| Author | Message | ||
     Wolfridgerider |
No disco's | ||
| Ourdee |
I always did alignments on my Jeeps with a tape measure on a concrete pad. I think my toe in was 1/8 to 1/4 inch on the 35" tires. I used more on the mud tires than the all terrains. | ||
| Torquehd |
Sorry a Chevy guy is hijacking the jeep thread, but it's still 4wd suspension mod related. I finally started on my shackle flip for my rear axle. I'm looking to gain a couple more inches of ride height and get rid of that 4" lift block. This is on my 08 Duramax sitting on 35s. The flip kit nets about 5" of lift over stock, I also got a 1" "zero rate add a leaf" which will allow me to move my axle rearward an inch or 1.5" if I decide to. I also had the genius (or maybe really bad) idea to do a redneck add-a-leaf by trimming down a couple leafs from an old rusty leaf spring pack I had laying around. De-rusted with a wire wheel then painted with VHT epoxy paint (my rattle can of choice). I bought a pair of 6 degree shims, but then I decided to just order new leaf spring perches. Still waiting on the new perches to come in the mail, I'll run the shims until I get the new perches and have time to install them. I got one shackle off tonight. It was a pain without removing the bed but I'm a glutton for self-inflicted punishment. I'll try to get it done here this weekend and share a pic or two. | ||
| Etennuly |
Chevy guy is hijacking the jeep thread, If that be so, I am in deep do-do for being so far into having the Jeep/Chevy hybred. Although mine goes back a bit for a solid front axle. Did I mention that you can also cheat the bed removal process a bit by removing the bolts, unplugging the light wires, unhooking the gas filler, and jacking the rear of the bed up a foot or so while sliding it back so that it does not hit the cab? | ||
| Torquehd |
I appreciate the input but I've never had the bed off a pickup so I know i'd end up spending more time goofing off with that than what it would save me. Also, the jackstands at the rear of my frame are maxed out and I don't really have any way of lifting higher than that without getting totally stupid. The welds on these WFO parts are GORGEOUS, you have to see them in person to really appreciate them. I hated painting them.  Here's the block removed, the redneck add-a-leaf, the zero-rate "add-a-leaf", and the 6 degree shim. The redneck add-a-leaf is from a half ton, so it's thinner than the rest of the leaves. With the springpack unloaded and uninstalled, the redneck addaleaf added about .75" to the springs. Not sure what they'll do installed and loaded. I don't like how the shim and zero-rate are not full length on the perch. A new set of perches welded on will delete the shim, and I'll probably end up making a full length zero-rate. IF I want to move the axle backward - if not it will just be a 1" block.   I've been using VHT epoxy paint on everything lately, it's better than rustoleum for durability and it dries fairly quickly even on low-temp high-moisture days. But i'm always searching for bulletproof spraypaint. Anyone have a go-to? | ||
| Torquehd |
I just watched the antirock sway bar video. I don't get it. I mean I get it on-road but not off-road. It's like the opposite of a bumpstop, which levers the low-side wheel down giving it more pressure and thus traction. | ||
| Etennuly |
Those are pretty welds for sure! As far as spray can paints you are probably using one of the best out there that I have used. I have a question about your angle blocks. From what I am seeing(based on what I have built and seen) it appears to be in backwards. Unless it is to compensate for a long shackle drop that changes the spring angle a lot. It looks like it would increase the driveshaft/pinion angle. I cannot open that video.  Leaf springs can be fun. I ran them on the rear of my dirt track race cars. I would grease them, wrap them in duct tape to keep dirt out, and take them apart every other week to re arch them because torque and traction would bend them if they were soft enough to work. I could really feel the difference when they were freshly re arched, it was a beautiful thing. I never did like anti sway bars much, I did not even run them on my race cars. I took them off my Jeep when it retired from road duty(a long time ago). But that is all part of personal preference and driving style. | ||
| Pwnzor |
My good friend Pinner Dave is a skilled welder, and those welds would make him very happy indeed. | ||
| Torquehd |
The rear of the leaf spring was dropped around 10" which rotates the front of the diff upward. I already had too much upward pinion angle, I wanted to roll the front of the pinion down. The angle is better now than it was before. A few months back I had to get a new yoke welded onto my driveshaft because, under axle wrap situations, the yoke came into contact with... whatever you call the thing on the axle side that carries the u-joint. Anyway it mangled the yoke all up. Now, with a better angle, no lift block, and a little bit more stiffness (add-a-leaf), axle wrap should be reduced. Edit: I'm a novice when it comes to setting pinion angle. I've read that straight is good, or parallel with the output shaft is good. But my driveshaft is a two-piece with a carrier bearing or center support bearing. Here's a pic of how it sits now (after):  not parallel... i may have to play with the angle more when I get the new perches in. (Message edited by torquehd on March 20, 2016) (Message edited by torquehd on March 20, 2016) | ||
