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Post by nwxjscott on Feb 19, 2011 18:56:02 GMT -8
Not bashing at all, I gave my "Advice", and he has his own plans.. Fair enough..
the comment about dont ask joey for trail spare d30 shafts is because those things are EXPENSIVE.. i know i wouldnt loan one out!
BTW: Props to the build.. I had no intentions of coming in to knock it!
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Post by iceman on Feb 19, 2011 19:04:50 GMT -8
Oh sorry I took that wrong. I hate the internet for that!
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tonka
Ok to Drive
My Heep
Posts: 256
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Post by tonka on Feb 20, 2011 8:45:53 GMT -8
Joey that Cherokee has come a long way you should be proud!!
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JollyRogerXJ
Winch Cable Monkey
Here we go again !!!!
Posts: 7
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Post by JollyRogerXJ on Feb 21, 2011 16:11:44 GMT -8
WOW......
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Post by fivendime on Feb 26, 2011 11:25:17 GMT -8
Joey that Cherokee has come a long way you should be proud!! Pat I really appreciate that compliment, it means allot to me. I did some work to it yesterday. I pulled the old bumper off as well as the tank skid plate and mocked up the install of my new bumper. Im glad I always mock things up first before painting. I had to trim a couple things and now I am welding on some brackets I made to go inside my unibody tunnel to bolt my tank skid to instead of the much weaker nut strips that the factory uses. This will be much stronger. In this picture you can see the old bumper had the insert that went into the unibody. Most bumpers dont but I like this idea of tying all the things together. The brackets I made next to it are 3/8" x 1.5" steel strips that I will weld nuts to. Overkill yeah, but free was a good price since it was scrap.
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Post by fivendime on Feb 26, 2011 16:02:15 GMT -8
Here are some more photos of the bumper mods. Almost ready for powder coat! Just have to knock down some sharp edges and clean things up a little and its ready to go!
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Post by bchutchens on Mar 2, 2011 17:46:05 GMT -8
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Post by fivendime on Mar 14, 2011 16:37:08 GMT -8
^ nice one Bill ;D Well since the last TSF trip I have been busy. I ended up bending a leaf spring on the XJ. I'm thinking it was on Waterfall but I'm not certain. Since that trip though I removed the gas tank skid plate and WP rear bumper. I sanded down the tank skid and welded on some mud flap disconnect brackets then painted it Trim Black to match my powder coat on the sliders and front bumper. After that I went to work on the JCR stage 2 rear bumper. This thing is Beef! I wasnt particularly excited about there mounting system though just utilizing factory mounts so I welded on some nut strips to go inside the unibody rail. This allowed me to bolt the tank skid from the bottom up into the unibody rail sandwiching the body of the XJ and tying all of it together! It was a painstaking event because I couldn't just measure, cut and weld. 3 sets of holes had to line up just right, and they did when I was done! I finished it up with a can of Trim Black and bolted it up using some larger bolts. After that, today I installed my new leaf spring from Iron Rock. It came at 8:30 Saturday morning, which I thought was early for delivery but oh well. Here are a couple shots of that. It went super easy. This is the old and new spring next to each other Something is missing huh lol
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XJMonger
Winch Cable Monkey
Nice to see the forum more user friendly
Posts: 1
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Post by XJMonger on Mar 28, 2011 21:30:52 GMT -8
;D Sweet Build.....gives me something to shoot for and a empty wallet...LOL!! Thanks for taking the time to share your builds ups and downs.
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Post by fivendime on Mar 30, 2011 17:55:48 GMT -8
;D Sweet Build.....gives me something to shoot for and a empty wallet...LOL!! Thanks for taking the time to share your builds ups and downs. Thanks, yeah prepare for the black hole that is called Jeep. All worth it for the fun and enjoyment with family and friends! A little up date on some things. I have been fighting a very bad stiff and almost non functioning steering lately. So I proceeded with trying to fix the issue. Since the pump and box were still the OEM parts I figured it had to be one of them causing the issue. Basically if I air down or dry steer on dry ground it simply cant turn the wheel until I move the Jeep in either forward or reverse. I decided to replace the cheap part first which is the pump. Nope, that didn't fix it. So onto the steering gear box. Nope that didn't do it either and in fact I have a few inches of slop in the wheel and the stiffness is worse then before with the OEM box. For kicks I decided to replace the fan belt with the best I could buy thinking this may be slipping. Nope another let down. So now here I am at a loss. I think I may have got a bad re-manufactured steering gear box since the problem is worse then before. So I am going to take it to the tech day at Woody's to pick the brains of Lee and Gary to see what they think. Now onto the more fun stuff. I figured I needed a transfer case skid plate for Moab and since Iron Rock Offroad makes nothing for the XJ in conjunction with there lift and cross member I had to make my own. I used some 3/8" thick plate steel and some 3/8" flat bar to make it. Cut, Bent, and Welded it together and bingo, I have a small skid for the t-case! And for kicks this axe came in the back of the dodge when I bought it so I freshened it up with some red and black paint and put some grip tape on it! Now to find a place for it in the XJ.
