Ok, so over the past year and a half or so my jeep has been through quite some changes, she was stagnant from July '13 through about December '14. Literally just sat in my garage, never moved, nothing. Around then was when I decided i wanted more out of it and not just blow up the 30/8.25 combo that was on there. Pouring out all the money i had and some more, I ended up buying Pat's axles and lots of odds and ends to run the 37's i had. I ended up working a deal with Brian, from bdr automotive to do the install of the axles and frame stiffeners while I was still in training in NC... after all i cant really do a build when I dont have time and its 14 hours away from me... Brain did a sweet job, he fabricated me a t-case crossmember and also put on the leaf mounts on the 8.8... anyways the axles are a ford high pinion 44, 5.13 gears, narrowed, little truss up top, 79 outers and locking hubs. rear is a ford 8.8, 5,13 gears, detroit locker and chromo shafts. Also had some cutom drive shafts made for it, was not disappointed. She left BDR looking pretty similar from the outside.
Getting the ol rig down here wasnt too easy.. took a lot of work to find a company willing to ship my jeep down because of modification... ended up getting hooked up thanks to some friends and got it here for not a lot of money. thankfully i didnt plan to drive it down because it wasnt taking highways well at all when it got here. nothing on brian, most of it was alignment oriented and i told him not to do an alignment. Naturally the first thing i did since i got long arms was find the biggest hill in NC and flex on it...
its pretty flat here...
Put in shackle relocation brackets, SYE, bump stops, had to build a small bracket for the rear bump stops, longer break lines, some clear indicator housing because why not, Ended up having to replace a couple frozen calipers and oil seals.. the 44 was missing like 3 bearings and needed some new ball joints on one side. had to put some new gaskets on the diffs and assorted small engine things like spark plugs etc. I ended up trimming my fenders further and removing the remaining fender flares. I also ended up trying to perfect my half doors. Im probably forgetting a good bit of things, among some random fine tuning.
I took these pics today
Brought the old girl wheeling finally to the Uwharrie forest and had a blast with it, although i was horribly disappointed with the tires. Some guy there told me to rotate my tires to have the tread face the other was and they worked so so so much better.
but i still expected more out of the tires so i ordered a cheap tire groover on amazon (ideal or some brand like that) I just cut each cleat in half and hoped for the best honestly
The grooving paid off, took the jeep out to some mud trail nearby with a local group who all horribly disappointed me with their jeeps and trucks and i spent the day recovering everyone except the guy with a winch. but the tires grabbed so much better than before not to mention look pretty sweet IMO.