| Court |
I can't weld for squat .... But I hire a number of folks who weld aluminum bus and stainless electrical pipe .... And those welds are gorgeous !! My compliments to the "artist". | ||
| Aesquire |
Ditto on the weld appreciation. On cars you want the angles on input & output shaft the same. The drive shaft should be about seven degrees from both. Measured on the ground, weight on the tires. With transfer cases it's going to be a bigger angle. Plus center bearings & other complexity. Curious what the happy angles are on a jeep. The old Dodge vans actually were too straight in the drivetrain. The rear u joint tended to not move much and would freeze solid. Then when you jacked it up off the suspension, or toss a face cord in back they'd just break. | ||
| Etennuly |
If the weight of the truck is sitting on it, that looks good. On a vehicle that will be toting loads it is a good thing to have a little down angle like you have it. It will lessen the angle under spring load and spring wrap acceleration. Looks like a good call from what I am seeing. That extra leaf will help that spring wrap that let it go too far before. That is a lot more rear shackle change than I have seen since the early 70's on Dodge Chargers and Darts and Chevy Nova's ala clearing 11" tires with an 8" wheel well.  With a two piece drive shaft you just line up the rear shaft to the carrier bearing slip joint. With some higher lift situations I have moved the carrier bearing down to get a better(lesser) angle. Here is the problem with a Jeep.....the rear drive shaft is about as long as a medium Craftsman screw driver.  Curious what the happy angles are on a jeep.  If it is still there after you step on the gas, it is pretty good! The failure point usually seems to be the bolts that hold the U joint to the rear pinion. The more pinion angle you have the more that U joint wants out of it's perches. In my case I am running that 400 Chev V8 that has a bit more torque than most Jeep CJ7's carry. When my Jeep had the stock AMC 20 axle they were 1/4 inch bolts with stamped straps. I never used more than any amount of throttle that was necessary, and it was good for a couple of years of trail running. Since putting in the GM 12 bolt it broke the stock 5/16 bolts (I throttle tested it one day)like they were made of plastic. Then I drilled out the holes in the yoke switching to 3/8 U bolts. Much better. But then I got over confident and let some joker hook me back to back with a Ford F150 at twice my vehicle weight. I was hoping(planning) for initial wheel spin so that I could throttle into pulling him a bit. But Nooooooo! The Jeep's soft springs wrapped, the tires 100% hooked up and that rear drive shaft left the stadium! Lucky it didn't hit anyone. In relationship to stock, this rear end is about 11" lower than the original pinion location. I lowered the rear of the Transfer case 3" to help lessen the angle. Going with the larger GM U joints helps. Next up new U bolts for the pinion, and of course another U joint. Back to brain to throttle foot restrictions. | ||
| Torquehd |
Well I tried but my welds just aren't as pretty as his. Instead of getting longer shocks, I rotate the shock mount up so it's no longer hanging below the axle. The near side I did in a single pass, decided it wasn't penetrating deep enough and tried two passes on the back side. I think it'll do but I'm self taught so I don't really know what is right other than what I've seen on youtube.  Gotta love the weather here in western Washington... got the suspension part done.  So I lost 4" from the block. Then gained 5.5 from the shackle flip, and 1 from the zero-rate. The shim may have added 1/4". The home-made add-a-leaf I figure to have added about 1". So overall, I'm up 3.5" over previous while getting rid of the block. Flipping the shackle moves the axle forward about an inch. It looks fine where it is IMO, I'll have to go flex it over (what little flexing this pickup can do) and see what my wheel well clearance is like.  The splines behind my center support bearing have an accordion boot over and I didn't measure it before... taking my chances I guess. If I move the axle back an inch I'll want to lengthen the driveshaft. | ||
| Etennuly |
The welds look sufficient for shock mounts on a street truck. Just limit your jumping! If you were trying to simulate that TIG job with your MIG the processes are different. They will not look the same. With TIG you drop little molten balls of filler rod into the pre molten parts to be welded. What makes it pretty is having the steady hands to keep the puddle and drops consistent. The same size, heat, speed, movement with every drop. With a MIG you are pushing a constantly arcing wire into a puddle path that is heating up just as the weld is taking place. A beautiful MIG weld has a much more flowing look than the individual stacked coin look of TIGi Your weld needed a little more heat and a little less wire, without weaving. A straighter weld path burned in a bit deeper. | ||
| Torquehd |
Thanks for the critique, it's the first input I've had on any of my welds. I'll try turning the wire sped down and do less side to side. Wasn't trying to imitate the tig but I do always try to make it look pretty. The shackle flip interfered with my exhaust so I did what I've always wanted to do, I made it exit in front of the rear tire. It came out pretty haggard, it's the first thin metal welding I've ever done and I kept blowing through even though I kept turning the heat down. | ||
