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Started the install on the gears and limited slip. The cross pin on the stock diff would not come out no matter what I tried so this had to happen lol.
I thought for sure I had 4.10 gears but turns out they were 3.73’s after counting the ring and pinion. Should be a nice jump going to 4.88’s. Also ordered zone off road add a leafs im gonna throw in the leaf pack and remove the overload spring as right now it’s about basically riding on the overload spring. I got one of the stock front coil springs removed thanks to a new spring compressor that fits on the inside, new springs won’t be here till Monday so I’m gonna paint the lower control arms and frame in prep for it.
Got one side of the front suspension done. Welded up some limit strap mounts from the old tow adjusters after modifying them. I’m running the same bilstein shocks that come with the cam burg mid travel kit along with v6 2” lift springs. They looked about the same as the stock springs I pulled so hopefully they give it a little more height once it’s on the ground. I was unable to run the 2.5” coil spacers as it made the springs bow out towards the upper control arm. Even without the spacers I still had to clearance the gussets on the upper control arms to get full travel without anything rubbing.
Front suspension is back together with limit straps and upper control arms clearanced for full travel to not hit the springs. After shaking the suspension down my front fender is 43 inches from the ground where it was 41.5 inches before. Not sure if it will stay there or settle but if it does I’ll add a Delrin 1 inch spacer up front that replaces the coil isolator.
just doing the bounce test on the front it feels like it’s going to be a lot more neutral and softer then it was before. I’m excited to drive it again but I have to put the add a leaf springs in the back and finish putting the rear end in after I get it setup.
did a few things to my 06 also, did new rear drums and shoes, fixed the heater, blower motor wouldn’t kick on due to a bad resistor pack so I robbed the one from my 05 suburban I parted out. Also took the bed cap rails off and installed the newer style tailgate spoiler along with a tailgate shock. The truck looks and drives allot nicer. Just used it to haul my boat over to Newport to fish the jetty and averaged 13.7mpg round trip which I’m happy with. The best the Jeep ever got was 11.5 towing my little boat.
Well I think I about got my rear end setup. Backlash measures 6 thou, gear mesh looks good as far as I can tell. It’s as centered as I’ve seen it and I moved it both ways just to see what the pattern and feel would look like. The fitment with the shims on both sides feels like it did with the factory diff and shims. I’m feeling pretty confident that this rear end will do ok as long as it doesn’t get too abused. I also think I’m gonna take a few things back off the truck to lighten it up some more once it’s back on the road. Hoping the limited slip will help it hook allot better then the g80 that would lock or not really lock depending.
Well, rear end is back together. Everything changed once I put the final head bearing on the pinion, I ended up having to move 3 smaller shins to the pass side and ended up with 9 thou backlash and a good mesh pattern. Ring gear had 3 thou of runout which I was worried about but It drives awesome but the limited slip needs to break in still. It’s so much quieter then the old rear end was due to the old chewed up pinion head bearing. The truck drifts with minimal effort now just a blip of the throttle. Also the front suspension feels great. Allot softer and smoother. Went over some rough train tracks at about 50 and felt very smooth.
next project for the truck will be a corvette servo and making sure the rod that pushes on the band has the correct amount of play. After that I’ll add the add a leaf springs in and pull the overload springs to see how it rides then I wanna focus a little more on weight reduction.
Truck feels great with the new gears and limited slip. I think I’m gonna add another bottle of modifier to it though as it’s still pretty growny right now. Might just wait to see how it is after some more miles are on it.
really happy with the front suspension on the truck. It settled to 42” from bottom of fender to ground. I plan on adding the delrin spring isolator spacers when they come to hopefully get a little more height on it. The suspension is much more compliant and the truck feels great on and off road. It’s predictable and easy to drift. I’m having second thoughts on pulling the tailgate and spare to drop weight off the truck as I think it will be detrimental to the balance. I need to replace my front steel bash plate thing with a thicker aluminum one that weighs less. Also need to build a lower skid plate to mount to the .120” wall dom tubing I welded from the front cross member to the frame rails.
also planning on picking up a 72 vw bug on Sunday. I’m not 100% sure which way it’s going to go but either a Baja bug or manx style fiberglass body and tube chassis. Either way the car I’m picking up is a basket case but seems like it comes with enough parts to sell to pay for the car easily.
