High travel, high clearance & high octane, a streetable adventure LJ story

jjvw said:
What color will the rub rails be?
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Probably will leave the rails raw stainless. It might be a while until I get to painting in the meantime they'll be left raw. If they don't corrode I may leave them. If they do corrode they'll be sand blasted and painted. Fender flares will also be painted red. I do expect everything to get fairly scratched up after a few trails, I'll probably leave it scratched and repaint every few years if it ever bothers me that much.
 
toximus said:
Probably will leave the rails raw stainless. It might be a while until I get to painting in the meantime they'll be left raw. If they don't corrode I may leave them. If they do corrode they'll be sand blasted and painted. Fender flares will also be painted red. I do expect everything to get fairly scratched up after a few trails, I'll probably leave it scratched and repaint every few years if it ever bothers me that much.
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I would argue for clear lenses with the raw aluminum, smoked lenses with red.
 
To align the front axle I started by centering it. To do so, I marked the center point on the front bumper and marked the center point behind the rear wheels (I previously aligned the rear axle). I then measured and marked the center of the front axle. I placed a laser in front of the Jeep and aligned the laser to the front bumper mark and rear axle mark, I then used the track bar to align the front axle to it's center at ride height.

20190402_center-front-axle.jpg


Next I toed the knuckles to 1/8" toe-out (yes, this is different than you would do on a stock TJ) by clamping angle to the rotors and measuring across front and rear — 37" apart. I moved the angle back and pointed the knuckles straight using measurements from the frame of the Jeep.

20190402_knuckles-straight.jpg


Finally I used a bubble level on the steering wheel and adjusted the drag link to get the steering wheel straight. My concrete is level in this spot, or else I would have to account for the slope.

After every change to the linkages I went through this process and then cycled the steering. Rinse and repeat.
 
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Mike_H said:
Nice Work man. Starting to come together.
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Thanks. I feel like I'm finally starting on the downhill.

psrivats said:
I like 3x3. The black one in the photo withb the painted red corners looks good.
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Wildman said:
I like the smoked lens over the white lens but that is because I like the smoked look more.
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jjvw said:
I would argue for clear lenses with the raw aluminum, smoked lenses with red.
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Thanks for the votes and opinions. I decided on black/smoke/midnight.
 
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I think I remember reading earlier in your thread you were pushing the front axle forward? Can you explain a little about how you did this?
 
Wildman said:
I think I remember reading earlier in your thread you were pushing the front axle forward? Can you explain a little about how you did this?
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Yes, a 2" stretch in the front. The purpose behind this on my LJ was only for packaging. The larger Dana 60 fit better around the engine and exhaust and the 37s fit better on the fenders. There's not any cons for this small of a stretch either and still keeps me within my target wheelbase. I talked to the mid-arm designer and there won't be any geometry drawbacks either.

Basically I just extended the control arms by 2" on the upper and lowers and then dialed them in from there to their final lengths. I'm going to have to count how many threads from the Johnny Joints are engaged in the arms.. I might need to purchase longer links to account for it. From there, the rest of the linkages were just placed where they needed to go in front of the axle.

Hopefully this answered your question. If you have any more specific questions I might be able to help out a little better.
 
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Okay that explains it really good. Plus it helps me with mine. I don't have a RJ60 but I have a HP44 so I have been dealing with packaging issues because when I built the TJ the first time I wasn't thinking about moving things past stock locations but moved the front axle forward about an inch. My steering & trackbar hate each other right now.
 
Wildman said:
Okay that explains it really good. Plus it helps me with mine. I don't have a RJ60 but I have a HP44 so I have been dealing with packaging issues because when I built the TJ the first time I wasn't thinking about moving things past stock locations but moved the front axle forward about an inch. My steering & trackbar hate each other right now.
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For stock (inverted-y) style steering I'd keep the axle in the stock location. It plays nicely there. It's not worth the effort to go to custom steering for an inch of wheelbase on a TJ imho. I'm assuming you're running 35s or smaller on the 44? If that is the case, I'd keep things stock, it just works well and is very good value for your time and money imho. If you really feel like pushing to 100-101" with 35s, I'd focus getting it from the rear where it's going to be easier and keep the front stock.
 
I'm on TSL Super Swamper SX 38x12.5x16.5 tires right now. They measure out to just over 37" tall when mounted. I'm also running a Ford HP44 narrowed to Waggy width. And a TeraLow CRD60 rear. I wasn't trying to move the axle forward it was how the RE bracket kit was welded onto the axle. But because I wasn't thinking outside the box when I was putting it together I missed that and didn't try moving trackbar mounts at the time.

We all live and learn. So I'm going to try and do a better job during this redo.
 
To fit the hydro-assist cylinder in I had to get the Currie mini truss mounts off the axle tube. Took some grinding and hammering:

20190403_front-axle-remove-truss.jpg


20190403_front-axle-truss-removed.jpg


I drove down to the "big city" and picked up a 20-ton shop press from Harbor Freight. What should have been a 30-45 minute setup ended up taking multiple trips to Harbor Freight to get one that worked.