| Etennuly |
You are welcome, I hoped I wasn't over stepping. Used exhaust pipe is always a buggar to weld. It has coatings on it that won't like you, it will have enough unseen corrosion inside to be at half it's original weld-able condition, and it is thin, oh, and it is round, making you change position continually. BUT I love me some side PIPES!! Your wire speed also controls fine tuning of the AMPs that = heat. Set an approximate range with the amp selector then fine tune the wire feed. Slower wire feed = less heat. On used exh pipe.....  better to be lucky than good. If these are the first welds you have done, I think you will do fine. It is an art that requires skill. Skill comes with practice and quicker if you are working for some old prick who is on you every minute for not being perfect. | ||
| Torquehd |
Not the first, I'd like to think I've moved up from novice to amateur but I may not be there yet. I'll always take input on my workmanship by people who have more experience than me. I always assume that if it looks pretty and stands up to a severe beating with a mini sledge its ok. | ||
| Aesquire |
 | ||
| Torquehd |
The most ridiculous rock crawler I've ever seen | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
SOOOOO!! I figured out my death wobble!! I have had my Jeep too 3 shops.... one to do the welding cause I suck at it and install the axles, One to remove the ABS pump and install my new lines... and one to do a front end alignment. None of them noticed the worker bee at the first shop installed the front trackbar wrong... and to be honest, it took me awhile to figure it out. I have been reading... watching videos... wrenching and repeating that process for a few weeks. Then it smacked me in the face. I had my wife hop into the drivers seat for a dry steering test. The stabilizer was moving around some so I fixed that. Repeated the dry steering test and the trackbar was moving. I scratched my grape and thought to myself.... "You have checked the torque on that thing a few times" Then like a potato gun blast to the ear... The trackbar was mounted on the OUTSIDE of the bracket. Not in the middle of the bracket. Bolt on one side going thru the bracket thru the trackbar and thru the bracket again. Presto chango tighten it down O and it is elfixo'd. Hit 65 on the way into work and it didn't shake any more than a normal lifted Jeep with 37" tires on it should shake. (It was still a white knuckle experience) I'm HAPPY again!I was about to set the damn thing on fire!      | ||
| Torquehd |
Glad you got it figured out. While my wobble isn't the same magnitude as yours, I still have some gremlins somewhere in my front end. My son wanted to go play at the state park today. So did I. I fail in the "jeep" category.  | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
you would have more "flex" if you had a Ford but that is not always a good thing | ||
| Torquehd |
haha... I love that video series, I know brand loyalty is generally considered to be pretty redneck, but my dad raised me as a Chevy guy and I probably will be until I die. Too bad they didn't use fully boxed HSS on my model year. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I took the Jeep for a firewood cutting run. I used it to drag some big trees around to make it easier to cut them. It was pretty cool to watch all the tires dig. They packed up with mud pretty quick but expelled it just as fast. The next project that is waiting in the garage... Change the 2H-4H-4L shifter linkage to a cable shifter. It just arrived and is waiting on me to do the install. The skid pan needs dropped to make it easy. A trip to the car wash is in order. There be lots o mud that needs washed away before I start that project. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
here we go again... I bought the cable shifter, had all the tools ready to do the job. I stopped at the car wash on my way home to blast off as much dirt as I could before it fell into my eyes. Crawled under it and started to loosen up the transmission mounting bolts 1 snapped off, 2 snapped off, 3 snapped of and number 4 decided to play and came off the way it should. No biggie, transmission mount is 30 bucks and it wouldn't hurt to have a new one. I then started to unbolt the skid pan. 5 of the 6 bolts came out with no problem. The last bastard spun and spun in the frame. SWEET! There was enough gap between the frame and the skid to get a sawzall blade in there and cut it off. I was/am not a happy camper to say the least. I'm getting to old and fat to be rolling around on the concrete floor.... damn Jeep! I set you on FIRE! | ||
| Etennuly |
 Oh I'm sorry.....that kind of suffering is not funny.  BUT then.....I'm so glad it's not me!!! A cable shifter for the transfer case? Interesting. I have seen two stick and three stick arrangements. Maybe I need to get up on the new stuff. But I don't have time to get into magazines stories and internet articles about things I am not doing. But I sure do like watching you! | ||
| Froggy |
   He drives a stick. | ||
| Blks1l |
That could have been bad, wonder what they were trying to do? | ||
| Etennuly |
Yeowsers! That is some scary picture right there. Shows you just how tough a single layer of sheetmetal is. | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I wonder if his ding a ling ding dong still dings.... or it could be Caitlyn Jenner trying to get the job done on the cheap... |
