Lonewolf's 1998 Jeep Wrangler Sport

Before going out on any real trails I wanted to test the Jeep out first. So I went to Prairie city and drove around in there 4x4 course. I had no problem with anything I tried and everything worked really well . I’m happy with the locker and gear setup I just really need to address the the transfer case skid plate.
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I figured I should update this with some of the little stuff I’ve updated on the Jeep

I removed the transfer case drop pucks that the previous owner installed for some reason and reset the pinion angle. It worked great but I had a clunk. The clunk ended up being the rear trac bar hitting the gas tank skid plate , so I replaced RE trac bar and lift bracket with a adjustable JKS one with the offset bracket.
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it worked great , the clunk was gone and I was happy with the added skid plate height from removing the drop.
 
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My next problem was the front trac bar, the previous owner had 4 wheel parts install a adjustable RE trac bar and a drop bracket but not a drop pitman arm. Also anytime the driver side front tire was stuffed The trac bar drop bracket hit the bottom of the coil Base and bound up the suspension

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After dealing with the bump steer for awhile I decided to remove the drop bracket and install the adjustable trac bar in the stock location . Well that ended up not working because the track bar was too long , it was completely bottomed out and was still an inch off, and to add insult to injury the JKS trac bar was about 2 weeks out and I needed to move the Jeep faster than that. So I ended up with a metal cloak one as I could get it in 2 days. It went on easy and I torqued everything to spec

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I went and stuffed the tire and there were no clearance issues at all, and im Looking forward to a lack of bump steer. I also trimmed the rear fenders a bit more and everything seems to be working well and its ready for the next adventure.

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The next step with the Jeep is addressing the front axle, it has the Detroit true trac and 4.88 already but I wanted to beef it up a bit.
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So I added 4340 shafts and welded on the Currie mini skids to box in the lower control arm mounts. Both were very straight forward and now I have more confidence with the Dana 30 holding up to 35’s
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I also added a steering box skid

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Looking good. I've been meaning to upgrade my front axle shafts but other projects have been consuming my jeep fund.

Hopefully, we'll put them to good use at Slickrock.
 
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I figured I should add in some updates on my Jeep since it’s been awhile And changed a bit

I did Slickrock trail, it was a blast , I didn’t have any big problems, I had to winch one time on the gauntlet and bent the hell out of my gas tank skid and had a dirty Maf sensor that made it idle strange.

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so after that trip and following @Alex01 and @DrDmoney with their 5:1 atlas I decided a few things would have to happen.

The first thing I needed to tackle was replacing the beat to s**t stock skid plate.
I decided on a undercover fab aluminum no body lift skid. The install was pretty straightforward I tried to do it without dropping the tank with a strap but it doesn’t work as easy as the internet tells you

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To be continued...
 
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So after seeing how much more control the Low gears of the Atlas gave everyone at Slickrock I decided I needed one so I started scheming how to make it work on my budget.

Me and my buddy found a pretty built Jeep for a good price and dragged it home
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its a 2001 4.0l 74000 Miles, Clayton long arm, 4 inch Currie coils , HP30 with ARB and 4.56, rear Dana 44 chromoly shafts , Detroit And 4.56 but the most exciting part was a 4.3 atlas. Our plan was to fix the large list of issues it came with swap the atlas with my Jeep and then sell it. Well as we worked through everything and got the green Jeep more situated my buddy decided he wanted to keep it and bought me out of it. It still has its issues but is turning into a pretty fun crawler
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well I came out ahead on the deal so I was able to buy a new Atlas 2 5:1. I ordered it end of July and it finally showed up on Oct 8, it was a long wait but is hopefully worth it
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So after purchasing the Atlas and knowing I would need to get driveshafts I decided I was going to use the stock skid plate. So the first thing I did was remove the stock transfercase and support everything with this pretty trick tool @DrDmoney built
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I had searched the Internet on the atlas install and there were so many different option but the majority of them used aftermarket skids. I decided I would just throw the Atlas in and start measuring on what will and won’t fit.
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I started with it clocked at 7 degrees and without a body lift I knew I would need to clearance the tub

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I was happy with how it sat but when I checked the front driveshaft angle It looked a little steep so instead of fighting caster issues later I reclocked it to 13 degrees and everything seemed happy. After some measuring I figured out where I needed to cut the crossmember on the skid

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next up was trying to figure out how to make a transmission mount work. The stock setup bolts onto the bottom of the transmission and then steps back a rubber mount that mounts right below the stock transfer case. the extra girth of a Atlas makes that mount useless. I moved the rubber mount forward to mount on the bottom of the transmission and also added the exhaust hanger from the stock mount
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At this point I test fit the skid and found that I would need to trim the bottom of the skid for bolt clearance, I also made a plate for the mount to bolt to and measured for the angle of the plate. Then I pulled everything back out and welded it and plated it .

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Everything was fitting good at this point but it was raised up about a inch and a half because the new mount location was higher so I had to trim the exhaust to get it to sit higher without rubbing the skid. During this I ordered new driveshafts from Tom Woods and they showed up in 2 days. With @Alex01 help we got the shifters figured out and I got everything installed the next day and set the new pinion angles

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I took It for a test drive and ran it up to 80mph, it has a small vibration at 70 but I will play with the pinion angles and see if it gets better. The low is definitely low I can’t wait to get it out on a trail and play with it.
 
I went back and ran the Slickrock trail again and the lower gearing was a night and day difference. The Jeep handled all obstacles with a lot more control and I never had to “bump” it up anything and break traction. It worked great and seems like it is easier on the drivetrain.

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I went back and ran the Slickrock trail again and the lower gearing was a night and day difference. The Jeep handled all obstacles with a lot more control and I never had to “bump” it up anything and break traction. It worked great and seems like it is easier on the drivetrain.

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You really can't beat the low gearing of the atlas.

Did @Choptop1954 lose a bead or is his tires just really deflated?
 
So after getting tired of the constant rattling and thumping of my rockhard rear bumper/ tire carrier on my tailgate. I decided to go a different route and installed a Moreryde tailgate enforcement and a rear bumper from motobilt. I’m happy with how everything turned out and it is much quieter.

old setup
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New setup:

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