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

[B00mb00m]

yes, meant HA fitting and can. Thats true its a real corner condition interference.

If i ever have to crack my system back open I'm going to have the custom crimp lines made that replicate my assembled hoses just to get more room in both locations.

I'm interested to hear how the tighter torsion bar feels at hwy speeds.

 

[toximus]

I'm interested to hear how the tighter torsion spring feels at hwy speeds.

I wish I had the answer for you now but I was an idiot and totally forgot to buy all thread for bleeding the IFP in my coilovers and didn't realize it until I already had them apart yesterday. Once I get them off the workbench and onto my Jeep I'm going to work on breaking in gears. Remind me if I forget to answer your question. I also need to drive by a scale for a guy on Pirate who wants to know my final weight (which I'm also curious about).

 

[D M]

I had always wanted to read this thread but never gotten around to it, I just read the whole thing and all I can say is, it was worth every second. I guess I know what ill be doing when I win the lottery

 

[toximus]

I had always wanted to read this thread but never gotten around to it, I just read the whole thing and all I can say is, it was worth every second. I guess I know what ill be doing when I win the lottery

I'm glad you're enjoying the thread!

Building this Jeep has been a priority in my life. I had to cut spending in a lot of other areas of my life to be able to have the budget for this build (Mrs. Tox has helped me save too). That's not typically a side of my life that is seen on this forum since the topic generally is about Jeeps.

 

[D M]

I'm glad you're enjoying the thread!

Building this Jeep has been a priority in my life. I had to cut spending in a lot of other areas of my life to be able to have the budget for this build (Mrs. Tox has helped me save too). That's not typically a side of my life that is seen on this forum since the topic generally is about Jeeps.

Im glad to see others living the dream, as a 17 year old senior about to graduate high school, I cant wait for whats next!

 

[toximus]

I had lost oil and introduced air in the rear coilovers when changing the remote reservoirs to Fox DSCs so I took them apart and bled them. It took just under a quart of shock oil to do both.

They're actually very quick to rebuild, just messy.

I did mess up one bearing cap. Thankfully @pcoplin gave me a tip which redeemed the part and thankfully I didn't have to wait on a replacement.

I followed these video tutorials for rebuilding the shocks:

 

[toximus]

I loaded up the coilovers with their new springs and got them back on the Jeep.

The front springs are Eibach 2.5" 14x150/16x250 with 1" preload.
The rear springs are Eibach 3.0" 14x125/16x200 with 1.5" preload.

The lockout rings which stop the dual rate slider were set to prevent coil bind on the upper springs. I'm going to play around with the position to see if an earlier transition into the harsher spring is beneficial.

I charged the coilovers with 200psi of nitrogen. The idea here is that the nitrogen keeps pressure on the internal floating piston (IFP) which separates the nitrogen from the oil. If you have too low of pressure the piston can cavitate in the oil, if you have too high the IFP won't be able to move. Generally, ride quality changes should be made by changing shock shims not by changing nitrogen pressure.

The pressure in the bumpstops is set to 1/6 of the corner weight. The front corners weigh 787lbs so I set the front air bumps to 130psi. The rear corners weigh 590lbs and the air bumps are set to 100psi. Unlike shocks, air bumps can be tuned with pressure. 1/6 of weight is just a starting point and will change as I get the suspension dialed in.

The ride height with those springs came out just about perfect. I'm going to see how things settle over a few drives, and may need to adjust preload slightly to dial in ride height. Right now the coilovers have the factory tune in them. Once I get a baseline on the ride quality I'll figure out how I want them tuned.

(The rear parking brake cable gets in the way and is disconnected until I finalize the tune in the coilovers)

 

[Chris]

That thing looks awesome so far!

 

[pcoplin]

Looks great. Nice work.

I think you'll find you can run less pressure in the bump stops, they can be pretty harsh and cause kicking when you get into the desert. But definitely play with it, see how it feels.

 

[toximus]

Looks great. Nice work.

I think you'll find you can run less pressure in the bump stops, they can be pretty harsh and cause kicking when you get into the desert. But definitely play with it, see how it feels.

