The 4.0 Swap was chump change compared to this - Look inside...

[janderson4010]

well I think my only recourse at this point is going to be to beef up the lower link brackets, bk your right Kirby I have no space to go longer on my upper link. I don't think there is much chance that would happen again, I think it was a combination of the binding of the suspension, the fact that I came down hard on the link mount, the spring had popped out allowing the suspension to flex in a way that it normally wouldn't, and that my tire was wedged into a notch between 2 rocks pretty damn good. perfect storm of bs there haha, I've flexed this suspension quite a bit, and had flexed it quite a few times on the rocks that day. I think when it bent I was being very hard on it. overall pretty pleased with how it operated, if I build thicker link mounts and it still does this ill have to look at changing around my suspension but until then I won't worry about it.

btw Kirby thanks for the compliment on the photos, I actually think bII's are kind of ugly, but its starting to look better, and its good to see something odd on the trails, instead of 37 jeeps and a couple toyotas. There is one kid around here with a bII, his is on a d35 and 8.8 and he has a 302, course he is running like 8" of lift and the engine has been blown for around 2 years. but they are out there

 

[janderson4010]

BTW it looks like Eric is doing all the work in those pics and I am standing there with my hands in my pockets, what he didn't mention is me and one of our friends were the ones that crawled under there and got the coil back in. gotta be careful with those hi-lifts, they will ***** slap you in the face if you aren't careful. it does make me laugh bk I got made fun of for days (guess by who) about mounting that Jack in there, he was like oh well I haven't used one wheeling in like 5 years. what a dumb thing blah blah blah. yeah we ended up using it 2x on my rig and 2x on this toyota, if you have a minute watch the vid, that was fun to watch. he broke a valve stem so we used it to pop the tire off the bead, and then after his hub broke we used it to lift the front passenger tire out of the hole it was in, here is the vid,

that is the buggy line at one of our local wheeling spots, it was made once by a comp buggy and it is deceivingly hard, its called the sweet spot

 

[blazinzuk]

The radius arm style suspension inherently binds due to design. A four link with non simular length links or non paralell links binds as well. Often poly bushings or rubber bushings are enough to soak it up. I have replaced multiple jeep brackets as well, but always on a suspension kit or design that was binding. On my jeep the four link is in stock config with different arms and it has never stressed or broke thos brackets. Your uppers are short (I am sure due to space constraints) but the shorter they are the more the will bind when one side is stuffed one is drooped. Radius armss change caster through travel. The problem is that the stuffed side changes it one way the drooped side changes it the other way. Remove one of your uppers and the bing will be gone.

Jons suspension is a 3 link ( well actually I call it a 4 link but it confused poeple)

A single upper and 2 lowers, the 4th link is the panhard.

It is not a radius arm suspension

So its not binding like you think it is because there is only one upper

 

[blazinzuk]

BTW it looks like Eric is doing all the work in those pics and I am standing there with my hands in my pockets, what he didn't mention is me and one of our friends were the ones that crawled under there and got the coil back in. gotta be careful with those hi-lifts, they will ***** slap you in the face if you aren't careful. it does make me laugh bk I got made fun of for days (guess by who) about mounting that Jack in there, he was like oh well I haven't used one wheeling in like 5 years. what a dumb thing blah blah blah. yeah we ended up using it 2x on my rig and 2x on this toyota, if you have a minute watch the vid, that was fun to watch. he broke a valve stem so we used it to pop the tire off the bead, and then after his hub broke we used it to lift the front passenger tire out of the hole it was in, here is the vid,

[

I am doing all the work, thats my story and I am stickin to it

I will continue to make fun of Jon for any variety of things too.

What Jon didn't tell you about the toy is he broke his valve stem and then backed it down with no air in the tire ( non beadlocked) about 40 feet through some bad rocks and it still didn't come off the bead.

You usually don't have that problem It even took a couple tries with the hi lift to get it off the bead. Crazy stuff. That guy definitely doesn't need bead locks

 

[rookieshooter]

Ya, I had to go back and look at his build for a moment 4 link? Now mine is an un-equal front parallel 4 link when viewed from the top. Being uppers and lowers come off the frame at same angle to axle. Some people think a parallel means when viewed from the side no no.
i think Jon is the kind of guy that once you've got him down, just keep him down for awhile lol. But it's only time until he does a Smack down on all of us.
Glad your keeping your desires to continue.
Now in the back I got a Torque arm but once you remove the one pin like Kirby said it all but eliminates the bind. Fine for trails but to whimpy on the road.

