A Story of Indecision and Frivolous Spending

lowranger said:
"Road trip". Put your Jeep on a trailer and tow it South to sunny California to MrBlaine.
Get it done right. Be alot easier on you and you will know it will be done the right way. Besides.... you need a vacation.... right??
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Just save all the money from buying tools and save the time to just have Blaine do it. May take longer but might be worth it at this point. May not be as bad as he thinks tho.
 
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lowranger said:
"Road trip". Put your Jeep on a trailer and tow it South to sunny California to MrBlaine.
Get it done right. Be alot easier on you and you will know it will be done the right way. Besides.... you need a vacation.... right??
Click to expand...
Great Idea the kids would love the 15hr drive to Disneyland. :p

Not so sure your odyssey will be up to the task though.
 
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These guys have "their way" of doing those outboard towers, and while they insist it works, it's not going to fly.

I'm sure I might be able to get them to do it over again, but with all the knowledge from Blaine and the people who have done this the right way, I'm 100% confident I can do it myself, it might just mean it goes slower, and I ask a lot of questions along the way.

If I can spend 2-3 hours on it a night when the kids are in bed, my wife won't be bothered by it at all.

The fun part will be cutting the existing towers out of the frame. I'll have to do my best to patch up the area they cut out for the reservoirs as well. If done properly, it should end up looking clean.

We aren't talking rocket science here by any means. Just a time consuming project that will require a lot of questions along the way, but also be a good learning process as well.

As for welding... it's honestly a skill I've been wanting to pickup for close to a decade now, so perhaps this is just a blessing in disguise.
 
Chris said:
These guys have "their way" of doing those outboard towers, and while they insist it works, it's not going to fly.

I'm sure I might be able to get them to do it over again, but with all the knowledge from Blaine and the people who have done this the right way, I'm 100% confident I can do it myself, it might just mean it goes slower, and I ask a lot of questions along the way.

If I can spend 2-3 hours on it a night when the kids are in bed, my wife won't be bothered by it at all.

The fun part will be cutting the existing towers out of the frame. I'll have to do my best to patch up the area they cut out for the reservoirs as well. If done properly, it should end up looking clean.

We aren't talking rocket science here by any means. Just a time consuming project that will require a lot of questions along the way, but also be a good learning process as well.

As for welding... it's honestly a skill I've been wanting to pickup for close to a decade now, so perhaps this is just a blessing in disguise.
Click to expand...
And you get new tools out of it as well....I am so wanting a welding project to buy this stuff. If I can find something sufficient cheap enough I will buy it anyway and then make up some projects.
 
cliffish said:
And you get new tools out of it as well....I am so wanting a welding project to buy this stuff. If I can find something sufficient cheap enough I will buy it anyway and then make up some projects.
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This is how it went when I built that 4th bedroom in my house (which turned out excellent by the way). I was going to pay someone else to do it, but I decided to spend $1000 on really nice tools and do it myself with the help of YouTube. I did it all, got the permit, and now I have a hell of a nice bedroom, done just the way I like it, and I got a ton of nice tools out of it that I can use for other projects, including a DeWalt cordless nail gun, DeWalt cordless reciprocating saw, DeWalt cordless hammer drill, and a DeWalt cordless circular saw! The nice thing is, I actually intend to use these tools for a lot of other home improvement projects as well, so it was a win-win.

In this case I'll end up with a bunch of welding stuff, which will make Jeep ownership going forward even more enjoyable. I say that because I always seem to end up getting involved in a project that requires welding, but I don't know how to actually weld!
 
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bobthetj03 said:
How much more travel do you think you'll gain by re-doing the towers?
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To give the shop some benefit of the doubt, the travel should be about the same. It's the bias that will shift.

I think our strong suspicion is that these shocks were setup for heavy down travel. While the desire was to at least have that travel divided in half, if not slightly shifted towards more up travel.
 
jjvw said:
I think our strong suspicion is that these shocks were setup for heavy down travel. While the desire was to at least have that travel divided in half, if not slightly shifted towards more up travel.
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Exactly. I'll measure it and post photos when I get it back today (if I get it back today), but from what I saw, it looks like they have a lot more down-travel as oppose to up-travel.

