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Big Red Prerunner

Can't stand those bug-eye projector lights. Half the time I see a vehicle running those kinds of lights, one or more of the damn things is burned out/not functioning.

I thought these looked good.

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These appear to be clear lenses with black bezels?

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Ive always wanted to to check out the easter jeep safari in Moab, and i finially did this year...in a ford haha! I took friday off and drove out there with my girlfriend and daughter, met up with my friend aaron (owns my old xj) in breck, and headed out for the weekend.

After checking out the vendor show which was really cool we setup camp and hopped in the xj for a little sunset run up mini lions back and the first part of fins and things.

I dont know if it was the trail or it being dark out, or just being in the xj with a cage and no interior...but my daughter was terrified! I felt so bad for her so we nixed the plan of us all riding in the xj for the weekend and picked out a nice easy scenic trail that i could take my truck on so she would be more comfortable and hopefully enjoy herself.

We ended up running Seven Mile Rim trail and man did we have a great day! Apart from a few snowy drives to work this winter ive never even had the truck in 4wd or in the dirt so i wasnt sure what to expect out of it. I babied the truck most of the day since it had to get us home and its my only vehicle right now. But as the day went on and i became more confident in the truck i started trying more and more obstacles, other then wipeout hill id say i did about 90% of the big ledges/climbs/drops/obstacles we came to.

Ive never had something with such a long wheelbase (138"ish) and i know it wouldnt make a good rock crawler, but man was it fun to take it up and down waterfalls and ledges...it walked through them like nothing. There were even a couple where the cherokee and jk would spin the tires a little and my truck would go right up.

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I started out having low expectations but i have to say i was very impressed with the truck and had a ton of fun out there. It was nice to do wheeling other then just rock crawling on a trail from start to finish. I forgot how much fun adventure type offroading used to be for me and still is, having my family enjoy it so much really opened my eyes to that. We saw some great sights, had a great time, and made it out there and home safely with no realy problems!



p.s. I went with the all clear lights!
 
I havent made a lot of progress lately on the truck between work and family, but i have been doing a lot of research on rear ends and trying to make a decision on what i want to build/run. My first, obvious choice was a 9"....but 9s kinda suck.

I definitely dont want a semifloat rear end, so i decided if i was to run a 9 it would have to be a 35 spline, disc brake, full floater, in a fabricated housing. After pricing out several options from different companies I decided that the amount of money i would end up spending on a ff9 was going to be more then i was wanting to spend. After looking into a few other options i decided that a 14 bolt is the direction i want to go.

I looked into 5 lug hubs for the 14 bolt, but I decided to swap the front end over to 8 lug to match the rear after i got my hands on a factory disc brake "metric" 14 bolt. This axle is a tab bit wider then the older 14 bolts and will come close to matching the track width of my extended ttb front end.

So now that i have an axle, next week ill be ordering up 4.88s, an install kit, and a yukon grizzly locker. Once the axle is close to going under the truck it will be getting a truss also. The first part showed up today for my axle....it was supposed to show up bare though...not green

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Where do you fill the differential with gear oil? Does the housing have drain and fill plugs?
 
So we were sitting around the campfire saturday night talking about 14 bolts and 9" rear ends, Aaron (the new owner of my old xj) was talking about building a couple fabricated 9" housings for the xj that he picked up last year off of craigslist. A friend of mine buys the factory brake 14 bolt rear ends by the pallet full and sells them for $100 so we were telling him to stop wasting money on shitty 9" axles and just build a 14b and be done with it. He texted me this picture before we even got home on sunday....

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He is staying out in moab all week so he went and ran rusty nail after we left, I guess he did the whole trail and was playing around on a small ledge at the end of the trail waiting for a buddy of his when he heard a loud pop about halfway up the ledge.

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First a factory shaft broke going over a small rock @ ram when i owned the jeep and destroyed the dropout and ring/pinion all at the same time. Aaron bought the jeep and put chromoly shafts in the back and picked up another factory dropout to get the jeep going again. I know it was just a factory center section but damn....what a catastrophic failure failure for such a small obstacle he was going up.

If you are planning on running a 9" in your jeep I would highly recommend just sticking to an 8.8 a 44 or stepping up to a 14. Even if you are planning on buying a good pinion support, good center section, chromoly shafts, and disc brakes...you will still be stuck with an axle with a weak housing, ridiculously small pinion, small carrier bearings, and worst of all it will be a semifloat! 9"....never again
 
holy catastrophic failure batman. That must have left a nasty 90-wt oil-slick-rock patch...
 
I have almost all the new parts gathered to make my long travel front end 8 lug and jon is almost finished up building my 14 bolt so i made a trip to 4 wheel parts to pick some more parts up today!

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My buddy jon has a commercial account setup now that he has his own shop so i had him order up the wheels and tires and a few other things a few weeks ago. I gave him three different tires to choose from and told him to pick for me, then he wouldnt tell me what he got lol. So after waiting a few weeks I finally picked them up today to happily find out that i am the new owner of four brand new 35x12.5r17 Nitto Trail Grappler MTs! Hopefully ill have the rest of the parts accumulated and can get the front end under my truck sometime in the next month or so and then the rear end will go in shortly after.
 
Method is making killer stuff! Gonna look amazing.
 
You'll like those Nittos, I'm very happy with mine on the JK. They ride good, balance very well, and work good offroad. Probably the best all around set of tires I've ever had on a Jeep.
 
How much did you pay? Hit me up back channel, I'm trying to decide wheels for my prerunner.
 
Ive been having a painting party all week lol, the housing is just spray painted with gold high temp engine enamel. The hubs, knuckles, calipers, dust shields, third member, and all the misc. parts are all flat black. I thought about powdercoating the housing and radius arms but they will both at some point have welding done on them and they will get rock chips and scrapes and ill be able to easily and quickly touch everything up with rattle cans.

After spending a small fortune over the years having motorcycle frames and wheels powdercoated ive learned that paint is better in almost ever way in m opinion. Its waay cheaper, i can do it myself, its easier to touch up, and depending on what you put down under the paint and what clear you use it can be just as strong as a lot of powdercoat jobs.
 
Love those methods. Run the same on my truck. They have a factory type appeal while looking very very good :thumbup:
 
I am running 35x12.5x18 nittos on my sikverado now. You will like them! Once we both finish our front ends we need to hit the dunes in our big red prerunners
 
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