When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Front gears and ball joints tomorrow and back to the alignment shop. Rear gears, lockers and stiffeners on Saturday. Depending on how things go I may work on sliders as well.
Well...the weekend didn't go quite as planned, only ended up doing the ball joints. Also I have a serious grinding/popping coming from the left front when I turn right. I'm hoping it is just a bad u-joint and not a bad hub. So that's next weekend's project along with the regear.
Sorry for the lack of updates, been crazy busy the last couple weeks.
A few updates though:
Front and rear regeared to 4.56's
ARB locker in the rear
ARB compressor installed
CB and antenna installed
Unfortunately no pics of the regear, I wasn't able to use the shop at work so I ended up doing the swap in my buddy's garage. I do however have a few thoughts worth sharing...
A tiny, dark single car garage is NOT the place to learn how to do gears.
Set-up bearing are worth their weight in gold as you can't reliably pull bearings off the carrier without messing up the cages.
A 1/2" impact is also worth it weight in gold for the pinion nuts...
You MUST get a different carrier for the dana 30 for higher gears
The speedo gear housing "clocks" to four different positions, I just went with trial and error until the correct position was found.
Heat is your friend, go buy a torch...period
Two sets of hands is good, three is better
Alright enough ranting, I do have a few pics
The long promised pics of the lift
No flexy shots yet but I'm sure next weekend will provide a few
A crappy shot of the CB and a slightly better one of the antenna mount I whipped up this afternoon. The CB is all self contained in the handheld except for a small box that the antenna and power plugs into, I just mounted it behind my head unit to the defrost ducting. The antenna wire runs from the taillight up the d-pillar, along the headliner trim, down the a-pillar then through the dash. an 18' cable left me with about 18" of slack by the time it got to the center of the dash.
And a few of the compressor mounting
And a diff cover finally found its way on! The rear will go on this weekend, still have to deal with those stupid bolt holes...
That's all for now, should have time to build sliders tomorrow
Also picked up some tubing for sliders. Nothing too fancy but should get the job done. I'll put up some more pics of them when I get them painted/installed tomorrow
Got a bunch more done today, starting to look like everything might actually come together before moab
Sliders? Check.
The rattle can bedliner turned out pretty nice, has a great texture
Overall I'd say they turned out nice, not too shabby for a couple hours of work.
Gas tank skid? Check (pics tomorrow when it's light out)
Fire extinguisher? Check
The self-tappers are long enough to thread into the metal below the plastic trim, there's a slight gap but it's really solid.
Diff breathers? Yup, Kane creek here I come
Vents out the fuel filler door, we'll see what the emissions people say about it
Front tow hooks? Shockingly yes...I was hoping my bumper would get here by this weekend but I haven't heard a peep about it. Last minute scrambling to get front recovery points lead me to good old craigslist where there just happened to be someone selling a c4x4 tow hook kit (turned out to be the VP of the local NAXJA chapter...). Who woulda thunk it... Anyway after much wrestling and beating and yelling I have front hooks (pics tomorrow)
I also pulled out the old spare finally...
Really glad I never had to use it...that gouge is like 1/2"x 2" and down to the cords...
So yeah with all that, all that needs to be done is change the diff fluid and check engine fluids. And then Moab!!!
I also ordered an Ultragauge, got here in two days . A buddy of mine has one and they're pretty sweet, gives you realtime fuel and engine data and can check engine codes. Anyway, simply installed it on the dash and ran the wire down the a-pillar to the OBDII port.
Yeah that's the one. Mine's still working great, the only complaint I have is best I can tell it can't read trans temps. Although, I'm not even sure xj's have that sensor...
02-19-2015, 09:15 PM
. A buddy of mine has one and they're pretty sweet, gives you realtime fuel and engine data and can check engine codes. Anyway, simply installed it on the dash and ran the wire down the a-pillar to the OBDII port.
