Well, took it out for the first trip and truly got to put everything to the test! Since the 2.9 gave out after about 2 hours on the first trip since the axle swap, it was really a first for everything and I was very impressed with how well it worked as a whole! The suspension and ride quality was very comfy and really flexed more than I had anticipated. The shocks ended up being a good length, the high steer worked awesome and best of all no funny noises or anything!
I did have a few issues though; mainly with heat. Explorer Radiator in with a 2300 CFM pusher fan and heat cranked all the way it was hard to keep it from running at 210 which I did not like. Come to find out, the thermostat was stuck! But before I could fix that back at camp, my main pulley bolts came loose! One so loose that it actually came out, hit the radiator and caused a rupture and a lot of steam!
Thankfully it was Saturday night and we'd had 2 full days of wheeling already in before something went terribly wrong. If that bolt hadn't had came out and nicked the rad, I could have lost the whole pulley due to the fact that I can't see the bolts with the radiator in place! Heck, I didn't even know what happened until I pulled the rad and got a good look! So, that happened. All in all a really fun trip. Here are some pictures. Wished I had gotten more but wheel time is better than camera time!
That's myself and the better half!
Water got REALLY deep (up to the turn signals) and I forgot to kill the fan so the open air filter got a wee wet and the motor ended up dying. Luckily it ran long enough to get us out of that lake! I ended up grabbing a stock air intake to try and alleviate that issue in the future.
Now, my heating issue..... Back when the 2.9 was still pushing Tonto around, I decided to put some vents on the hood. I had a house vent for bird blocks that I cut in half, cut 2 squares out of the hood and mounted for heat evacuation. When I got home and installed new thermostat and radiator I fired it up and let it idle in the garage for 30 or so minutes with temps staying in the 165 range. I was stoked! Motor has never ran that cool! I though to myself "I'll never over hest again!". Wrong. I looked up and guess what? Damn hood was open... With confidence, I slammed the hood closed and let it continue to idle. Slowly I watched the temp rise... 180.... 190.... 200.... At 203 I shut it down and opened the hood. There was that heat I remember! Top of the core support was scorching when 15 minutes earlier I could have almost kept my beer cold on it. Reach down and touch the center of the radiator-Warm, but not hot.
I came to the conclusion that the large engine in the small bay with those short headers must just be like an oven when everything is closed. It was time to solve this dilemma.
Hood vents! Bigger. Better. Backwards. I was thinking about ditching the house vents for some cool hood scoop things anyway because they were allowing rain water to accumulate on the intake and valve covers and starting to make things not so pretty. So why not? I didn't want a "scoop" because slow speeds of wheeling would probably just move enough air in the engine compartment to keep the heat inside so the scoops would have to be mounted backwards. So to Autozone I went, found some scoops and got out the cutting wheel! Here is what I ended up with.
I would love to give you all the results but I sent my Holley Truck Avenger to holley... Being that it was a -1 (1st Gen) they are sending me a brand new model free of charge! Anyway, what do you all think? I'm pretty please with the turnout even though cutting giant holes in my hood was hard on my soul! I tried to leave the supports in place so the hood kept it's rigidity. Yes, I know they're not identical cuts and yes, I know the passenger side scoop is about 3/8's of an inch forward compared to the drivers side and yes, it will forever haunt me. But all in all I think it's going to work. I turned the fan on and you can feel air moving out of the vents. It was just enough CFM to make a receipt flap barely but these are some pretty big holes so that's a decent amount and should move the heat right out! If not, a 10" fan is getting mounted to the air intake lid and is going to be blowing up towards the hood vents!