[EricsXJ]

Treddyo, sorry I missed your questions in your last post.

Originally Posted by TreddyoXJ

I have two questions related to earlier in the thread: Do you think that the T&T belly pan and LA's would have clearance issues with the exhaust and hangers in general, or do you think that your issues were a special case specifically due to trail damage?

I'm not sure to tell you the truth. I know my issues were related to trail damage, but when this happened I consulted a friend with another 2000XJ that installed the Y-link and he also had some issues with his exhaust in the way also, just not nearly as bad as mine.

Second, are frame stiffeners a necessity with the T&T system? I'm not real hot on the idea of welding all of that to my frame (or paying for it), but if there are going to be catastrophic consequences for not doing, I suppose I'd have to do it. I'm not noticing any major issues with the rigidity of my frame right now, but I don't wheel that hard at this point. In the future, I imagine that I will go bigger and harder, but are stiffeners really worth the price and effort?

Absolutely worth the time, effort, and money if you are going to wheel your rig and you want it to last a long time. But for the casual off-roader that isn't going to be doing really challenging trails, I wouldn't say they are absolutely necessary. I wheeled my rig many years before installing them... One good test to see how much your unibody flexes is just driving down a dirt road that isn't flat, put your hand on top of the door and roof as you go. You will feel how much the body moves in relation to the door. You might be surprised at how much the unibody flexes just going down some easy trails.

And you can install the Y-Link without stiffeners but later on if you want to add them you will regret not getting the stiffeners first.

[aircruiser]

i cant believe such a nice rig would have lift blocks....WTF?

[EricsXJ]

Originally Posted by broncofire75

Who makes the bumper?

Or did you make the whole thing?

Who made the bumper? AEV. They only sold 25 then stopped because they had issues with the powdercoat and never continued making them again. I modified the bumper corners and now the carrier, so its not exactly how they intended it to be. They also only intended it to hold a 33" tire maximum.

[aircruiser]

btw, my comment above was sort of a joke

[EricsXJ]

Originally Posted by aircruiser

i cant believe such a nice rig would have lift blocks....WTF?

Young grasshoppa read too much jeepforum.

Lift blocks are bad because they can cause axle wrap. Key word there is "can". With stock flexy and worn out leafs, lifting via a block will most likely cause axle wrap. I have 4.5" leaf packs, much stiffer than stock, so it will be much less prone to axle wrap and I haven't noticed any so far.

Lift blocks are good in that they add lift without changing how the suspension will ride. When you get up in the 6" lift range, you should be using more than one method to achieving that lift. 6" leaf packs alone would be foolish and way too stiff. Shackles are good but you can only get them so tall. Blocks? Not bad I say if you don't go crazy and get really tall ones or do something stupid like stack them...

And besides, mine are just fat shims not lift blocks, remember?

Originally Posted by aircruiser

btw, my comment above was sort of a joke

Someone inevitably would post the same thing, so I'll leave my reply as is. You should use a smiley next time.

[aircruiser]

yeah man its all good. i didnt know that so thanks for the info.

my jeep wont be getting that high (atleast i dont think) but yeah i know what ya mean. cant remember where i saw it, but there was an xj with half moon leaves..looked pretty bad. rigs turning out great man and it looks sick..definitly inspirational.

[broncofire75]

x2^...

Even wit a AAL in my pack I aint got the least bit of wrap with my 3/4 zero rates. I like to think I just raised he mounting point. They aint going no where cuz I made them...LOL...

When I get my 3.5" packs I'll prolly leave the block in cuz I like having a sort of custom wheelbase heh and it helps that the tires dont eat my flares.

[AlabamaDan]

Originally Posted by EricsXJ

Here is how the tire sat before:

Man that tire looks HUGE on the back of your XJ!!

[Silent]

Eric, I like the AEV bumper you have in the rear. Do you know where to get one, or if someone has one for sale?

Thanks,
Silent

[bmyohn]

as for the stiffiners part, it isnt impossible to install afterwards. me and a buddy from NAXJA installed them in a couple hours, basically we just dropped the pan a little bit, slid the stiffiners in, marked where to drill the holes pulled it back out and used a drill press to put the holes in. probably done in less the 3 hours but man did i notice a difference in the ride after that!!! highly recommended like eric said!!

[EricsXJ]

Okay so this morning I pulled the Jeep out and went to open the hatch to load some spares.