Good to know. Once I get to trail runs I'm going to have to find space for my nitrogen bottle so I can play with the tuning.

 

[toximus]

I put my Jeep on a scale. Any guesses what the weight is with tools, no driver, and 10 gallons of gas in the tank?

 

[Alex01]

I put my Jeep on a scale. Any guesses what the weight is with tools, no driver, and 10 gallons of gas in the tank?

4,200lbs

 

[someguysjeep]

3850#

 

[toximus]

I made a trip to the landfill to get the Jeep up on their scale. The scale went in 20lb increments and I'm not sure if it had any type of certification but the total weight came in at 4860lbs. That's with everything I'll be carrying on the trail, 10 gallons of gas, and no driver.

So either there's 2,100 lbs of unsprung weight (~1000lbs more than I can figure based on shipping weights) or the sprung weight isn't entirely accurate.

 

[someguysjeep]

i think my guestimate of 3850# was light, seeing that an LJ has a curb weight of like 35-3700#

so 4800# sounds like a lot, but maybe not.
you doubled the weight of the rear axle and tripled the front, then some cage and some huge ass wheels. and your loaded for the trail.

 

[toximus]

i think my guestimate of 3850# was light, seeing that an LJ has a curb weight of like 35-3700#

so 4800# sounds like a lot, but maybe not.
you doubled the weight of the rear axle and tripled the front, then some cage and some huge ass wheels. and your loaded for the trail.

I'm wondering how much ride height I'm getting from the coilovers internal pressure on the pistons. That could be effecting how much weight is seen on the springs if the pistons are being pushed out.

 

[toximus]

Currie's break in procedure for new axles is 5-6 heat cycles by driving at varying RPM for 30 minutes and then letting the gears completely cool. After 500 miles the gear oil needs to be changed.

I'm marking my windshield with dry erase how many heat cycles I've done along with mileage for easy recording.

Having some fun flexing on snow banks:

 

[BuildBreakRepeat]

How do those tires hold up in the snow/poor conditions?

 

[toximus]

How do those tires hold up in the snow/poor conditions?

Aside from main highways (meaning 2 roads in our town) everything has a blanket of snow or ice on it since they don't scrape the roads when they plow.

The Goodyear MT/R has been better than I expected. I wrote about my choice to go with them at some point before in this thread so I won't go into all of the reasons again but I knew that winter street driving would be a compromise. Over the course of my test drives the last few months I've had varying winter conditions to test the tires on. I never slid uncontrollably on ice topped with a dusting of snow like with a BFG KM2 which those have no hope of regaining control once they break traction. The MT/R doesn't have as much siping as a Duratrac which are better at biting on ice especially melting ice which is covered with a little water. Duratracs have been my go to and favorite for winter streets ever since they came on the market years ago. That's what I have on my wife's khaki TJ now and if they made them in a 37 I'd go with them for winter street driving and light trail duty on my red LJ. I think that having a boosted engine does help being able to quickly jump to higher RPMs and controllably apply power on turns which helps the tires find grip when there's just enough snow to grab. I've found that I'm doing the same turns on average several MPH faster in my red LJ with MT/Rs as I am in my wife's khaki TJ with Duratracs. My driving style is such that as long as the Jeeps handling is predictable and I have room on the road I'm fine if the back end kicks out on a turn even for daily driving. Obviously that does take experience to become comfortable with and know not to follow instincts to hit the brake. My point in saying that is that I may be more comfortable with the sudden loss of traction more than most people. When stopped on ice at a stop sign on an incline the Duratracs are the clear winner for traction to get moving again, with the MT/Rs I often have to blip the rear locker until I'm moving again. The MT/R does excel at paddling through deep snow.

 

[someguysjeep]

I'm wondering how much ride height I'm getting from the coilovers internal pressure on the pistons. That could be effecting how much weight is seen on the springs if the pistons are being pushed out.

i'm not real slick on Co's but all the weight should be balanced on the springs still, no?
the shock inside should not have enough pressure to help support the weight of the rig, i'd think. this would translate into a stiff ride.

you should be able to bleed off or add shock pressure, going from soft to stiff for terrain changes and not effect the ride height, is how i thought they worked.