Secondhand Tin Can.

77GreenMachine said:
Awesome man. Once you get used to that hydro assist and then wheel with it you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it. Makes a big difference. You’ve really brought this thing a long ways.
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Thansk man even on the road it's so much better. It's crazy to think May will make 6 years since I bought it. It's no longer the cherokee that gets parked at wheeling trips. Well unless things that should be one piece are multiple pieces.
 
So this is happening. Good bye steelies and 34s.

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So I decided it was time to cut and fold my rear quarter pannels finally. That part went smoothly. I then thought it would be a good idea to open up my fenders some more. Well that was a bad idea. I ended up having to weld 1/4 round rod between my inner and outer quarter pannels to reconnect them. It isn't pretty but it'll do the job. Stacking tack welds over about a 4ft length sucks. 20220416_160906.jpg20220416_114436.jpg
 
I got the fenders and rear quarter pannels squared away. I've been slowly getting the beadlocks mounted so I can see if they clear or if I need to redo the bump stops or go up a little more. I am not going to raise it more than an inch.

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gslander said:
What size are those?
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They are 37s. Based on the weights I found on line they only way literally 2 pounds more than my current set up. My 34 inch maxxis razors (70 lb) and steel wheels (42 lb) come in at 112 pounds while the 37 inch General x3's (80 lb) and dirty life beadlocks (34 lb) come in at 114. I know that a bigger tire isn't just the extra spinning weight but also the extra leverage it adds. We are going to see how long my dirty 30 holds up.
 
I finally got the tires mounted on the jeep. I still need to make my rear bump stops and add a inch block to finally level the jeep out. Of course I took the time to take some poser shots.

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I finally got the jeep level by using a 1 inch block in the rear. As I was there I made bump stops for the rear out of a set of barnes u-bolt plates and tabs. For the bump stop pad I'm letting my diy "frame" stiffener be the pad. Since they are 1/4 inch thick angle iron. Since my magnet mount for my gmrs antenna had fallen off of my bumper a few times and finally resulted in the wire getting cut I made an antenna mount for it. I'm excited to get this thing out on the trail and play with the 37s.

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Old vs new u bolt plate
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I went to change my front diff fluid after it was rebuilt and I put some miles on it. I found that 1 out of the 6 bolts on the grizzly was completely missing. Another one was un-threaded about half an inch. Out of the others only one was still tight. After inspecting the bolts I couldnt see any signs of any type of thread locker used by yukon. So I sourced a replacement bolt. Then took each one out one at a time and put red locktite on them.

I inspected the diff looking for the missing bolt but couldn't find it. There wasn't any metal shavings to suggest it got ground up. I'm assuming it fell out with the gear oil when I popped the cover off.

I'm just happy I caught this now and not when I hear a loud pop on the trail. Huge shout out to Chris for answering my questions and helping me come up with best course of action.

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Well Rausch Creek was some amazing wheeling. The traction was so great that I exploded my 8.25. It looks like the adjusters in the housing stripped and allowed it to move and that resulted in an axle shaft snapping. When that rear axle shaft snapped it felt like someone hit the underside of the jeep with a sledge hammer. After that is when things got interesting with it being a c-clip axle. In the middle of the glacier deposit we ended up pulling the entire rear axle apart. Due to the adjusters breaking we ended up pulling the carrier out. To get to the c-clip for the broken shaft easier. This also allowed us to pull the ring gear and most of the spartan out. Then we reassembled the rear with just the carrier and outer portions of the locker along with the c-clip retainers and cross pin. This allowed the jeep to be front wheel drive with both rear tires able to roll. We were concerned about there being no way to set the back lash since the adjusters were toasted. It was literally the most open diff ever. With a litte assistants I was able to get back to the main trails. From there it was easy saling in front wheel drive.

My plan is to run a jk rubi 44 in the rear of the jeep.