I don't know, maybe that works for some people, but it doesn't work for me.
 
cliffish said:
And you get new tools out of it as well....I am so wanting a welding project to buy this stuff. If I can find something sufficient cheap enough I will buy it anyway and then make up some projects.
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That is the number one problem I see with folks wanting to own welders. They are tools, nothing more, no different than a hammer or a circular saw. You don't buy a circular saw and then go looking for things to build because you have one, you have one because you have things to build and that is one way to get it done.

I don't weld because it is a skill I want to have so I can do welding. I weld because it is a way for me to fabricate things I need to do. Just a means to an end.
 
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jjvw said:
To give the shop some benefit of the doubt, the travel should be about the same. It's the bias that will shift.

I think our strong suspicion is that these shocks were setup for heavy down travel. While the desire was to at least have that travel divided in half, if not slightly shifted towards more up travel.
Click to expand...

Makes sense to me. Thanks for the clarification.
 
Chris said:
...

I don't know, maybe that works for some people, but it doesn't work for me.
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The big question is why won't that work for someone? I think your average guy envisions a flexy off road rig and assumes down travel and reaching deep down into the cracks and crevices. Manley things like that.
 
mrblaine said:
That is the number one problem I see with folks wanting to own welders. They are tools, nothing more, no different than a hammer or a circular saw. You don't buy a circular saw and then go looking for things to build because you have one, you have one because you have things to build and that is one way to get it done.

I don't weld because it is a skill I want to have so I can do welding. I weld because it is a way for me to fabricate things I need to do. Just a means to an end.
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Blaine, I understand the logic you are saying, I know there will be uses for me in the future, for example...I am into keeping and breeding tropical fish, I intend to have minimum of 30 - 50 tanks of various sizes, stands (racks) will have to be made to hold them. If I have to drop a few hundred now to get some practice, no biggie. I have wasted far more on far less in the past.
 
jjvw said:
The big question is why won't that work for someone? I think your average guy envisions a flexy off road rig and assumes down travel and reaching deep down into the cracks and crevices.
Click to expand...

Well if one wheel can droop super low due to the extreme down travel, what about the wheel on the opposite side that might need to have maximum up-travel?

It seems that having the shocks setup so that the point of travel is almost in the center at ride height would yield a perfect balance, as oppose to too much up-travel or too much down-travel.
 
Chris said:
Well if one wheel can droop super low due to the extreme down travel, what about the wheel on the opposite side that might need to have maximum up-travel?

It seems that having the shocks setup so that the point of travel is almost in the center at ride height would yield a perfect balance, as oppose to too much up-travel or too much down-travel.
Click to expand...

The idea of balance (and stability) is thinking in the right direction.

Go back to the pics of yours twisted up on the forklift. Would the twistiness change much if the bias was shifted towards more up travel? What if there was little to no up travel from normal ride height? Keep in mind that the shock travel isn't changing, just where the travel is taking place.

When a tire begins to climb up an obstacle, when does body start to get shoved out of the way of the climbing tire?
 
Chris said:
These guys have "their way" of doing those outboard towers, and while they insist it works, it's not going to fly.

I'm sure I might be able to get them to do it over again, but with all the knowledge from Blaine and the people who have done this the right way, I'm 100% confident I can do it myself, it might just mean it goes slower, and I ask a lot of questions along the way.

If I can spend 2-3 hours on it a night when the kids are in bed, my wife won't be bothered by it at all.

The fun part will be cutting the existing towers out of the frame. I'll have to do my best to patch up the area they cut out for the reservoirs as well. If done properly, it should end up looking clean.

We aren't talking rocket science here by any means. Just a time consuming project that will require a lot of questions along the way, but also be a good learning process as well.

As for welding... it's honestly a skill I've been wanting to pickup for close to a decade now, so perhaps this is just a blessing in disguise.
Click to expand...

HA! You think that till you wake the entire neighborhood up cutting those off and grinding things down. You are about to create some of the loudest noise there is in a shop. She will then be mad as hell with two kids that cannot sleep cause they want to know what dad is doing in the garage.
 
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