Project Red Roof Inn

[BigDaveZJ]

Headlights are looking pretty sweet. Rick's sealing them back up and sending out to me. First time I've had streetable headlights on the ZJ in quite a while.

Everything on the ZJ that NEEDS to be done before GSW is done. Still going to mess around with the swaybar mount I think, but we'll see if time allows.

One thing I do need to look into more, I have a half turn more to the right than I do the left. Not sure what's causing yet, could be any number of things given I rebuilt the box and added a new steering box brace.

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[BigDaveZJ]

Figured out at least part of the steering. Drag link hits the trackbar bolt when turning right, tie rod hits the axle when turning left.

[Ted_Z]

Would some offset tie rod ends fix your issue? Something like this? http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/...FQkpaQodq00CXQ

Of course that might cause a dead spot in your steering if you're still using an inverted wye type setup.

[BigDaveZJ]

I got another quarter turn by taking the washers out on the trackbar bolt, so now it hits the diff cover going left, and the pitman arm hits my steering box brace going right now. I don't know if my ZJ is just too beat for off the shelf parts anymore, or if the fitment issues on the brace are that bad, but I'm having issues getting the sway bar to fit too. I was just going to weld the swaybar mount on to the brace as a temp fix, but the swaybar makes major contact with the pillow block portion of the brace. Since I'm trailering to GSW anyways I'm not going to worry about it for now, but need to fix it for the summer.

[BigDaveZJ]

Got the lights from Rick in last night. They are frickin sweet. I could probably tidy up the wiring a bit, but they work, and they work great. They look pretty good too. The internals of the light were plasti-chrome, but Rick painted them black before sealing them back up and they look perfect on my Jeep. Really happy with the light pattern they put out too.



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[DJJordache]

that mod has been on my todo list to finish for like 3 years now. I have all the parts but just need to wrap it up. I got my HIDs from the retro fit source: https://www.theretrofitsource.com/co...s-stage-3.html but when I got them a few years ago they were NOT that expensive haha.

[BigDaveZJ]

I drove it around last night after dark for the first time, super impressed. I tweaked the aiming a bit and am really happy with them. The lights work great going down the road, at least on par with the fancy lights on my Infiniti Q50. The high beams are downright ridiculous.

When I get back from Moab I'm going to pull the steering brace off completely, and work on modifying it a bit to fit everything better. I'll probably space out the swaybar mount a bit from the brace for better clearance. I would think the brace would be fine with 2 bolts on each side, I think the 4 is a bit overkill. So my thought was to basically weld a small bracket with new nuts for the swaybar over the holes currently used for the swaybar. That will give me 4 good mounting bolts for the bar, and will help me space it away from the brace a bit. I'll also grind out the part of the box that is interfering with the pitman arm.

Then I can start on the rear storage system, fixing some of the cracks in the unibody, and re-working some of the rear bumper. Plus whatever I manage to break at GSW.

[DJJordache]

he makes sway bar drop brackets for his XJ steering braces. I asked before I bought if the ZJ one if it needed drop brackets and he said no...... but I would be willing to bet that his XJ sway drop brackets might fit on our ZJ's too.

I'm still need to install mine, but I'm a I6, so it might be different on your spacing issues.
question: is it racist that I painted mine white after reading too many Kraqa updates? I mean it is a "white power" steering brace now haha

[BigDaveZJ]

he makes sway bar drop brackets for his XJ steering braces. I asked before I bought if the ZJ one if it needed drop brackets and he said no...... but I would be willing to bet that his XJ sway drop brackets might fit on our ZJ's too.

Looks like I'm not the only one who's been having issues as IronMan now makes drop brackets for the ZJ. Ordered those up today. I'll probably still have to modify them a touch, but shouldn't be too bad. Rather than continuing to drill out the busted bolt in the frame on the ZJ, I'll just weld a nut on to their bracket and call it a day.

[BigDaveZJ]

Got the brackets in, solved a couple of my problems. With the design of the bracket the bolt that busted into the unibody was no big deal. I was originally going to weld a nut to the bracket, but was able to get a wrench on it and just used that to attach one side of the swaybar. The other 3 bolts are using the longer bolts IronMan supplies with the bracket kit. Since the bracket lowers the swaybar, I had to shorten my disco's, which was no big deal. But it also causes the swaybar to be in constant contact with the lower rad hose. Since my swaybar is rarely connected, I'm not too worried about it. I put a good layer of grease in between the bar and the hose to lessen any potential friction that could wear on the hose.

[Ted_Z]

Do you have a section of old radiator hose you could split and tape/clamp over the hose to provide a sacrificial wear surface?

[BigDaveZJ]

Good idea. I don't think I've got an old hose handy, but I'm sure I can come up with something comparable.

[BigDaveZJ]

Wired up a kill switch for the fan, the fan is definitely still cooling at highway speeds. I think it may be a shroud issue since the Taurus fan shroud doesn't cover the whole radiator.

Also need to take a look at the rear bumper and its mounting points. I think the unibody is tearing a bit where it mounts so I need to mess with that and see what's up. Swaybar and everything worked well though, actually drove the Jeep 50 miles each way to and from the trail.

[fpkites]

We only hit speed limit about 5 times on the way back from Bill Moore Lake though.

[BigDaveZJ]

That's why we got off on 470! 70mph the whole way.

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[Kraqa]

can you send me the contact for those lights?

[BigDaveZJ]

can you send me the contact for those lights?

http://mallcrawlin.com/forum/member....-grandwagoneer

[BigDaveZJ]

Current status of my unibody. Honestly surprised it's not worse all things considered. Debating on tacking the cracks AND plating it, or just plating it.

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[BigDaveZJ]

2 of 3 done. Used a similar method as when I welded the new roof on and that's held up so far so hopefully this will too.

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[Ted_Z]

Weld, sheet metal screws AND pop rivets! I like it. Throw some bubble gum on there too :O) Good job drilling relief holes at the end of the cracks.

That's what my unibody looks like under the rear hatch too. Mine is also cracked where the bumper attaches. I've tacked it back together before and it just cracks again at the edge of the welds. I have to figure a way out to provide more torsional strength to the rear of the Jeep. Other than some sort of internal structure or cage, I'm not sure what it would take.

[BigDaveZJ]

I figure even if 2 of the 3 attachment methods fail I'll still got one left holding it! lol

[JohnBoulderCO]

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[BigDaveZJ]

I knew I forgot something!

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[BigDaveZJ]

The unibody repairs are complete, finished up the last piece the other night. Was going to rework the latch on the tire carrier, found a super sweet one that would work quite well with the existing design: https://www.polyperformance.com/syne...-assembly-4013

Exxxceeeeept that Synergy hasn't made it in a while and nobody has any in stock. So I'll be waiting for them to make some more and then order one of those and put it on the bumper. For now I'll probably just put the bumper back on with new hardware mainly to get it off the floor in the shop.

[Ted_Z]

Ah come on man, you can fab that!

Or use a latch assembly from a Cheby Blazer.