What Did You Do With Your Rig Today?

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I posted this in another forum to explain things that most of you already know so please forgive me. Anyways, here's what did this weekend.
So, I did some major work on the Jeep this Sunday, literally all day Sunday lol. I finished off the projects for the reliability of the front end. First, we removed the stock axles and replaced them with chrome moly axles with super joints. The stock axles are fine in most cases but can be stressed and break when using lockers in serious off road situations. Since we have no clue what we might be up against, I need to be able to go anywhere with my BOV, including streams, hills and over trees. That's why I installed part 2 of the front end. Lockers. My Jeep came with an open differential in the front. What that means is that even being in 4WD, power is always sent to the wheel with the least resistance side. This is so that when your driving on the road and going around corners, one wheel turns at a faster rate than the other and open differentials allow this to happen without binding the axles or gears. With a "lunchbox" locker, when they are not in 4wd, the locker acts just like an open differential allowing the wheels to turn independently. Once you engage into 4wd, the diff locks into place and both tires turn at the same rate of speed and traction. Since you need to pull the axles out from the carrier anyways, doing both axle and locker at the same time only makes sense. Here's a short video of open Vs locked. The first Jeep has open diffs and you can see only one wheel turning while the 2nd Jeep going over the same terrain walks right thru it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sprn3BDLTvU&t=45s. the 3rd part was installing a new adjustable track bar. What a track bar does is keep the axle centered in the front. Once you lift your BOV, the stock track bar is raised higher standing more straight up. This moves the axle over to one side more than the other. This is the biggest cause for "death wobble" on a lifted vehicle. To fix this, you can either drill and relocate the bottom of the track bar to make up the difference, or install the adjustable one in the stock holes. The previous owner did the relocation, but the holes were wallered out and I had a wishy washy front end. So I installed the adjustable track bar in the original holes and now my Jeep handles as good as my car with the 33" mudders on it. Part of an earlier project was to cut out the front and back fenders for the tires to tuck in without rubbing in extreme cases of offroading. I got the fronts cut out and was hoping to get my 5" pocket flares put on but it started raining and I didn't get them done. Now I'm waiting on a break in the weather to finish them and it's not looking very good this week lol.
 

Eric Neal

Rank V
Launch Member

Pathfinder I

1,798
Atlanta, GA
Member #

8704

Opened up my RTT to dry out after travelling & camping along the Georgia Taverse with my new buddy from Louisiana.

During the traverse it rained or was so socked in with fog (think "Smokey Mountains"!!) Nothing was dry.

Not an exciting upgrade, critical maintenace item, nor new purchase BUT a much needed investment in future trips, since mold & mildew sux...
 

Eric Neal

Rank V
Launch Member

Pathfinder I

1,798
Atlanta, GA
Member #

8704

Nothing exciting. Just swapped in new windshield wipers on both the Rubi and Commander,
Man, I need to do that (swap out a windshield) on my rig... driving into the sunshine invites a huge leap of faith regarding traffic, turns, etc. My '02 windshield is so pitted that I think it's dangerous during those rare times when the alignment with road and sun are "perfect".
 
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Knitron

US Rocky Mountain Region Local Expert Utah
Launch Member

Off-Road Ranger I

2,459
Clearfield, UT
First Name
Jason
Last Name
T
Member #

3805

Ham/GMRS Callsign
KJ7EBG
Got back from a week long work trip and had to dig it out to leave the airport, it's about time it's started snowing here on UT!IMG_20180224_091839_545.jpg

OB# 3805
 
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