DirtyComanche

A couple things... Cut down the towers for the upper arms as far as you can. The joint doesn't flex there anyways, so clearance won't matter. You're going to have to do more than beefing up the stock crossmember. I'd build a new one, if I was you... But, you need to work on the uniframe and how it mounts to it. It's not thick enough to hold that sort of stress. Even if you drop your track bar, you will have bumpsteer. Just becuase of the length difference between the track bar and drag link. I'd probably just try it as is and see how bad it is. Is that final tire size?

What I hate is that my local dealer can't even search for discontinued parts. So, if it is discontinued, you can't get it. Even if it does exist. Although, the pricing on the stuff they do have is stupid. A renix rad is listed at $460. Tranny cooler lines are $260 each. A coolant bottle is $106.

Hypothetically. I wouldn't ever modify the inverted-y stuff. IMHO it belongs in the trash. It never works right. But, this is coming from a guy with an inverted T setup that the tie rod has been cut down and welded back together, and the drag link has been cut down and has a heim on one end. And a tapered fluted reamer drills a straight hole. Or a hole with about a 2* degree taper if you don't go all the way through (it's not ment to do that). But, it'll go through spring steel so the knuckles won't be any harder.

I got the door back together. It works now... Image Not Found All sanded. Needs to be cleaned and masked and I can paint it. And I got new tranny cooler lines. Junkyard new. For FREE. The dealer wanted $260 a line.

Most people just flip the tie-rod. It doesn't work as well, but is a lot easier than sourcing a RHD drag link. Either way inverted Y steering never really works that well (IMHO). Although, there's really very little to it once you have the parts. You drill three holes and tack the inserts in place. Yes, the holes are a little hard to drill - I'd probably not have used a single large drill bit. Actually, I'd not use a drill bit. A tapered fluted reamer with some gear oil on it would cut through that stuff nicely.

IIRC, ford explorers have a nice one.

I didn't even look at the axles. For that size tire that'll be bad. The D44 outers are rather weak. Especially the stock ones.

They allow you to reverse the taper in the TRE holes in the steering knuckles (or anything else for that matter). So, instead of the TRE being below the knuckle, it can be above it. It's just a little tapered cone thing.

Shhh. If you unplug them most people don't notice. That way they're already up for next year.

It'd be fullwidth D44s front and rear, I think. At least, that's what my buddies 1500 was. I think. But yeah, wrong side front diff. Unless you're into a tcase swap it won't work very well.

True to that. I've seen a couple snapped sector shafts from DP arms. Although, maybe their time was up anyways. Either way, a steering box brace on one of these vehicles is pretty much mandatory.

Yup. But to clarify that, that's the angle drawn by a straight line between the two joints on the track bar, and the passenger side TRE on the knuckle and the TRE at the pitman arm. The factory track bar is curved - making it hard to tell exactly what's going on with the angles.

It's a grey interior. I think it'll match alright to pretty much anything.

Normally I'd not care. The axle doesn't do much for me as I've never owned one and hardly consider bothering. But, I swear at least 40% of 'newer' (91+) XJs have 8.25s. And some CJ fag is trying to tell me that they are 'rare'. Do I just have really good luck at finding XJs with 8.25s?

I'm not sure why a stronger housing is an advantage, unless you're breaking them or something... Or are you talking the tubes being thicker? Mmm, I've heard it said more than once that the housing is stronger. (I know of one D44 housing that actually broke - as in cracked the centre section into peices. But, that was one of those snow-skimmer guys and he was doing 70mph+ and hit a rock. It was KINDA to be expected)

The cast wedge D44s aren't worth anything to a jeep guy. Unless you want to run ford radius arms (somebody does that - Pete!) Or retube it - which is going to cost a couple times the worth of the axle. 78-79 are cast wedge. Unless it is not that year and looks like this: Image Not Found You can see the axle tube extends through the wedges, and they are really just small wedges that are welded on.

With a DP arm, you need to drop the track bar. Or raise the axle side mount. Raising the axle side mount is better if you can - helps keep the roll axis flat and high. AS said, a ZJ arm is a bolt on drop. 1" or 1.5" or something. I have one lying in the garage IIRC, unless I threw it out. I'd whip it out and compare it to a stocker, but I don't think I have one of those. But, the correct solution is highsteer or at least OTK steering. And get rid of that Y-link BS while you're at it... Oh, and raise the track bar mount too.

Well, I don't think my radiator leaks... But, one of the tranny cooler fittings finially blew apart - after I went to the trouble of fixing the rest of the lines :headpop: Now there's a really big stain on the driveway :mad: So, I fixed the MJ with every intention of going to the junkyard. Then used it to push my POS XJ out of the way. Then promptly decided that maybe I should do some body work to get myself into a better mood. Image Not Found I pulled the side window I need to replace. And the messed regulator. I wish I could find the 97+ windows instead. Image Not Found I got all the rust fairly well cleaned up, both front doors torn down and pretty much ready to mask. Just need to do the rear doors and the hatch. About 90% of the thing is sanded. Now, the only question is... What colour? Since I'm doing it anyways. I'm limited to fairly basic colours as I'm rather cheap. I have on hand: -Flat black (umm, I want this thing to be nice - so no) -Gloss black (Thinking about it... I'd probably have to paint inside the doors then) -Gloss dark blue (It's darker than the pain that was on it) Also considering -OD green (maybe) -Dark gloss green Any other good ideas?

That's a nasty booboo you had with the spring pocket.

We had a flash rainstorm today and I really didn't get too much done. My 'new' radiator... $25. It looks alright, hopefully it won't leak or anything. Image Not Found Well, at least it fits... The c-clamps are because that radiator support is bent (bad sign) and I wanted to make sure it was going to snug up good without hammering. Image Not Found I took all the emblems off. They were all done with that f'ing black tape. So, I broke half of them... I RO sanded the header panel and cleaned up the cracks for repair, only to find I'm out of long strand bondo. Image Not Found Part of the reason why I didn't get anything done was because I picked up this 'gem'. A lovely F-1-$#!&ty axle. I'm gonna do bad things to it :nuts: Image Not Found

I'll get back to you on this. This is why normally I don't say anything about radius arms, or much about any suspension. :roll:

:nuts: No suprise there. I know one of the 10-minute oil changes put 80w-90 in the tcase of a guy I know. And it was a NP241... Cooked it within 20 minutes. They denied it, other than on the bill there wasn't any ATF and it said they had changed the tcase fluid. But there was an aweful lot of 80w-90.

Uh, no. I ran them. I had the issues. I know guys with XJs who ran them. Had the same issues... I've seen them on toyotas - same issues. And a suzuki that was downright scary between the radius arm front and the 4-link rear, and the 4-link was only partially at fault. I'm saying they're live-able, even quite decent for most, but not in any way ideal. For the time/money invested they work well, but there is better options. In the rear radius arms are just stupid. Massive flex steer and horrible squat.

Yar, The LS1 is god's gift to gearheads. Aluminum block and heads. They seem to hold up to about 700HP on the stock internals too. Found in 4th gen f-bodies and C-5s. They should have put them in everything if you ask me. Then there'd be more in junkyards for me to steal. Now, the new LS2...

The rusty's coils are stiff enough it'll be fine. At least as long as they're the same as mine were. You're going to lean a bunch on corners, so no ralley racing!