Ownership Verified: BCS repeatedly breaks, fixes, and re-breaks his Jeep

Good progress over the last few days!

Painted up the calipers and WJ knuckles
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Bake at 200 degrees for 1 hour for best taste.
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Old balljoints out...
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...and new balljoins in! Red makes them turn faster.
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Knuckles, springs, shocks installed.
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Adjustable trackbar adjusted and installed.
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A digital level makes pinion angle/caster adjustment waaaay easier.
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So that's where I got to today. Hit a bit of a snag, both sets of axle shafts could use new U-joints, so new Spicer 760x units are on order but obviously will take a few days to arrive. Since the axle shafts have to go in before unit bearings or brakes, I'll have to just temporarily install a set of shafts for now, get the brakes set up, and then swap shafts again later. At least that gets the vehicle mobile so I can spin it around and finish the work on the back end.
 
First up: big beefy steering components. JKS DOM tie rod and drag link.

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New brake lines and the bigger twin-piston calipers.

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Add wheels and that's about that! Apart from a few things left over on the arse end (readjusting rear control arms, installing rear drive shaft, and bleeding rear brakes), she's pretty much a done deal. Time to find some trails! OK, maybe a car wash first.

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Mmmm yes beef is good. Beef keeps your tires pointed in the same direction and not towards each other! I may flip the steering OTK at some point but I'd also have to move the trackbar mount to the topside of the axle along with relocating the sway mounts. No go until I have a welder so I'm stuck with bolt-ons for now.

Ran into a bit of an issue as I was finishing things up, when I installed the transmission crossmember I did so in the upper of its two positions for greater ground clearance and to keep my front driveline angle acceptable. Unfortunately, upon installing the rear drive shaft with the output/input aligned, the shaft was binding a bit at the transfer case yoke - not quite enough clearance on the drive yoke for the 15-degree shaft angle (which is admittedly on the ragged edge of usable for a 1310 joint). I hit the yoke with the angry end of a Dremel and it's got adequate clearance now, but if it starts to have vibration issues a slip yoke eliminator might be in my future.

Also got a good deal on a set of sway bar quick disconnects so those will get installed when I am changing the U-joints this weekend.
 
Pretty much wrapped up, time for a bath.

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Much better! Initial shakedowns went well, definitely some vibration from the rear driveline at ~60km/h but not horrible over or under that. I'll keep an eye out for an SYE kit deal and get that under there eventually. I already have a spare drive shaft that should work for the SYE anyway.
 
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Few minor updates...

Adapted the steering stabilizer setup from a late 80s Toyota truck, works great. Didn't necessarily need a stabilizer but nice to have.
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Got the new welder set up so I fabbed up a couple of small brackets for the Hella 700FFs I converted to HID ages ago but never got around to installing.
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SYE kit for the transfer case arrived from Iron Rock but I've been sick for a couple of weeks and haven't gotten around to installing it yet.
 
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First off: Hey kids! Don't take candy from strangers, look both ways before you cross the street, and always make sure your new brake lines aren't rubbing your damn tires on turns.

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I'd checked clearance when I first installed them but the hose must have relaxed a bit. Front lines have now been upgraded to stainless steel braided.


Time for the Slip Yoke Eliminator kit install. For those unfamiliar, it replaces the slip-yoke rear output on the transfer case with a fixed double-cardan yoke, requiring the use of a drive shaft with a built-in slip joint but also allowing you to run much steeper driveline angles without getting vibrations, plus you can work your rear pinion angle a bit better.


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The Iron Rock kit comes with all the parts you need, although some transfer cases (like mine) need an additional seal housing they also sell. You get the new yoke, all the fasteners you need, the seal housing, and the new seal. I also sprung for the optional drilling jig, which is very handy if you don't plan to remove the transfer case from the vehicle to drill it.


The instructions are pretty good but you need to make you own decisions about how much you want to cut down the splined output shaft - you need a minimum of 1.25", I cut mine down to 1.5" for extra safety factor, after doing a lot of measuring. The cutting is done with a cutting disc on an angle grinder, and to make sure the cut is straight you actually do the cutting with the engine running and spinning the output shaft. It works shockingly well!

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To get the shorter output length I had to cut down the yoke a bit, so fire up the chop saw.

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A bit of cleanup on the bench grinder and the new yoke is ready to go on!

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...However, you're not quite ready for the new yoke yet. See, to have a fixed yoke you have to make sure the yoke stays, well, fixed. This style of SYE is called a "Hack 'n' Tap" for a reason - you hack off the shaft and then drill and tap the end for a retaining bolt. This is the "fun" part. You must drill a centered 5/16" hole in the solid shaft, 1.5" deep, which is predictably a titanic pain in the ass under a vehicle. I'm lazy, so BEHOLD! The redneck under-car drill press!

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It's not centered correctly in the photo (had to hold the camera with one hand) but you use one hand to center the drill in the drilling jig and operate the trigger, while you use the other hand to yank on the 2x4 lever jammed against the parking brake bracket. It worked AMAZINGLY well and cut down my effort by like a factor of a hundred.


Once the hole is drilled, get out your tap set and tap the thing. Yes, you should be very paranoid about breaking your tap off, you're mega-screwed if you do!

