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"Blue Balls"

kastein said:
Make sure you have your caster set right, that can definitely cause DW. And those cam bolts set it, so since you got new ones it should be pretty easy to dial in.
Click to expand...

yup, got it, it was from a extremely loose track bar.
 
So In the past 6 months ive been home for about 12 days, so progress didnt really happen. until i went wheeling and busted up my front axle, steering and tires etc at rocktoberfest... and found a convenient deal of recentered Hmmwv wheels and tires, so i jumped. Brought blue balls to BDR Automotive in holliston and got some her back to road safe... ish, 37's went on along with rear disk breaks which are absolutely killer. Shackle relocation box in en route along with proper bump stops and break lines... In the near future the LP30 will be ditched for a 44 which is currently being tracked down. However I do have a question on when it comes to steering, im looking for an improved steering setup on a decent for a fairly low price, I dont think 1ton is really an option, but i honestly know very little about them. along with the steering box, is the v8 durango box worth it at all? Grabbed long arms from a member here and those should arrive at home soon... rusties. still in need of a crossmember. i think im going TNT frame stiffeners too. A buddy is tackling some of the smaller things like trimming the fenders to look normal and so on.. id love some input. Building your jeep from 750 miles away is definitely an odd job.. if anyone has some good ideas id love to hear
rah
Peckham
 
Alright... This has been dead for a long time... I've Done a lot. Since my last post. Frame stiffeners. Pats old axles and steering, 37's, new RE springs, sye and a lot of small odds and ends... Colin has been bugging me to update for a while but I've been real busy and now in NC. Assuming in still in the states come December I'm gonna drive her on up and try to get in on a wheeling trip with you guys.. anyways I'll be posting up pics and so on this week... probably
 
I still have parts for you, I'm just an idiot and haven't returned the hubs for warranty yet. An lets see some pics!!
 
Ok, so over the past year and a half or so my jeep has been through quite some changes, she was stagnant from July '13 through about December '14. Literally just sat in my garage, never moved, nothing. Around then was when I decided i wanted more out of it and not just blow up the 30/8.25 combo that was on there. Pouring out all the money i had and some more, I ended up buying Pat's axles and lots of odds and ends to run the 37's i had. I ended up working a deal with Brian, from bdr automotive to do the install of the axles and frame stiffeners while I was still in training in NC... after all i cant really do a build when I dont have time and its 14 hours away from me... Brain did a sweet job, he fabricated me a t-case crossmember and also put on the leaf mounts on the 8.8... anyways the axles are a ford high pinion 44, 5.13 gears, narrowed, little truss up top, 79 outers and locking hubs. rear is a ford 8.8, 5,13 gears, detroit locker and chromo shafts. Also had some cutom drive shafts made for it, was not disappointed. She left BDR looking pretty similar from the outside.



Getting the ol rig down here wasnt too easy.. took a lot of work to find a company willing to ship my jeep down because of modification... ended up getting hooked up thanks to some friends and got it here for not a lot of money. thankfully i didnt plan to drive it down because it wasnt taking highways well at all when it got here. nothing on brian, most of it was alignment oriented and i told him not to do an alignment. Naturally the first thing i did since i got long arms was find the biggest hill in NC and flex on it...



its pretty flat here...

Put in shackle relocation brackets, SYE, bump stops, had to build a small bracket for the rear bump stops, longer break lines, some clear indicator housing because why not, Ended up having to replace a couple frozen calipers and oil seals.. the 44 was missing like 3 bearings and needed some new ball joints on one side. had to put some new gaskets on the diffs and assorted small engine things like spark plugs etc. I ended up trimming my fenders further and removing the remaining fender flares. I also ended up trying to perfect my half doors. Im probably forgetting a good bit of things, among some random fine tuning.

I took these pics today















Brought the old girl wheeling finally to the Uwharrie forest and had a blast with it, although i was horribly disappointed with the tires. Some guy there told me to rotate my tires to have the tread face the other was and they worked so so so much better.





but i still expected more out of the tires so i ordered a cheap tire groover on amazon (ideal or some brand like that) I just cut each cleat in half and hoped for the best honestly



The grooving paid off, took the jeep out to some mud trail nearby with a local group who all horribly disappointed me with their jeeps and trucks and i spent the day recovering everyone except the guy with a winch. but the tires grabbed so much better than before not to mention look pretty sweet IMO.
 


The half doors i made way back i had absolutely fallen in love with, so i ended up just keeping them on especially since it gets so damn hot here. but i wanted to have drop in windows like you find on wranglers. my old ones broke and really leaked a lot.. not to mention the were broken. I got really sick of tarping the jeep so i took the old frame part and decided to weld in some expanded steel backed with vinyl and epoxied on... you can see it in the picture above... well that worked like shit. wasnt very waterproof as the little hurricane here proved and i decided to stop being lazy and actually do it right. So i cut up the frames and rebuilt them, to include a lower half, i bolted on some plexiglass and siliconed them to seal in. i also put that foam weather seal stuff for home windows on the sides to prevent leaks. works amazing and are very strong. from there i grabbed some wiring harnesses from a junkyard for the doors to also restore the power locks, mirrors and window control to the rears.

20141001_164122_zpsdmkrbnda.jpg
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After all this i also realized how poor of a condition my coils and leafs were, so i ordered up some rubicon express 5.5" ones and threw them in. Now she rides so much more level and smoother. also happened to weigh my jeep and she came in at 4700lbs... including 2 people and my spare tire and a few tools... so probably around 4400lbs. Im planning on eventually putting in a 60 rear.. probably not anytime soon.. but getting some new shocks.. mine have blown out more or less. limit straps. maybe doing something for a front bumper. and later on a cage... i still want to put a 4bt in there but who knows..



Rock on gents
:NAXJA:
Peckham
 
CTeunuch said:
That 44 needed ball joints already? Maybe I was a little hard on it...
Click to expand...

I was Finding carnage on everything on the passenger side... drivers side was fine.. made me think back to when u blew up that side... haha
 
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