AFNetworking (AFJSONRequestOperation) convert to AFHTTPClient

Question

I have the following code that works well but I need a little more control over it and especially need to start using the Reachability code in 0.9.

NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://example.com/API/api.php"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];

AFJSONRequestOperation *operation = [AFJSONRequestOperation JSONRequestOperationWithRequest:request success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, id JSON) {
    _self.mainDictionary = [JSON valueForKeyPath:@"elements"];
    [_self parseLiveData];
} failure:^(NSURLRequest *request , NSURLResponse *response , NSError *error , id JSON){
    //NSLog(@"Failed: %@",[error localizedDescription]);        
}];

if (operation !=nil && ([self.sharedQueue operationCount] == 0)) {
    [self.sharedQueue  addOperation:operation];
}

I am struggling to work out how I can convert this same code across to using an AFHTTPClient so that I can take advantage of the "setReachabilityStatusChangeBlock".