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Clean off the mating surfaces and install the seal housing with a bit of RTV.

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Bolt in the new yoke and you're set!

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Now you get to take some measurements and go junkyard drive shaft shopping, which is where I'm at in the process. If you really need to get around you can stick the transfer case in 4WD and drive around in front-wheel drive.
 
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Got a driveshaft for the rear, nice to have my back axle powered again - always feel a bet leery of driving on only the front axle.

Once the new shaft was in, I had to use the adjustable rear upper control arms to align the pinion angle with the drive shaft angle. Here, I ran into a problem...

When I installed the adjustable control arms, I had replaced the junky Rough Country flex joints with high-quality Currie joints - fully forged flex joints with narrow bodies for extra flex angle. However, when I went to extend the arm, I realized that the shorter threaded shank on the Curries just wasn't long enough to get me where I needed to be.

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So it's a good thing I elected not to throw out the RC joints back when I swapped in the Currie ones. I pulled the RC joints apart and re-greased them in an effort to extend their life before putting them back in so they'll be fine for some time, but in the long term I'll need to cut the control arms and weld in an extension piece so I can go back to using the Currie joints. The other option is to spend $540CAD+shipping for a set of Currie arms, so yeah I'll just break out the welder and sleeve the things. Or, buy some 1" tube and some threaded inserts plus a couple more Currie joints and copy their entire arm design.

But for now, at it's safe and driveable and I can finally hit the trails again!
 
The rear UCA saga continues. I elected for the "ridiculous overkill" strategy and ordered some 1.5"OD 0.250"-wall DOM tube and appropriate threaded inserts, plus a pair of matching LHD-thread Currie joints and jam nuts so I can fab up some double-adjustable upper arms.

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The tube is wildly over-spec for upper arms (it dwarfs the inserts and is arguably excessive even for lower arms that actually see rocks) but strangely it ended up being the most cost-friendly overall package, so I get to do something like a triple weld pass to fill in the chamfer.

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Also going to pull the rear shaft out and rebuild it with new U-joints and centering ball, just need to find the time.
 
Update!

Rebuilt the rear shaft, vibrations seem to be all gone so hooray for that.

Eventually said to hell with it and ordered the parts (2" DOM, Currie JJs, inserts) to fab up some double-adjustable lower control arms to go with the uppers so that's a whole project now.


Was dicking around wheel shopping and came across an Amazon pricing glitch, ordered 4 of these for $25USD each. Let's see if they cancel my order or not!

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PLOT TWIST
It was a set of RC car wheels, and therefore 1/10 scale.
 
Might be on super closeout for a discontinued product? I had ProComp wheels on my Jeep that I ordered for $40 a corner, so $25 doesn't seem too far out from reality. Hope it works out for you
 
Might be on super closeout for a discontinued product? I had ProComp wheels on my Jeep that I ordered for $40 a corner, so $25 doesn't seem too far out from reality. Hope it works out for you

Entirely possible, though the price went right back up to $150/corner immediately after I ordered them and the Amazon price history is a crazy sine wave. At any rate the projected delivery date is in January sometime so it may be a while before I find out anything. Good news it was sold directly from Amazon rather than a third-party seller so there's hope yet.
 
One wheel has arrived! I remain optimistic! (But not optimistic enough to install a valve stem and mount a tire until the other wheels arrive).

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In the meantime, I finally got going on the rear control arms.

A comparison of the 2.0" upper joints and the 2.5" upper joints. Lower joints biiiiig.
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.25" wall DOM tube cut and mocked up to double-check length.
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Crank the TIG to 225A and pedal to the metal!
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Inserts all welded up:
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Ready for sandblasting and painting!
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Work continues at its standard steady but somewhat glacial pace.

Decided I needed a bigger vise for some reason. Your guess is as good as mine, but it's a decent Record clone and was absurdly cheap from a shop that was closing down. They also tried to sell me an even larger one but I wisely declined.

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Painted! Old vs new hotness.

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Put the new vise to work and got the lowers adjusted to length. Uppers get adjusted on the vehicle.

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All buttoned up and ready to hit the road.

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Figured I ought to install the gas tank skid plate while I was down there. Despite it being a factory option, this is not as straightforwards as it sounds, as mine has some aftermarket welded hitch that totally fucks with the mounting area. I had to judiciously extend some mounting holes and employ the Universal Sheetmetal Adjustment Tool but by god I made it fit.

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Next up: sway bar. I worked on this here and there so some of the pictures are older.

The stock sway bar is pretty weak to begin with, and the suspension lift sure doesn't help matters. The second-gen GCs came with a much heavier front bar, but also used longer arms on the bar. Some guys move the bar mount, I dry-fit it and found it interfered with my lower rad hose - maybe it only works on the 4.0L rigs.

So I cut the arms off.




I cut a ~2" section out of the arms, and re-attached them. Flap-disc the welds flush, slid the sleeve down, and welded the sleeve.

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Usual prime/paint and she's ready to go in - which is today's project. Will it work? Can I make it mount to my sway bar disconnects correctly? Will the arms snap off? Heck if I know, guess I'll find out.
 
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