My wife is in her last semester in med school as well. Match process is very stressful. We already found out where we're heading though. She's in the Air Force so she marched in December. St. Louis here we come.

I too made a pre move checklist recently. Only "wrench" in my plan is the fact I'm having a kid in 3 weeks lol. Here's to being a new dad in a new city owning my first home. At least I have a badass garage!

Good luck. Hope you guys match high on the list.

 

But, I sometimes like to leave the rig idling when on the trails and the extra holding power is nice when winching. These things are so light that even with a 12k lb winch, I struggle to not get pulled into whatever I'm winching out - usually a fat Toyota.

Very cool! Agreed on the stress. I don't know how she deals with it but I'd go insane. Her match day is the 18th - top picks are Rochester Uni and Wake Forest. Either way is fine with me. There's an ORV park 45 minutes from Rochester and Wake Forest is, well, North Carolina.

Congrats on the kid and house man! Hopefully you'll get some quality wrenching time in.

 

Sorry, it took me awhile to find all my receipts. $24 for both rotors, $18 for both backing plates, and $28 for both calipers. I bought new brakes lines and new e-brake shoes. Fortunately the pads were brand new and the rotors are in great shape from the JY. I got all of the backing plate studs and wheels studs too. Im going to use the method of cutting off part of the e-brake springs and then wrapping the cables with a u-bolt to get those working.

 

Update. Ditched the rear disc idea after I realized the locker was in the way of the c-clips. I didn't want to deal with it, nor did I have the time, so I just rebuilt the drums in the same afternoon. Turns out the first time I rebuilt them, I didn't align the self adjuster correctly, and it broke off on one drum and simply didn't work on the other.

Got new front pads too. Truck stops again and I have a working parking brake.

My dad and I also spent a day at his property in Citico and put the truck to work. We cut the beginnings of a trail, running the Jeep back and fourth to mow down trees. We pulled three downed trees, one of which had to be a couple thousand pounds. Low range rocks. My dad drove it and mentioned "I get why you like this."

Currently, I'm trying to convince him he needs another XJ.

Bought the beginnings of a new exhaust. There's nothing wrong with mine, it's just very quiet under load. I have a 2.5" Vibrant muffler on the way. Not sure what cat I want to run yet...

 

Went wheeling over the weekend. Somewhat tame ride but fun nonetheless. Our group is VERY welcoming but... that usually means we attract trucks that are not prepared. A 4 hour ride turned into a 7 hour ride.
























Build wise, the truck now has a 2.5" cat back with a Vibrant universal muffler. Power delivery has improved, it's a little bit louder, and idle is WAY different. I'll get a video up soon.

My issue is my diff (er, I think). Rotational noise has gotten out of hand and my 8.25 howls at speed. This combined with the MTZS which are now very loud makes me want to move on to Phase II.

My buddy is willing to sell his dana 30, 27 splin 8.25 combo with aftermarket
4.11s and spartan lockers front and rear. I drove his truck and not only are the gears nice and punchy, but they are so quiet. All I heard was KM2S and his super 10.

So, my plan is:
His axles (I know I know, 27 spline downgrade) my brakes (his are AWFUL), the RE super flex upper and lower control arms I've had for months, Bilstien 5100s, PAC 4" 250lb front coils, and 33x10.5 KO2s.

Oh, and yesterday I bit the bullet and bought myself a gift!



That's all for now:

 

Double check your ujoints before you replace that axle...although 4.10s do give the truck a lot more pep in its step...this happened to my Comanche and I thought I had to replace my rear end after just buying it later to find out that replacing the ujoints in the driveshaft eliminated it.....
Good score on the shifter...short shifter?

Man I miss going off-road...have to plan a trip up one year

 

Oh for sure. I replaced the driveshaft u-joints a couple of months ago already. These axles have been loud ever since I swapped them almost two years ago.

The shifter is a remake of the Hurst one that's now discontinued. It supposedly cuts throws by 30 percent.

Man, you need some wheeling time. Go up to Corbett!

 

Thanks for sharing your pics! I am part of a group like that (they have their place), so if I go with them I just plan for that, but when I want to avoid that kind of trail run I go to more of an exclusive small group. So that your with people that are like minded.

 

4" and 33x10.50s are great. Love the look, I could of gone 35s but it's not worth the extra work for what I do.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked to make this happen. I'm thinking of the KO2S more and more. My GF matched to Rochester so some more snow and ice friendly tires will be nice.

Aslo, this came in today:

 

Nice build man. Really like that shifter.

 

Thanks man! I do too!



Install wasn't too hard. The most difficult part was getting the factory shift **** off. Every since I bought the truck stock, it's shift **** was pointed the wrong direction. Easily the most confusing part of this truck's past life, even more so than the sawed-off broom handle I found holding the passenger window up, has been this:



This picture was taken clearly after I fought with the plastic cover. It took me a three screwdrivers, a knife and a hammer to get it off. Plus I cut myself twice.









This thing ROCKS! It seriously improved the truck's driveability by a substantial amount. Shifts are bang bang you're done. Zero slop.

 

My buddy bought his 8.8 to replace the 8.25 that I'm buying off him so the beginning of needless spending to run bigger tires is here.

These are on their way. Got a pretty killer deal on Amazon.

2 of Bilstein 24-188197 5100 Series Shock Absorber

2 of Bilstein 33-066868 5100 Series Shock Absorber

Went with the about 10" travel shocks. I'm hoping that's enough for the about 4" of lift I'll be running.

Also, these:

PAC Racing Springs JP20X4.0X250 - PAC Jeep Speed 220 Progressive Springs

That was probably stupid to run such a high spring rate with Bilsteins but I'll see what happens. Hopefully they level out my suspension rake which is pretty severe.

I'd like to get a new steering stabilizer while I'm at it. I need to probably get extended bumpstops soon too but I'm not sure which ones to get.

 

I just went to a second hand sports store. Bought four hockey pucks and installed them they are perfect what I needed.

 

if you happen to have an old body lift those work too. Got a couple of the spacers from a friend