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4 what it's worth

Dudes, thanks for the kind words. I did quite a bit of reading on this site and if there's one thing xj people agree on, its adding chassis reinforcement.

Next thing I wanna layout is the work I did on the axles. When I bought the jeep it had an xj 44 rear axle, and after doing some reading, it seemed like matching that in the front would be a good balance for what I wanted to do. 44s would be strong enough to run 35s all day, yet not so large that it would make highway driving unrealistic.

I started with a ford f150 dana 44, whatever year had the welded wedges. Previous owner had done some work to it, but I started by stripping it down, cleaning stuff, and replacing worn out parts.

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The beginning of my knuckle headaches: the pass side had a sketchy high steer setup welded on, that I cut off. This is what it looks like when you try to weld to cast, but dont know how to do it. The rusty spots are where I just pulled the welds off with my hands. Stay safe out there!

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The axle came with chromoly shafts, and after realizing that the u joints are shared with dana 30s, I found some yukon joints to swap in there to increase strength. These use a low profile bushing instead of needle bearings, which allows yukon to put more material on the joint. But since they use bushings, theyre not supposed to be run at speed, which is why the locking hubs on the 44 are nice during highway time. The joints also come with full c clips, which are a no brainer upgrade if you are swapping u joints.

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I had grown tired of the loose steering on my jeep and started to research other setups I could use on the swap. My friends cherokees are running inverted T setups, and after driving them I could feel the tie rod roll and even though it would have been easy to go this route, it wouldnt be an improvement. It was clear that I needed to get the drag link as horizontal as possible, and rigidly attached to the knuckle. The obvious solution here is high steer knuckles/ arms. This is when I learned that some old ford f250s came with knuckles that could be machined for high steer arms. I was stoked when I found a well priced pair on ebay.

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Well I didnt realize how deep this rabbit hole would go. I figured I could run the f150 brakes on the new knuckles... but you cant. The f150 knuckles have a cutout for clearance where the caliper sits, and the f250 knuckles dont have this.

So at this point I realized I needed to run the bigger ford brakes and 17" rims to clear everything. Fine. :sure: I gave in and bought the larger caliper brackets. Also was surprised to see how much more expensive 35s are with a 17" rim than 15".

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Well in order to run the larger brakes on a dana 44 there was going to be some custom work. I followed "VINTAGE JEEP DANA 44 BIG BRAKES" article on four wheeler for purchasing and machining. Essentially I wanted to run 5x5.5 wheel bolt pattern and I needed to keep the ford 5 lug spindle pattern.

Reusing the stock hub, putting in new bearing races:

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Reusing the stock spindles, the guys at wild horses 4x4 talked me into installing some of these bushings instead of the stock needle bearings (which they said rust out really quickly).

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Then the dodge ram 5x5.5 rotors need to be machined down a bit. They say 12.75 OD in the article, but I wish I had gone 12.70 for a touch more clearance.

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The ID also needs to get bored out to accept the ford spindle:

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I was feeling pretty handy by this point and it had taken a while to get all this stuff figured out, so I was ready to do some install. While I was doing this work, I had dropped off both axles to get regeared. I went to rear end specialties in san jose, and would recommend them to anyone who needs axle work. I dont know how to run a pattern and didnt feel like learning or getting the tools. I cant comment on what the pattern looks like, but so far seems like they did good work. Only downsides were they were pretty terrible at communication, and they forgot to put a pinion seal on the front axle.

I went with 4.88 gears, with an arb in the front and detroit in the rear. For the rear I also went with 33 spline (dont ask why I didnt step up to 35 cause I dont really know (?torsional shaft stiffness that can transmit higher shock loads to r&p gears??)).

Anyways, went to install the f250 knuckles. The driver side went on fine, but when I got to doing the threaded preload sleeve on the pass side, it just kept spinning and not reaching torque. Its not terribly obvious in this photo, but what I realized is the knuckle C was bent. :banghead:

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Well damm, I had a trip planned for 2 weeks out and still had a ton of work to do. In a blind fit of rage, I broke down and ordered reid knuckles. Kinda lame that the tie rod is reamed on the bottom. Anyone know if there is an interference issue if you run the tie rod on top of arm with a threaded insert?

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For the rear axle, the 33 spline shafts came from g2 gear. Theyve got threaded wheel studs so you can run 5x4.5 or 5x5.5, but I cant say Im thrilled with the length of the studs.

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The rear got a disc brake kit and it came with dana 44 backing plates. Well turns out xj 44's use a different plate, so I made some of those. The dirty one is stock, light grey is what I was shipped, and dark grey is what I made. So just a heads up if youre doing an xj dana 44 disc brake swap.

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Whatever, in the end I got discs and a parking brake for the rear.

