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Today I plumbed my trans cooler in and set up the sending unit for my gauge. It actually was very easy. The B&M kit is great, literally everything you need.
I disconnected the top radiator connection (return to trans) and used the brass fitting to connect the rubber hose which I sent to the bottom of the cooler. I came out of the top of the cooler back to the trans line. Easy peasey.
The gauge was slightly more interesting. I had never used a tubing cutter before so I mangled the hard line pretty good. After I figured that out I dropped one of the compression fitting pieces and couldn't find it anywhere! I looked for almost an hour on the ground and around where I was working in the engine bay. It disappeared into a different dimension for all I'm concerned. I had to go out and buy a $5 fitting just to get it to work. I also ran a separate ground from the sending unit because each end of the hardline turns into rubber.
Anyway, enough yapping. Here's what you want
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; Jul 23, 2015 at 02:13 PM.
What do you have the trans cooler bolted to? I'm currently trying to come up with an idea for mine.
The top is mounted on two bolts for the radiator support. The cooler is the perfect width to fit them. One of the bottom ones I used the screw holding the OHC temp sensor and drilled a hole for the other one.
Very easy and straight forward to mount. I referred to these articles to help me.
I think the weathermen are conspiring against me. Yesterday I didn't work because it was supposed to rain around noon and it didn't come till about 6. Today it wasn't supposed to rain till later and I just got in before the storm after working for only an hour.
I started on the JCR steering box spacer and frame plates. I sheared off one of the steering box bolts, which sucks. My OEM spacer came out in pieces and I used vice grips to get this one last piece off.
I tried to file flat spots on the remaining bolt and get it with vice grips but I couldn't quite get it so I'm going to grind better flat spots tomorrow to get that SOB out.
Today was frustrating. I thought these brackets wouldn't be too bad to install but they put up a fight.
I started the day by grinding some flat spots on that broken bolt and got it out relatively easy. Off to a good start..
Then came trying to get everything lined up and back together. Let me tell you, that's harder than it sounds. Trying to muscle around the steering box with one arm and thread a bolt through two brackets and the frame with the other arm sucks.
I almost had it lined up at one point and I ende up breaking another bolt! I wasn't even cranking on it that hard. When I got the box back off I literally unthreaded the broken bolt with my fingers. It must have sheared off from the weight of the box.
After that I dealt with one of the bolts being cross-threaded. I must have done that while trying to line it up. I basically forced the bolt through straight, using it as a thread chaser.
So now time to line the box up, again. I was using a floor jack and a ratchet strap to try and get it where it needed to be and I eventually got it.
Used blue loc-tite on the steering box bolts and torqued them to 70ft-lbs.
Took me 4 hours to install the steering box spacer and driver's side unibody bracket. I hope I don't have to do that again.
Oh one more thing. If you ever are installing these brackets install these small ones first! It was very hard to get the nuts on the back with the steering box in the way. It involved an open end wrench, tape, and black magic.
Love the look of the truck on 35s! This is why I jumped on mine, it was from out west. Super clean underneath. The last Toyota I lifted I used a torch, cut off wheel and a sawzall on EVERY bolt (front and rear leaf sprung!) On the upside you have all new hardware, Id recommend lathering all the new nuts and bolts in anti-seize, it works!
Oh I learned that awhile ago. EVERY bolt I take out gets antiseize. I've had my fair share of grinder/sawzall. These NH winters don't treat vehicles well.
Another solid day. Today I knocked out the passenger side JCR bracket, two new gas tank straps, and changed the transmission fluid.
This bracket put up a fight too. The PO of my jeep broke off one of the captive nuts on my swaybar so I used needle nose pliers to hold a wrench on the inside of the frame rail to get it off. What a pita.
And these stupid j-bolts on the gas tank! They're on there. There was no getting those off. The harder I torqued the wrench the farther I would just bent the strap. I ended up cutting one off and the other strap was broken so it just came out. Luckily the straps I got came with j-bolts, which from what I hear is rare. They're $30 a piece at the dealer and I paid 30 or 40 for both straps and j-bolts. The part number for those is st164 from autozone.
Look at this beautiful mess
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; Jul 30, 2015 at 12:44 PM.
Today I woke up knowing I had to do an unpleasant task; putting the longarm crossmember back on. I should've done it the easy way and removed the control arms from the axle but for some reason I was stubborn about it and spent like 2 hours trying to muscle it into place with a motorcycle jack and ratchet straps. I ended up getting it on and torqued down in like 3-1/2 hours, which is longer than I was hoping for but I don't really have it down to a science yet, and I work slow.
I felt like this pretty much all day
So after that I flexed my suspension to the bump stops for the first time. I just took a coil out and used a jack. The bump stop doesn't hit in the middle of the hockey puck so I'm not sure how that will work out in the long run. It does stop the suspension with less than 1/2" of shock travel left which is perfect. I put my tire on and unbelievably my tire only rubbed on the wires for my horn at the bump stop, with the wheel straight.
I went to turn the wheel, and it just spun with no resistance and didn't move the steering. Crap. I looked at the steering linkage to the box and sure enough I came apart. Didn't even think about that when I was moving the box all around the other day. Doh! Looks like the box is coming back off, which sucks.
But I could still turn the tire by hand so I marked out where I have to trim more to not rub at full cut and full flex.
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; Jul 31, 2015 at 03:00 PM.
Did a little bit today. I fixed my steering box so it's actually connected again. I also cut my fenders out more and used my mini-sledge to "clearance" some other areas lol. I also cleaned my engine bay a bit. I only had like half a can of degreaser so I only got some of the bad areas. I want to do a better job one of these days though.
I pounded the inner lip flat, as well as folded the bottom fender bolt up flush with the body.
Here I hit the inner lip so it was angled farther from the wheel and you can also see where I massaged the sheet metal that is kinda under the ecu.
Last edited by XJlimitedx99; Aug 4, 2015 at 12:36 PM.
