Project Unicorn - a light duty trail rig

[Anak]

It is cheap enough to start with the simple poly. If you find it doesn't work out for you then step up the game, knowing that it is a big step up.

[cal]

Its cheap and easy enough, but its hard to get motivated to go take the car back apart again.

Right now it's on the lift and apart. Once I start driving it..

[VAhasnoWAVES]

install the cans and screw something like this into a solid chunk of aluminum and drop it in the can. all the work without the monetary investment. if you want to install air bumps down the road its click and buy.

but i suspect at that point you would just throw air bumps in and be done.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by cal

Its cheap and easy enough, but its hard to get motivated to go take the car back apart again.

Right now it's on the lift and apart. Once I start driving it..

Be honest with yourself...

It is a Jeep.

Do you really think you won't have it back up on a lift, working on it, again? And again?

(That said, I think of all my vehicles Scope Creep is the one that has the fewest things wrong with it. Probably largely due to the fact that Scope Creep has the fewest features.)

[JohnX]

Do it

[Evan03]

Fox hydraulic bumps 450. Plus your time.

Im debating doing prothane inserts on the front to save money but will I really be saving money putting the 80 bucks plus my time into them over just spending the 400 on real bump stops that actually work and are tunable?
You can damn near buy 4 bump stops for that 700 dollar number you spit out there

However you could see that a double triangulated rear would make bump stop tuning and bracket fab much quicker and simpler then attempting to cycle leave springs so yes youl blow the 700 dollar number.

You could cut oneside off a set of leafs 1/4 elliptical like to be able cycle rear and get things close.

I love seeing built not bought rigs. Not all of us have access to the tools and minds that you do. Now use the resources you have and quit second guessing yourself think fab burn and repeat.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[cal]

Not a lot of progress this weekend. I did a day trip to SFR Friday to work on it, but I needed to spend some hours with a client so I can pay for all of these fancy grade 9 bolts. And you know, the jeep parts.

First thing is first, I had a broken bolt in the diff that I didn't know about. Not great pictures here but I drilled a 1/8" hole in it about 3/16 deep, and then took a left hand drill bit to it. As soon as the LH bit got some bite, the bolt unthreaded itself and came out.





Installed the same Tera diff cover and lube locker setup I used on the rear.



The Tera covers come with fancy serrated grade 8 bolts which I dig.



Installed, Torque to 35 and fill.




If you remember I opted not to use the normal offset TRE's with the belief that a little rubbing the diff cover is a lesser annoyance than not being able to buy steering joints at a local parts store in a pinch.

It does just rub at full lock, but just barely.





I'll take that.

[cal]

Next we have this fancy shmancy G2 Core DRS swaybar. Selectable dual rate with an air solenoid built for the JK community.

This particular unit is used - it's a take-off early production unit a friend at G2 gave me, because they want to see how it works on an XJ and figured I would manage to make it work.



We started by taking it apart and putting the frame up to see how it fits. We had to cut the return off of the front core support but then it just slides right in place.



This is the inner bar, removed. This will be my swaybar while disconnected.




You may remember when I did the front frame stiffeners I left the bottom plate off because I intended to use that space. This is why.



The drop from our cut. I think we're adding more strength than removing.



Will have to do a little grinding here and cut some holes, and make a nutstrip that drops into the frame.



And I bought some generate Prothane swaybar bushings with a 1" hole.



Grind the lip off and mark our new holes



Draw up some nutstrips.



Do some drilling and welding.



Drop them into the frame



Slap a little paint in place.



And then boom, bolt it all right up.







Arms slide right on and show that everything should fit just right.



The end caps are pretty interesting. You can see the inserts that engage with the inner arm.







That went way too easy.

Now I just need to mount a good air compressor up under the hood with an ARB solenoid, and attach an airline to the quick disconnect on the housing.

[cal]

Needed to test fit for axle side mounts and some links, so we stole some links from the VW Bug project.



Test fit with a set of SFR's off the shelf axle side swaybar mounts for WJ conversion, and they go in just the right place.





And here's where I apparently stopped taking pictures.

The mounts aren't going to work. Without offset TRE's the tie rod crashes into the swaybar mounts before full lock. I ground the hell out of them for clearance, and Dallas felt like there wasn't enough material left to be reliable.

We spent an hour or so looking at alternatives but didn't land on something we liked, and we had shop chores to do (the air compressor needed repair) so we stopped working for the day. He's going to ponder design possibilities this week and we'll revisit it later.

[tm8chris]

Awesome setup. Nice work.

[cal]

Well, I left my house Friday heading for Stinkyfab, but somehow Dallas and I ended up camped on the beach with our better halves and some beer.

Progress:




Maybe we'll find time for the jeep next weekend.

[bajabronco]

Originally Posted by cal

Well, I left my house Friday heading for Stinkyfab, but somehow Dallas and I ended up camped on the beach with our better halves and some beer.

Progress:




Maybe we'll find time for the jeep next weekend.

Sometimes that is the best type of progress! Some R&R!

[sandfreestyle]

I think I have a BNIB ARB std compressor I could let go

[cal]

Originally Posted by sandfreestyle

I think I have a BNIB ARB std compressor I could let go

I have 3 of them and about a dozen solenoids in the garage. I was thinking I'd find something I can reasonably air up with as well though and just do the job once.

[donthelegend]

Awesome work! Like the shockmount solution... yours look much nicer than mine but they ended up in pretty much the same place.


For the swaybar... I ended up with mounts coming off the top of the inner C. My swaybar is a bit wider from the looks of things though and where the arms kick out, they hug the coils on my rig. Under flex they also occasionally hit the coils based on the missing paint/rust spots. But I couldn't find any place else to fit things. With the tools/fab you have access to I'd think some better arms would resolve the spring interference issue I have.



For reference my swaybar is an Izusu trooper torsion bar with home made 3/8" thick steel arms so its not exactly polished... but seems to work well enough.



Looking forward to whatever you come up with, and as always, thanks for sharing the build!