New Reviews on the way!!

[BigDaveZJ]

Well the wheeling season is pretty much over in Colorado, so that means its on to getting the rigs ready for next season. Both ZJ's will get some work done this winter, nothing too major, but both will see some definite improvements. Not all plans have been finalized yet, but here's what's been finalized.

My 8.8 is going to be getting some work. When I originally swapped it in over 4 years ago I went pretty cheap with it. Stuck with 3.73's, mini spool, and a Crane cover. Finally this Spring I regeared to 4.56's which was an amazing difference, but as my Jeep moves in a slightly different direction, the current setup of the 8.8 just wasn't going to cut it anymore, and there's some maintenence items I've been neglecting like the wheel seals that really don't even seal anything anymore. With brand new gears and bearings in there, I need to make sure I'm taking care of them.

So when I put in the new wheel seals, I'm going to address some other issues too.

The mini spool is getting yanked. After seeing how well the Aussie has done in Trixy, we're putting one in mine as well. It's already sitting on the shop anxiously awaiting to go in the rig. Bill over at Aussie Locker (http://www.offroadlockers.com) and Pam were a bit sneaky, and Pam got me the locker for my birthday a couple weeks ago. Really looking forward to the improved driving characteristics of the Aussie over the mini spool, and seeing what Pam's has done on the trail, I know I'm not sacrificing anything there.

The Crane cover is getting yanked too. At some point I thought it would be a good idea to use a flap disk and a grinder to get the RTV off the cover, and well, now it doesn't seal for crap. So between my awesome wheel seals and the leaky cover, it's tough to keep gear oil in the diff for very long. So Dirk aka Cue-Ball from www.4x4oil.com set me up with a Ruff Stuff Specialties 8.8 cover, with the countersunk bolts and the drain plug. Really looking forward to this cover after seeing the D30 cover that Dirk donated to GSW this year. I was VERY impressed and am looking forward to having such a nice item on the rig. And if I got the diff cover from Dirk, you know I had to get some Amsoil too! Got some 75-140 Severe Duty on the way to help keep everything nice and smooth in the backend. And with new wheels seals and a good seal on my diff cover, I don't have to worry about that liquid gold leaking all over my garage floor!

Also a chance that I'll be using a LubeLocker gasket with all of this. Seems like a great idea to me, but for some reason or another the idea hasn't really taken off like I thought it should have, so we'll see there.

Hoping to get this all done before Thanksgiving, so maybe it'll give you guys some ideas to pass on to family and/or the wimmen folk for gift ideas since all of these items are VERY reasonably priced!

Again, big thanks to Bill at www.offroadlockers.com and Dirk at www.4x4oil.com for helping us out on this one!

[Cue-Ball]

My pleasure Dave.

Dirk

[Mtn WJ]

Sounds like a good plan for the rice krispy.

[jsteves]

We have lubelockers on both our 9's. Seems to be the only thing that keeps them from leaking. I highly reccomend them.

[Mtn WJ]

Good to know my 9 is starting to leak and it was factory sealed.

[Cue-Ball]

I tried to contact Lube Locker to become a dealer and they never got back to me so not sure what's up with that.

[BigDaveZJ]

Bryant and the guys over at KOR http://www.kevinsoffroad.com were able to get me the Lube Locker, so everything's in order now and hopefully it'll all go in pretty soon. Pending shipping times and weather, maybe as soon as Sunday the 9th, otherwise probably the 16th.

[BigDaveZJ]

A heavy ass box showed up yesterday with my RSS cover and another one with some Amsoil in it. As soon as the Lube Locker shows up we'll start tearing into it all!

[Cue-Ball]

Sweetness

[BigDaveZJ]

Sweetness

Definitely some sweetness on the fast shipping!

[Cue-Ball]

I aim to please!!!

[BigDaveZJ]

Alright, we started in on it Sunday. Got everything put back together and realized we forgot the thrust washers. Oops. Gonna pull it back apart hopefully this weekend and get it all back together with the right parts. The gap between the two cam gears is WAAAAAAY too big without those thrust washers in there. The washers were originally in the axle, but they were not used with the mini-spool, so I completely spaced them.

[Cue-Ball]

So where are the pix and the rave coments on the fabulous products I sent out

[BigDaveZJ]

Your products are still sittin on the workbench! Luckily I figured out the screwup before pouring the liquid gold in there!

[Cue-Ball]

10-4 thought you might have a teaser shot or something hahaha.

Dirk

[BigDaveZJ]

10-4 thought you might have a teaser shot or something hahaha.

Dirk

Kinda the same, lol, just a different model locker and not using RTV for a gasket!

[JohnBoulderCO]

Dave without a spool? It will drive so nice you will start using it as your DD.

[BigDaveZJ]

That's actually one of the reasons we're doing it. Pam and I have come close to killing each other several times when working on her rig because it HAS to get back on the road so she can get to and from work. Same thing with my truck. If my ZJ is safe to drive on the street, that relieves a lot of that stress.

When my truck was in the shop for the transmission and I was driving my dad's ZJ with the 4.slow I actually drove my ZJ one day just cuz I was so sick of not having ANY power. It was pretty nice, lol.

[BigDaveZJ]

Got it all together today. Snagged a tiny pair of needle nose pliers from Lowe's yesterday and they worked great getting the pins out of there so I could pull everything back out. Got the gasket in, cover on, all painted up. Got some pics, but didn't get a final pic yet cuz it was getting dark and I wanted to drive it. Drives waaaaaaay better than it did with the spool! Will try to get everything written up on it tomorrow.

[nate]

Lube Locker seemed like a good idea, but I called them and they said they are only re-usable maybe 2-3 times at most... so I wasn't going to spend $20 on a gasket that would end up being thrown out.

[BigDaveZJ]

The diff cover has a drain plug in it, so the only time I should need to actually pull the cover is if something goes wrong inside the axle, and that'd most likely be on the trail, and not having to mess with RTV would be nice.

[Cue-Ball]

Very cool Dave!!!!!!!!!

[nate]

Yeah I was looking for something for the axles in my rigs so I could pop the cover and slap it back on. The AAM axles have a nice rubber re-usable gasket like I have used on some trans pans.

The diff cover has a drain plug in it, so the only time I should need to actually pull the cover is if something goes wrong inside the axle, and that'd most likely be on the trail, and not having to mess with RTV would be nice.

[zj-monster]

Dave working hard to solve the issues with his 8.8


Good info as I will be working on my 8.8 when I get back from Iraq!

[BigDaveZJ]

Been a while since I've done anything with this. Hopefully I'll get some time over the next few days to get some info up now that I've actually got some trail time in with the new setup.