Tune up done! 130k miles and still had Mopar wires on it. No wonder it had a miss on wet days

 

Today was the shake down of Nacho Libre.



All went well and was a wonderful day in the woods.
















Awesome feeling to have a good friend back out on the trails in his own rig.

 

A message I got from a friend today that was doing some spotting.

Duder stuffs the fenders on extra caricular line at the end of "the" rock garden

 

Good weekend on the the Jeep front. Got a new exhaust manifold, the old one had a pretty good crack in it and the Jeep was running like crap when cold, all is well now.









went with the Crown ? Dorman solution replacement. Read a lot about peoples headers cracking and the stock design is fairly efficient. Really saw no reason to change it up.

Being the glutton for punishment I am. I attacked that job the day before wheeling.







And everything is here to install the 44 with 4.56s. Just waiting for master install kit for front diff.

 

Stackin

 

Finally. Got the rest of the regear stuff. Today

 

the exorcism of stock gears has begun.




broke the nut off almost every ubolt




I know that they are very similar in strength but I do like the bolt in axle vs. c-clip and it needed a new cover and pinion seal anyway. out with the old and in witht the new.




A pic of the goods. 11 teeth on the pinion and 50 on the ring gear, the math gave me a O.S. moment but I guess thats how the the 44 gets to "4.56s" heres a pic of the goods.




Perchs and shock mounts welded up and a pretty coat of paint. Who the hek is this for, I never get to have nice things? Didn't take me any time to scrape the crap out of it jockying it in there with the jack.





and then finally after brakes, brake lines, ebrake cables shocks bolted down, brakes bled it was done.




even scored another inch of rear lift from those big angry perches.

 

Its been a long winter of 2wd. Finally caught up enough on the house work to get on the Jeep. So front end tear down and regear has commenced.




Planing on flipping steering and trackbar OTK while we are in hear. Hope to be back on with more updates sooner. Wheeling season is coming fast and I dont want to miss out this year.

 

Very exciting, but not much to look at. Setting up gears has been a very fun challenge. Pinion preload is a happy 12inchlbs, now working on getting a decent backlash, started with none, got it up to .003 and then over shot it to .012. Hoping to get it to .005 give or take. Taking it slow and learning as I go.



and a new tool for the shop.

 

Coming together, I'm pretty happy with the patterns, 12 inch pounds of pinion preload, .006 of back lash. Showed the pics to a couple of trusted wrench turning friends and they both said run it, so time to finish it all up and see whats what.

 

Yay 4wd!



rebuilt built johnny joints on UCA's and had a broken high misalignment joint that needed replacement. Was starting to worry about how bad it would wander. So much better now.





Put the center caps in the wheels because why not.




Up next will be moving the tracbar OTK, but hopefully some wheeling soon.

 

Got out there for a spring shake down. Good little run, and the gears are pretty cool

 

A cool mile stone for any jeeper. It can put a tire up on a jersey barrier, at least while aired down anyway.

 

Scored a new to me steering wheel assembly. The original ones leather wrapping was starting to rot and it was bent pretty bad.



Don't know if I will keep the airbag and cruise though. My old one didn't have cruise and I haven't seen anybody that I know have one like it.

This is what the old horn and airbag looked like.

 

Dead shock was dead



got me some of them fancy inverted shocks




they are for an 8" lift which was pretty close to the compressed measurement I was at with my 3" lift shock with the extensions on them and I don't think we will be stepping down in tire size.