Just Another XJ on tons, coilovers, 42's, etc. Build

[CAJJ93XJ]

I wish I had as much patience as you. big congrats to ya

 

[GrimmJeeper]

To do over the next few evenings:

- Bleed the front brakes more to try and get the air out

looks bad ass, glad you're finally able to get it driving!

try bleeding the brakes at the master after it has sat overnight by pumping the pedal and holding it then cracking the fitting. sometimes bubbles go all the way up and get stuck there.


:thumbup:

 

[freerider15]

Thanks everyone. Been up until at least midnight each night this week trying to get stuff done...all for a very bare bones run (no interior but floor panels, no tranny gauge or fan, etc. etc. etc.) I've been close to just calling it off as it has been just wrecking me...but I'll be loading the buggy up this evening and head out.

After working to put this thing together...I can tell you 100% I will never be doing a full buggy build again :laugh:

Next time, I'm calling up Jimmy at Jimmys4x4 and having them build me a roller :laugh:

Hindsight is 20/20 when putting things together...

are you gonna plate it?

Yep...just need a C Springs folk to do me a weee favor

looks bad ass, glad you're finally able to get it driving!

try bleeding the brakes at the master after it has sat overnight by pumping the pedal and holding it then cracking the fitting. sometimes bubbles go all the way up and get stuck there.
:thumbup:

Fortunately/unfortunately normal brake procedures do not apply to my system. I essentially have 4 master cylinders between the pedal brakes and the cutting brakes. There is a special way to bleed them. I got the front's bled, but had to redo the mounting for the rear (needed to add loctite thread sealant).

What is nice...is that the fronts and rears are completely separate circuits. This means if the front go out, I still have the rears and vice versa. Its also nice since if you work on the rear, you don't have to worry about doing anything to the fronts since nothing will have changed for them.

 

[SeeingSpots]

Thanks everyone. Been up until at least midnight each night this week trying to get stuff done...all for a very bare bones run (no interior but floor panels, no tranny gauge or fan, etc. etc. etc.) I've been close to just calling it off as it has been just wrecking me...but I'll be loading the buggy up this evening and head out.

After working to put this thing together...I can tell you 100% I will never be doing a full buggy build again :laugh:

Next time, I'm calling up Jimmy at Jimmys4x4 and having them build me a roller :laugh:

Hindsight is 20/20 when putting things together...



Yep...just need a C Springs folk to do me a weee favor



Fortunately/unfortunately normal brake procedures do not apply to my system. I essentially have 4 master cylinders between the pedal brakes and the cutting brakes. There is a special way to bleed them. I got the front's bled, but had to redo the mounting for the rear (needed to add loctite thread sealant).

What is nice...is that the fronts and rears are completely separate circuits. This means if the front go out, I still have the rears and vice versa. Its also nice since if you work on the rear, you don't have to worry about doing anything to the fronts since nothing will have changed for them.

I really hope youre taking pictures of your first run. Looks awesome man! Now go bounce that sum bitch off a tree or something. It's way too pretty.

 

[POSJ]

I'm really glad to see this project make it this far. You do great work, not only should you be excited but you should be proud of this thing. Great job, I love the buggy.

 

[freerider15]

Thanks everyone, its been a long hard road to say the least! This thread definitely won't die, I've still got work to do!

Now...for the long awaited wheeling trip

We hit up Carnage Buena Vista last weekend...a trail I've only walked part of before back in 2005-ish. Holy crap has this trail changed...it makes Penrose Indy look like a cake walk. We hit the trail around 9-10am-ish, got off around 7:30...LONG day. We had ~10 rigs in our group, and there was a group ahead of and behind us. Once we got to the V-notch...it started raining. Rain in Buena Vista makes the rocks a virtual ice rink whether or not you have stickies.

Everyone had to winch the wall to the v-notch...that wall is becoming nearly impossible to drive with the mud hole at the bottom (maybe a trail drain needs to be made ). It took us a while to get everyone up the wall and through the v-notch.

Not long after the v-notch...it started to hail...ugh. Nothing like freezing your ARSE off ass you get pelting helplessly by hail (rood moved up on the to do list). Otherwise...the day was incredibly nice and sunny (typical CO weather). Unfortunately, the precipitation over the course of the day also made things muddy, and therefore the un-driveable by any of us. The group ahead of us was able to drive it, but it was also dry when they did.

