Patches, the '02 TJ

Dang, looks like it's coming along very nicely! What are you doing for the front bumper?
 
So back in August (I think) I took Patches to Black Mountain OHV in Harlan Kentucky. Other than a quick test run at my local off-road park, this was the first serious wheeling trip since changing the front suspension.

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Had a blast and beat the piss outta my Jeep, but had issues from the start. On the very first trail of the first day I smashed the drag link into a rock rather forcefully and bent it back into the steering stabilizer bracket. That's actually the second time I've done this...

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Completely lost the ability to turn to the right. We took a hammer and punch and deformed the steering stabilizer bracket enough that I could steer enough to get back to camp, but that ended my day. Sundowner (who ride b seat with me) and I pulled the drag link back at camp and used the winch on my rollback to put the proper bend back in the drag link. Don't try this at home kids, it was sketchy.

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With that "fixed," we got it put back together and ready for day 2. However, even with the drag link clearing everything I still didn't have full steering to the right, and there was now a large dead spot in my steering. We later determined that I twisted the sector shaft, and that's why it wasn't steering fully. We decided to adjust the drag link to where I could get full steering again, and I would take it easy on the trails and hope it held up for the rest of the trip.

Yeah, like I'm gonna take it easy. I tortured patches on day 3, taking it through some trails that a rig on 37s probably shouldn't be anywhere near. I was following around buggies on 42" tires though, probably shouldn't have done that. :ROFLMAO:

At the end of day 3 I noticed that the antirock links on the front were sitting at a weird angle. At the time I thought maybe the Jeep was just unlevel or something, and didn't think anything else about it. Day 4 rolls around and we wake up early to head home. About halfway home we stop at a truck stop for fuel and I'm looking at Patches on the truck, and the swaybar links caught my eye again. They were still sitting weird, and now I knew something was wrong. I quickly found the problem. Ripped the trackbar mount loose from the frame, and that shifted the axle over. Crap. No clue how or when that happened, but I'm glad it didn't completely fail out in the woods.

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Oh, and I switched the 35" KM2s for 37" Creepy Crawlers on 15" alloys with inner air locks. Don't remember if I ever mentioned that.

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Trail pics next, and then the trackbar/steering fix.
 
Here's a few random pictures. Didn't really get many, we took way more videos than pics, need to go through them at some point and edit together a montage.

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I even managed to get photographic evidence of something rarely seen by humans! Perhaps even more rare than a Sasquatch sighting. That's right, it's Sundowner actually wheeling a Jeep! I'm not allowed to show his face though. I've been informed he'll light my couch on fire if I do. Not kidding.

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I've been away from the Jeep community for a while. Still have my jeeps, just haven't touched them in years. Decided a couple months ago that I'd try to get back into it, but Patches needs some work done to it. First and foremost, I was never happy with the low pinion 44 I swapped into the front for various reasons, so I decided to just pull it and swap in a JK44. Lots more updates to come, here is a teaser for now (TJ44 being removed).

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I've had this JK44 sitting in my basement for a few years now. Got a really good deal on it (free!). Finally decided to just swap it in my Jeep. The swap isn't 100% finished yet. The housing is at the gear shop right now. Hopefully get it back soon so I can finish it up. I don't like any of the off-the-shelf JK swap kits like Artec sells, so I pieced together my own kit.

Starting point:

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Early mock-up:

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Track bar mount is made from dom tubing welded to the C gusset, and a 3/4" grade 8 bolt through a heim. Allows the track bar to be the same length as the drag link. The Artec kit doesn't allow this. Ignore the exposed threads on the drag link, it's just for mock-up.

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Gusset and track bar mount burned in. Ended up building sway bar mounts out of a universal Chevy caliper bracket I had laying around. Worked nicely.

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The front suspension is already 3 linked so I just needed to build a truss for the upper control arm mount. Don't remember where I got the diff bridge from. The green coil buckets are Dorman JK rust replacement buckets (nearly identical to the Teraflex and old Synergy coil buckets for half the price), and the brace for the long side tube was cut from a piece of box tubing. Here it is ready to be final welded:

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And that brings it up to date on the axle. Still waiting on the gear shop to do their part, but they're way behind right now so I'm having to be patient.
 
I've been away from the Jeep community for a while. Still have my jeeps, just haven't touched them in years. Decided a couple months ago that I'd try to get back into it, but Patches needs some work done to it. First and foremost, I was never happy with the low pinion 44 I swapped into the front for various reasons, so I decided to just pull it and swap in a JK44. Lots more updates to come, here is a teaser for now (TJ44 being removed).

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Welcome back. Looking forward to watching the progress/upgrades!
 
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Another goal with this round of mods is to remove some excess weight. I did most of the modifications to this Jeep when I was still in school and working part time, so I did most things as cheaply as possible. That means heavy steel armor everywhere. First step was to replace the steel corner armor with aluminum. I ordered a pair of 6061 blanks from Genright and cut them to match the old corners.

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Something else I wanted to change was the rear flares. I got a deal on these comp cut flares back in the day, and they served their purpose well, but I never really liked how they look. It bothers me that they don't turn down behind the wheel arch, so I decided to fix that.

Before picture:

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I started with these genright hi flares I had laying around. I hated to cut up such an expensive pair of flares, but I already had them and wasn't using them. Early mock-up:

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Took it to the portaband table and removed a section:

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And ended up with this:

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