Nvr-Enough's YJ (re)Build

Since I'm 855 miles away from home and have no real updates to offer, here's a small pic dump from the first couple test drives around the neighborhood. Made it up and down the hill a couple times and took the 12 year old to the bus stop, she was grinning ear to ear despite the lack of windshield in 45* weather!

Transfer case has a pretty good leak. Last rebuilt or at least resealed by the P.O. and it's obvious that they liked a heavy helping of silicone. Just hoping that I didn't crack the case when I popped the driveshaft and 14B.

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Hopefully more to come early next week!:beer:
 
Detroit and 5.38s installed in the front end. Also installed a set of drive slugs I've had on the shelf for years. Still 30 spline outers for now.


This front end was hammered. It was my first time tearing into it since I've owned the rig, I had checked the fluid but never tore the cover off. It had some water in the gear oil. It was nasty and sludgy. The welds on the spiders had cracked, so it was all on borrowed time. Ha The wheel bearings had clearly been wet and had some god awful grease that was a nightmare to clean out. It got new wheel bearings, races and seals.

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Time to go shake it down :smokin:
 
Would you believe me if I told you we are parting it out? :emb:



That's my 'home' job when I'm not on the road racing. A buddy has a big collection that myself and a buddy take care of and it happens to live at a 90 acre 'racecar ranch'. That car was bought so we can tear it apart to rebuild the 2013 Daytona 24 hour winning car that was wrecked and retubbed in 2014. We have the original engine, gearbox and body work to put back on it. It will then get raced in HSR/ vintage events.
 
Welllll, that's a real bummer.
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Not an expense I was planning on this summer, but the case has a couple sweet cracks, which explains the leaks. And last time I was out playing at the ranch I was starting to lose front drive on climbs, so I parked it.

I have not gone into this case since I've owned the rig. I knew the rear had a 32 spline output, but didn't know what other mysteries it held. I was pleasantly surprised (as I suspected) to find Lo-max 4:1 gears. The pocket bearing between the input shaft and output shaft was blown out of the thing, which probably explains some of the issues popping out of gear. So I spent a whole bunch of money and should solve this issue this week if everything shows up as planned. :grinpimp:
 
Nvr-enough said:
Welllll, that's a real bummer.
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Not an expense I was planning on this summer, but the case has a couple sweet cracks, which explains the leaks. And last time I was out playing at the ranch I was starting to lose front drive on climbs, so I parked it.

I have not gone into this case since I've owned the rig. I knew the rear had a 32 spline output, but didn't know what other mysteries it held. I was pleasantly surprised (as I suspected) to find Lo-max 4:1 gears. The pocket bearing between the input shaft and output shaft was blown out of the thing, which probably explains some of the issues popping out of gear. So I spent a whole bunch of money and should solve this issue this week if everything shows up as planned. I
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I have a couple stock 300 cases. I just made the jump to Behemoth Apex case. PM me if your interested in one or multiple stock cases. I'll "sell" cheap and can even ship it to you.
 
Blase said:
I have a couple stock 300 cases. I just made the jump to Behemoth Apex case. PM me if your interested in one or multiple stock cases. I'll "sell" cheap and can even ship it to you.
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I appreciate the offer! I decided I didn't want to worry about breaking another stock case, especially since I like to wheel pretty hard and I'm planning on wheeling some remote CO trails with this thing, and being stranded doesn't sound fun.

I had a phone call with Tyler@TMI last week along with Jon @ JB conversions. So sometime shortly I should have my hands on a new billet case along with a rebuild kit and a front 32 spline output to go with the 4:1 gears and 32 spline rear I already had in the stock case.

I considered other options, 205, Atlas, etc but decided the TMI case made sense with already having some upgraded bits on hand, driveshafts wouldn't need to be modified, etc. and space is a bit of a premium with the flat belly on the rig.
 
that's a pretty lucky catch before things could've went really stupid. nice as well that you can reuse what you got for the new one. looking forward to seeing what you think of the tmi case
 
Got super lucky honestly. We had talked about heading out to some local trails that day, but instead decided to just go play at the ranch to put some more shakedown time on it with low risk if we had an issue, and wanted to let my step-daughter drive it. As soon as I felt it dropping front drive I pulled it in the shop. Glad I didn't trash the gears.
 
My luck there was that I was farting around in the creek bed giving my girlfriend her first ride in the thing since we have been together, which says how long this stupid thing has been out of commission, since her and I are going on a few years now. Lol

Had I been out with my buddies I'm sure I would have been cleaning tcase bits off the skid with a pressure washer :laughing:
 
Still waiting on tcase bits to show up. I have my hands on the rebuild kit and 32 spline front output from JB Conversions as we as my new cable shift set up from JB Fabrication. Seems like a nicely built set-up. We will see how I like the cable shift, hopefully for a non-race rig it will be okay and should make packaging way simpler.


