The jeep's back on its wheels.  It's got steering, and now brake lines!  I need to fill the brake system, and bleed it, once thats done i should have brakes again.  The list still follows:

• Parking brake cables


• Sway bar link attachment


• Front lower shock mounts (and shocks..)


• Rear shocks (need to figure out upper mounts)

Then its just a matter of tightening up all of the bolts, replacing a few of them along the way, and going over the whole thing looking for things i missed! I may actually have this thing back on the road/trails in a few weeks!  Looking forward to that.

I've got my steering back together.  The YJ is now capable of moving.  It just wont stop.  I got one of the three brake lines installed today.  Unfortunately i had to put a decent chunk of my day into my Wife's liberty. 

On the YJ front, the steering went together nicely.  I picked up a used, but in decent shape, YJ steering drag link, and took the rod ends from that, and put them on the JB4x4 link that came with the kit.  I'd gotten the steering bracket installed last weekend.  All in all, a very nice and complete kit. All i need now is to finish  the brake lines, and get some shocks under the jeep.  THe rest is little crap that needs to be tied up.  Like my sway bar links, the tail lights, and the tailgate.  I will also be looking into some sort of anti-wrap.  I havent really addressed that yet.

For the LIberty.  I'm more or less posting this in case someone else runs into the same problem.  The liberty in question is a 2002, Sport.  My wife drives it.  About a month ago we had a problem with the neg. batt. terminal, and the battery.  I ended up cutting off both terminals,and replacing them with clamp on terminals.  I then replaced the battery with a nice Optima red top.  Well today the thing failed to sart.  and once i got it to start, a number of electrical things didnt work.  Like, the electric radiator fan, the dome light, the cluster lights, the headlights, and the electric door locks.  It ended up that the neg. terminal was nasty again.  I cleaned the hell out of it, and re-clamped the new end on.  All is well again.  I'm probably going to replace this terminal completely, or come up with a better solution.  Its working, but i dont like how the terminal looks right now.

Add an update on the project while i'm here. 

My birthday passed in February, and my dad was kind enough to buy me a steering correction kit from JB4x4.  It basically attaches to the pass. side knuckle on the D30, and you end up with crossover steering.  Ive started installing it.  One of the big steps is drilling and tapping the knuckle.  I'm practicing a bit with the tap before i tap the holes i drilled.  I dont want to screw things up and have to get a new knuckle.  Soon, i should have the steering together.  I just need to get some drag link ends for the new drag link that came with the kit. Not too big a deal.

I replaced the battery too. The battery died about 6 months ago, and i havent been able to start the jeep up since.  So i replaced the battery with a nice new red top optima, and started the jeep up tonight.  It fired up after only minor difficulty.  I didnt have one of the pos leads connected on my first attemtp, Once i fixed that, it started right up and ran as well as ever.  I do think it needs a decent tune-up though.  Seems to me that it's running rich.  I'm happy now that it runs at all.  Makes me feel a little closer to the end of this project.  I need to get my brakes finished up, shocks, the steering, and then it might at least be moveable.  Then i have a bunch of little things, like replacing a number of bolts that i'd placed temporary bolts in place for, getting the brake lights wired, figuring out what to do about reverse lights, get the cj tailgate installed......  Seems like the list goes on forever.  BUT, i'm getting closer!

Well, i just spent 2 hours cleaning up the forums after some asshats decided to flood them with spam.

I then realized that... no one really uses the forums.

So i removed them. No more forums, asshats ruined it.  Thank them when you see them.

-YJ Nate

They're not finished yet, but i've got my LED tail lights mounted.  I've only had them sitting in my attic for about 3 years.  I figured it's time to install them.  I still need to work out wiring, and reverse lights, but at least the lights themselves are mounted!  Someday they may even light up, and if i'm lucky, other drivers will actually see them, because the Jeep may leave the garage!

I've got my shock towers in place!  Yesterday afternoon I set to work, with two fresh cutting discs, and a fresh spool of welding wire.  What i did was cut the stock towers up, and use them as supports for a set of Ford F-150 towers that I bought years ago from a ford stealership.  I toasted the first cutting disc in seconds, turns out that they werent to best discs. The disc bound once, and just shreded.  I was able to get slightly more use ouf ot the second one, luckily, i really didnt want to have to abandon the afternoon just because of cheap discs.

I have the drivers side fender back on, i'll reinstall the passenger side next time i'm out there working.  I get the feeling that my battery is dead from all this time sitting.  I've been running the jeep every so often, but i also have been running the radio off of the battery.  Which was probably a mistake, but what can i say? I like music!  So as we speek i have the battery disconnected, and my charger running, last i checked it was holding a charge, we'll see how it is tomorrow.