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Keith1138 said:
Well Rausch Creek was some amazing wheeling. The traction was so great that I exploded my 8.25. It looks like the adjusters in the housing stripped and allowed it to move and that resulted in an axle shaft snapping. When that rear axle shaft snapped it felt like someone hit the underside of the jeep with a sledge hammer. After that is when things got interesting with it being a c-clip axle. In the middle of the glacier deposit we ended up pulling the entire rear axle apart. Due to the adjusters breaking we ended up pulling the carrier out. To get to the c-clip for the broken shaft easier. This also allowed us to pull the ring gear and most of the spartan out. Then we reassembled the rear with just the carrier and outer portions of the locker along with the c-clip retainers and cross pin. This allowed the jeep to be front wheel drive with both rear tires able to roll. We were concerned about there being no way to set the back lash since the adjusters were toasted. It was literally the most open diff ever. With a litte assistants I was able to get back to the main trails. From there it was easy saling in front wheel drive.

My plan is to run a jk rubi 44 in the rear of the jeep.

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Sorry for the break, my money was on the fifty 30 going first.

For the rear, you going links and coil overs?
 
BigClay said:
Sorry for the break, my money was on the fifty 30 going first.

For the rear, you going links and coil overs?
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I agree, I was expecting to break the dirty 30 before I broke the 8.25. Nah just going to strip the 44 down and weld leaf spring and shock mounts and rock out. Linking the rear would be a shit load of work to be able to support the coil overs. I also ain't got that kind of money.
 
That sucks. I wanna check out RC, maybe next year. It just costs a fortune to for a family of 4 to wheel there it seems.

Hope you got some wheeling in before hand!

How long was the tow up there?
 
77GreenMachine said:
That sucks. I wanna check out RC, maybe next year. It just costs a fortune to for a family of 4 to wheel there it seems.

Hope you got some wheeling in before hand!

How long was the tow up there?
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RC was amazing. There is so much traction out there because everything is sedimentary rock. My favorite things were the rock hill climbs and the glacier deposit. Pictures of the glacier deposit doesn't do it justice. Even though that is where I broke. Google says about 8hrs but it ended up being 10hrs with fuel and bathroom breaks. Their trail costs are up there.
 
Keith1138 said:
I agree, I was expecting to break the dirty 30 before I broke the 8.25. Nah just going to strip the 44 down and weld leaf spring and shock mounts and rock out. Linking the rear would be a shit load of work to be able to support the coil overs. I also ain't got that kind of money.
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Thank you for catching that I meant “dirty” and not “fifty” lol

Did any XJs come with a 44 rear? I know the ZJs came with the 44hd (also called 44a due to the aluminum housing).
 
BigClay said:
Thank you for catching that I meant “dirty” and not “fifty” lol

Did any XJs come with a 44 rear? I know the ZJs came with the 44hd (also called 44a due to the aluminum housing).
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Very few of the early ones did i believe
 
Would an 8.8 not be more economical than a JK axle?









Just go ahead and buy super duty 1 tons before you break that Dana 30 next :D
 
NickMaul said:
Would an 8.8 not be more economical than a JK axle?









Just go ahead and buy super duty 1 tons before you break that Dana 30 next :D
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Based on my calculations they come out about the same. The front axle is something I concerned about and trying to decided on a course of action
 
NickMaul said:
Just go ahead and buy super duty 1 tons before you break that Dana 30 next :D
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Let's see... He's broken a few times, but gotten right back on the trail in the time you've been dicking around with that solution of yours 😎
 
New to me jk dana 44 rubi is unloaded. My goal is to get it stripped down next week. As everything else arrives for the axle swap. Gears are going to wait till I get it in. My plan is to get the axle in and pull the front drive shaft. Till I get it regeared to match the front. 20220625_122918.jpg20220625_124631.jpg
 
Well with the help of some friends we got the rear axle stripped and built. Then we went about getting it installed with all new brakes, e brakes and chromos. Once it gets geared i will install my hd diff cover. After we had the rear axle squared away we moved on to fixing my hydro assist.
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We ended up flipping the ram around and making new brackets. This allowed it to push more parrell to the axle. While we were doing that we noticed that one of my front u joints was absolutely trashed. All four caps were broken on the bottom and 2 had cracks in the top of the caps. Tacking the caps on saved me from blowing that u joint out limping out at rausch creek.


With the jeep up on the lift we noticed I had kissed the transfer case on a few rocks. So we took a skid plate that was originally on a jt that was modified to be an exhuast skid for a jk to fit my xj. We also reinforced the frame rails to handle the extra force from the skid plate.
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Here's a video of said u joint. The tack welded caps is the only thing that kept it from blowing out driving out in 2 wheel drive at rausch creek.
 
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