Backyard Customs XJ Build

[leftlanetruckin]

hes leaf sprung up front.....

yeah i know, thus my comments regards his front shackles and the
"shackle reversal" debate...:yelclap:
the OP did say he was "going to his uncles shop to do an alignment", so i threw it out there that i bought a caster/camber gauge to save having to go to shops all the time whenever i changed anything. i doubt a regular alignment shop will want to remove/replace/remove/replace the front u bolt plates to get the alignment in specs. only way to tell is by trial and error sometimes, especially on a total custom setup like my jk rubi axles and the OP's setup. thus i stand by my previous post of a caster/camber gauge being worth its weight in gold to purchase, regardless of coils/leafs/coilovers/torsion bar/whatever.

martin

 

[tommyboy]

i thought you were referring to him having long arms. but anyways...ya.

 

[jbjustin33415]

This past weekend I did some tinkering with the steering. I was checking all the bolts to make sure they are up to torque spec. I had 1 ubolt on the driver side that was about 20 lbs under torque spec so I tightened it up still got DW. I had my brute force cousin(delivers beer kegs and can carry 1 on each shoulder) try to simulate what would happen when the DW starts. So he grabbed the passenger tire at 9 and 3 o'clock and started vigorously shaking it. Well that did the trick, it imitated the DW I was having and we saw that the steering box had A LOT of play.

We went out the junkyard hoping to find some hidden treasures. I ran across a Remanufactured box from a 98 Grand Cherokee. I snagged that up along with a tranny cooler to put inline with the power steering for a cooler. Once we got back to the good ole dustbowl(my backyard) I noticed that somehow the tranny cooler I had bought flew out of the back of my pickup :banghead:Oh Well. We put the "new to me" box in and it did wonders.

I had a slight shimmy so I went to Pep Boys and bought a steering stabilizer for a Ford Motorhome. For the stationary mounting, I welded a bolt to the ubolt plate. On the other end I made a tab that I ubolted to the tie rod and it drives wonderful. The jeep drove straight as an arrow, I was suprised considering the boggers Im running.

Still unsure about the front driveshaft situation. I called up a local driveshaft place and spoke to the guy for about 20 minutes. Only problem is that they are only open 9am - 5pm which is the same hours I work. He said he is there on Saturday morning but the store is not open and offered to meet me so he can take a look at what I got. I thought that was real cool.

 

[whitneyj]

glad to hear that you finally got your DW situation under control. I have a slight shimmy but it's from my hubs (need new bearings something fierce)

 

[jbjustin33415]

Took the jeep up to a buddy's shop to finish up the rest of the welding. We used forklifts to put the jeep up into the air so it would be easier to weld and not get burnt :thumbup: I cut up 16 45* triangle gussets from a 3"x3/16"x3' plate for the spring hanger gussets. Turned out pretty good.

Then we did some thinking for the rear shocks and came up with this. The lower mounts are from the front axle. I cut them off the front axle when I did the shocks up front.

Took it out to the local WMA on sunday and had a blast aside from some transmission troubles in the beginning. Hot tranny + water = boiling fluids out of the dipstick. Someone forgot to make sure the tranny breather was hooked up :anon: :roflmao:

Here are some pictures.....

There are more pictures on my photobucket

http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb206/jbjustin/corbett 5-31-09/

Once some more trails open up at the WMA ill get some better action shots.

 

[whitneyj]

did you ever get your front pinion angle better? from the last pic it looks really really steep. Glad to see you getting it out and running it! Hopeing to do the same here in a week or two.

I'd weld another piece of angle to the shock mounts to put it in double shear. With just one stitch weld on a single shear setup you'll break that off.

Looks good!

 

[jbjustin33415]

did you ever get your front pinion angle better? from the last pic it looks really really steep. Glad to see you getting it out and running it! Hopeing to do the same here in a week or two.

I have some 4* shims in there to help out the pinion angle. With the 4* I still have ~2* of castor. It drove better with 6* of castor but the driveshaft didnt work too great and would bind up a lot.

I was starting to hate the jeep and ready to sell or set it on fire until I took it out on sunday.

I want to see how your build performs offroad, that was my backup plan(ford radius arm) if I couldnt find a leaf sprung front.

I'd weld another piece of angle to the shock mounts to put it in double shear. With just one stitch weld on a single shear setup you'll break that off.

I dont quite understand what you mean. I dont see how having single shear would break. The bottom brackets are 3/8" welded on both sides. The top mount is a grade 8 bolt welded to the box tubing which is 1/8"

Looks good!

Thanks !!!!

 

[whitneyj]

I'm a little hesitant to run my pile offroad. I rushed to get everything built and I'm running into alot of issues just on the road to and from work. I've already roasted the passenger side coil spring, leaf pack, shock, brake hose, bent the coil bucket, and I'm throwing all sorts of codes which I need to take care of to get this thing inspected. (It's two months late. . . )

I didn't know your bottom shock mount was 3/8" thick. That should be plenty strong. I'm just a big fan of having the bolt go through 2 pieces of steel than 1. It takes alot of stress off of one piece of metal.

For your front D/S issue, are you game for turning your inner C's?

 

[jbjustin33415]

Well I have an update.

Its not a good update, but its something. I went out to the local sand dunes to cure a little bordem for the night with some friends. Everything went fine until the ride home. It felt like the jeep was chugging along and I knew something was up, so I eased it on home. While pulling into the backyard the rear end made a very loud bang, good thing I was heading to the backyard. The jeep then suddenly stopped moving and just made loud grinding noises. I had to pull the jeep into the backyard with another truck. I took everything apart this evening to find some bad news.

The differential broke in half along with one of the bearing caps.

I am going to take the gears back to 4 Wheel Parts and see if they will do the warranty for Geniune Gear and pick up an install kit. I am going to look online for some cheap places for a spool in the mean time.

 

[veedubshafer]

yikes!

 

[kingskippy2001]

Probably didn't help that those don't look like the original caps that came on that carrier.

 

[leftlanetruckin]

did i miss something?
the differential broke, not the gears. isnt that right?
the gears look ok from the foto's, just the diff that is shot.

martin

 

[whitneyj]

Probably didn't help that those don't look like the original caps that came on that carrier.

And how does one come to the conclusion that those aren't the original caps from a picture? Must have one hell of an eye to catch the difference in the two machined surfaces. . .

 

[kingskippy2001]

You can see that the pinion is scraped up on the surface, from the pic. I wasn't bashing or anything. Just trying to say that looks like the caps are crooked, and the machining looks different, which might have led to a failure. The water probably didn't help either.

 

[whitneyj]

no harm meant either. The gears definitely look toast, look at the "crest" (?) of the teeth on the ring gear. The carrier taking a poop probably lead to the bearing caps looking less than right.

 

[jbjustin33415]

Im not really too sure on what caused this to happen.

It happened, 4 Wheel Parts will not warranty the gears because "the gears didnt fail" so I have to come up with some cash to get it going again.

Ill post some pics of any progress and/or problems.

 

[dinorl007]

nice build, i have been following this since u started, glad to see that u went with what u wanted and had ssome fun before it broke, i lived in stuart for a couple of years when we worked for florida power and light co., we did all the transmission power lines through that area towards ft. meyers, would of liked to had your rig for that job, i cant tell u how many times i was stuck in 2 inches of sand that turned into buried to the axle, all the okeechobee boys would laugh, good luck fixing your axle