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I tacked mine for cheap insurance, thought about making my own "almost alloy" kit. That was before locking and regearing the front. Ears flex, but caps fall out quicker. I'll have extra shafts and my cordless impact just in case though.
Man I havent seen that much rust on a Jeep before. I think I would have given up on that a long time ago and found another, but with all the work you have in it it might be worth keeping for a little while longer.
Has anyone considered using their d30's and 8.25's for 35's but having a bigger spline count on the axles, say 33 spline or more? I like my 33's and my spare fits in the oem location. I am getting more into the expedition side of jeeping. I used to rock crawl a lot and not many of my friends are into that anymore. So going up to a 35" tire probably wont happen for me, but I really like the idea of full width D44 front and D60 rear or Ford 9.
Congrats on the new job and location and great build thread!
Thanks! I ran out of room realllllll quick. Its been good because its making me stay disciplined about having too much crap.
Originally Posted by thetastelingers
Head over to Garagejournal.com for LOTS of good ideas on what to do with your garage.
I've been over there for years and you'll waste a lot of time looking at other peoples galleries getting ideas to make your garage work for you.
Just what I need, another forum to spend countless hours on I search alot of specific topics on garage journal but have never spent much time over there. I'll have to frequent it some more. Actually, just today I was reading about oxygen depletion monitors. I bought an older kerosene heater that I'm gunna use this winter for some warmer in the garage and I'd rather not die via asphyxiation so I bought a carbon monoxide detector as well as an oxygen depletion monitor.
Originally Posted by SatiricalHen
A little late to the axle discussion, but my 30 and 8.25 have held up pretty well to 35s with the only issue I've had being u-joints which is the reason I don't like the idea of a regular 44. I recently did the IRO almost alloy and I'm hoping that will keep the caps in and keep these u joints alive for a while. I'm looking at doing Toyota 8" axles or JK44 whichever I find for a good deal first. The Toyota axles are 30 spline throughput and the rear can be had out of a Tacoma or 4Runner with 4.30 gears and an elocker. Just put leaf spring perches and shock mounts and good to go. The front would have to be a Tacoma width rock assault housing or similar. Which isn't terribly expensive when you factor in how much it would be to build 2 axles instead of just one. But for the front you take another 4.30 elocker diff and stick it in the front and you have matching gears and front and rear lockers and could even grab a spare diff to bring on trips. Then you just get a solid front axle from early Toyota's and take the locking hubs, brakes, knuckles and all that crap. It sounds like a lot, but in the long run it's a cheap way to go and they provide a ton of clearance.
That's actually wicked cool and I'd love to see you follow through with that. Don't really see many people doing yota axles. Its something I haven't looked into.
Originally Posted by xjallseasons
Man I havent seen that much rust on a Jeep before. I think I would have given up on that a long time ago and found another, but with all the work you have in it it might be worth keeping for a little while longer...
...Congrats on the new job and location and great build thread!
Eh, I've seen better and worse. At this point I'm considering the body disposable. Its all a learning process. Hopefully I can take some stuff from this Jeep and apply it to the next one, whether it be parts or knowledge.
Thank you for the congratulations! Work has been absolutely phenomenal so far. I feel like I found the perfect job for me. New location is alright, apartment isn't great but works for me. Having a garage is game changing though. I've been getting up to all sorts of good things.
Something came over me giving me motivation to upgrade my audio system. It has been getting weaker over the years and at the time I had a planned trip a couple hours away and wanted some better tunes so I spent some late nights in the garage going hard.
I've had an old 300 watt 4 channel JL Audio amp sitting on a shelf for the past like, 6 years? For awhile I thought I might never get to it but here we are. I have Alpine Type-R door speakers that are rated for up to 100 W RMS each that I have been powering with an Alpine power-pack amp (plugs in behind head unit) that pushed 45 W RMS. The new amp puts out 75 W RMS which required me to rewire all of the speakers with heavier gauge wire. I decided to mount the amp in the rear hatch where the factory spare was. I split my 4 awg power cable for my sub amp to the speaker amp and ran 14 awg wire out to the speakers. Check out this setup below. I used a couple high amperage relays in the system so I wouldn't have hot cables running all the way back to the hatch. I don't see many people using relays for audio systems but it makes sense to me. I have one relay under the hood which switches power down to the speaker amp as well as a second relay that switches power out to the sub amp. This allows me to disconnect the sub to remove it and not have hot cables floating around but still have door speakers. I made those brackets to tuck into the quarter panel behind the trim and keep everything neat.
After getting everything wired up I tested it out just to find I was not getting sound out of the rear speakers. Turns out the amp had some defective components making the rear channel not work. I took the couple hour drive with just front speakers and the sub and I was beyond impressed. It was louder and sounded better with 2 speakers than it did previously with 4. I sent the amp out for repair and just got it back today. Haven't hooked it back up yet but I will soon, as well as finish mounting it and cleaning up the rest of the wiring that I started to rush through at the end.