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Well this thread is gonna take me longer to finish than it took to build the Jeep! Hopefully its entertaining/ mildly insightful. Next installment: front suspension.

The Jeep came with an IRO long arm kit, and while I guess it could be strong enough, the design is not confidence inspiring. One 10mm bolt for the upper control arm, strange clamp design for the caster adjustment, and I wanted to go away from control arm bushings. I decided 3 link front made all the sense, and I wanted to put the upper control arm on the passenger side for some reason that I cannot justify at the moment (I guess the mount on the axle was easier to do).

Unfortunately, the way the IRO crossmember is made, there is no good way to mount upper control arm tabs to it. Can it be done? Probably, but I was too new and scared to mess with it. I bought a Claytons 3 link crossmember instead. The one thing I did not realize when I bought it was the UCA mount was built to be mounted driver side. So I decided to change that.

A little heat and I was able to bend the tabs over to the same angle on the other side. It could have been mounted upside down, but that wouldnt have been as clean!
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Had to re-drill one of the holes. Now Ive got all 9/16 link hardware!
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Then welded it on to one of the frame mounts. The Claytons kit has a drop out center where the trans is mounted, and the LCA and UCA mount to the parts that are welded to the frame.
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The UCA mount was welded with the JJ bolted in, but I guess it got a bit tweaked when we did an inside pass. Had to chuck up the JJ and take off 0.01".
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For link lengths, Clayton publishes 2d on their website of the UCA and LCAs. I reused the IRO LCAs, but cut off the Y split on the drivers side. Then made an UCA using the clayton 2d. (Obligatory JJ next to soda can shot.)
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The bolt head for the old UCA was stripped so I spent a few hours cutting the thing out.
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It really sucked, there's no room for angle grinder/ sawzall/ plasma/ hacksaw/ bandsaw/ chisel/ sharp knife/ xacto/ pliers/ ratchet strap.
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Exhaust needed some luvin.
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Then I tried bolting it in!
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Track bar was wayyyy too long. I used the Claytons track bar kit, which was needlessly spendy and also quite large. I gotta do a quick shout out to Chassis Unlimited where I got the steering and a few other brackets. Wish I ordered more parts from them since it was well designed, well priced, and fast shipping!
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So I had to shorten the track bar. After doing some reading on bump steer I was curious how the different length drag vs track bar would act. My own intuition and a little trig made me think it was much more important to get the track bar and drag link to be as close to horizontal as possible. This way, there is minimal left/right movement during articulation. If you want more info, google 4 bar linkages and/ or look at a graph of cosine (note: very low slope around 0). Also, if you were wondering, this is a real solid track bar.
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Track bar rewelded and mounted. (I think this pic is at full bump on pass side.)
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Ride height(ish), angles looked good!
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The big brakes live up to their name.
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I needed a new front drive shaft since the dana 44 pinion is longer than the d30. 30.25 is the measurement for the front. Good news is, on the rear, I can reuse stock front driveshafts! This is a blessing since I seem to scrape my rear ds on everything, and junkyard replacements are pretty cheap.
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Last and least cool thing that I didnt get a picture of yet: the UCA bolt frame side is impossible to get to without removing the frame side of the crossmember. Problem is, that part is supposed to be welded onto the frame stiffener. If/ when I need to change the UCA, Ill likely end up cutting the floor to get to the bolt...
 
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Nice write up. I think you'll like the 35's/4.88 combo with front ARB and Detroit rear, which is what I have. It is hard to get used to the Detroit "bang"...every now and then it still scares the crap out of me!
 
Next thing I wanted to cover is wheels. My friend is always destroying his hubs, so I was looking for a way to keep rocks away from them while using +4in of backspacing. I got quite lucky and found these used trail readys close by. They are conversion beadlocks, meaning they are stock mickey thompson wheels that trail ready converted into beadlocks. They also came with the really deep rings to keep rocks away from the hubs.

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Went with some mickey thompson baja mtz tires in 315/70r17, which measures the same as a 35. For some reason they were real cheap, but Ive seen them run on the work on the trail, and so far they have been great. Mine are load range E, which seemed crazy, but I havent had any issues airing down and if they ride harsh on the highway I cannot tell.

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I had heard about anti coning rings on some steel weld yourself beadlocks, and I have a good pic to show you what that looks like. Its recommended to use some kindof spacer to help support the lock ring when you are running a thick tire bead. As you tighten the lock ring down, it is bottomed out on the tire bead and the rim. Depending on the height difference between the bead and the rim, you can tweak on the lock ring pretty hard. Mine seems to be on the edge of acceptable. You have a problem if the lock ring is not touching the rim when you torque down the lock ring. This is what to fix if I start breaking bolts.