I'm also hoping to start the install on the LED tail lights that i've had successfully aging in my closet for a few years. I just need to decide what i'm going to do about backup lights, and install them.  I also have a CJ Tailgate while i hope to install.  It's also properly aged, i've had it in my basement since JAOCMJ3 (in 2003).

OK, this project is officially taking way too long.  It's my own fault.  I don't have the time to devote to it that i'd like.  But, it's getting there.  I sent my rear driveshaft off to Tom Woods to have it lengthened.  Once they got it, they quickly realized that it wasn't their work.  i had bought the shaft second hand, and the seller told me it was a Tom Woods, guess i got lied to.  Anyway, they were still happy to do the work.  I got it back a little over a week ago.  I installed it yesterday, and it fit's perfectly.

My front shaft, which is almost brand new, seems to be slightly too short.  I reconnected it yesterday, and it's showing a little more spline than I'd like it to.  But it's functional, and at least i can use it until i can get it lengthened.  That one's a JE Reel, and i know its legitimate, because i bought that one new.

I replcaed one of the front shock towers with a Ford F150 shock tower, and then i ran out of welding wire.  So I'll have to finish welding that one, and start the other one once i get some more wire.  I knew i was running low, but i kept putting it off, you know how that goes. 

The shocks i wanted to use in the front are too short for the new towers.  I bought them when i was still SUA, and the plan was to install the shock towers while SUA.  The shocks would have been long enough in that configuration. SOA, theyre just not.  The good news is that once i relocate the upper shock mounts in the rear, i'm about positive i can use these shocks in the rear.  So i need new front shocks, and new upper mounts in the rear.  They'll probably end up coming through the tub in the back, but that;s ok.

On the shock tower thats partially installed, i put the fender in place to make sure it was going to fit, and it looks like it's going to be ok.  It's resting in place now, and the tower is just at the top of the fender.  So i think i'm good here.

So as it sits now, the list is:

• Get welding wire


• Finish welding DS Shock tower


• Install PS shock tower


• figure out steering


• Get longer front shocks


• Figure out rear shocks


• Drink


• Reinstall fenders/hood


• get longer rear brake line/parking brake cables


• Replace misc. bolt's/mounting hardware that were cut during suspension removal


• Pray it all works.



 

The new site is live!  I'm not 100% sure yet if i love the layout, but i've re-written it in a manner that makes it easier to re-organize, and re-code.  So i'm sure i'll be tweaking and tuning it over the next few months.  I wanted to get the new "blog" up and running, as it's nicer, and easier to use.  The Comments feature is gone for now, but i'll bring it back once i code it. 

Enjoy the new layout!

Snapped some pics of the rear of the jeep on it's new springs/soa. It's tall.. Definitely going to need to replace the 33's when funds allow.  Which is going to be a while unfortunatly...  I'll be lucky if i can get my rear driveshaft taken care of before this year's JAOCMJ...  Sigh.. Just emtpy every pocket i guess. 

I started dismantling the front end tonight.  I have the tires off, and the shocks disconnected.  I'm going to be replacing the front shock towers with Ford pickup towers.  It's a cheap way to convert away from those silly post style shocks.  I do hate those posts.. 

It;s been a while since i've been able to really work on the Jeep.  I'd come to the point where i needed to remove the rear axle, clean it up, weld on the perches, and paint it.   I dont know if you've ever tried to lift a D44 before, but they're not exactly light.  I'm not a big guy, so I enlisted a long time friend of mine, who also happens to be into jeeps, to give me a hand.  While he did a lot of complaining, Jay did just what he came to do, and that's help.  We rolled the axle out from under the jeep, and then i welded the perches on.  Once they were welded, we lugged it out into the yard, so i could clean the housing up (it was covered in various jeep fluids) and then paint it.  I ended up with a pretty nasty bucket of crud by the time i was done, but the axle definitely looks better.  Almost new!  We also pounded the drums free, and cleaned up the brakes a little bit.  I discovered that my rear brakes haven't been doing much work.. Something i'll hjave to re-visit.

We also managed to get the old bushings out of the springs, and press new ones in.  The old (and new) bushings are stock jeep busings.  I'm talking about the frame end bushings.  We tried everything to get the old bushings out.  We ended up lighting them on fire with a propane torch, and letting the rubber melt.  Once that was done, we used a chisel and a 3lb sledge to get the metal sleeve out of there.  It was an interesting procedure, but it worked out in the end.  I have the springs mounted again, and the axle in place under the jeep.  It's actually sitting on it's own tires again!

Once it was back in place, i checked on my driveshaft.. Yep.. it's gonna have to be lengthened.  I knew it really, i was just hoping i could get away with it.... My parking brake cables are also too short.  I needed to replace them anyway.  My brake line MIGHT work out.  We'll see. once i reconnect it. In the meantime, i'm a little short of funds.  So i may just get started tearing apart the front end, and getting the perches in place.

Expect a write-up in Tech when i'm finished!