GATORB8 LJ Build
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I’m going crazy with it myself. Waking up with night sweats. LOL
Cheaper than I expected, all the 1350 stuff for JLs from TW and Adams were $600+.
Oh well, good to go local and it will be here tomorrow.
Criss cross apple sauce. V8 Dakota MC in and brakes bled. Outputs were swapped on the MC.
Drag link number two is a success, I must had too many blue mountains when I made the original 5” too long, lol. I’m getting a whole 7 inches of tie rod movement even with the Wagoneer Pittman.
I think I bought exactly enough spacers to shorten the ram.
Gonna steer like a school bus. Should have done more research before pulling the trigger on the Barnes high steer. Excuse for Reid’s down the road, I guess.
I think I bought exactly enough spacers to shorten the ram.
Gonna steer like a school bus. Should have done more research before pulling the trigger on the Barnes high steer. Excuse for Reid’s down the road, I guess.
I’m pretty confident I’m losing Friday as a driving day at this point. Y’all pray for me, tomorrow’s the appointment with orthopedics, hopefully I’m not in a cast tomorrow night.
Oh, and I managed to trap the track bar bolt I need to move up behind the tie rod. At least they’re heims.
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Hey man, what's wrong with steering like a school bus?
Why do you think the Barnes hi-steer will cause problems?
Hey man, what's wrong with steering like a school bus?
Why do you think the Barnes hi-steer will cause problems?
Barnes has two versions of the arms (I actually bought them both, well really 3).
They have a 05-08 only one called Hi-Steer that puts the drag link behind the tie rod, but recommend it more for full hydro.
They have three versions of their Crossover High Steer, one for each of the knuckle variations. I have one 05 knuckle and one 09 knuckle so I have half of each of those kits.
The Crossover high steer puts the drag link about 10.5" outboard of the knuckle pivot/BJs, and the Tie Rod 8.5" out. I think factory SD tie rod is around 7.5". That means I have to have 25% more drag link throw then tie rod throw, and to use all of knuckle steering stop I need 15% more tie rod throw than stock.
Stock is 8" throw for stops.
I would need 8.75" or so tie rod throw to hit stops, so that means I would need almost 11" of drag link throw.
With the Waggy arm (6.75" hole to hole) and PSC box, I can only get 8.75" of drag link throw, so only 7" of tie rod throw.
That means, compared to a stock LJ and stock Superduty I turn like a 156" WB crew cab superduty, lol, here's how my steering looks:
Thanks for the explanation. Looking forward to seeing how it all works out.
Dos
They sent the wrong straps for the front axle. Found them at advanced. Made it 10 minutes before they closed.
They sent the wrong straps for the front axle. Found them at advanced. Made it 10 minutes before they closed.
Well, I gave it my damnedest. I cannot open the Ram to do the spacers inside. Fubared the finish pretty good in the vice. Even the air hammer didn’t work.
On the shaft they go.
On the shaft they go.
Whew, I'm running on fumes, boys. Made it to 3 AM in the garage last night and sitting at my desk at work this morning.
I can't for the life of me figure out a way to mount the ram assist with the tabs I have on hand. I'm throwing it in a bag, and we'll see if someone is smarter than me around the fire in Moab. With the high steer and relatively low Track Bar Axle Side Mount there is just too much crap behind the tie rod and I don't have room on top without limiting uptravel even further. Only thing I've come up with is to undersling it, which of course makes the high steer retarded in the first place. I'll have to run on box for now.
I'm outta time, so bear with me on the stuff that happens in the next couple days, it probably won't be my standard two star quality level.
Here's the plan. Do everything in my power today to make the Jeep drivable tonight, those are the items now marked "D" on my to do list. I'm going to try to sweet talk my buddies at Outlaw Offroad into throwing the Jeep on their new alignment rack Friday morning and dialing it in for me, I need them to rebalance the front wheels since I'm scalping the weights with the massive calipers. I needed some new fittings for the PSC and was able to order those same day from Amazon (Evil Energy).
So everything else on the list falls into two categories, Jerry Rig fast as possible and fix later, or skip and pray.
Jerry Rig:
ARB Compressor and Locker Lines: It's going on the floor behind the passenger seat with tape or something, and I'll run the power and air lines through the drain with a pile of zip ties. I have a cheapo Nilight Carling three gang box coming for the switches and it'll live in the passenger seat or something, lol.
Limit straps: I have PRPs on order, but they haven't shipped yet. May need to be a little careful.
Won't get done:
Corners
Parking Brake
The ORO LP lamp/3rd brake light
Switch Panel (other than the temp ARB)
Driving LIghts
I can't for the life of me figure out a way to mount the ram assist with the tabs I have on hand. I'm throwing it in a bag, and we'll see if someone is smarter than me around the fire in Moab. With the high steer and relatively low Track Bar Axle Side Mount there is just too much crap behind the tie rod and I don't have room on top without limiting uptravel even further. Only thing I've come up with is to undersling it, which of course makes the high steer retarded in the first place. I'll have to run on box for now.
I'm outta time, so bear with me on the stuff that happens in the next couple days, it probably won't be my standard two star quality level.
Here's the plan. Do everything in my power today to make the Jeep drivable tonight, those are the items now marked "D" on my to do list. I'm going to try to sweet talk my buddies at Outlaw Offroad into throwing the Jeep on their new alignment rack Friday morning and dialing it in for me, I need them to rebalance the front wheels since I'm scalping the weights with the massive calipers. I needed some new fittings for the PSC and was able to order those same day from Amazon (Evil Energy).
So everything else on the list falls into two categories, Jerry Rig fast as possible and fix later, or skip and pray.
Jerry Rig:
ARB Compressor and Locker Lines: It's going on the floor behind the passenger seat with tape or something, and I'll run the power and air lines through the drain with a pile of zip ties. I have a cheapo Nilight Carling three gang box coming for the switches and it'll live in the passenger seat or something, lol.
Limit straps: I have PRPs on order, but they haven't shipped yet. May need to be a little careful.
Won't get done:
Corners
Parking Brake
The ORO LP lamp/3rd brake light
Switch Panel (other than the temp ARB)
Driving LIghts
Nachos belong on the D priority level after all this
Haha, I've had a sweet set of Grande SAEs on my shelf for a year, I was going to put them on my truck. Would have been a nice little cherry on top, they are some trick lights.
The square end of the cylinder body is where you grab it in the vise with some soft jaws. Never grab, clamp, or hold the body where the piston moves inside. If you dent or distort the body, the piston can stick and cause loss of steering worst case, or best case just wear out the piston faster. If a spanner doesn't work in the two holes, we have at times had to resort to a good pipe wrench on the aluminum end cap. I've opened and destroked several dozen cylinders and only had to pipe wrench the end cap on 2 of them.
I'm glad no one ever expects me to do and understand math to make steering work perfectly. I'd never be able to do this if they did.
Can't believe I didn't even notice that, I'm definitely suffering from lack of downtime. I tried to look up a process and came up empty last night. The whole time I was doing it I was thinking I was missing something.
Maybe PSC will have a nice sale at EJS and I'll get a replacement.
Thank you!
Sexy.
With this phase of the project, I realistically bit off more than I could chew when I set my EJS goal. I normally do a ton more research on everything, there are a lot of things I would have done differently. I bought the LJ while I was still on a high from running Rubicon last year and fired the cash cannon at it. I've learned a lot, and the best part is there isn't anything I can't redo the right way over the next couple years.
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