 

[janderson4010]

aint nobody got me down dangit! and I am gonna lay the smack down an all of you! lol thanks for the input everyone. looks like my driveshaft is hosed, we had to grind it so it didn't bind, happily I came into just enough dinero to order a tom woods driveshaft. I don't know why this pic has a weird grey bar at the bottom but you can see the problem, Eric took the photo

some of the sketchy things ive done bk of lack of money need to be corrected, and since I have this cash coming in from a job Eric and I did I need to spend it fixing these things. I was originally thinking about lockers for the d44, shaft, maybe an install kit and some high steer arms, but then I realized if I buy a driveshaft then its totally wheelable and infinitely more streetable. im pretty stoked, tom woods make excellent products, my dad used them for front and rear shafts in his cj5

 

[janderson4010]

ok guys who is ready for me to eat some crow? got the axle out last night and while taking it out I realized why the bracket bent itself to smithereens. the jeep axles have adjustment on the lower link mounts for caster, when I last put the links in (remember ive had it apart a few times) I forgot to put the centering washer on the bolt on the inside of the link bracket, allowing the bolt to flex back and forth under load and I assume under the slight bind that the bushing has on it under flex. so long story short I left an important piece out and it caused the link bracket to pretzel itself. im going to build 2 new brackets out of 1/4" bk thats what I have laying around, and I don't want them to be dissimilar. problem solved, I can't blame jeep but thankfully im not as bad at suspension design as we all thought lol.

on better and more fun news I called Mr Tom Woods and ordered a custom driveshaft, it was a lot less than I thought it would be too, came to like 340 or something like that and it will be here tomorrow. nice to spend some money where it is needed. going to use the money to get a new vise (since I broke my poor little vise) and an air compressor, I've been borrowing my grandpas compressor and the old dude wanted it back, he is still spry at 81 yrs old. I've had really good luck with the harbor freight earthquake impact gun, and its not as expensive as some of the nicer brands, so thats probably what ill get impact wise.

 

[rookieshooter]

I can blame jeep for their crappy design flaw

There, i fixed it. Don't be a Wuss. If it looks like a heap and breaks like a heap, it's a heap.
And I'm a former heap owner ha ha.

 

[janderson4010]

There, i fixed it. Don't be a Wuss. If it looks like a heap and breaks like a heap, it's a heap.
And I'm a former heap owner ha ha.

haha ok ok, stupid jeep and their flimsy brackets, never would have happened if I had used a hp ford 44. funnily enough the guy I bought my d44 housing from used the stock jeep coil perches but not the link mounts, he made his own out of like 3/8", thought that was overkill, prob just what he had laying around

 

[Kirby N.]

Jons suspension is a 3 link ( well actually I call it a 4 link but it confused poeple)

A single upper and 2 lowers, the 4th link is the panhard.

It is not a radius arm suspension

So its not binding like you think it is because there is only one upper

Ahh, never mind then! My fault for not reading the back story. I have seen those jeep brackets take a serious beating and be just fine. Like I said the only ones I have personally re-welded/ rebuilt have been on poorly designed links that had a bind. Maybe you are rougher on this thing than I thought!!!

The Dana 44 with the "c"s has its share of quirks too, I think you are on he right track. It will take some time to get the bugs sorted out.

Tom woods is right down the street from me. You want me to go check on it for you? Lol.

 

[janderson4010]

Ahh, never mind then! My fault for not reading the back story. I have seen those jeep brackets take a serious beating and be just fine. Like I said the only ones I have personally re-welded/ rebuilt have been on poorly designed links that had a bind. Maybe you are rougher on this thing than I thought!!!

The Dana 44 with the "c"s has its share of quirks too, I think you are on he right track. It will take some time to get the bugs sorted out.

Tom woods is right down the street from me. You want me to go check on it for you? Lol.

go grab that driveshaft for me haha, actually it should be delivered today. yeah I have this problem where I get in a hurry and miss small details sometimes, working on that. I'm gonna weld washers in the passenger side bracket so its fixed, I can adjust my caster with the upper link so the adjustable bottom ones aren't necessary. I was going to build the passenger side link mount last night along with the drivers one I built but I decided I didn't want to put a bunch of work into an axle im not going to continue using. built the driver side last night, it came out really nice, 1/4" plate and it is fully welded and ready to go. im giong to build some new coil spring retainers and then put the axle back in the rig.

here is a pic while I was taking it apart of the driver side,

Kirby you are close enough to come up here and wheel with us, you should come check it out, and next time we are heading to Utah I'll let you know and we will wheel it up, Moab or something

 

[Kirby N.]

I would love to wheel with you. My heep needs a few more things before it will hang on anything decent. Mainly sway bar discos, some 35s and some corner guards. Too bad the Exploder is long gone. I have been thinking of a ranger build at some point.