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I have a steelie for a spare. I added a rock ring to it mainly just so I could see how much work it was and difficult the welding would be. It took a while to clean all the powder-coating off and the welding was a little awkward, but it gives me peace of mind since I seem to enjoy dragging my wheels across rocks. I used a bolt to space the ring out.

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edit: to remind myself to fix the lockrings (add anti-coning feature) if I start breaking bolts.
 
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This is a part I added after I had run a few trails, but it makes sense to keep next to the other wheel stuff, plus I wish I had thought about it before I installed my tires! After a trip through the rubicon, I had a leak from one of my valve stems, I had not checked them before installing my tires and a couple of them were loose. I took this time to add some of the power tank monster valves, as well as installing valve stems that would be protected by my lock rings. First thing to do is drill a large hole in your rim!

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Thread it and make sure to add a nice chamfer on there.

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Wrap 5-6 revs of teflon tape before installing the valve.

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One of my valves had a slow leak that I thought was my fault from installing. But it turned out to be one of the orings on the valve. Make sure to keep spares, I dont know the size, but power tank will send you spares if you ask.

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To balance, I used some ceramic beads from amazon.

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The monster valves make it easy to watch tire pressure as you are airing up/ down. It takes about 15 seconds per tire to air down! One trick when airing down, as you tighten the red valve back down, back off a quarter turn after it's tight to stop any air from slowly bleeding out.

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After mounting up the wheels, all I had to do was bleed the power steering.

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Major stoke after finishing this build! :clap:

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I took a week or so to break the gears in. The steering is so much better than before, and the car drives great even without a front sway bar. We took it out to Hollister for a shake down run.

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Needs fender trimming.

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Needs limit straps.

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Well look who's having issuez(j).

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Ive got some more pics, mostly to just keep the stoke going through winter and to show how the xj turned out.

First thing to do was get an alignment, turned out the garage alignment wasnt bad. Caster ended up at 6.4*, the shop set the toe at 0.

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First trip out we hit hell hole reservoir. This was a great shake down trail, it was pretty easy going down, on the way up the waterfall section was a bit tricky. We did the trial pretty quick, it was getting to/ from that took forever.

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I thought we'd have plenty of time getting off the trail with this much light. We ended up driving home with the light bars on just to get back to 80.

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If you thought the jeep was old

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Still amazes me that these jeeps can be driven to the trail, wheeled pretty hard, and then make it home! Living in the bay area it can take a long time on fridays to make it up to tahoe, sitting in 95*+ traffic I wonder whether the highway or trail riding is harder on the jeep.

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Just checking under the zj, everything is still there...

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Changed the rear diff fluid after 500ish miles. I glued some magnets to the diff cover: highly recommended.

Before

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After

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Next up was the Rubicon. I was so stoked to get to drive my jeep this time. :guitar:

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We began the trip with the intention of camping at buck. But when we got there, we got worried about making it home the next day at a reasonable hour, so we ended up doing the whole trail in a (long) day.

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As you can see in the photos, I didnt bring a spare since the rim had not arrived yet. I wasnt too worried; I figured what are the chances that something happens on my new wheels/ tires? :doh:
Well I never inspected or replaced the valve stems that came on the used wheels. Turns out one of them was really loose and decided to start loosing air when I tried to air up (the trailers were looking really nice at this point). Luckily my friend in the gold xj has the same axle, but he's running 37s. We put his spare on my front (since locking hubs) and I drove home without issues, lesson learned.

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Also had installed a tcase skid plate before this trip. Seems that it came in handy!

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We finished the summer at cal4wheel's sierra trek. The day before we got there, one of the volunteers was involved in a fatal roll over on one of the first winch hills. Super sad, and a reminder to always wear your seatbelt, even when you think youre just moving to the side of the trail. We ended up going down from 5 to 3 and back up. 4wheel magazine got this drone shot, we're the 3 jeeps parked awkwardly close together.

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Flexin out going down wh3:

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Climbing back up

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Tried my luck on the bonus line of wh5, made it about half way

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Finished by watching the perseid meteor shower from a hill top. This trip was much better planned and we were not rushed like the previous trips. Turns out its really nice when you have time at the end of the day to drink beer and canoe on a lake.

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Ive really neglected keeping this up to date, but Ive done some work on the jeep in the past year and since Ive got some time I can try and get this current.

I think it was on a rubicon trip that I needed to add some gas to my tank from a jerry can. I was using one of those auto siphoning hoses and I had just shoved the rubber hose into the filler neck. When I was done and tried to pull the hose out, it got stuck since there is a little trap door mechanism that was collapsing on the soft hose. Being frustrated and annoyed I just pulled harder, when the hose came out there was a sound like something broke and fell into the gas tank. I ignored it and continued on.

