Secondhand Tin Can.

jeepin' jen said:
Not the handicap rails!!!! Those things saved me from my busting my ass countless times šŸ¤£
Click to expand...
If you were taller you could just grab the cage.... I am planning to leave them sticking out enough to serve as handles for my elders.
 
As parts arrive the axle is getting assembled to make sure everything plays well together. The current piece of tube for the tie rod is just for mock up. Location for the hydraulic ram has been figured out but tabs can't be installed till the track bar bracket is in its finale resting place.
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I finally have everything I need to complete this axle and bolt it in. My goal is to get it in by the new year. Things left to do is set the gears up, bolt it in, bump stops, set track bar mount and hydro assist mount. Then figure out limit strap lengths and wheel it.
 
I finally had time to get the front axle in. First portion of the install went great up until I went to align everything. For some reason all of my links were about 2 inches too long to work and didn't have enough adjustment. I think this was a combination of when I made the links the first time trying to keep plenty of thread engament. Mixed with the 44 having larger axle tubes and mounts in slightly different places. After I got the links fixed I was able to get it aligned fairly well. Side to side is with in an 1/8 of each other. The pinion is within 0.5 degrees of being "flat" at ride height which gives me about 6 degrees of caster. The only concerning thing is my front drive shaft only has a inch of slip showing at ride height but I only have 4 inches of up travel.

I'll get pictures to add to this tomorrow. Since posts with out pics are useless lol.
 
The finale piece arrived today. Hopefully I'll get it in one night this week and I can start fully testing everything.

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Alot has happened since the last time I updated this.

1) First of which I found my flex plate was cracked and making one hell of a knock. It was easier said than done with me running a one piece crossmember for my link arms and transmission. I took the opportunity to install a barnes 4wd 3 piece crossmember. To make any future transmission work easier. After we installed a new flexplate the starter ring made slight contact with the cps and took it out. It didnt rip it off but scored it pretty bad. I had to shim the new cps with a washer to space it out enough to work.
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2) Another thing I accomplished was I finally took the time to shorten my rear quarter pannel rub rails 1.5 inches. This allows my tire to hit before my rub rails make contact.
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3) While I was working on my rear quarter pannel armor I took the time to re-configured my rear light set up. I ditched using a 3/4 eagle eye as a dust light and ditched it for a diode dynamic amber LED Pod on either side. The pods are wired to the same flash controller I used with the eagle eyes. I also relocated my turn signal light to below my tail light.
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4) I was having an injector issue so I took the opertunity to replace my broken connectors with new pigtails. I also upgraded my injectors to the 4 hole injectors sold by K Suspension. The jeep idles alot smoother and seems to have more power.

5) My jeep had developed a side to side lean in the rear. The ride quality in the rear had also deteriorated. I decided to replace my worn out 3.5 inch RE leaf springs with a 1inch block to some 4.5 inch clayton springs. After I removed the old springs I found one pack was an inch lower than the other. This required me to raise my rear bumpstops about 3/4s of an inch because bumpstops mounted off of the u-bolt plate and im no longer running the 1 inch block. I accomplished this by making a box with threaded inserts.
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After installing new leaf springs my shackles were not happy. The bushings were completely gone. So I ordered a set of clayton shackles. To me the Clayton's had the best design to allow the leafs springs and bushings to flex. Due to the larger bushing size on the clayton shackles the top interfered with a bolt on the relocation brackets. This caused me to have to use a different hole than I previously used. I think my shackles angle is still going to work.

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At the get together @Tails was following behind me and told me my spider kept looking at the ground. This told me it was time to put an anti-wrap bar on.

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