While the axle was out, I took apart the steering linkages to inner-sleeve them with solid round (more on this in my next post) and for fun I threw a scrap of 1" 6061-T6 solid round bar into the press to watch it deflect and spring back into shape... Only it remained bent... I'm pretty sure the steel yard sold me 6061 (or some other aluminum) without heat treatment even though I asked the guy multiple times that it was INDEED heat treated T6. At this point it's been a nearly a year since I bought it and it's my word against his on what I bought. I hate buying local these days... there's little to no benefit. Anyone have project ideas for this mystery aluminum (use as ingots in a forge?)?

So not much Jeep work got done on this weekend.

Until I get real 6061-T6 in, the front axle is in a holding pattern. I did pick up an oxy-acetylene torch and bottles so at least I have that going for me.
 
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The new metal came in! I don't know for sure what the old stuff is, but the new stuff acts like I'd expect.

SpeedyMetals messed up half my order and sent some steel instead of aluminum, but everything critical to the steering is here. Xometry is well worth checking out for their prices. They also have a lot of coupons so be sure to search for those. https://www.xometry.com/supplies/materials
 
At the end of April we went camping in the khaki TJ up in MI at Drummond Island.

20190426_khaki-tj-camping.jpg


Unfortunately the locker pump sucked in water earlier in the day and the lockers went out right as I was coming up to this ledge climb:



(If you can't see the video, click here: [LINK]https://jeep.yellowgoo.com/khaki_tj/drummond-2019.webm[/LINK])

Getting back to the build thread, since I have the toe set, I finalized the tie rod to firm it up, the tie rod is made from 1.25" DOM and inner-sleeved with heat treated 1" 4140 solid round bar:

20190417_tie-rod-materials.jpg


Innersleeving has 2 benefits: 1) the tubing won't dent and fail. And 2) the tubing gets strengthened.

Each end got 3 rosette welds to the threaded rod end insert, and welded all the way around.

20190417_tie-rod-holes.jpg


20190417_tie-rod-rosettes.jpg


The heat from the welding warped the threads slightly so I chased them with a tap. Some of the taps were difficult to find especially at reasonable prices for only chasing threads. Here's the part numbers and sources of the taps: The right hand 7/8"14 tap I used is Drill America DWT54892, the left hand 7/8"-14 tap is Drill America DWT60891.

20190605_tie-rod-tap-threads.jpg


That's all there is to the tierod.

 
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I've been asked a couple of times if the UCA mount is too far forward, so I aligned a laser from the center of one side of the axle tube to the other. The joint is dead center on the top of the housing and angled to point straight at the frame side mount at ride height:

20190606_UCA-centered.jpg
 
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I ordered a blank Saginaw flat pitman arm from PartsMike:

http://www.partsmike.com/index.php/products/pm536fpa-pitman-arm-flat-undrilled-525-7

Also sold by PSC as PA700: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/pfn-pa700

I then drilled and reamed it to 4.929" center to center to match my mock up. To remind you from one of my earlier posts, DO NOT use my measurements as any sort of guide for yours. Make mockups and figure out the length you need, there's no way to short cut this frustrating process and still get perfect results. For reaming, you really need a drill press in order to get it straight, so I'd put that fully on the shopping list before starting this project if you don't have one already — it'll also make drilling all of the many holes so much easier. I'm using the XKUT #5952 (1-1/2" per foot) reamer I mentioned a few posts ago to match the taper of the TREs.

The first mark on the arm is at 4.9", second is the 4.929" I went with:

20190607_pitman-arm-drill.jpg


20190607_pitman-arm-taper.jpg


I kept checking the depth of the taper by tightening down the TRE. I wanted just enough so that a cotter pin will slide through the castle and no more.

20190608_test-fit-tre-pitman.jpg


Somehow mine ended up perfectly clocked on the sector shaft (what are the chances?) but It's highly possible that the pitman arm wasn't going to be clocked on the splines the same as my mockup. If that was the case, I can either bend the arm or reposition the TRE on the upper steering arm slightly to correct. A custom waterjet arm with press fit splines is also be an option if those routes don't pan out. I had bought the shop press and oxy acetylene setup just for this moment! I'll have to come up with an excuse to get my flame on another time.

The arm is thicker than my mockup arm was so the castle nut on the top needed additional clearance from the frame. I'll clean up my notch and be plating over it at a later step.

20190608_pitman-arm-installed.jpg
 
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Have you ever considered using McMaster-Carr for materials? You can also ask for material cert’s so you can prove what it is. I work in a machine shop that’s 95% aluminum(6061, sometimes heat treated material) and we order material from all over, just has to have certifications.
 
ranger101 said:
Have you ever considered using McMaster-Carr for materials? You can also ask for material cert’s so you can prove what it is. I work in a machine shop that’s 95% aluminum(6061, sometimes heat treated material) and we order material from all over, just has to have certifications.
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I've been buying a lot of hardware from them for years but I actually hadn't thought of metal materials or even considered that they carry them. I'll have to try them next time.

I would like to eventually swap the links out for solid round with threaded ends (vs welded) but I haven't found anybody who can do it for a reasonable price. Since safety isn't my concern it's difficult to justify it.
 
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