A few months later driving home from Tahoe I was almost home when the gas light came on. The gas level gauge was broken so when the light came on it usually meant I was really low. I had just gotten off at my exit and was 2 miles at most from home. I stopped at a gas station but when I went to fill up, it wouldnt pump. Tried another pump, same issue. Tried another gas station closer to home, same issue. Said screw it and started to drive home, got 100 yards from my parking spot and ran out of gas... Being as this was the 3rd time Id run out of gas I had a jerry can on the bumper that I used to refill and get home, but I had to figure out what the issue was.


Yanked the tank and filler neck. There's a lot of room back there without the tank!

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Whatever pieces were supposed to be in here...

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Ended up in the tank, all of this was rattling around in the bottom.

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I swapped the fuel pump as well, and the jeep would fire up on the first turn of the key for about a month. Now its back to needing to be primed a few times or let it turn over for a few seconds, then stop, then turn the key and it fires up. Super annoying and Im not totally sure what the issue is. Could be the new fuel pump is already shot? Could be something else...
 
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Another really annoying development is that my ball joints were shot after one season of wheeling. I had installed spicer dana 44 ball joints when I put the new knuckles on, but I was getting death wobble that was obviously from loose ball joints. As I was pulling the front axle apart to replace them, I ran into an issue where I couldnt get the bearing preload lock washer out of my hubs. I realized that the part that is keyed wasnt in the groove on the spindle, it had spun into the threads which were preventing it from pulling out.

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I had to make a tool to key into the little holes and spin the lock washer back into the key groove to remove it.

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You can see where the keying feature dug into the threads, also had to get a spindle... why is it never easy

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Yanked the spicers out and cut them open to try and see where the play was coming from. Seems like the teflon/whatever plastic bushing was just worn out. I ended up ordering proforged all metal ball joints off amazon, the price was pretty good and Im hoping this design will be more robust. Part # is Proforged 101-10149 for the upper, and Proforged 101-10150 for the lower.

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Also ended up reaming the knuckles for ¾ heims for the steering so I could put tie rod on top of the knuckles. Still annoyed that the reids are not tapered from the top from the factory, or at least they should give you the option to have them machine them differently. Luckily I had a heim joint tie rod that I could throw on.

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Clearance got better.

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Rear axle came out so it could get a truss. I feel like these magnets are helpful, every time I take the diff cover off theyre covered in little metal dust.

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Sketchy that one of the 4 bolts that holds the axle shaft in had gotten loose and damaged. Just another reason to not ignore the clunks you hear, no matter how annoying they can be to investigate.

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Ordered some rubicon express leaf springs, and they came in the mail pre-rusted! Returned them and bought some old man emu springs, CS033RB, they seem much better.

Rubicon express springs:

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When I was welding the truss, I also wanted to weld the axle tubes to the pumpkin, so I ordered some special mig wire ER80S, that worked pretty good. Did a preheat with a map torch and didnt get any cracking.

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Looks really dirty but I swear I cleaned the important areas.

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Truss went on pretty easy, even used that special wire to stitch it to the pumpkin.

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My friend got an xj that we needed to go test out, so we went to Hollister for a shake down run. The dirt every day guys were out there shooting an episode where they raced 2 willys around the obstacle course area. Right after they took this picture someone peeled out in one of the jeeps and ran over the tripod setup the photographer had, he was not amused, but we were.

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Fred and Rick Pewe came over to talk with us and to make fun of our xj's. They were super cool and spent some time explaining all the work that goes into their show. We spent some time watching them film, it takes a lot longer in real life to get those shots than you would think!

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The pitman arm broke on the new jeep and it got to ride home on the back of a tow truck!

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This is totally random, but I saw this thing parked near work one day.

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Ive got some pure entertainment pics from an ultra 4 race we went to in sac. Hopefully this will give people a little extra stoke to keep wrenching!

I think my favorite class is the 4600 just because all the rigs seem almost attainable, like I know Ill never own a 4400 car, but the stock class sort of looks like my jeep.

When these guys hit the rocks they were very close together, not enough horsepower to get out of the way? Regardless it was super cool!

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If you wanna see the craziest chassis bracing on a unibody, go look these guys up on youtube: krackerfab racing. Shaved 14 bolts and 35s, I couldnt imagine driving hard enough to need that.

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Same rig, maybe the interior looks a little different than stock.

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The zj's are popular, I dunno what people are smoking, dont they know xjs are the best...

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Now were talking :greensmok

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Old school cool :cool:

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Then the big boys came out to play.

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Turns out mud = carnage

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Mudbath :viking:

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Putting everyone to work :repair:

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Some crazy setups

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Some crazy fab work

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Some crazy execution

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Sweeet build brotha, enjoyed your thread a lot. Keep up the solid work.

My rig still has yet to see the trail but planning on hitting Hollister as soon as things open up.
 
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