My Green Machine Blog

[SeansXJ]

i see they moved the pile down to the mud hole area..hmm

bump stop it or trim.

 

[100K XJ]

Ok so I trimmed a little, I'm liking the idea of bump stopping more and more now...
I simply cut slits in the inner fender under the bracket that holds the plastic fender in place. It probably got my 1/2 inch or so, not sure if it helped yet but its all i'm willing to cut so far.
Heres the passengers side:

Heading out the the Rubicon bright and early in the morning, hope nothing breaks :yelclap:

 

[rocknxj]

So, the cutting begins...

 

[sleeperjeeper]

how do you like the new MTR's compared to the old ones?

 

[SeansXJ]

any word on the trip?

 

[100K XJ]

sleeperjeeper, if you're referring to the BFG A/T's I had on Old Blue, these are much much better. These tires rock, I only remember once when they slipped and I was hung up anyway. Although the extra width caused more rubbing problems than I wanted, they helped me avoid some rocks in certain situations.

The trip was very fun, lots of crawlin'. We went up friday afternoon to the slabs and then again on the Poker Run early Saturday morning. It was much harder friday so i'm glad we went early. The Green Machine proved itself very trail worthy with the locker and aggressive tires
I stripped my front passengers fender off early and bent in the underlying metal fender without hesitation.
Last month I accelerated a little faster than normal and it caused some abnormal vibrations at 50mph. Inspected the driveline and wheels but everything looked fine. However after driving to San Fran last weekend, up here this weekend, and trailing it I noticed the rear U-joint was near failure. Luckily we had a spare and fixed it in camp.

 

[100K XJ]

more pics:

 

[100K XJ]

Haha sorry about all the damage Illustrated, It will be fixed and made better than stock ever was

 

[IllustratedXJ]

Very cool!
You've done more with that rig in a few months than I did in years. I'm glad it found a good home. :cheers:

--mike

 

[IllustratedXJ]

Haha sorry about all the damage Illustrated, It will be fixed and made better than stock ever was

Nah, I'm happy to see it getting beat on.

 

[rocknxj]

Nah, I'm happy to see it getting beat on.

The pictures are worse than it really is. Once the fender flares are back on and fender is pulled back out, you really cannot see any damage. Those 32x11.50's seem to wreak havoc on his untrimmed fender wells.

 

[srmitchell]

Are those autozone u joints???

No wonder!

Jeeps looks great man.

 

[rocknxj]

Are those autozone u joints???

No wonder!

Jeeps looks great man.

I bought a couple of spare u-joints from AutoZone over a year ago and threw them in my parts box. Thankfully I had that one on hand. It actually looks pretty good for the 15 bucks I spent on it. The joint that failed was installed with the Tom Woods driveshaft by the PO. Although it had a zerk fitting and we lubed it recently, the failed side was bone dry in the middle. The AZ joint does not have a zerk fitting but the joint looks pretty good.

For spares, I'll grab a bunch of Spicer joints. 1310? 760? 297? I forget which ones.

Oh hey, this is not my blog....

 

[100K XJ]

I thought I'd share some other pics of the failed U-joint

 

[rocknxj]

Here's a decent u-joint thread you should read through. Might help 'splain your problem.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1034917&highlight=spicer+u-joints

 

[Letterman]

Wow that is an ugly u-joint!!!

You should have felt some nasty slop in the drive line, I bet it feels like a new rig with the new U-joint installed. When it is that bad you feel it when you are not hard on the gas and not slowing down, just a funky slopy feeling in the drive train. Good thing it never went all the way out on you, lots of ugly when a drive shaft breaks free. Thanks for the photos!!!!

 

[SeansXJ]

yeah very cool photos, i can't wait to get up for the 4th. this makes it so much worse now. AZ ujoints work just fine...yeah with the zerk is better but it got you back on the trail and back home.

 

[rocknxj]

As a side note to the above, there would have been no way to remove the u-joint if we did not have access to this trail vise. My new personal mission before Sierra Fest is to stock up on 1310 u-joints and build a wide enough vise capable of pressing/beating out a failed joint on the trail. Said vise will be mounted to 2" receiver with suitable workspace for pounding steel with a BFG.

 

[srmitchell]

Great idea. The hitch mount would be sweet!

 

[fyrfytr1717]

Said vise will be mounted to 2" receiver with suitable workspace for pounding steel with a BFG.

Don't think you're going to get too far trying to pound out a u-joint with one of your KM2's.