bottom of the upper radiator support. Locks in tight. Releasing the hood is as easy as reaching inside the center slat, pressing down slightly and sliding the safety latch over.

I had ordered a set of Rugged Ridge windshield light brackets. I mounted them as soon as I got them, but I didnt have any lights to put on it at the time. Couple days later, I was walking in Wal-Mart and found the Hella 500FF series lights. I have standard frenched lensed Hella 500s on the ZJ and love em. I saw the free-form lense of the 500FF lights and immediately noticed the match to the design of the headlights on the JK. Got em.

If you look at the design of the Hella lights, you will see that the lens of the light goes all the way to the edge. It really helps spread the lighting effect at night. The drawback in this application is that there is a fair amount of glare. I have an idea that as of yet (August, 2009) I have not done... which is to use my black touch-up paint to paint the edge of the lens. That should resolve most of the glare.

Let's get the year started off with an update. This past month, some good things have happened. Since the last update, the JK has been trouble free. We took a trip to New York City, and we drove the Rubi. I also added a LCD monitor to the 6disc radio and we played some DVDs to pass the miles. Works great.
I also located my very own Jeep Mopar Parts front winch bumper. I bought it used from another JK owner... which just happened to be another black Rubicon Unlimited. :-) Anyway, the bumper was modded with sftermarket fog lights. They are pretty decent, but they have caused other drivers to flash their high beams at me... never had that issue with the factory fogs. They are aligned down, too... they just dont seem to have as much control over the beam.