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6/7 drop on 97


DS

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Bought this truck back in 2006 as my first work truck. Ended up getting quite a few other vehicles after her but never got rid of this one. She's been sitting since 2011, but I've wanting to get her back on the road for quite some time now. I was going to go the other way and convert her to 4WD with front/rear D60s, twin cases, triangulated rear, etc. but since I already have a built 08 JK as my rock crawler, I ended up going the dropped route. Trying to get 7" out of the rear with a shackle flip, spring perches, and sprung under conversion and 6" up front with DJM beams and 3" Crown Suspension drop coils. It's going to be a little work in progress since I'm going to be doing some prep and frame painting once everything is final welded in and complete.

New spring hangers installed:



New shackle hanger and reversed the shackle:



On the bumpstops right now, DIY weld-in notch kit coming on Tuesday:



$18 leaf perches from Summit. Didn't like the BS DJM flip bracket. I'll feel better welding on my perches:



This is the main reason I wanted spring perches, I want a factory pinion angle:



They say you gain 4" with spung under conversion, 2" with shackle flip. I'm guessing since I'm welding in a perch, it's somewhat acting like a block, so I'm guesstimating 6"-7".

Ordered some Daytona 804 15"x7" 4" BS wheels and a Magnaflow bullet muffler that I'm going to be placing the tailpipe right in front of passenger rear tire for it's exit. Scored some 205/65 R15 General Altimax tires from Wal-Mart for $200 for all 4, last set they had. Installing some 4* camber bushings when I get the beams in to square up the camber. Should be good to go.

I'll keep this updated as much as I can.

DS
 


JoshT

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I'd say about 6. The flip does give about 4 inches, the shackle flip is closer to 1.5 inch. The perch isn't that much thicker than a flip bracket, I'd say you might have gotten an extra half inch from it. The flip brackets are designed to give good pinion angle BTW,
 

DS

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I just couldn't see myself spending $60 for 2 simple pieces of flat steel bent to 90* on both ends. :icon_thumby:
 

DS

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Primed the frame:



Notched frame:



Argon/co2 bottle tipped over and busted the argon flow gauge on the regulator. Once I get a new one this week, I'll square off the notch, weld it together, and weld it to the frame.

Decided to get the extra inch in the rear by going to a 5 1/2" shackle. Factory is 4 1/2". Should drop it to 7".

More to come.
 

DS

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Flow gauge came in and finally installed.

Welded notch kit together and then welded it onto the frame. Just need to round the left and right corners down a little with a flap disc and paint the from with some Rustoleum.

 

Z3CHYD

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any updated pics on this?
 

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Driving with my knee using Tapatalk
 

DS

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Sorry, been soo busy with work, I haven't had much time to do anything else until today. I finally painted the rear section of frame with Rustoleum gloss black:



I hooked up the gas tank with new straps, connected all the lines, welded nuts to the bottom side of the frame so I can use Grade-8 bolts to hold the bed in and put the bed back onto the truck. Haven't took pics of that yet.

But, I did end up sourcing a very good condition manual steering box with pitman arm at my local junker for $60 yesterday. Removed the fill plug and one of the upper cap bolts and pumped it full of lithium based grease. Old grease looked ok except for the few dribbles of liquid grease, not bad for a 20 year old box. Feels good as new now:



Removed power steering pump, a/c compressor, and bracket that holds the pump and compressor. Finally cleared up some room under there:





Love how tiny the new belt is. Only alternator, crank, and water pump gets turned. Should free up a couple hp.

Need to remove all a/c lines, condenser, dryer, etc. to clean up the bay some more.

Need to degrease the entire engine bay and wash it down good.

DJM arms coming in tomorrow. I'll end up working on it some more tomorrow and next week. Should have final pictures up within a couple of weeks.

:icon_thumby:
 

DS

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Well everything is together and under it's own weight. I need to remove the spindles next week and ream the DJM arms ball joint race since they didn't drill deep enough and there's about 1/4" of ball joint stud still showing before it's fully seated and the upper ball joint doesn't sit flush with the top of the knuckle. Need to get an alignment too. Just slapped the camber bushings in there to button everything up, but the camber is off and my toe is way off, tires are noticeably toed out.





Still need to remove parking brake cable that's hanging, change upper and lower radiator hoses, weld up my new muffler and tailpipe, and bleed the brakes. Then, registration time...
 

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