DOH!



It turns out that after I changed my tire carrier, I mounted the tire and never thought to test it to see if the hatch had enough clearance to open. I had to laugh at this, because while most of you probably think I'm skilled or fabbing this stuff comes second nature to me, it doesn't. I usually fight my way through each modification and then stuff like this happens and I have to redo it. The good thing is to fix this won't be very hard at all. I just need to cut out the corner piece that stops the carrier arm from swinging open further (see below). That will be my next little project (repair) I guess.

[XJLI]

lol nice. looks good closed at least

[EricsXJ]

But I have more work that I need to keep you up to date on....

The original theme of this thread was "beefing things up" and this next mod was something I was planning on doing eventually, in fact I was originally going to do it when I had the front axle pulled but I didn't want to delay the other mods.

This one is beefing up my Dana 30 some more since I have so much money "invested" in it already, its a keeper. As you may know, my Dana 30 has 4.56 gears, an ARB locker, Warn hub kit with alloy inners / outers and 760 u-joints with full-circle clips. The potential weak areas are the ring and pinion (not much I can do about that) and the tubes. I suppose its not too common but some people have bent their Dana 30's and since I'm on 35's I think its possible that I could too. I could add a truss, which is what most people do but I decided to do something a little different: sleeve it.

Not only sleeve it, but my LCA mounts where in sad shape even though I've had JKS mini-skids on them. I've beat them so much on the rocks that the mini skids where actually starting to push up and make contact with my old LCAs. So I figured I could install new LCA mounts while I was at it.

Compared to some of my other mods, this one wasn't too expensive. I bought a two foot length of Sched 40 pipe locally and some LCA mounts from Currie. The pipe is 2.5" I.D. and 3/16" thick walls. I could have went ultra strong and got 3" DOM with 1/4" walls, but my metal supplier didn't have any and inferred that it would be costly to get. So hopefully the pipe will work.



One note on the Currie LCAs brackets. They are supposed to be stock replacements, but the cut that wraps around the axle tube has a larger radius than the stock 2.5" of the Dana 30. It fits a 3" tube exactly so it has a pretty good fit for my pipe too (not quite 3" diameter).

So I started by cutting off the old LCA mounts. Also notice my passenger-side UCA mount. On other Dana 30s I've noticed that the open side is to the front. Mine is to the rear and I don't know why. I don't think it makes much difference. Either way, this is something you definitely need to beef up. I've seen a few of these literally get ripped off, or bend badly. The previous owner of this axle welded a tab across it for support, but I noticed it started cracking beneath that tab a couple years ago. So I added a second piece for more support and to repair the crack. I'll be making this better too while I'm at it.

[EricsXJ]

Next was cut the pipe to length and cut it in half lengthwise. Obviously the best way to sleeve an axle is cut off the knuckles and all the mounts and slide that thing on, but I'm not about to do that. This will have to do. As you can see the whole bottom half is sleeved and the top part from the center section to the UCA mount. I drilled some rosettes for plug welding also.



Here's the back side all welded up with the new LCA mounts. Notice I also plated the whole inside of the UCA mount. No more cracks for that thing! At first I was thinking about raising the LCA's up some but I couldn't see a real easy way to do it and didn't want to risk possibly not being able to attach my Treks Y-Link arms back up. So I only ended up raising them up a hair, maybe 1/4" or 1/2" at most.



Another point to doing this is it will keep the tubes from spinning in the center section, which is real bad when that happens. I don't think its too common for Dana 30s, but hey, why not address that problem too! So I welded around the seam connecting the pipe to the center section which is cast. Now this was my first time welding to cast and I've heard it can be difficult. Sure enough, after running my bead I heard a pronounced "crack" and with a light I could see that my weld cracked. Bummer. So later I ran a second bead 1/3'rd on the pipe and overlapping the crack of the first bead. This time when it cooled it did not crack. I also pre-heated the cast part with a propane torch some but I kind of doubt it helped.

Here's the driver side. I just added a half-sleeve to the bottom. You also get a good view of my LCA skids made out of 1/4" plate.



And from the back:

[kg4kzv]

Your XJ is killer and your advice is spot on. So I have to ask a question.

If you had it all to do over again would you have still kept the D-30 or would you swap it out if so to what F/S D-44 or other?


Keep on making us

chris