As far as the rig goes...it did fantastic. The only problems I had were the tranny fluid level being too low and causing me to stall out and not being able to reverse on a climb (threw another quart in and was good to go), and my winch rope. The winch rope pulled the thimble off that connects it to the drum...so it took us about 20 minutes to figure out a way to get the rope to stay since the drum was too slick for the rope to grab (adding some grip tape soon). I'll be hitting up MasterPull about that.

I do need to trim a fin on the D60 just a little, since it scraped the engine skid. I'll also need to section out just a little of the engine skid as well since the front driveshaft would rub on it at times. No major issues otherwise...the rig outperformed what I thought it was going to for being so "bare boned". I will say one thing I've got to get used to...is the fact that I have 1 tons now. I'm still in the mindset of having a D30 so I found myself unnecessarily babying it at times :laugh:

I've got a bit of finish work to do since this was a bare bones run. My fan wiring consisted of screwing a power distribution nut down on the wire :laugh:

Now for pictures...

 

[freerider15]

Morning Group Shot:

Entrance:

 

[freerider15]

Obstacle I had to be pulled off of since the tranny was too low in fluid:

Wall and V-notch area:

 

[freerider15]

Overall, a great time with great people.

Bombed through Chinaman's the next morning in about an hour.

Got quite a bit of finish work to get done, but it wheels now!

Now to lose the ~80lbs. I've gained over the course of this build :laugh: :doh:

 

[rockclimber]

Bad ass.
time for some skins so the rain doesn't suck as bad

 

[SeeingSpots]

Very nice! Looks like you had a blast.

 

[shortxjdoug]

Glad to see it in the dirt finally. Ive been lurking since the beginning and its been a great build to watch. Congratulations on a slick "jeep"

 

[kndrewa]

Looks Great!

 

[freerider15]

Thanks for the props everyone

So the buggy has been sitting in my garage still since it got back...still has mud on it :laugh:

Though it did pretty dang well, I still want to make sure its READY ready for the next run...not me crossing my fingers that everything will be ok.

Things I need/want to get done before I go back out:

- Bump up the front ORI's
- Fix winch rope, get grip tape on drum
- Get Rear Main seal done
- Get Tranny pan bungs to seal
- New Dist. Cap and spark plug wires (was getting some ticking from the Dist. cap and the engine would start to stumble a little)
- Shave D60 fin to clearance engine skid
- Clearance engine skid for driveshaft
- Clearance shift bracket on tranny for driveshaft
- Get interior panels/rear firewall painted and mounted
- Get switches in and wired
- Get Tranny gauge hooked up
- Get Belly and Engine UHMW skids on
- Get Steering Skid on
- Re-do fuel cell vent
- Get lugs (was missing a few on the run)
- Get rear axle sealed (pinion and maybe cover)
- Get all jam nuts on all links tightened
- Get front links set (they weren't really *set* when I did the run :laugh

I'm sure there are a few things I'm forgetting...but the list above should get me pretty close to done....though this doesn't touch things I'd like to get done on the tow rig though

 

[garrett83]

And the list goes on!!

Great job on your build, it's looks really good.

 

[freerider15]

And the list goes on!!

Great job on your build, it's looks really good.

Yeah...the seemingly never ending list

So this is what I've been working on (amongst other things) the last couple nights:

Its stainless, wanted to be kind of "fancy". Well "fancy" came to mean PITA. It's 16 gauge stainless, which likes to heat up and discolor when cutting (all I have is an angle grinder really). Overall doesn't look to bad, but its not perfect.

Went ahead end got some switches and holders from OTRATTW.com ...switches are :greensmok

Planning on making most of all the wiring for these nearly stand alone, so all I have to to is remove a couple connectors and the panel will come out (just need to figure out how to mount some relays).

Switches so far will be (not all wired right away):
- Engine Fan Auto
- Engine Fan Low
- Engine Fan High
- Transcooler Fan
- Driving Lights Low
- Driving Lights High
- Dome Light
- Rock Lights
- Stereo

We'll see how this goes...

 

[rockclimber]

cat 5 with ethercon connectors.

 

[freerider15]

cat 5 with ethercon connectors.

duh huh?

 

[MoparManiac]

Basically an ethernet cable. They use small like 20-22ga twisted pair wiring.

Use that for the switching side + or - depending on how you wire the switches.

 

[freerider15]

Basically an ethernet cable. They use small like 20-22ga twisted pair wiring.

Use that for the switching side + or - depending on how you wire the switches.

Ahhhh ok.

I'll probably end up just using some of all the wiring I have sitting around from striping the harness...lots of pretty colors to choose from