Hopefully we're all done being butthurt about my favorite color not being your favorite color.
Got the transfer case all mounted up last Sunday, and the new driveshaft showed up Monday morning. The difference between the pinion angle and driveshaft was about 14 degrees, but because I like to live on the edge, I drove it for a few days, just around town. Here is what I learned.
For the most part, it drove ok. Well, I mean it was horrible prior to getting it aligned, but after that it drove quite well. The only issue was that around 2k RPM it really seemed to bog down. I had just moved from 31" tires on aluminum wheels to 33" tires on steel wheels, so I figured part of the lousy performance was that. Once I got it moving fast enough, it seemed to go away. Honestly, it felt like it was in the wrong gear. I'm on 3.55's w/ 3 speed auto and regearing is in my future, but I didn't expect it to be this bad...
In the meanwhile I had recognized that the angle was going to be way off, so I ordered some adjustable upper control arms from Rusty's. I know Rusty's gets no love, but it's what Tom Woods sells on his site, so I felt pretty good about that purchase. Also, they seem to be one of the few (only?) arms that have the brackets for the brake lines. Lastly, they had both bushings in already, and frankly I don't understand the control arms that only come with one bushing installed. But that ain't my battle today.
So me & my 11 yr old who normally can't be bothered to look up from his iPad came out and helped me big time today. We took the old arms off, which was easy except for the passenger side frame side bolt, which is trapped by the muffler. I unbolted the 2 rearmost exhaust brackets and then pushed/pulled/cursed hard at it until I got that bolt out. And then in reverse to get the new arm in. It wasn't that hard, really. I mean I once replaced all the hard brake lines on my Cj with the tub on the frame w/o so much as loosening a body bolt. THAT was hard. This was just a minor inconvenience.
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The thing about those axle side control arm bolts is that there seems to be an easy way to put them in, but that way doesn't lend itself to torquing them. Case in point, if you push the bolt through from the inboard side to the outboard side it goes in easily, but it puts the nut on the spring side and my torque wrench can't fit, so I had to torque the bolt side.....I was taught that was the wrong way, but maybe it doesn't matter? The alternative is to push the bolt through from outboard to inboard, but the spring is in the way, making the install hard.
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Having watched one youtube, I'm something of an expert on this process now. With the upper arms out, I used my floor jack and a block of wood under the tailhousing section of the rear diff to raise the pinion angle. Initially the diff was measuring 10 deg and the driveshaft was at 24 deg. I brought it up to where they matched, but to my eye it looked like it was actually too far and understanding that the error bars on my Harbor Freight angle finder are non-zero, I adjusted the arms and bolted back up. Lowering the jack and with a clear head, it was evident I was still a little bit off, so we did it all again.
This time it looked like it *might* be a degree off, but I opted to torque things down and test drive. Wow, what a difference. Apparently that "bog" I was experiencing was a rear driveline vibration, because it's gone at 2k RPM, and now is much much more subtle, and only at higher speeds (~65pmh). I'm going to drive it for a few days like this, mostly because I don't have time to get underneath it. I'll evaluate, re-measure, and then either re-adjust or not.
The most surprising thing of all is that the maker of the lift (and really every 4" lift I looked into) said that a SYE & adjustable UCAs "may be necessary" but I can't imagine anybody putting on this much lift and not needing that stuff. Well...I guess I did completely ignore the t-case drop kit that came with it. But even with the SYE & new driveshaft, the new arms were absolutely necessary. Glad I went through that iteration of steps, because now I understand the importance of all that.
Thanks for reading.