Well got some new projects to keep my semi retired *** busy. Pretty stoked to build this. I think I want to build an arm front suspension and completely do away with the front beam after pricing out what I would want to do to the beam to make it work well with this car. Rear suspension I plan on swapping the bug trailing arms onto the rail to get rid of the heavy bus arms that are much harder to modify. The bug trailing arms will probably be widened and lengthened at least 3” each and I’ll have to get longer axle shafts and conversion stub shafts to go from bug to bus axles. Picked up this j32a2 Honda v6 for it. They come from the early tl type s, 260bhp 232 tq and the motor weighs in right at 300lbs flat. Packaging wise it will work great because everything is where it needs to be at when the motor is in the back of the car. I’ll be able to make it run cutting the stock harness up and making it into a stand alone harness and I have to remove the immobilizer from the Ecu but from what I’ve found on these ones you can literally just break the immobilizer board out of the Ecu and it will run after that.
No I have a lot of free time on my hands lol. It’s been nice. Pulled all the suspension off the bug. I plan on using the knuckles from the front to build an an arm type suspension for it. Also pulled the trailing arms as I’ll use those hubs for the rear to build trailing arms. The body is gonna fit the rail really well I think. I’m gonna redo a few spots on the roll cage/ frame of it to make it fit better and I still need to clearance the bug body more but it was starting to get late and I didn’t wanna be the ******* neighbor who makes way too much noise too late so it’s gonna sit till tomorrow.
I took the Silverado on about a 500 mile road trip to pick up a Baja kit for my bug project and also got a set of 37/12.5/17 Toyo’s for my truck. It averaged about 16mpg round trip cruising between 70-75 on cruise control without drafting any semis. I’m pretty sure if I had some careful driving habits I could pull 18-19 out of it no problem. It’s definitely geared a bit too short for 35” tires so I’m excited to get the 37s mounted today.
also I took the stock overload springs off in the back and put a add a leaf in the leaf pack. Gained a bit of ride height and more suspension travel since it was about sitting on the overload springs at ride height. Also dropped a little weight as the overloads are about 15lbs a piece and the add a leafs were much lighter although I wasn’t able to scale them because I couldn’t find batteries for my scale last night when I was doing the suspension. For the front I added a 1” delrin coil spacer which gained me about 1.5” of height in the front. I’ll definitely still have to clearance the firewall for the 37s to be able to turn well lock to lock but it shouldn’t be too bad. On the 35s my bottom of the fender to ground is 43” in the front and 41.5 in the back passenger and about 40.75 for the drivers rear.
i pulled the rear bench seat out of the truck and scaled it at 56lbs, the seat belts and hardware were another 8lbs. I never have anyone sitting in the back and I could use that space better to haul parts or tools so it’s a win win plus I’ll just keep everything stored and safe in my loft in my shop so if I ever change my mind I can just put it back in.
I also scaled my wheels and tires and will weigh them again once the 37s are on to see how much heavier they are. The 37 inch tires weigh about 71-72lbs a piece by themselves and my 35 inch tires on my beadlock wheels are 99-100lbs each. I’m hoping it will remain pretty close to that weight but I’m sure they will be a little heavier.
my I need to redo my upper skid plate with aluminum and paint the hood and fenders but that’s another project for another day.
37s are on. Need to clearance the lower part of the fire wall for them to regain turning radius but they fit pretty well overall. They weigh 9lbs more per tire then the 35’s did. Definitely harder to throw up on the wheel studs though jesus lol.
Last edited by T-RevMotorsports; 04-16-2024 at 04:52 PM.
03-21-2024, 06:11 PM