More to come. I've done a few other things but I just spent most of the past hour playing on my phone rather than writing this and I gotta get to bed.
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; 11-07-2019 at 12:11 PM.
I had a 4 channel amp that was 75 rms powering my speakers and a 600 rms amp powering my alpine type r 12, but one of the rear channels started crackling and having issues and the sub was so big that I never got to actually keep it in once the spare tire started living in the rear. So I ended up doing away with both amps and all that wiring for them. I don't miss the 4 channel amp as much as I miss the sub. I'm really wanting to add one of the cubby hole subs or use the small ones that go under the seat just for a little more something.
I had a 4 channel amp that was 75 rms powering my speakers and a 600 rms amp powering my alpine type r 12, but one of the rear channels started crackling and having issues and the sub was so big that I never got to actually keep it in once the spare tire started living in the rear. So I ended up doing away with both amps and all that wiring for them. I don't miss the 4 channel amp as much as I miss the sub. I'm really wanting to add one of the cubby hole subs or use the small ones that go under the seat just for a little more something.
My biggest goal with the system is to be able to over power wind noise at 70 mph with the windows down. I've had a sub in here for years now, which I love, but the speakers just couldn't keep up. For the longest time I thought my sub wasn't that great because it only hit at very low frequencies and I was missing most of my lower mid range. Turns out I had the low pass filter on my amp turned down pretty low. That was an easy fix. The sub can out sound up to 500 Hz but the frequency response of the amp only goes up to 200 Hz so I'm hoping the speakers can handle a crossover that low. . Once I get all the hardware installed I'm going to play with the tuning of the system. Should be a kick *** setup once its done.
Finished getting my system setup and all I can say is WOW. My ears were ringing after testing and tuning the system. I'm very happy with it. Only thing I had to wrap my head around was my fader was not working, which makes sense because my RCAs run from the front channel ports to my speaker amp to control all 4 speaker channels. My head unit does have second pre-amp outputs for the rear channels/sub which I could hook to the rear channel ports of the speaker amp and split off to the sub, but then I'd lose to ability to control the sub level independently. I'd like to be able to have the fader back so I can bias the speakers towards the front when I have passengers in the rear seat but that isn't very often and I like being able to control the sub more.
I also took care of my door checks. My passenger door check has been popping bad for years and my driver door check wouldn't hold the door open. I pulled the checks out of the rear doors of a XJ at the junkyard. The arms on the rear checks are a little different than the fronts. No surprise why my driver's side check wasn't working; the spring was broken!
I swapped out the bracket where the roll pin goes through for some new ones because the holes were elongated.
At first I put the rear check in the front but I didn't like how it wouldn't hold the door at a specific spot, so I swapped the arm from my original door check into the new one. This still caused popping. I ended up grinding down the humps on the door check arm to make the transition less aggressive (a tip from Cruiser I saw on an old thread).
Now they're both working great! Feels good fixing the small things.
On the contrary, I picked up my next big project:
Thats an old M8000
Furthermore, I am expecting a Baddad Fab hidden winch mount to show up at my door next week! I'm wicked excited for this setup. About time I get a winch!
To start preparing to get my mount on, I had to remove my coolant filter that I installed a few years back. I was curious if the filter was actually doing anything, so I cut it open to examine it. Results were, ambiguous. The filter material didn't seem very dirty, but the inside of the can had a sludgey buildup on the bottom of it. That's strange because that is supposed to be the clean side of the filter. I'm thinking that the pressure in the line could've driven coolant both both directions in the filter or maybe there was not enough flow through it so everything collected at the bottom.
Was it a total waste of time? I don't think so. I learned a good amount about it. I think a better way to set this up would be to tap into different parts of the system where the inlet is high pressure and the outlet is low pressure. My coolant has stayed clean but I'm not convinced it was because of this. I considered moving it somewhere else but I'm just going to scrap the idea.
Some other things brewing:
-I'll be moving my winch solenoid under the hood using the Boostwerks bracket and running in-cab winch controls.
-I ordered a 62 mm throttle body from XJWonders
-and, a friend from work has some axles that I think I'll be picking up in the spring. Front 44 and rear 9 (or 8.8?). I haven't actually seen them with a keen eye. They're still under his Jeep but he is looking to get rid of them for cheap money. Not a deal I'll pass up!
Played around for awhile today. I finished up my audio system install by mounting my amp and tweaked my system gains a bit. I'm still not totally satisfied with the sound because its a bit hollow. I think the small 5.25" speakers just lack the punch of 6.5" or 6x9's. With that said, I think I'll be able to compensate a bit with the EQ to dial it in. Just haven't found the sweet spot yet.
I like how I ended up getting this mounted. Wish I spent a little more time cutting that interior panel because there are gaps around the edges of the amp but I'm not terribly concerned about it.
Also today I installed a 62 mm throttle body! Because instead of focusing on axles and a regear, I'm wasting money on performance upgrades cause they make me feel cool.
