Wow. August is gone. SF was awesome. Such a blast and nothing too terrable happened to the jeep.
So a few issues arrose on the dusy. My upper control arms on the axle side were binding pretty good on the axle mounts and destroying the bushings. I also had the passenger mount come apart half way through the trail. We welded it up with bruce's wire feed welder at a camp and i tacked the bushing back it. It held up well and the welds looked quite good after i took everything apart during my post run inspection. I braced the mount with 1/4" up the front and instead of putting in more bushings i went with a joint. I used the ones from iro. They are made to replace the factory press it bushings. I also got the 1/2" bolt version to forgo the 10mm bolts from the factory. I welded in the sleeve on the passenger side and pressed in the driver. No more binding on the mounts and my front end clunk is gone. So stoked on that.
I also destroyed but limped along my front drive shaft for the run. The cv and axle end ujoint were all cooked and floppy when i pulled it out. The splines were also shot and loose. I pulled another from the quiver. The new one is actually from a 5speed jeep so its actually the right length. I only had an inch of slip showing on the old one from an auto. I greesed up the cv and put a new spicer joint at the axle end. Its in great shape. Then i found my rear shaft axle end ujoint is cooked. Two runs and its a spicer joint. Kinda bummed it was a brand new shaft from adams drive shaft. Ill be swapping the ujoint tomorrow.
Did my fluid change on the rear end after the breakin run haha. Fluid looked good. Put in some 85-140 gl5.
Then changed the fluid in the trans. Its beed really hard to shift. Especially into first. So i picked up some redline mt-90. Wow what a difference. Even cold it shifts better than it did hot with the old fluid. This is full synthetic stuff so it should handle heat over time better as well.
Had a wheel spacer come loose on bald mountain at SF. It was completely my fault for not maintaining them properly. I was rushing to get ready and i neglected to torque check all the spacers and use locktite. When it came loose it destroyed a few of the wheels studs. I was always leary of the length of the studs anyway. So i got longer ones and replaced all the fronts and rears and remounted all my spacers with locktite and proper torque.
Got two of my beadlocks mounted up but the other two need reconditioning. So ill be sending them back to trailready. They said they would take care of it for the cost of shipping. I am really impressed with them. I am the fourth or fifth owner and they are still warranty the damage done by an idiot with an impact gun. (Not me) i bought them broken. So anyway im running the beadlocks on the front for this run and the rears are on stocker rims.
Put all new boots on my currie steering and checked all my fasteners.
Also made a few changes to my long term plans after seeing some really skilled drivers throughout the week. I will be selling off my 14b and d70. Seemed like a good plan but i do not want to be any taller than i am or have to run 40" tires to get the ground clearance back from what i have now.
I do want to go full width and ditch my spacers with a more backspaced wheel. I shouldnt end up a whole lot wider than i am now. So i have decided to build a jk d30 and an f150 8.8. These will be a full build up with sleeves lockers trusses and what not. I picked up a jkd30 for next to nothing last week. Both axles should put me at 65"wms with out adding more that 100lbs to the over all weight of the jeep. But still be substantially stronger when im done with them. I will be sticking with 35" tires and be focussing on getting my d300 and doubler setup install this winter. Along with building the 8.8 rear first. Then spring will be the jk30.
Im heading to the rubicon this weekend with my dad. His first time wheeling so it should be fun.