 

[janderson4010]

I would love to wheel with you. My heep needs a few more things before it will hang on anything decent. Mainly sway bar discos, some 35s and some corner guards. Too bad the Exploder is long gone. I have been thinking of a ranger build at some point.

I would rather be building a ranger than a bII but that's what I have and its turning out ok. seems straightforward enough, couple nights of work and you should be good to go w the jeep right? yeah its a bummer when you end up selling a rig, I don't think mine will ever be worth anything so no danger of that haha.

So tonight I think I'm going to run over and build the coil retainers. they are going to be built out of 3/8" plate so I don't have the problem I was running into last weekend with them breaking. After they are done the axle can go back in and I can get to the back. I need to cut the spring perches off and rotate the axle up since I now have a double cardon driveshaft. I think while im under there ill look at how I can mount some better shocks, may just make a tube brace up against the floor and angle them in, that way I should be able to get a 14" shock in there, and I have a few options that length laying around.

 

[janderson4010]

oh I forgot to post the drivehshaft **** I got the yesterday from Eric when my new custom driveshaft showed up,

 

[Kirby N.]

I would rather be building a ranger than a bII but that's what I have and its turning out ok. seems straightforward enough, couple nights of work and you should be good to go w the jeep right? yeah its a bummer when you end up selling a rig, I don't think mine will ever be worth anything so no danger of that haha.

So tonight I think I'm going to run over and build the coil retainers. they are going to be built out of 3/8" plate so I don't have the problem I was running into last weekend with them breaking. After they are done the axle can go back in and I can get to the back. I need to cut the spring perches off and rotate the axle up since I now have a double cardon driveshaft. I think while im under there ill look at how I can mount some better shocks, may just make a tube brace up against the floor and angle them in, that way I should be able to get a 14" shock in there, and I have a few options that length laying around.

It is more the cash than anything. I don't want to put a cheap swaybar disco on it that I will want to replace with something better. If there is anything I learned from my xsploder build it is do it right, do it once, do it wrong do it over and over! So to get an antirock or swaylock is 400 at least. I already bought some rockmen trail corners but I need to get them painted. Then there is tires! I have one new 315/75 r 16 mtr kevlar, but three more is going to be mucho dinero! It will take me a while but I will get there.

I would love to start with a 89-92 Ext cab Ranger with a 4.0 and a manual and add a 77 f150 dana 44 witht the mounts narrowed 2" per side and some rcvs and some cage arms and an atlas 4.3 and a fw disk 8.8 with chromolly shafts to match. Arbs and a bobbed bed and 40" kevlars. Ahh but then that is a ton more money! I have looked hard for the ranger candidate but a low mile straight rust free one is hard to find.

 

[janderson4010]

thats a hell of a parts list, it would prob never happen on my budget.

went and built the driver side coil retainer, I started by drilling the 2 existing holes out, the cutouts on the end are bk I welded nuts onto the back side of my mount and the welds needed space

then I welded 2 nuts onto the back of a piece of 1/4" and welded it to the coil spring mount , that way I had the nuts on the back side of the 1/4" with the 1/4" acting as a spacer.you can see where the bolts go here.

I was going to use a piece of 3/8" but I realized that would be overkill and I already had some scrap 1/4" laying around so I drilled it and viola I have a coil spring retainer,

I got started on the other side but the coil sits in a different spot so it will be higher, that means ill need to space my retainer up higher, I didn't want to mess with that so I called it for the day until I can go get some more hardware.

 

[Heath]

What happened to the idea of putting it on that coil mount coming off both sides?

 

[janderson4010]

What happened to the idea of putting it on that coil mount coming off both sides?

it went away for 2 reasons, leverage and ease of use. the plan was to put a piece of plate that ran all the way through the center of the coil mount and bolted in the middle, since I don't have enough 3/8" plate to span the 5" that would take it would be made out of 1/4", meaning that I would have 2.5" or so of 1/4" on either side holding up to the force of holding the spring down vs about 3/4" on the setup I chose to use.

2nd reason is ease of installation/use. it would have had one bolt in the center, and although I could have used a really large bolt vs the 5/16" grade 8 bolts I used for this one the bolt would have been in the center of the coil, hard to start and tighten bk the spring itself would be in the way. Basically I had to scrap the original idea bk it wouldn't have been a good retainer.

 

[janderson4010]

retainers are done and the axle is ready to go back in, then I can pull the rear and give it some TLC

 

[janderson4010]

seriously kids put a good cage in your rig, made of DOM tubing, Eric was lucky to walk away from this one with just a cut on his head, line is called captain insano,