Ok guys, I had a much more successful evening last night.
Ended up getting the control arms jam nuts broken loose. They weren’t so much seized to the threads as much as they were seized to the arms, so they were both turning at once. Very weird. Once I knew they were loose I attached the track bar at the axle and torqued it down. What you’re about to see is strange. When I inserted the bar into the bracket there was a ton of real estate between the ends of the JJ and the housing. It clamped together once the bolt was torqued but apparently there are two different types of Currie bracket with a narrow and wide insert. I’ll take my chances with this one for now and if I get any slop down the road I’ll just stuff some washers in there and call it good.
Threw the stock DS back on and adjusted the pinion treating it like a CV, so now my rear pinion is dialed in and I can measure for a new DS.
Once I had that taken care of I moved on to adjusting the pinion. I threw the stock DS back on and adjusted everything treating it like a CV. This will allow me to measure for a new one.
View of the new Currie track bar bracket with room to spare between the Savvy GTS.
As for the exhaust, here is my idea, and it’s actually pretty simple. If you look at the previous post, I cut the stock tail pipe off right where it straightens out and meets the OEM muffler. Last night I put the stock tailpipe back on the hangars and started to measure. The stock muffler body is 20” long, and 9.5” wide, give or take. There is no way it’s going to fit under there as the connecting pipe sits a few inches behind the Savvy skid and I lose all of that real estate.
From the tailpipe to the connector on the front pipe is roughly 22”. The reason I want to use the stock tailpipe assembly is that it is already setup to operate with a “stock” setup. Since all I did was rotate the pinion and correct the track bar location, I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t work.
Throughout the various TT exhaust threads, I have seen the Hush Thrush muffler mentioned many times at being an excellent alternative to stock. The Jeep is already loud and I don’t want a screaming exhaust or drone in the cab to add to it. I screenshot the spec sheets to the proper muffler below.
The body width and height is right around the same as the OEM muffler, but this one is only 14” long! That would give me an extra 8” of pipe space to work with between the current tail pipe and the connector in the front pipe. So my plan is this, take the connector on the front pipe and extend it past where the Savvy skid sits.
This way I have easy access to disconnect them without removing the skid. Then I’ll probably take the rear tail pipe, cut part of the downward section off, and bring it up to match the height of the muffler.
Looking around under there, I see no reason why this can’t work. It’s a pretty simple plan but I have confidence everything will fit nicely. The only hiccup I may see happening is interference with the track bar and the exhaust. But I’ll play with that once I’m ready to tackle the exhaust, which I am now ready to do since
@kmas0n so generously offered to loan me a welder.
But I had a great time and definitely want to see her again.
But one of the brackets is touching the tub so it will definitely be transferring vibs. Something will get put in its place eventually.
