Well.....I'll save all the bullshit and lies for Pirate 4X4. Picked this nice little 97 TJ up last October to fix and sell. It needed a new gearbox that the owner supplied with the sale. Quick fix and ship it down the road. And after it sat in my garage a few weeks I started drinkin and thinkin:beerbang: Like I needed another project. I wasnt going to do a build thread till this was 99% done, but that may be another 2 yrs. so what the hell.
My plans for the jeep were to keep very mild. 35"-37" tire, dana 44 & 8.8, link it with c/o in the front, stock springs out back, stretch it, and blah, blah, blah.
Picked up a few brackets from Ballistic Fab for the suspension. Started with the 8.8. My initial plans were to build everything to save some extra cash, but its just not worth it to me to make all these brackets, for the price they sell for. After what seemed like 5 days of grinding, I got started on the axle. Bent up the truss out of 1.75 x .120 wall DOM, and made a couple little braces for the ends out of 3/16 plate. Hopefully it doesnt shoot off the first time my foot slips off the clutch.:sonicjay:
You guy's have any problems with the welding, you can take it up with this guy. He's got a temper though.
Just worried about the shifters being cobbled up. I want to make sure that I can use some kind of cable shifter, or a twin stick set up so the shifter comes thru the stock position, if possible......I havent done any research on the swap yet, so at this point the only thing I know about the swap is that it will work behind my AX-15 with a clocking ring.
I know you used a flipped 300 in yours, but its been a while since I browsed thru your build. What did you end up using for the shifters? Did you make your parts, or use a kit?
Northwest Fabrication has a pretty nice cable shifter kit for little more money than it'd cost to piece together your own. I was gonna go that route with a flipped 300 but I'm just gonna throw an SYE on the 231 and run that for now.
Hahah...Yeah Creepy We'll get'em done man. And this one is way farther along smart ass. It has a.....Yeah your right, damn it.
I just finished the exhaust, cold air intake, and Superchips Flashpaq tuner on the wifes JK tonight, and wow what a difference. Gonna start the lift tomorrow after work. So at least we'll have something to wheel this year, cause you know I change my mind about things:sonicjay:
Finished up the lift on the wifes JK this weekend. Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. Lift went on with out any complications, but all this new computerized stuff is a pain in the ass. The E.S.P. was going crazy, guess I didnt get the wheel straight enough. Messed around with that for a little while, and finally got it to stop. Still have to get it to an allignment shop, and put the Warn bumpers, and winch on.
The biggest difference with this was the exhaust, programer, and intake. You could really feel a difference. That is until I stuck a 35" tire on it. Here's a list of parts the JK got.
Rough Country 3.5" lift
17X9 Eagle 197 Wheels
35X12.50X17 Elderado Mud Claws
AEM Cold Air Intake
SuperChips Flashpaq
Gibson Cat back exhaust
Wanted to leave it like this, but she wasnt diggin it
Thanks guy's. Maybe my wife will let me drive it.:sonicjay:
Back to mine tomorrow. Should have the cage finished this week, and then have to tear it all back apart to finish welding everything. This is the part I hate. You work on these things for what seems like forever, and just when they seem to come together and look like you have something, you have to take it all back apart.
Finished up the tube work for the cage last week, and havin been trying to get it welded up all week, but things just arent going as planned. Had to finish up the wifes JK, and get it out of the garage. Finally got the bumpers back from the blaster, and got them painted and installed this weekend. Its done, and out of my hair......for now, anyway.
Cage is 90% done, just need to do some final welding, and get it out and painted. Here's what I have so far. This is my first complete cage build, so there are some thing that I would do a little different next time, but thats hindsight I guess.
Went thru the dash with the A pillars, but wish I would have just used the cage stansions fron GenRight. Not going to be able to use the factory soft top hardware.
Changed up the look of the wheel well openings to. I wasnt diggin the rear being round, and the front fender angled. I think it flows a little better now.
BEFORE
Looks great! Why isn't the soft top gonna work now? I've seen lots of people build very similar cages with no issues running the factory hardware, just some slight trimming of the forwardmost window surround mount to clear the bend radius at the A pillar
No, I just didnt get the bend tight enough at the windshield for the surround to work. I'll figure something out. Just seemed easier with the stansions, cause you only had the one bend to deal with, instead of the two. I'm still gettin the hang of this whole angles and degree's thing.
I put the measurements i used to get mine to work in the cage inspiration thread on pirate. I had to do them 2x to get it right too but I can use my soft top now.
Ya, those are the ones I started with.........One of us is wrong. And Im bettin it was me:sonicjay:
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