Arizona Rock Crawling Daily Driver

[psrivats]

So the last couple of days, my project has been extending the front upper shock towers to fit my new to me tuned 11.5” travel fox shocks I got from Blaine. Even with my poly outboard lower mounts on the axle, they were still a little long.

I set them up for 6” of uptravel and 5.5” of downtravel. My reasoning was that my springs unseat at 5.5” of downtravel so much more than that is fairly pointless, as well as I still have short arms up front. I think on the RJ 4” lift, 5.5” of downtravel is about the most I am comfortable with because the arm angle gets fairly steep there.

I ran an idea by Blaine to extend my towers, and Blaine countered my idea with a better idea (go figure) . We used a cutoff set of stock shock towers to extend mine. The idea was to make it look unmodified.
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First step was making a setup stick. Since these shocks just have bushings and not heims, I didn’t get fancy with it like I will the rear. I just cut a stick to the length I wanted my shock to be at ride height. The amount sticking up is how tall my tower needed to be.
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Cutoff the top of the tower
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Make an extension piece out of the tower blaine sent me.
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I made it this way because the rounded bit in front sets the height, and then the extension has a skirt that goes around my existing tower. This gave me two sides to weld on and room for plug welds on the sides.
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Turns out sticks are pretty precise.
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With both sides tacked in I cycled suspension.
Droop
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Stuffed with a tire. 6” of uptravel stuffed with a 35 into highlines is pretty uneventful looking lol.
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Clearance at the shock tower
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I definitely have some rubbing on the forward must spring perch corner but we will live with it.
Full bump.
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Had to clock back the PSC cylinder because the fitting would hit the frame with 1/4” of shock shaft showing. Now we have a little space there.
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Welded up and ground smooth
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Painted.
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Had to cut the inner fenders to make room for the shock tower as well as the stem on top. It needed room to move around during articulation. I also took the time to trim the front grill support of the fender so the AR would stop hitting it. I painted it black because the factory chose not to paint that part of the grill. I like the new look.
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Just buttoned her up and drove home from my dads and it feels amazing.
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Big thank you to @mrblaine for all of your help with the project. Now that the front is done I’ll move on to prepping for the rear projects!

That looks very clean .. great job. Looking forward to how you do the rear!

 

[CV04TJR]

View attachment 346243

Very cool, my favorite modifications are the ones that look stock.

 

[starkey480]

Was going to do my rear axle project first, then move to my dads rig but my dad needed a new radiator so I thought, might as well go put an auto radiator in for when we do an auto swap. But then I thought about how I would want to center the fan in the shroud again anyways when we do a tummy tuck soon so might as well do a tuck now at the same time. But if I’m doing the tummy tuck now I probably want to do the auto swap now too… while I’m setting pinion angle anyways after the tuck I might as well swap these rockjock springs in the rear as well… since I’m pulling the springs I should probably put @rasband old rear fox shocks he gave us in as well to set the bumps. Shit, I got these Currie mini skids I might as well weld up front for him too… FUCK

Today we stripped the rig of almost everything manual. So far we took out the:
Radiator
Shroud
PCM
Center console
Shifter plate and boot and all that
Brake pedal assembly
Clutch slave cylinder
Driveshafts
Skid plates
Tcase

Super fun day wrenching with my old man.

 

[psrivats]

Was going to do my rear axle project first, then move to my dads rig but my dad needed a new radiator so I thought, might as well go put an auto radiator in for when we do an auto swap. But then I thought about how I would want to center the fan in the shroud again anyways when we do a tummy tuck soon so might as well do a tuck now at the same time. But if I’m doing the tummy tuck now I probably want to do the auto swap now too… while I’m setting pinion angle anyways after the tuck I might as well swap these rockjock springs in the rear as well… since I’m pulling the springs I should probably put @rasband old rear fox shocks he gave us in as well to set the bumps. Shit, I got these Currie mini skids I might as well weld up front for him too… FUCK

Today we stripped the rig of almost everything manual. So far we took out the:
Radiator
Shroud
PCM
Center console
Shifter plate and boot and all that
Brake pedal assembly
Clutch slave cylinder
Driveshafts
Skid plates
Tcase

Super fun day wrenching with my old man.

Customary video for this situation -

 

[RINC]

Was going to do my rear axle project first, then move to my dads rig but my dad needed a new radiator so I thought, might as well go put an auto radiator in for when we do an auto swap. But then I thought about how I would want to center the fan in the shroud again anyways when we do a tummy tuck soon so might as well do a tuck now at the same time. But if I’m doing the tummy tuck now I probably want to do the auto swap now too… while I’m setting pinion angle anyways after the tuck I might as well swap these rockjock springs in the rear as well… since I’m pulling the springs I should probably put @rasband old rear fox shocks he gave us in as well to set the bumps. Shit, I got these Currie mini skids I might as well weld up front for him too… FUCK

Today we stripped the rig of almost everything manual. So far we took out the:
Radiator
Shroud
PCM
Center console
Shifter plate and boot and all that
Brake pedal assembly
Clutch slave cylinder
Driveshafts
Skid plates
Tcase

Super fun day wrenching with my old man.