Since I don't have any real jeep updates, here is the Audi Project I mentioned. I really wasn't joking when I said we're parting it out. :laughing:

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Hoping to get this one back together quickly and we have plans to run it in the Classic 24 and 12 hours at Daytona and Sebring this fall.
 
Nvr-enough said:
Still waiting on tcase bits to show up. I have my hands on the rebuild kit and 32 spline front output from JB Conversions as we as my new cable shift set up from JB Fabrication. Seems like a nicely built set-up. We will see how I like the cable shift, hopefully for a non-race rig it will be okay and should make packaging way simpler.


Since I don't have any real jeep updates, here is the Audi Project I mentioned. I really wasn't joking when I said we're parting it out. :laughing:

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Hoping to get this one back together quickly and we have plans to run it in the Classic 24 and 12 hours at Daytona and Sebring this fall.
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Enjoying this thread and the work you're doing!
 
Well, finally time for an update.

Did a little shakedown run at rainbow falls in Pike Nat Forest yesterday. Cool little area known as little-Moab with some ledges to do some climbs. Ran some trails through the woods pretending to be a side by side.

Pic dump-
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And the take away from the shake down run-

-Brakes work well, but spongy pedal, probably need to swap masters. Gonna start with a bleed now that they have some miles on them.

-Suspension works good and should be killer with some shock tuning. Would like to swap 175->150 upper springs in the rear to bring the ride height down and soften it up. Barely touched the bump stops even with the shocks set at low PSI and compression adjusters open. Definitely need a re-valve.

-Steering. Can definitely easily out drive the current set up while bombing trails with the new suspension. It's just a stock pump, (unknown) orbital and a single end PSC ram. Debating doing 4500 steering or swapping in a box with traditional hydro assist. Debating if I should take on a steering update now or when I link the front.

-Tcase- The magnitude so far has me pretty disappointed. It does not shift well/easily between ranges. And it is popping out of low range on the front output. Also has a lot of chatter when downhill with maintenance throttle in 4WD, to the point I'm afraid something is going to break. Does not happen in 2wd high. Plan to talk to Tyler at Magnitude this week. Hopefully the issues can be resolved easily.


Next on the list is getting the matching sparco seat mounted on the driver's side and some proper tool storage mounts in front of the fuel cell/behind the seats.
 
Little ledge climb. Definitely need to swap to a different muffler. 4.0 sounds rowdy with the current set-up but it's way too loud for trail riding and will probably make the cute co-pilot deaf in her right ear after a long day. :laughing:


 
Nvr-enough said:
Little ledge climb. Definitely need to swap to a different muffler. 4.0 sounds rowdy with the current set-up but it's way too loud for trail riding and will probably make the cute co-pilot deaf in her right ear after a long day. :laughing:
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What muffler is on there now?
 
When I was thrashing over winter and trying to toss the thing together for KOH I ordered this one up from summit knowing it was compact and would definitely fit in my limited space between the belly skid and floor, but expected to revisit the exhaust at some point-
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It's not a direct flow-through like a glass pack, it has a couple baffles, but not much.
 
I would have guessed Borla or Magnaflow by the sound. I had Jeeps with both brand mufflers and I thought they both sounded awesome.
 
Had a buddy in town from Germany, took him out for a day trip. Let him drive a bit, he had a blast. Jeep did great again, except for the TMI300 still popping front drive out. I tried making adjustments to the cable shifter, no change. Still need to talk to TMI to see what they have to say. Life's been busy with work.
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I did some garage organizing the other day and decided to dig my 5.3 out of the crate it's been in for the past few years while moving around the country. Just mocked the heads/pan/etc on to clean up the garage. Gen 3, a billion miles on it, I did fresh rings and bearings, then put it in the crate. Figure it will get a mild cam and go together on a budget and eventually end up in the crawler. It's the lame/easy button, but should be fine for what the rig is used for.

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Let's talk front axles-

Just looking ahead to start planning for the next 'stage' of the build, thinking about front suspension, steering and axle.

Currently the steering can't keep up when running trails trying to run over side by sides. It was fine on leafs with ~2" of up travel, but now is definitely too slow at speed. It's a PSC single end ram, stock pump and some generic orbital.

