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I stripped the whole suspension and started on Frame Stiffeners. I did one side rear part for now. Stiffeners are one of these installs that should take max one day and you are a week in and still not even close to finishing lol
Anyway, there was quite a lot of the factory, rubberized undercoating on the unibody, so I had to take it all off. Found out that little propane torch and a scraper are the best tools to do it. I scraped the whole thing and then ground it with the flap disc.
I bought the stiffeners from Ares fab, and I must say I'm very impressed. They fit really well out of the box, with very little adjustment.
I also got my wheels and tires mounted and balanced.
I already love how this jeep looks.
Some good stuff is coming for the jeep so stay tuned!
A bunch of goodies came in the mail today, for the new axles.
Arb lockers, 5.13 gears (shaved for the 14 bolt), install kits, rebuild kits, 14 bolt shave kit and much more.
I'm excited!
I also decided that the TANK will be sitting on coilovers in all four corners.
It really is gonna be a tank. Are you gonna put on that t-case skid you guys make? I'v been trying to find a pic of how it looks installed.
Not on this one. The TANK is getting a Clayton Off Road belly skid, and it's going to have dana 300 transfer case, which is a little bit different than the factory np231.
I will try to find a pic of our skid plate and send it to you.
I'm finishing the frame stiffeners, slowly but surely. If you want to them right, it takes a lot of time. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but I'm using an ARES fab kit for the stiffeners. There is a lot I like about them and a little bit I don't. First, I have to say, They are beefy, thick. This is the kit that covers most of the unibody, or at least the best I could find. This is something I like a lot about them. They basically HUG the whole unibody. The jeep is gonna feel like it actually has a frame lol What I don't like is the fact that the fit is not really good. I had to put a lot of my time into "fixing" them to actually fit tight, and don't have big gaps. I usually put some additional relief cuts and bent it, and then it is good. Otherwise, very happy with them, would buy again.
The jeep was sitting for quite a while in Texas before I bought it, and the good thing is, it's not rusty (except the two holes that I fixed earlier), but it's sometimes crusty haha. Not everything, but for example, brake lines are really bad. I literally rounded every nut on the brake lines... They are not in very good condition. I found on eBay a whole set, already pre-bent brake lines, stainless steel for just a little over $100 so I'm not even gonna bother with fixing the old ones. Also, since I'm putting a fuel cell, I won't be reusing the factory fuel lines. Took them off as well.
And what do we have here? I was first gonna buy some fox 2.0 coilovers without the reservoir but found this set online. They are the Prodigy / Rock Krawler 2.65 coilovers the PRO series with huge reservoirs. The guy had them on one wheeling trip and parted out his rig. They are basically brand new, and also came with a full set of PAC Racing Springs on them. Don't get better than that haha. I can't wait to put them on the jeep already! I'm 6'4" and wear size 13 shoes. They are the size of my whole leg basically. I took the picture, so you can have the idea of the size. (sorry for big pictures)
Not much progress, since I had to do some work to the cutomers' jeeps, but today I started working on the 14 bolt axle. I must say, I am very surprised by the condition of this axle. Fresh oil, great looking inside, clean. I hope the Dana 60 will be looking like that as well.
Finished pulling the 14 bolt axle apart yesterday. Cleaned it really nicely and it looks like new. Like I said before, it's in VERY good shape. I just have to cut the factory brackets and it's ready for some sandblasting.
I started to work on the Dana 60 today, an as always, the first axle was perfect, so the second will bring problems... The whole axle is in good shape inside, but it's kinda crusty on the outside. Everything will be new, but so far I disassembled one side and discovered that the water somehow got into the hub, and I had quite a little fight taking all the locking hub pieces out. Then when I was removing the knuckle, the lover pin bolt (2 out of 4) snapped... I hope I can extract them somehow, but they are stuck there good! Tomorrow I will see what will the other side bring. At least let's hope there will be no more broken bolts.
I started the conversion from manual to automatic. Pretty much all that has to be done is the engine and dash wiring harness swap and pedal assembly swap (at least in my case). So I took the old wiring harness out and replaced it with the new, automatic one. I said I started it because it's not finished yet... as always. I broke three out of five or six zip ties that hold the wiring to the firewall, and everything is just hanging on two zip ties for now lol.
My THOR intake came in the mail as well.
While I'm waiting for the zip ties for the engine harness, I started doing my new rock sliders. I cut out a factory rocker panel, and test fitted the 2x6 steel. Everything looks pretty good so far. I still have to box it on both sides, and actually weld it in. Then I will work on some kind of boat sides for it. If someone is wondering, I'm replacing the factory rocker panels just because I'm going to be building a hybrid cage and need some mounting points for the tube.
03-20-2019, 03:34 PM
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