Filarski Bros. Baja 1000 Prep

National Drivetrain

National Drivetrain

NAXJA Forum User
Location
IL. CA. Ga.
It’s on!

The Filarski Bros. and Fat City Racing are teaming up with Motive Gear, Ten Factory Axles and National Drivtrain.

Some friendly banter/trash talking with the guys over at Pirate 4X4 and the 1705 team has turned into a Baja beer bet. Winner dinks all…

This is our chance to make even on the Baja 1000 beer bet that we lost back in “06”
http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521228&highlight=baja+beer+bet

Back then the car was only a 2 wheeler and we got our a$$es handed to us by the silt, not to mention the mud from a recent hurricane that blew thru just before that race.

These days we’re 4WD with bigger axles, bigger motor and A LOT more time to prep (last time we decided to race the 1000 2 weeks before the green flag…)

I thought I'd start a thread on how we’re prepping the car, so here’s what we’ve got so far…

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We actually got a couple weeks after I got back from the NAXJA Sierra Fest (Which was a blast!)
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We started by tearing the car down.
We pulled the doors off to make more room in the already crowded garage. The rear springs came off and were sent to Deaver Spring to be rebuilt along with a second pair to be used as spares.
The front end came out and was stripped down to a bare housing.
The Front axle and steering C's were bent from one of our high flying shinanigans, so it's off to Currie Ent. to be
Straightened and have new C's jigged up and welded on.



The 1706 Wrangler Jeepspeed team of Scott Hartman and his crew "The Dust Junkies" are going to join us on this adventure with Scott Driving the 2nd of 4 legs of the race.
Scott will be rebuilding the shocks and the Junkies will be joining us to hep prep after they're done with the upcoming Powder Puff race.

bigbear-7-10-09001.jpg



We hmm'd and haaaw'd over whether or not to focus on just prep or pull the trigger on a couple of changes we've been wanting to do for the last couple of years, like a new fuel cell that fits under the car instead of inside the cab.

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Putting the cell under the car would give us alot more workable room inside the cab, so we cut all of the cross tubing out of the inside.

The cage was originally built for a centered 3rd seat that used to be back there and then SCORE made us add that random diagonal tube that you see behind the seats.
bigbear-7-10-09016.jpg


Luckily, I yard saled my baja bug and broke my back late last month, so I couldn't personally experience the suck that is grinding...
My hat's off to my brother Ryan for doing all the grinding (somthing like 20 welds had to be ground flush)
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Cut the hole for the filler neck.
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We had put a cross member/tube to help hold the chassis/unibody together and tie in the rear shackle mounts a couple years ago, so we used it to hang the front tank straps.

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Ryan made a cross member and mounted it to the factory bumper mounting holes. We'll remount the factory bumper with tabs off of it or somthing in the area...
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Thanks. We've basicaly got a little over 3 weeks to get it ready. We hope to have it rolling and over at RVMD paint and body in Menifee by the end of next week for some color.
Ryan's been busting ass on it this week but it's going to be alot of late nights and weekends from here on out...

Got the new rear bumper almost finished and then we'll start tieing the chassis together. We're looking to add a lot of rigidity to the unibody that should have been done years ago.

IMG01471.jpg


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Thanks Jes!

We got started on the triangulation behing the passenger seats. We wanted to tie the lower part of the B-pillar togeter to help hold the car together.
One thing you get when racing a Cherokee is alot of cracks in the unibody from the car twisting itself like a beer can. We're hoping to eliminate "some" of that...

IMG01479.jpg


Some of the many that we'll be welding up... (we wouldnt have this problem if we just had carpet. lol)
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Some stuff showed up today.:clap:
Motive Gear sent us new 538's for the front D44R and the rear 9" along with Master bearing kits, along with new Timken SET20's for the rear shafts. All stuff we sell here at National Drivetrain.

Huge props to the guys at Motive!

We should be able to get the housings put back together by early next week now.
IMG01546.jpg
 
Cracks are a killer. That is why we are building the new car for next year - current car is so badly cracked that it isn't repairable. We were laughing at the last race - we had the interior lights on at night, and someone pointed under the car and it looked like someone was shining a light through a cheese grater. Your car is looking great!
 
DieselSJ said:
Cracks are a killer. That is why we are building the new car for next year - current car is so badly cracked that it isn't repairable. We were laughing at the last race - we had the interior lights on at night, and someone pointed under the car and it looked like someone was shining a light through a cheese grater. Your car is looking great!
Click to expand...


Ya, I saw your guy's car at Expo last year and it made me feel alot better about my cracks...

Didnt get much done today. Got the triangulation behind the passenger's done.

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