DirtyComanche

Yeah, they're good damn ooof. I put mine on tires ASAP so I could just roll it around. I picked up another 'suzu axle today. I can heft it into the back of the cherokee by myself :D .

That's the colour of my XJ other than all the paint coming off. I'm gonna redo it with a darker blue come summer, unless I wuss out or buy another time/money pit.

.5" total. Theyre 6 lug too. Grand wags, newer ones. Uh... 81-91? I get this wrong all the time. Mine annoys me.

It's called 'aggressive driving'. It breaks things.

No. I have yet to wheel with anyone whose air locker actually works more than about 65% of the time. I am confused. Your first post said this is a street truck. Then later in the thread it sounds like this truck sees the drag strip. Drag racing is not "street only." You have to realize that the two are almost mutually exclusive. For "street" a limited slip, like a Trac-Lok or TrueTrac, is by far the better choice. If you are drag racing, the ONLY choice is a Detroit Locker. Drag racing chews up the clutches in a typical limited slip very fast, and that applies both to the Jeep/Dana Trac-Lok and to whatever Ford puts into the 8.8 from the factory. The TrueTrac locks up more positively, but even for street use it is only guaranteed for up to 32" tires. I don't know how well it would hold up to doing hole shots, and when it breaks I doubt it'll be warranteed. Detroit locker. Only choice. I know a few guys that are heavy into the drag racing thing. Those who are hardcore run spools. Those who aren't run LSDs. I've seen no applications of detroits as they are expensive and have moving parts. Maybe guys run them, I don't know many drag racers anymore... And on the warantee... The truetrac is sold for street/strip applications. I'm sure they warantee them for reasonable power levels if installed in a correct axle. (Ie, they ain't gonna warantee a D35 one for 300HP. That's asking for trouble) Although, in a D35 I know you ain't gonna break it first. I broke the R&P on my D30 and the truetrac was quite fine.

In my front leaf spring thread I show how my 8k winch mounts behind my bumper, under the rad.

Well, the reality with parts for these trucks is that they WON'T be truely mass-produced. The stock bedsides were formed with a stamp; which I would assume the tooling for is long gone. Either way, that's the only way to mass-produce original quality peicess and it costs a HUGE amount to set up. There simply isn't a large enough market and never will be. The next easiest thing is to make them out of sheet in a brake. And with that there is limitations. That nasty little flange for the fender flare isn't something I could do out of one peice. The head sheety at where I work might be able to - providing you're using satin coat. That would take time, lots of it. It could be done with a second peice welded it place - it's all covered by the flare anyways. But hey, if you're already at it you might as well change the retarded design that jeep used. And I hear you on the corrosion. Although, with aluminum if you rivet it with an aluminum rivet - typically the rivet bears the brunt of the corrosion. Expecially if you etch/alodine the aluminum, and better yet use Alcladded sheet. But, alcald isn't cheap. Nor is good aluminum. Not that 6061 crap. Oh, there is actually fiberglass that is strong (novel concept) and doesn't fall apart constantly off-road. I'd never use it, just a personal thing.

Behind a stock 4.0 and stock tires on the street they're on borrowed time... I've seen it happen. But, only with the c-clip axles. Which are hilarious when they break on the street (or the trail...) :roll: .

Pinion angle... It just has to be close. Buuuuuut the closer the better... And shock mounts... Put them somewhere smart and it'll work better.

5%~. Which isn't bad considering it isn't accurate to 5% anyways. Lots of stockers run those LT235s (they're listed as being the largest tire that can be put on stock by most tire shop books).

The funny thing is, I could do that... I have no interest in it, but other than the curved corners at the back of the bed there's nothing difficult about bending them up (the curves at the back are pretty much impossible without the right roller and a lot of time). Depending how tall the bed is (I don't remember - 40"?) I could do one side out of a single sheet. The main problem is that I'd use aluminum, and while it doesn't rust it does corrode. And it isn't very tough. And you'd have to rivet it on which will cause a massive dissimilar metal thing. My advice... Find an aircraft sheetmetal shop that isn't busy, and ask them to do it... My shop does all sorts of crap on the side because our specific business is seasonal (floats). It's cost you about $60 plus materials if we were to do it - based on my rough estimate of how much work it is... That would be, if you lay it out and ask them to bend it. Although, thinking about it, getting them to bend up satin coat would be even easier... I don't know about stainless - it might crack it the brake? Or need an air/hydro brake - which isn't something you'll find in many places other than a serious machine shop. Which will cost $. Lots.

