Crawler/Broverlander YJ Buildup

bad zuki

bad zuki

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Joined
Oct 2, 2023
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Oh, Hamburgers, new thread on a new account, It feels like 2007 again.... Here is a samurai Ive been working on for a customer to get the Hardcore Jeep guys going.
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Anyways, I recently bought an old crawler off a friend of mine and this is going to be the long winded build thread to help me remember all the nonsense, part numbers, and belt sizes that I will forget in the future. Its an 87 Yj/350 TBI/700r4/atlas and I'll be swapping that hot garbage out for a a 5.3 with a 4l80e. I sold my last YJ when I bought this and miss the driveablity of a stock yj on 35's. First thing was first. I wheeled it at GER and back at the farm until it developed more problems. I found out the wheel bearings/seals where shot and processed to bust those out. One of the spindle bearings got into a Chromo... Oh well, New bearings and Branik Spindle bushings FTW.

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After both sides where rebuilt, I took the slide hammer and straighted the exhaust dent a bit.
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More to come soon.
 
Oh, I totally agree and I'll be looking for another one. However, I was swapping Unit bearings every year on the Dana 30, The engine kept clogging the heater (I built it for snow wheeling), and it was a factory 3 speed auto. The auto was a double edged sword. It was tough and easy to drive with, but it didn't have overdrive. With the carb, it was getting 6-8 around town. :lmao: 12 on the interstate. I think I put about 8,000 miles on it during The Kung-Flu Period.

I sold it and bought this for less than a used atlas cost extra. It drives pretty darn well in low range. It has no balls in High range with 5.38s

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I took this thing out to Flagpole for the day with some friends and family. This unit works, but will not go 55 mph :mad3:. Time to start building the 5.3. I'm just going to do a small rebuild with a cam and few other goodies. I somehow broke my buddies parts washer. (It is on 4 wheels🤷‍♂️). Hopefully it will be finished this week.

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Ever trade a guy a camo tracker for parts and get the wrong ones??? :shaking: Well I can say that now.
The head bolts came in wrong. Right part #, Wrong bolts. :mad3:

I finished up the heads and put the new timing chain, oil pump, and put one side together.

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Took the Jeep out to Potts Mountain for a day trip and this thing did great. We only popped 2 valve stems on the entire trip.

Got back from the trip and got the drive train out in about 4 hours. Don't mind the wire wheels.

Also, my buddy got a pretty cool rig, its a 60s cj3a with a Sidekick motor and transmission. We spent a few days getting it to death-wobble less, but couldn't get it past 40 mph without the tires wanting to make love with the leaf springs...

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I'm still waiting on some stuff to come in for the atlas, but it looks good internally and I'll just slap it back together when the input arrives.

After that I cut the rails out of the new Winters shifter to allow panic reversing and panic 1st or 2nd. The old shifter was a ratchet shifter that you had to pull the front lever to move, I know it makes it easier for some to drive, but I like this style better.

I finished the engine accessories and didn't like how close the driver side manifold was to the power steering pump. I ordered some center dump manifolds and that should clear everything up!

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Thanks, I'm a huge fan of wire wheels and white walls.

Got some progress over the weekend. The input finally arrived from Advanced Adapters and I slapped the atlas back together. Then I went and picked up my 4l80e that finally got rebuilt. In a rush, I accidentally put the 5.3 to 4l80e spacer on backward and threw it in the jeep for mock up. (the first picture shows the spacer on correctly). I also threw in an ls swap radiator and I really don't like how the upper hose goes across the top of the hood. I'm going to get one of those Cross flow radiators and see how that works.

Sunday I started looking at that 8274 and I remembered how much the Old jeep overheated while driving down the interstate with the 8274 on top of the frame, so I cut the old mount started to recess it as low as possible. And since I off-set it to the passenger side to clear the steering box, it lined up perfect with the grill mount to use this as a suck down winch. After that I started on making a new set of motor mounts for the block huggers.

Yes, I know that I suck at fabricating.

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No real progress on the build this week. We plow snow for VDOT and that took up most of my free time this week. I stripped down the spare LS harness to match the swapped harness I bought.

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Then convinced a friend of mine to get a crawler, so He called me in to co-drive up to Maryland and inspect his new marketplace find.

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Forgot to mention, the seats for the Samurai finally came in.

