Traveler I
Traveler I
Enthusiast II
Traveler I
Traveler I
Pretty! You have a beautiful jeep. A couple of lessons I learned in building my 2011 Rubicon for Overlanding. The first is weight. Some of your items are real heavy. Your bumpers, winch, side rails, and tire carrier added a lot of weight. Then you have the issues with the lift. Hopefully you have or are a great mechanic. Because the more weight you put into the vehicle, the more modifications you need to make. Most importantly is the breaking distance. You may consider oversized breaks. This was one of the best investments I made, I only wish I had done it sooner. The prices have come way done on these and you can do it yourself in the driveway. Next upgrading you stock control and sway arms on the vehicle. Chrysler build to the lowest denominator and this was the cause of my death wobble. Unable to find the cause of the problem, I put a Go-Pro camera under the car and literally watched the track bar vibrate over an inch. This is an inexpensive upgrade, but it is best to take it somewhere for alignment on a machine afterward. The Dana 44 axles are good, but the bigger the tires, the more stress. There are many stories of people breaking axles because they put 35" and larger tires on a stock Dana 44 axles. Your tires are around 34.5", so you may be concerned. You can have additional support welded to your axles to prevent this. I have 33" tires and it hasn't been an issue for me. Since you added the larger tires to the vehicle, you will need to reprogram the system for the larger tires, otherwise the speedometer will be wrong. And you added additional torque to the system, so you may consider changing the gearing. I live at around 5600' ASL and at 65 mph, my vehicle was shifting constantly. I regeared for 4.88 and the problem was solved. I could have reprogrammed the shift points, but the stress on the system and performance would have still been issues. Just some of my lessons learned and solutions. Hope to see you on some trail, someday.
Enthusiast II
I had two major issues with my front end. The first was one of the caps on the universal joint came off on my way to the Overland Expo in Flagstaff. The axle hole that the cap fit into stretched. Only noticed it because the seal broke and I was leaking fluid. I was lucky as I was planning on returning home on the Mojave Road. Ironically, Jeep fixed it for free, New axle and universal joint. The second issue was with the track bar. It was replaced with a ProComp Chrome moly track bar. I have a Rancho lift on the jeep, and Teraflex oversized brakes. I run 33" Micky Thompson Baja's MTX . Otherwise, I had no reason to upgrade any of the steering parts. The jeep is a pleasure to drive, but you know the acronym JEEP means Just Empty Every Pocket! Good luck with your build.What steering upgrades did you go with? That was an issue with the last one I built.
Thanks!
Traveler I
Traveler I
Traveler I
Traveler I
Traveler I