Curtis at some comp... Image Not Found I got a really cheap set of tires off him after that because that pretty much totalled his whole rig. :roll: But now he's got 1-tons and an aluminum body... :Canadaflag:

I think he's knocking his chrome.

Aren't their chassis stiffeners just a peice of 3x4 angle with some holes in it that you weld to the outside of the uniframe? Or is that somebody else?

Hmm, I've never driven backwards in the fog fast enough to need one of those. Maybe if I had one...

You need an overview on traction aids... Not trying to sound like an a-hole saying that. A limited slip, aka; LSD, POSI, posi-trac, trac-lok, etc, allows for the tires to have different wheelspeeds within reason. Hence, you will normally not notice them on the street at all - other than when you hammer the throttle instead of a one tire fire you'll have two. They will not cause the tires to bind, chatter, scream, etc. A locker, aka; detroit locker, ARB air locker, OX, eaton, etc, when locked do not allow any difference in wheelspeed. They will cause hopping, binding, screaming tires, etc - but ONLY when locked. Otherwise they are eather limited slips or open differentials. The main difference between them is when they lock, with ARB/OX being slectable and detroits being automatic, etc... For your application I would recommend a Detroit Truetrac. It is a limited slip. However, it is torsion gear based (no clutch packs to fry) and works quite a bit better than a typical LSD. You won't notice them on the street at all - I had one in my front end for a while. But they do a very good job of providing traction. I think only track cars run full lockers ever. They just aren't realistically needed on the street. On the street suspension design is more relevent to traction than a traction aid.

YJ wrangler or TJ wrangler... YJ no, probably not. TJ yes.

Try to going to a place like Fastenal or another fastener distributor and look for whatever Grade 8 (SAE) or Class 10.9 bolt (metric) that fits. You'll have brand new fasteners and they shouldn't be anywhere near $14 a pop. Brent Not quite. They're a metric 'close tolerance' 12.9. DO NOT USE A 10.9! Although it might work in the short term it's not worth it in the long term. I want to say they're M8 x 1.25. But I really don't think so for sure. If I had one lying around I'd put a gauge on it and see. I bought them new when I did mine. Cursed it for all it was worth. But it got the job done. You could ask them for the thread/size of them - but I doubt they know without ordering them in... Oh, if you do use the factory ones - they put red loc-tite on them and it is REAL effective. I had to cut them off later...

Ya might as well. Make a build-up thread so we can see and comment on your progress as you go. It helps with idea sharing. I mean, I'm sure there's at least a couple guys on here that read BrettM's build on pirate4x4 and were inspired by it.

NP = NPG = New Process Gear = NV = NVG = New Venture Gear. They're the same company, but like the whole Dana/Spicer thing they decided to change their name so now they get to be called both. Although, one should refer to what the gearbox is tagged as.

Drive flanges are simple and bulletproof - which makes them useful to carry as trail spares. Anyways, a set of warn standards or premiums will slip right in place of the drive flanges. Or who-ever's hubs you want to use. You can nab them off a solid axle 1/2 ton chevy out of the junkyard if you're cheap. Or an older ford with a solid front axle.

4-links are a tossup for usage on a trail truck... Basically you have to build a double triangulated one if you want it to work at all correct - unless you only run mud :roll: . The major disadvantage to them is that you need 8 joints - which at $40-160 a peice adds up in a hurry. Also, they really take up a lot of space in the rear - say goodbye to the stock gas tank location. Wishbone 3-links are often a better choice. You only need 5 good joints (and 2 ugh ones) to build one correctly. And you can build an offset setup to retain the stock tank location, etc... It's something to consider if you really want to change the rear end. If you just want to throw a flatbed and a mild lift on it - most people just us AALs/shackles or SOA.

I'm keeping the 37x12.5x15 MT/Rs. Another set of tires is out of the budget for a while... Okay, maybe for the second time in my life I could buy a set of tires new. Or not. Oh, hummers aren't easy to find up here... Our military still hasn't surplused most of the stuff from the 50's - and we never owned any hummers (that I know of). Which I guess isn't a big deal as most of the places that recentre them have ones they can sell. Anyways... But, I want to build another set of axles anyways... Maybe I'll just hold off on ordering locks for a while again.

The AW4s with the right bellhousing are rare... But that 4.56 geared cherokee would have one, methinks!

Yeah, BFG tires don't like that. You will rip them left right and centre. A friend ripped 5 BFG M/Ts in two days! Thankfully they were all used tires. Other than the crawlers I guess. IIRC they actually put a sidewall on them that's tough enough to be useful. They'd actually probably do what you want - other than I think they're still only avaliable in a 35 and a 37.