Got this piece from XJWonders. Honestly I only bought it because I happen to be cruising the classifieds (which I rarely do) and found myself in his throttle body thread saying that he will no longer be selling these. I felt like I had to capitalize. $125 and a week or so later and I had a gorgeous looking throttle body sitting on my workbench. It took me maybe an hour to replace it, clean the IAC, inspect other stuff, and generally fart around.
When inspecting my intake I did notice some oil coming from my crankcase breather hose and looks like its accumulated some sludgey goodness inside my intake manifold. Not sure what causes this. Possibly a project for another day.
I took the heep out for a spin after install and the butt-dyno said yes (still can't get out of its own way). Its my understanding that the larger throttle body should really only make a power difference at WOT, because anything other than WOT really comes down to throttle response rather than power. I noticed the throttle response difference immediately, as well as a slight change in tone from my cowl intake (I'm hoping the whistle has moved to a different rpm range cause its annoying). I took a snapchat video of pulling it up to redline that I was going to post but I forgot to save it before sending. Sorry!
My Boostwerks solenoid relocation bracket came in the mail today, so that's the next task.
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; 11-24-2019 at 05:50 PM.
Also today I installed a 62 mm throttle body! Because instead of focusing on axles and a regear, I'm wasting money on performance upgrades cause they make me feel cool.
Got this piece from XJWonders. Honestly I only bought it because I happen to be cruising the classifieds (which I rarely do) and found myself in his throttle body thread saying that he will no longer be selling these. I felt like I had to capitalize. $125 and a week or so later and I had a gorgeous looking throttle body sitting on my workbench. It took me maybe an hour to replace it, clean the IAC, inspect other stuff, and generally fart around.
When inspecting my intake I did notice some oil coming from my crankcase breather hose and looks like its accumulated some sludgey goodness inside my intake manifold. Not sure what causes this. Possibly a project for another day.
I took the heep out for a spin after install and the butt-dyno said yes. Its my understand that the larger throttle body should really only make a power difference at WOT, because anything other than WOT really comes down to throttle response rather than power. I noticed the throttle response difference immediately, as well as a slight change in tone from my cowl intake (I'm hoping the whistle has moved to a different rpm range cause its annoying). I took a snapchat video of pulling it up to redline that I was going to post but I forgot to save it before sending. Sorry
Glad that you are happy with the throttle body. I have one coming myself.
To bad he is closing up shop. Figured I better grab one.
I bought it to be cool myself. LOL.
~ I had to remove my coolant filter that I installed a few years back. I was curious if the filter was actually doing anything, so I cut it open to examine it. Results were, ambiguous. The filter material didn't seem very dirty, but the inside of the can had a sludgey buildup on the bottom of it. That's strange because that is supposed to be the clean side of the filter. I'm thinking that the pressure in the line could've driven coolant both both directions in thWas it a total waste of time? I don't think so. I learned a good amount about it. I think a better way to set this up would be to tap into different parts of the system where the inlet is high pressure and the outlet is low pressure. My coolant has stayed clean but I'm not convinced it was because of this. I considered moving it somewhere else but I'm just going to scrap the idea. ~
I'd say it worked. The filter media should have been egg shell white when it was new.
I know you changed up your electric fan wiring a while ago. I was just wondering if that's all still working out well for you. I'm looking to stick some extra relays in my factory box and wanted to check in before going for it. Does it trip a check engine light wired that way?
Last edited by SatiricalHen; 11-17-2019 at 11:31 AM.
I know you changed up your electric fan wiring a while ago. I was just wondering if that's all still working out well for you. I'm looking to stick some extra relays in my factory box and wanted to check in before going for it. Does it trip a check engine light wired that way?
E-fan wiring has been pretty trick. Over-ride switch works with no check engine light and the fan kicks on when the PCM tells it to. I was messaging BlueRidgeMark about the circuit. I asked if two relays are needed or if one relay could be used. He stated that this can be done with a single relay and back feeding voltage to the PCM is not a concern because the PCM switches ground rather than switching hot (can confirm from my FSM). We arrived at that conclusion after I had already setup my circuit with two relays. So, I can confirm my way works but there might be a more efficient way only using the single factory e-fan relay.
One thing about messing around in your PDC, be super duper ultra careful with the small clips/tabs that you need to unlock to get the terminals out. Some of them want to break just looking at them. I pulled 3 or 4 PDC's from junkyard rigs and stripped them all bare. I found that on some PDC's I broke more tabs than I didn't and on others they were relatively pliable. I messed with the one in my Jeep last (after getting some practice on the scrap ones) and was able to do everything I did to it only breaking 1 tab.
08-07-2019, 04:50 PM
I search alot of specific topics on garage journal but have never spent much time over there. I'll have to frequent it some more. Actually, just today I was reading about oxygen depletion monitors. I bought an older kerosene heater that I'm gunna use this winter for some warmer in the garage and I'd rather not die via asphyxiation so I bought a carbon monoxide detector as well as an oxygen depletion monitor.
I'm wicked excited for this setup. About time I get a winch! 