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Post by bchutchens on Mar 30, 2011 19:35:06 GMT -8
It's looking great Joey.
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Post by fivendime on Apr 2, 2011 22:20:05 GMT -8
Thanks Bill for the compliment! Well after taking it to Woody's, it was recommended that I replace the hoses both high pressure and low pressure as well as put a cooler on for the power steering. I immediately went to Napa following that and purchased a decent size cooler, some Royal Purple PS fluid, and the new high pressure and low pressure line. While I was doing that the wife went and picked up yet another power steering pump as that too was mentioned to be a culprit. Put it all in, bled it and still the same issue. So now that I am officially pissed off, I will pull the power steering box off and replace that with another unit. OH JOY
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Post by fivendime on Apr 11, 2011 22:18:59 GMT -8
Update: After all of this replacing of the steering box and pump....3 times now I have resorted to replacing parts till I fix it. That's the best I can do at the moment. So I went ahead and replaced all the front ball joints with some new spicer units courtesy Woody's 4x4. It wasn't to hard of a project, mostly just time consuming to remove everything and then re-install. I noticed a few problems when I was doing this work. One being that I have one bolt stripped out holding the brake caliper on so I will have to fix that. Second my ARB decided to throw up some parts into my housing. It was a total of 3 bolts holding the ARB housing together that simply snapped and then decided to fling around a bit. I managed to get the snapped off sections of bolts out of the housing with some fancy work, cleaned the holes and put in some new ARB housing bolts also courtesy Woody's 4x4 (A big thanks to my wife for picking them up for me ) Then I put it all back together with my new Yukon shafts and some Royal Purple. As far as the steering issue goes, the ball joints were a bit worn out but nothing major. The steering worked aired down much better then before but still has that awful stiff spot when you jerk the wheel. Gary at Woody's has offered to help me some on it before I go, basically hook it up to some pressure guages to see if its a bad box or pump. He said he has a good steering box that I could buy from him as well just in case the 3rd box I've had in there is also bad. Well thats the update. I guess all I have left is that pesky steering issue, change the trans fluid and filter, and fix that Caliper mounting bolt hole. The clamp was loose but I took it to show I had to work the ball joint in since all the stuff in the kit I had, had no tapered caps. I had to use screwdrivers and pry bars to get them to press in straight. That was a pain to mess with. Look Ma, no bolts!
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Post by fivendime on Apr 13, 2011 17:27:52 GMT -8
Got some more work done today despite throwing out my back yesterday. It was easy stuff and I wasn't rushing things though. Basically got the stripped out Brake Calliper bolt issue fixed for now. Got the transmission filter changed and fluid swapped out for some new Royal Purple trans fluid, which I hope keeps the transmission a bit cooler. Tightened up my E-Brake cable. Tightened all the lug nuts, Greased up some zerks. Replaced my leaky exhaust flange gasket. Cleaned and lubed all the hiem joints. Pressed in new wheel studs to new Yukon rear shaft (trail spare) and found a place for it in the Jeep. Put my Pistons Wild flag on. Stared at it a while........remembered I had the spill kit so that went in as well. Stared at it some more and thought, boy this thing needs a detail job so that's tomorrows job, time to crawl underneath with my wash mits ;D Steering will hopefully be fixed tonight while I'm at Woody's. I'm praying it gets fixed.
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Post by fivendime on Apr 13, 2011 22:17:23 GMT -8
Just got back from Woody's 4x4 where Gary was kind enough to open the shop after hours for me so we could wrench on the Jeeps steering system to figure out what is wrong with it. I must say we did all we could with little encouraging results. First we pulled the air box and the electric fan followed by the steering box. Gary had one that he knew was good laying around so we swapped it in and unfortunately came up with the same results. So at least I know its not the box. After that we ditched that box and Gary decided to do a little porting with my old box to get the flow going a bit more. It definitely helped the steering. Much more smoother and easier to turn but still didn't fix the stiff steering issue when you jerk the wheel. Aside from tearing things apart and doing far more extensive work we did all we could. His guess as well as mine at this time is to let the system work and see if it works itself out. I either do that or buy a new after market high pressure pump for it. Again, a big thanks to Gary for helping me as well as Ryan Wells for being a wrench man/ heavy handler ;D My back wasn't up for the task of yarding things around and hard wrenching.
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