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Sweet looking good, maybe it was the old radiator that caused the overheating? I’ve never had an issue with my 8274, but I have the inline 6 in it so maybe it runs cooler than that sbc.
 
Right_side_up said:
Sweet looking good, maybe it was the old radiator that caused the overheating? I’ve never had an issue with my 8274, but I have the inline 6 in it so maybe it runs cooler than that sbc.
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Thanks! I think it had more to do with the Weber I had on the 4.2. It was only a problem on the interstate with the winch. I drove that 4.2/tf999 5 hours to the beach topless/winchless and it did fantastic. Hopefully I’ll be driving this one down this summer.
 
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This is more of a general update, I haven't spent much time at the shop but alot of things have happened in the last month.

If you haven't seen the Invest In Cameras Thread I recommend reading that and coming back to this point.

I was able to score a HI-10 with an ARB for the build! It was local enough to take the I-rok up to grab it after work, Then I ripped the old HI-9 out and dicovered that the rear axle won't accept the bigger gearset....

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Here is the difference between a 3.73 Dana 60 and 5.38 HI-10.

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Saturday I finally got the call the 4X4 club DOM order was ready for pickup and went down to Richmond to pick it up. Hopefully this week I'll break out the tubing bender and sling some tube.

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The Freeak said:
Is it as simple as notching the housing to allow the bigger ring gear, or..,,?
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I wish. I called Spidertrax and Thom said that the older housing are physically smaller than the newer ones.
 
It's still to cold in the shop, but I've been toiling away at things over the weekend. Saturday I got to work with the plasma cutter and made the floor into a convertible, and I still need to cut the rear section for the driveshaft. Then I benched pressed the atlas in there. I'll need to persuade the rest of the trans tunnel with a hammer when I take it out.
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After that I finished cutting off the front frame support to make way for the power steering box and tided up the frame. I'll extend the front axle in the future.

Then, I found out that I need to cut up the new radiator since I moved the motor over 2 inches. The fan will hit the lower radiator hose. No, I'm not just going to put an electric fan on it.

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Bebop said:
Shannon Campbell had to do it recently and said that it was miserable. I believe him
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Yeah, Its probably gonna suck. More than Likely, I'll just slap the HI9 Back in it and run it for the test and tune weekend in march.
 
Got the drivetrain finalized and installed. I had to raise the driver side engine mount up an inch. But other than that, the transmission mount went together pretty easy. Driveshaft, exhaust and trans pan all clear the mounts.
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Since I moved the motor over, I’m gonna have to chop up the radiator to angle the lower outlet. To help with clearance I ran some 1” spacers on the clutch fan.

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After discovering the HI-10 needs bearings, I ordered stuff from Gearworks last month. They misplaced my order 2 separate times and on the 3rd call into them, I finally got them to take my card information. If I get a shipping order I'll be impressed. I'm not blaming them for the jeeps lack of progress, but that is definitely one of the problems. :mad3:

On an unrelated note, If you order one of those cheap 98-02 F-body oil pans. They take a 2007+ LS oil filter, not the older one.
/endrant

Took the transmission pan off and added a shim on the gear selector and that helped firm up the detent a good bit!

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The compressor came in and I got the accessory drive setup don! I had to cut the lower radiator line and angle it over to miss the fan. So much for a warranty. :laughing: Running the Dave's custom York mount and stock truck accessories. The Belt size was 113"

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After that, I started on the wiring harness. I got it all layed out and hooked on.

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Wheeling pics coming next week.
 
A friend and I have been debating about going to electric master brakes for about a month or so. He went ahead and installed the Ibooster gen 2 on his rig ahead of this weekends trip. The pedal doesn't have much feedback at all, Its like steering with full hydro that came off a forklift. If he can get some more pedal feel out of it, I might have to add it to this build. It locks up the 42s faster than a stock car. :eek:

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I mounded the 44's I plan to run on the beach to check clearances for the hammock mount in the rear. I thought you all would enjoy the difference in sizes.

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We had the last test and tune before the club trip to Harlan next week. Thanks to everyone who came back and make fence posts.

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We had a tire turn into a werewolf and put it down with a silver bullet.:flipoff2:

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The Freeak said:
your local trails look awesome.
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Thanks! These trips are just on our farm in WV. Its the same mountain ridge as the Cove, so its pretty similar wheeling. We always go back for the Maple Festival and since it wasn't snowing, I setup 2 test and tunes for the club. :cool2:
 
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