Vanilla Gorrilla blog

Alrighty. Got most everything done but no suspension mods done. Winch mount is awesome and steering was effortless until another ps leak cropped up that i need to fix.
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Kinda over dragging my ass over everything so...
Ordered some new re leaf springs and metalcloak front coils. Those will be goin in soon with the traction bar and control arms and 37s.

Still got to wire up the winch and add the in cab controls. Also soon re doing the atlas triple shifters to have them land a bit better.

I have a ton of crap for sale too. Also looking for a new chassis probably. Steph is kinda over the 2door. Although she is also kinda down to build a wj as well. So i might be heading that direction and keep the gorilla beat.
 
The vanilla gorilla was looking good all weekend. A wj would be cool to see done up. The rear A arm thing is junk you'll want to do a real 4 link in the rear
 
If you decide WJ, you should just buy one of Jon's WJ's. That will force him to get the Waggy done quicker and use that as his mild wheeler/camping rig. Haha
 
Swapped in some re 4.5” leafs and metalcloak 6” tj coils. Somehow i am missing my coil isolators so i ordered some. And these leffs are like 3” longer than my iro 3.5” leafs so i need to adjust my shackles and do some clearancing on my bumper. At least its not lopsided anymore. Ill be swapping in my tnt lower control arms and adjusting wheelbase a bit. And adding my traction bar after i drive it a bit and get the leafs to settle in.

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Yeah I dont know why the 5.5” leaves are so much longer than the other leaves its weird.
 
I was reading around online and found that these are 55" mains on the RE 5.5" leaves. So a boomerang shackle is a must , RE 2705 or something like that.

Im tempted to order the RE boomerang shackles just because it would be cheaper than spending 300$ on getting these main leaves shortened, but then I loose the slider boxes, so I will probably end up shortening the mains
 
Hey Gordo, have you had a chance to get an idea how soft, or firm, the MetalCloak coils are yet? I replaced my Full Traction 6" coils (too soft) with some BDS 5" coils claimed to be 240lbs/in to see if I could get my rear springs to work more. Not sure they work any better that the F/T's though.
 
I havent driven it yet. The shackles are contacting the bumper so i need to clearance that before i test drive it. Should be able to get it together this weekend though.
 
Apples to oranges but I enjoy the ride of my 3.5 inch metalcloak coils. I tried to get a spring rate from them, but I was told they didn't give that information out by their text department ....

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
regarding the leaves, I recently installed the same set of leaves prior to renofest and have almost no uptravel with the slider boxes since these leaves are so long - 55" mains versus a 52" main. Im getting rid of the leaf sliders since it would be too expensive to have these leaves cut down and custom length mains and I am going back to RE boomerang shackles. Also, the slider boxes are mangled to hell even with the additional bracing I welded on so I am blowing out the delrin pucks pretty quick anyway.
 
SlowXj said:
Apples to oranges but I enjoy the ride of my 3.5 inch metalcloak coils. I tried to get a spring rate from them, but I was told they didn't give that information out by their text department ....

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I tried to get the same info and got the same anwser. It's really annoying considering this info is avalible for basically all other manufacturers.
 
We. Did a hell of a lot of work today.

- coil isolators installed
- rebuilt uca joints
- tnt lower control arms installed
- front end pushed out 1”
- caster set to 5*
- axle recentered with track-bar
- Replaced both tre’s on draglink
- Recenter steering wheel
- Greased all pivots and joints in front end
- relocate shackle pivot points
- clean and grease shackle joint
- clearance bumper for shackles
- clearance wheel arches for 37s

My only technical needs to be ready for SF are to fix a power steering leak and get an oring for my front ox locker changed. Just behind that is wire up my winch and install my cab controls.

Only pics i have are of the bumper clearancing i did. Pay no mind to the hackery. An air hammer cutting tool, grinder with a cutting disc, and a big ass hammer were all i used. And i was in a hurry as the sun was setting.
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My list for the jeep is actually shrinking as im getting a bit better perspective on this chassis as a whole. Ive just come to the realization that im never going to have a clean jeep and the top will likely come off this probably next year. Im shooting for something like this.

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But obviously with a lot less class. Haha

I am on the hunt for either a 2001 4door with power everything. Or a late WJ 4.0 with power everything. Everything i hear about the 4.7 and 4.7 ho says stay away. Even though a v8 would be nice. Ill likely be turboing my rig and we will see how that goes. Hehe. Im going to build an auto rig for steph to drive and it will be a bit nicer and relaxed with a few more creature comforts. Im also considering building a tahoe for her instead of a jeep. But still doing researching on that one.
 
Last edited:
Rob D said:
Hey Gordo, have you had a chance to get an idea how soft, or firm, the MetalCloak coils are yet? I replaced my Full Traction 6" coils (too soft) with some BDS 5" coils claimed to be 240lbs/in to see if I could get my rear springs to work more. Not sure they work any better that the F/T's though.
Click to expand...



Hey Rob. I saw a pick of your rig on Facebook i think. Someone snapped a pick of you in oakland maybe. Haha. A bunch of guys were commenting that they see you around Pittsburg all the time.
 
Nice man glad to see it coming along
 
GordoSmasho said:
Hey Rob. I saw a pick of your rig on Facebook i think. Someone snapped a pick of you in oakland maybe. Haha. A bunch of guys were commenting that they see you around Pittsburg all the time.
Click to expand...

How funny. It must have been when I drove to work a few days ago. Or maybe when I drove over to Walnut Creek to check out a car for my younger daughter. Her little Honda CRV was stolen the night of the 4th. :dunno:
 
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