It's been a while since I've updated this thread, thanks to all for the compliments. Bottom line, the rig works well but as previously stated, it's a work-in-progress.
One of my recent mods is to make the jump to WJ brakes and custom steering. The Vanco brakes work well, but I really wanted the benefits of strong, precise steering too. My modified OTK Currie setup worked well, but still had the limitations and negative characteristics of any Inverted Y setup.
Here's the summary of my WJ brake swap:
In addition to these components, I puchased new WJ rotors at $31.00ea and also purchased Moog WJ balljoints (Moog PN
K3134T $55.31ea and
K3185 $97.97ea......yup, not cheap) to ensure that I wouldn't experience the issue of wallowed-out knuckles, as many have who used XJ balljoints with the WJ knuckle swap.
I'm guessing that the price of the WJ BJ's is the main reason that folks attempt to reuse their XJ BJ's....at the expense of trashing their WJ knuckles when the holes wallow out. Weigh the cost of this, factoring in having to source new knuckles and weld on new JKS spacers, plus labor.
Just use WJ ball joints......... you'll be money and time ahead.
Wanting to run the steering over the knuckle, I installed Goferit weld-in tapered TRE inserts. The stock TRE taper needs to be drilled out to 3/4" to accept the insert.
I then welded the TRE inserts to the knuckles, as well as the JKS hub spacer...sorry, no pix of the JKS spacers welded on.
Not wanting to mess with rotor to caliper spacing issues that some have experienced when using Explorer Sporttrac rotors with the WJ brake swap, I decided to redrill new WJ rotors to the XJ 5 x 4.5" bolt pattern.
I used a rotor with the 5 x 4.5" pattern as a template to transfer the pattern to the WJ knuckles, then circle-scribed and center-punched each hole and drilled new holes using my drill press. I drilled smaller pilot holes for each first to prevent "bit walk" and maintain hole spacing accuracy.
Not wanting deal with the rotors seizing onto the hubs/studs in the future (I live in Utah + salted roads in winter = rust) I drilled the 1/2" wheel stud holes to 17/32" to minimize this issue. The rotors are hub-centric and not stud-centric, fwiw. This entire process took less than 1 hour to complete both WJ rotors.
With the WJ ball joints installed, the rotors drilled and everything painted, I bolted everything up and checked clearances. On a side note and since the question has been raised in the past, I'm running
TJ unit bearings with XJ unit bearing bolts with plenty of threads using the JKS spacers.
Custom steering to follow......