I installed an auto radiator when mine blew out recently. Is that a gateway to an auto swap like the phone holder I got a gateway to a roof top tent?

Hope to meet your Dad this winter. I have not convinced mine to ride with me.

 

[5632]

starkey480 - If you were to ever to do work for other people I would have you improve my Jeep.

 

[kmas0n]

My Jeep project started with re looming the headlight wires. So I'll pull the fender for access. Oh, might as well do this. And this, and ....
Well you have seen my build thread

 

[starkey480]

I have a feeling that auto swap aside, I would have been pulling this trans in short order anyways….

 

[rasband]

I have a feeling that auto swap aside, I would have been pulling this trans in short order anyways….
View attachment 350461

That wasn't balanced at all. I'm guessing PO that didn't use the centering tool or tighten in a star pattern... Was there any noise?

Btw, you need to start a "sins of the father" build thread...

 

[starkey480]

That wasn't balanced at all. I'm guessing PO that didn't use the centering tool or tighten in a star pattern... Was there any noise?

Btw, you need to start a "sins of the father" build thread...

Honestly the clutch worked fine aside from a little shudder on takeoff. I really do need a build thread for him

 

[rasband]

Honestly the clutch worked fine aside from a little shudder on takeoff. I really do need a build thread for him

I bet that wear was the shudder, good timing for the swap. Rock on Papa Stark!

 

[mrblaine]

That wasn't balanced at all. I'm guessing PO that didn't use the centering tool or tighten in a star pattern... Was there any noise?

Btw, you need to start a "sins of the father" build thread...

The alignment tool had nothing to do with it. Once the input shaft goes through the clutch disc and registers in the pilot bearing, that is as straight as it will ever get and it won't do that unless it is straight to begin with. That and the first time the clutch pedal moves the pressure plate to disengage, the disc is free floating on the shaft and any misalignment would be instantly corrected at that point.

That is just wear and tear, nothing more.

 

[rasband]

The alignment tool had nothing to do with it. Once the input shaft goes through the clutch disc and registers in the pilot bearing, that is as straight as it will ever get and it won't do that unless it is straight to begin with. That and the first time the clutch pedal moves the pressure plate to disengage, the disc is free floating on the shaft and any misalignment would be instantly corrected at that point.

That is just wear and tear, nothing more.

Today I learned, I'm just surprised how lopsided it is. But I've only changed a few clutches in my life.

 

[starkey480]

I found the rest of the clutch!

 

[mrblaine]

Today I learned, I'm just surprised how lopsided it is. But I've only changed a few clutches in my life.

Manuals are funny beasts. We all see the same reports of noisy throw out bearings and that's how we know they need replacement. We did a manual to auto swap, had to move the rig around several times so we were not aware of any evidence of a bad throw out bearing, no noise, no rough engagement or disengagement, worked just fine. Pulled the trans and all of the ball bearings out of the throw-out bearing were laying in the bottom of the bellhousing. Given the amount of greasy goo that stuck them in place, they'd been there more than a few days.

 

[mrblaine]

I found the rest of the clutch!

View attachment 350498

I've seen similar but a lot more of it. Moving company I worked for was towing a medium duty gasser over to the shop to work on the brakes which were completely shot. Somehow they neglected to consider how the rig would stop. The owner's daughter was driving the towed rig, was about to run into the back of the tow rig, dropped it in 3rd gear and dumped the clutch. It fully exploded the clutch disc into a very large pile of fur.

 

[starkey480]

My dads Jeep now identifies as a “they”. All manual parts are gone from the Jeep.
Today we pulled out the transmission and everything behind it. I used my little harbor freight blind puller to get the bearing out. Super easy. Then used the bread trick again to get the pilot bearing sleeve out. That trick always kind of amazes me lol.

 

[starkey480]

I've seen similar but a lot more of it. Moving company I worked for was towing a medium duty gasser over to the shop to work on the brakes which were completely shot. Somehow they neglected to consider how the rig would stop. The owner's daughter was driving the towed rig, was about to run into the back of the tow rig, dropped it in 3rd gear and dumped the clutch. It fully exploded the clutch disc into a very large pile of fur.

I think he was one bad day away from that.

 

[rasband]

My dads Jeep now identifies as a “they”. All manual parts are gone from the Jeep.
Today we pulled out the transmission and everything behind it. I used my little harbor freight blind puller to get the bearing out. Super easy. Then used the bread trick again to get the pilot bearing sleeve out. That trick always kind of amazes me lol.

I don't know if this is common or not, but my pilot bearing sleeve came out much easier than the auto's crank bushing. So much so that we played with the idea of making a hydraulic press until Mike eventually just welded a slide hammer to the bushing.

 

[PRNDL]

My dads Jeep now identifies as a “they”. All manual parts are gone from the Jeep.
Today we pulled out the transmission and everything behind it. I used my little harbor freight blind puller to get the bearing out. Super easy. Then used the bread trick again to get the pilot bearing sleeve out. That trick always kind of amazes me lol.

I keep hearing about this "bread trick" but I have no idea what it actually means...