Id like to consider putting a steering box in it and either doing hydro assist or 4500 type steering. I think I can package a JK box pretty well in there currently. Id think with this not being a race rig, hydro assist should probably be fine, but also, should I just spend a little more and put together a package that will work well for crawling and go fast stuff? Id like the rig to be some-what street safe for running between trails, etc. Living in CO I end up on lots of high risk roads with huge drops off the shoulder if something fails.

Front suspension/axle-

When it's time to link the front of this thing I'm trying to decide what to do with the front axle.

Currently the rig has a GM D60. Stock, not cut up housing, only thing modified is the shock mounts. 5.38s, Detroit, stock shafts inner and outer, stock hubs/brakes, drive slugs. Truss it and party on? Sell it to someone that wants it to bolt in their Chevy?

Other options-

-I have everything from inner C->out from the 99-04 60 I cut up, including machined knuckles with a custom high-steer arm set-up. So buy a fab 9inch housing and build a 609? Any reason I couldn't build to 99-04 dims and use the stock shafts I have? Easy to fab link mounts to fab housing, etc. I think I like this is my favorite idea.

-Find 05+ super duty D60 and resleeve it to pass drop? Sounds like a pain in the ass, but fairly cost effective. Cutting off the stock radius arm mounts looks like a pain in the ass. Don't love this idea.

-Or buy a new D60 housing from Great Lakes fab and build off of that? Either using my 99-04 parts or find 05+ outers?

I know the 99-04 stuff is limited to 1480 joints, but is that really an issue for a weekend warrior trail rig that's getting abused but not raced? Behind a tired 4.0 (and eventually a mild 5.3)?


Not trying to spend a millions bucks on an axle, but trying to put together something I don't have to worry (much) about.

Thoughts?


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Personally, the most cost effective thing is to do a SD D60 and swap to passenger drop with hydro assist. You don't have to worry about failed steering leaving you stranded (from a pump or hose perspective, like you do with full hydro. Passenger drop KP60s are too damn expensive for no reason, and cutting the brackets off sucks, but it's not terrible with a plasma. Though a 609 would be bitchin.
 
Nvr-enough said:
Let's talk front axles-

Just looking ahead to start planning for the next 'stage' of the build, thinking about front suspension, steering and axle.
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Might be kinda late after reading the above transfer case decision.

Could you swap tcase to driver drop and move past the hurdles of passenger drop oddities.
 
1Sinner said:
Personally, the most cost effective thing is to do a SD D60 and swap to passenger drop with hydro assist. You don't have to worry about failed steering leaving you stranded (from a pump or hose perspective, like you do with full hydro. Passenger drop KP60s are too damn expensive for no reason, and cutting the brackets off sucks, but it's not terrible with a plasma. Though a 609 would be bitchin.
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Good point on hydro-assist, that's probably the direction I'll head. With a quality pump and ram I think it should work well enough for what I'm wanting to do. And I could pretty easily build that steering set up now with the current axle/suspension by just putting a high-steer arm on the pass knuckle. And then transfer it to the new axle/suspension when that time comes.

Exactly, the Chevy 60s seem to be stupid money, I think I could sell it off to help fund something better (high pinion) suited for my build.


Gravy said:
Might be kinda late after reading the above transfer case decision.

Could you swap tcase to driver drop and move past the hurdles of passenger drop oddities.
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TMI tcase can be built for driver or pass drop, so that's no problem. But my thoughts for staying pass drop have been mostly due to the fact that this rig has a pretty substantial motor mount/trans lift to achieve a flat belly. So to fit in the TMI case I had to cut out a pretty good chunk of the passenger floor for case and front driveshaft clearance. Its not really an issue for a passenger, but I think would probably be a pretty uncomfortable floor pan for the drivers area if I had to cut it up the same amount as I had to do on that side.

The other thought pinballing around in my mind looking at frame rails and dreaming up steering box locations, I think it will be easier to package the steering box/pitman arm (and eventually a frame side pan hard mount) if the pumpkin is on the pass side and not trying to take up the same real estate under bump. Again, just my thoughts from eyeballing it, might be way off base on that once I actually start trying to put parts in places.
 
Swap the case to drivers drop and run 05+ 60. Maybe in the swapping of the case you can figure out why its not shifting how you'd like and why its popping out of FWD. Pretty sure the popping out of FWD is something even stock 300's do going down hill. So that issue at least may be in the OEM design.
 
mine pops in and out of rear on its own. .. which is nice actually for digs. oddly enough when I'm Crawling though its never be an issue. if I'm throttle action uphill though you bet i have my hand on the sticks just in case. it's more a trail riding thing for me. talking stock 300 here.

i do agree though, put the tmi case case driver, go 05 plus axle and don't look back.
 
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