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Did a 10 day trip around a bit of Colorado. Mostly Crested Butte/Gunnison/Montrose. Just a couple finishing touches before I left. 1. I wanted to get the ham radio head unit off the dash and up on the OHC as originally planned. 2. I needed to get the rear bumper tie in brackets in. I bought the cheap smaller ones from dirtbound... whatever.
Jeep Performed Flawlessly. 800 Miles and 2 7/10 trails and just a couple small issues you'll see below. Biggest thing I felt I need to change is the front shocks. More to come on future tweaks soon =]
Success
After some cross threading and other concessions this is also done!
Crested Butte
Hartman Rocks Campsite
Topless trail in Montrose
First break, old corroded fuel line busted. Still finding evidence that this was indeed once a MA jeep. Was able to find a local junkyard and pulled this line off a TJ and now consider it an upgrade as the TJ version has some braided steel section on it which allows for more flexibility (pretty sure my UCA was hitting the old hard line at full stuff.
Second break.. new WJ caliper fell off.. bolts came out and it wedged between wheel and axle and locked up my front end. Luckily the hardware was salvageable enough to crossthread the bolts back in and get off the trail... and 8 hrs home...
Crossthreading IS Locktite lol. I'm sure you're aware of the spacing required with the WJ calipers.. well I think I could have upped the size on the bolts to get a bit more thread engagement and compensate for the 2 washers I have offsetting the caliper. They probably would have never budged. I need to pick up a new caliper for next time i take it off.. pretty sure it's borked. Dangit!
Last edited by ixanay_on-the_exjay; Aug 8, 2022 at 11:03 PM.
I used IRO's kit which included the hub and caliper spacers. I haven't had any issues with the caliper bolts since doing the swap back in the fall and just recently took them off to replace the shafts and they were tight.
I used IRO's kit which included the hub and caliper spacers. I haven't had any issues with the caliper bolts since doing the swap back in the fall and just recently took them off to replace the shafts and they were tight.
Nice, it definitely doesn't inspire confidence when your caliper falls off... I also have 15" wheels and I'm pretty sure they are still scraping every now and then most likely on the trail... so that's also a factor, may take the grinder to the calipers again. That and I'm going to be less loosy goosy when it comes to torquing the brake/hub parts.. I've been babying them I think.
After a second incident where my caliper bolts loosened, I caved and went to get longer bolts from ACE. They were M18x1.25 for the Akebonos.
Heard a couple loud pops the other day and she started having a hard misfire cylinder #6. Swapped plugs, and injectors to no avail. Ended up ordering a coil pack while I was away just to check since there is no real way to diagnose these things... Luckily the replacement was successful although I had to cut the old connector off since it was so F'd. New NKG coil came with a connector for 99's so i chopped it up and soldered it in.
Just a little update for y'all today I haven't been writing much just enjoying the jeep mostly... More to come in spring will be putting out that list shortly.
Today.. I finally tackled something I've wanted to do forever but was too lazy. NO MORE CLICK
Welcome to the site and the thread thanks for the kind words. Steering stuff coming soon!
Today I spent 4 hours routing power to my overhead console arduino. I wanted the ignition on power pulled from the kick fuse panel and had to install a voltage regulator. The USB from cigarette lighter worked great but It cut my windsheild in half with a wire which was super annoying... sometiimes you just have to shut up and start wiring...
Can see the baby voltage regulator floating there, was hard to work with TBH but it works finally...
Installed one of these usb doohickeys... I'm a modern man, what can I say?
Pro tip, when you send your buddy a package of jeep stuff don't send him rocks as a joke, because when you need your reamer back this is what you get...
Today I finally started in on the steering project... There's a few "while i'm in there" things that have attached themselves to the project so just a quick overview
Red Top Steering Box Install New High pressure hose New ZJ Pitman arm (~1" Drop) Shorten Drag link (to center steering wheel)
Ironman4x4 Steering brace WJ Pump?
My steering box is by far the nastiest rustiest crustiest part still on the jeep, only close second will be the trans cooler lines. Soon all the crust will be GONE!
Old/New side by side with the longer pitman arm
Red Tops new home (kind of a PITA)
Ever since installing the WJ knuckles my drag link has been too long causing my steering wheel to be slightly off. I've even cut some threads off the bungs to get the heims deeper but it's still too long...
See?
New weld in bung I will cut down the pitman side of drag link and weld this in.
So far the steering feels slightly nicer. I think i need to bleed the pump better because I'm hearing it and on the initial test drive found it to be not super consistent. I'm sure it's just a matter of bleeding again. The steering brace is next. Once bled and brace installed I'm going to drive it for a bit to decide if it's worth putting in the WJ pump I have laying around... maybe will just for funsies but point of doing these things individually is so I can distinguish which traits go to which part. If it's smoother I want to know which part did it so I can be honest and accurate when recommending to pals. I suppose the new box and the pitman arm went in at the same time so will be hard to tell which is making things smoother in the bump steer sense... oh well
Last edited by ixanay_on-the_exjay; May 19, 2023 at 08:33 AM.
Not so good news first... So I discovered that I accidentally purchased and installed the "wrong" redhead box. The one I purchased is actually a 4 turn as opposed to the stock and standard 3 turn. The gear ratio is 18:1 as opposed to 15:1. Red head vaguely advertises these for "vehicles intended for offroad use" and even throws out a number that if you have 37's or larger you should consider this option. After writing to them and asking if there were any downsides including clock spring issues I was assured that the only downside will be awkwardly excessive steering wheel turns lol... so you win some and you lose some. I BELIEVE THIS CAN WORK TO MY ADVANTAGE. Let me explain... The WJ pump tends to blow high pressure lines when the demand is highest... aka when the tire is jammed up in some rocks and you're turning the whole weight of the vehicle instead of just a couple tires... anyway - with the mechanical advantage I'm hoping that the box will demand less from the pump and thus protecting it! How is that for some rationalization! I deserve a medal.
I cut the pitman arm off and sending the old box back for my $150 core (geez)
Good news is I stopped being lazy and finally shortened my drag link and welded in the bung. Single pass (pray for me)
Last edited by ixanay_on-the_exjay; May 19, 2023 at 08:32 AM.
Long time no updates... So I came into this steering experiment chipper and ready for whatever came. I was interested in finding out for myself what's what with the WJ pump swap. Long story short is I burned up the pump pretty quickly. I never drilled out the hole to the same diameter as the WJ fitting and even did a second iteration with a smaller hole because I felt the steering was TOO loose the first time around. I'm not sure exactly what burned it up if there was still air in the system (I was very thorough in bleeding but still heard "whooshing" noise) or if it was heat. My gut says heat. Regardless I decided I was done getting covered in PS fluid and just bought a new xj pump from PSC.
Experiment over.
The XJ steering is definitely much stiffer but the return to center is a relief, especially with the 4 turn box. Having to return your wheels to center with a loosey goosey pump is a PITA and don't ever hear people mention that. Still hear the whooshing noise but maybe that's just always been there and I never heard it before. Or it's just part of the deal with the new box. TBD
New xj pump installed hopefully last time I have to mess with it for a while.
I've been distracted this month putting together a daily build. I got this 2012 Audi Q5 with 90k on it from a copart salvage auction. It was in a weird front end crash that only affected the lower front bumper radiator and oil pan. I got a good deal on it so here's to a build in a build thread.
Initial Damage oil was leaking from gasket Some of the bumper damage Got the Rad out... New rad in... Oil pan you can see the dent on the left Interior shot Doing an oil change and found another use for my 36mm, a perfect fit for the oil filter housing All cleaned up and ready for a rebuilt title
