Project: Rusty Nail

I might it's a huge drive and I've been putting almost all my play money this thing. So it's still up in the air... plus I keep tossing a huge revamp of my rear suspension...

well engine has been running awesome still, I got about 600 miles on it already too :D

And finally no more primer on my jeep!!!
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It's a little more vivid than my oem paint but oh well this time next year I plan to have my own made quarter armor anyway.


and also in preparation for my 35's and my long arms I decided to also hop up to bead locks. I choose to go with the DIY outer lock ring kit by ballistic fabrication. My overall opinion of them is just like all the other DIY sets out there except a little cheaper to get so I'm happy. I'm still going to DD it with the beadlocks so we'll see how it goes, as for balancing I'm going to try airsoft bb's or just static balancing. Oh and don't ask about my drill... It's had a tough life.
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35's, beadlocks and long arms? Careful or it'll be as big as your other Jeep before you know it...

I'm hoping to have my XJ done within the next few weeks, would you be down to wheel the weekend of Halloween?
 
Sure lets do it! yeaaaa I thought about that too difference is that I'm staying at 3.75 inches of lift however.
 
Long time with no updates sorry guys. Private joker- Taurus fan has been working great, the rad is in the stock location but I did delete the pulley that the mechanical fan spun on. I know alot of people said my belt would squeal or that the alternator wouldn't charge correctly, but so far so good with it. (knocks on wood)


I haven't been doing much I do want to say the MK2's are AWESOME on the road and on the trail. Just need the time to finish the rest of my beadlocks
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I haven't gotten my Y-link in yet because I'm taking the stock rubber axle mounts off and using ballistic 2.63 mounts plus I modded the skid so it wont bend (again). I'm just going to use the weldable ends, I don't really see the need for that end to be adjustable as well.
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And lastly I took the bumper off of my red jeep and started to put it on a diet. It was built using 3x3 square. It worked well but was WAY to heavy so I started cutting out all the insides of it and I plan to put some .250 braces in various places to keep the strength there.
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While the bumper was off I'm relocating the solenoid box from my winch to inside the engine bay. It wont save alot of weight but it will take the electronics out of the elements, plus I wont have to cut tons of grill away went the winch gets bolted onto the bumper. I want this bumper to sit back a little more than it did before to help with my approach angles along with moving my axle another 2 inches forward when I go to my long arms.
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Been awhile since I've updated anything.

the good
Got my synthetic line for the winch
Moved the solenoid box inside of the engine bay, and moved the plug in for the controller to the header panel
Got a second redtop to complete my dual battery installation
Got my 4,000 Watt power inverter to take care of my on trail electronic activities
TNT Long Arms are modded and ready to go in
Looking at a slick idea to stretch the rear WB 3-4 inches as well

the bad
Still haven't fixed the overcharging issues
need to still find a pesky leak in the rear of the truck somewhere
It's winter and cold as hell right now
Need to still locate my body pieces to finish my 97+ nose and door swap
Still haven't found disk brake brackets
It's winter and cold as hell right now
 
What's your plan for the rear? I just swapped S10 packs into mine and it got me ~3" of lift and a 3" stretch with a great shackle angle. Mine's gone back under the knife, but should be ready by spring, does you club have any public runs planned? Also what happened to the red XJ? I saw the RIP in your sig...
 
What's your plan for the rear? I just swapped S10 packs into mine and it got me ~3" of lift and a 3" stretch with a great shackle angle. Mine's gone back under the knife, but should be ready by spring, does you club have any public runs planned? Also what happened to the red XJ? I saw the RIP in your sig...


Really did you use the complete S-10 pack? or xj leafs too? what I was thinking about using is something like these..
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It replaces my leaf mounts and ties it into the unibody a little better IMO I was just going to use a 4.5 leaf pack and move my mounts back. as you move the mount back it will slightly go up so I figured the 4.5" pack will even out to about 3-3.5 which would be perfect.

Club runs, yes we do! I don't know off the top of my head but please feel free to register and look under our trail rides section.

The 95xj issue... well I started on it, got my axles, tires, wheels, gears, tcase and other bits.. .started working on it and realized I didn't want a trailer queen anymore, I wanted something my wife could drive, something we could drive out to a trail, camp with it and drive it home. I'd love a 1 ton'd rig maybe in the future but right now it just wasn't needed. It was my first xj so I'm always going to miss it but this Xj is truly a cool little rig now too.

Plus I negotiated 2 summer trips to Rousch Creek per year if I got rid of the red one :D
 
So I guess I'm adding Hydro assist to my to do list now :D I really want to have that in before nac fest this year, also ordered a new trac-bar mount for the axle to maybe improve my angles a bit. I have some bump steer I need to weed out.
 
to quote you eric

"started working on it and realized I didn't want a trailer queen anymore, I wanted something my wife could drive, something we could drive out to a trail, camp with it and drive it home. I'd love a 1 ton'd rig maybe in the future but right now it just wasn't needed"

thats where im at right now, except toss a 3 month old into the picture. ohh and i still move every four years, long term builds are just not possible. long story short, after a brief hiatus i'm thinking i might get back into the xj world. rustynail is a great project full of inspiration.

Thanks


Mike
 
Hey Mike! long time man. Congrats on the little one, and welcome back to naxja ;) glad to hear your getting another. And thanks! It's been a great learning experience.

About all the wheeling I've been doing lately :(
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Sorry I didn't get back to you about the S10 packs. I'm using just a 2wd pack, with an extra main that has the eyes cut off for support, and no overload. I haven't wheeled it yet, but it left me with a nice shackle angle. I'll get back to you whenever I get to test it out.
 
I just read ALL 14 pages of this build.... AWESOME is all I have to say.
Thanks!

Sorry I didn't get back to you about the S10 packs. I'm using just a 2wd pack, with an extra main that has the eyes cut off for support, and no overload. I haven't wheeled it yet, but it left me with a nice shackle angle. I'll get back to you whenever I get to test it out.

Thanks I've also heard of F150 mains giving you a decent stretch. But I think im just going to end up moving my perches about 2" back to give mine a stretch in the spring.


My jeep is FINALLY running perfect! Turns out it was something so stupid that I completely overlooked.

With the jeep back in action I can continue on with the mods!
I finished up my TNT arms with the ballistic joints which I think are going to work perfect in place of the rubber mounts.
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I also got some beefier rear diff protection. Blue Torch Kryptonite DIY cover
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Since I'm parting out my 95 I took a couple bits and pieces off of it such as my MSD Ignition Coil
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Another thing I always wanted to install is a power inverter I got a killer deal on this one that gets hard wired and will be mounted underneath the passenger seat.
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There will be a winch on my rig before the spring so I took the solenoid box and moved it in the engine bay. It's not complete but it will do for now, with the remote plug is in the header panel now.
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Hopefully today I'll have that power inverter installed and some snow wheelin pics! :D
 
If I've learned anything from jeeps it's that progress always will come as one step forward two steps back.....
Heard a little gear whine the other day so I pulled the cover to take a peak
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It seems to me that the check valve wasn't working and let ALOT of water inside my diff. which made the cheap national carrier bearings fail in a HUGE way. There was ice inside of the pinion oil channels if that helps you with an idea of how much water was found in this.

Here you can see all the chunks
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Thankfully nothing was damaged besides all my bearings and races! Since the cover was off I took the time to whip up my new diff cover :)
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Once it was all cleaned out the damage wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. More to come tomorrow
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