The Lone Ranger – Kage’s ’94 X-Cab Leaf SAS and Bed Bob

[yodaman1151]

I just went through your thread, took me 2 days ha ha but i wanna say that the truck looks awesome and i might be doing leafs instead of coils after seeing how much easier it was for you... and before anyone says it i know i know my truck is set up for coils already... my one question is: did you have to move your spring perches or where they the right width for putting the leafs outboard of the frame?

good job!

 

[Kage]

.... did you have to move your spring perches or where they the right width for putting the leafs outboard of the frame?

Depends on which end you're talking about.

For the Front end, I did not move the perches on the axle. I did this so that it would be nice and easy to throw a dana 60 under it when that time comes (which will be pretty soon I think). The spring perches on the frame side wound up being outboard of the frame rails.

For the Rear end, I wound up using the ruff stuff spring pads and set them where I wanted them on the axle side after I had got my leafs placed where I wanted them on the Frame side (outboard as well).

You dig?

Front leaves vs. coils is kinda up in the air. For what I do, the replacement leaf packs seem to be holding up fine, and I'm still under the cost of what it would be to do coils and links in the front. With the tire size I'm running, I haven't really got caught up in the springs yet, though I do wish they didn't hang down so low. This is only really a concern when I'm playing on waterfalls/ledges.

I did mange to get out and wheel this past weekend, I'm waiting for a few more phots before I put that post up (should be out late this week). There's going to be a slight change up in the ranger, hopefully by this weekend.

 

[cdawall]

I rather like this build. After seeing this I may keep my axles full width any idea on the backspacing of the H2 rims?

 

[Kage]

I rather like this build. After seeing this I may keep my axles full width any idea on the backspacing of the H2 rims?

Thanks! The back spacing on those rims is ~ 5.5" (8.5" wide rim).

 

[cdawall]

Thanks! The back spacing on those rims is ~ 5.5" (8.5" wide rim).

Happen to know what your trac is outside of rim to outside of rim? And those axles are still full width right?

 

[Kage]

Happen to know what your trac is outside of rim to outside of rim? And those axles are still full width right?

Yup, the axles are still FW (the only way to go ).

I don't have the Rim to rim measurment, I can tell you that the ouside edge of the tires is right at 80-80.5" with both tire and wheel setups. Best guess is that the outside of the rims is near the 79" mark.

 

[cdawall]

Yup, the axles are still FW (the only way to go ).

I don't have the Rim to rim measurment, I can tell you that the ouside edge of the tires is right at 80-80.5" with both tire and wheel setups. Best guess is that the outside of the rims is near the 79" mark.

Thanks sounds good enough to me.

 

[Kage]

4th Offroad trip – SMORR 10-15-11

Well we made it down to SMORR again for their “SMORR in the fall” event. Which mostly just entailed us wandering around SMORR again. The truck did fairly well, but it was not without some downfalls.

Travel:

For the better part of the day, the wife and I followed the rasin:

And Casper the invisible Cherokee:

Random Shots from the day:

As some point after lunch, Casper bugged out and we started playing around with a couple of buggy type things. They were a real nice crew to run around with even though they way outclassed my junk:

Unfortunately, not too long after taking those photos, my junk broke yet again. We were literally heading out of the park on an easy trail when I managed to shear 2 of the 3 5/8 bolts that were holding on my high steer arm on the passenger side knuckle

The fellow with the black buggy was nice enough to run back to camp and grab his tow rig to drag my junk back to the campground. I’m very thankful for that as I was somewhat dead in the water with next to no steering.

But now I had a problem, we had driven the truck down to SMORR, so the next day we had to drive the 3.5 hours back to St. Louis to borrow a tow rig and trailer, then turn around and pick up the dead truck in SMORR, then turn around yet a gain and run the whole shebang back up to St. Louis. Easy as pie right?

Dead Truck:

Loaded up:

Rolling Home:

But I’m noticing nothing is ever easy in my world, as about 20 miles away from home, the tow rig threw off the serpentine belt off. Of course this meant we were rolling down the highway loaded at about 19k lbs with no power steering (no biggie), No breaks due to no hydro boost (that sucks), and no trailer breaks as the alt wasn’t putting out enough juice to fire the trailer brakes (That really sucked), and an overheating truck. So we wound up limping the truck off the interstate into the downtown Cahokia area. Which if you know the area, its not really a place you want to break down at night.

Dead tow truck:

Thankfully, we knew another person that had a goose setup, so he came to rescue the Ranger and trailer while the dodge got towed back home:

I took a half day off of work to fix what died on the Dodge. Turns out the stock water pump on these guys likes to die at about 170k miles on the odometer. And when I say die, I mean really die:

Glitter:

So after getting that fixed, the whole assembly finally made it home, 48 hours after the initial break:

I’m pretty sure the high steer failure was due to the bolts loosening up and just letting go (had hit a rock when they broke). So it was just crap luck on my part. I had always said I’d rock the 44 until it gave me too much trouble and at this point I think its given me too much trouble so this is going in its place:

A ’78 king pin 60, I hope to get it torn down this weekend to find out what it’ll need.

So for those who are keeping track, out of the last 5 off road trips:
-1 trip that I was able to wheel without any issues
-2 trips that there were some sort of major issues (body damage, ball joints, etc) But I was able to drive the truck home
-2 trips where the truck had to come home on a trailer
Yeah, my ratio is really in the shitter right now…


There’s more photos in this link:
Link to my photobucket album (clicky)

We’d also taken a few vids, but honestly, they’re not that exciting but they were educational as they showed that my rear needs to be locked up bad, and that the Nittos worked considerably better than the .mil take offs.

So that's all for now, hopefully things will turn around soon as at the rate I'm going currently, this truck will be up for sale, or set on fire in the near future

 

[cdawall]

good luck with that D60. Got a balljoint going into mine. Going to give the crappy .mil tires a try myself mainly because I need something that will last.

 

[Bray D]

I hate reading your thread. Everything I fear that could happen to my truck, happens to yours. lol.

You always seem to stay in relatively high spirits though, and stay in the game. Props for that.

I'm wheelin tomorrow. Hopefully you took all of the bad luck.

 

[4.0B2]

i'll give you $500 for the truck... just sayin'.. .remember my offer (unless its totally destroyed) lol.

truck still looks good tho. just go for the 60's. and get some nitto mud grappler's!

 

[RangerSVT]

I got dibs on the rear 60!!
SVT

 

[Kage]

good luck with that D60. Got a balljoint going into mine. Going to give the crappy .mil tires a try myself mainly because I need something that will last.

I was planning on going ball joint (and possibly even unit bearing) but this one showed up at the right time so I nabbed it. It needs some work, but at least with the 60, any money I put into it I should be able to get it back out of it if need be.

The .mil tires are a mixed bag. I miss being able to use the sidewalls to climb things, and those tires just don't have any sidewall traction. For trail riding and mud, they seem to work well for the price. And I even like how they ride on road (netted me an extra 1 mpg over the nittos which put me up to 15.8 mpgs on average). But in stock trim they're lacking. If I keep running them, I'll either groove or sipe them to give them a little better chance on the rocks.

I hate reading your thread. Everything I fear that could happen to my truck, happens to yours. lol.

You always seem to stay in relatively high spirits though, and stay in the game. Props for that.

I'm wheelin tomorrow. Hopefully you took all of the bad luck.

Man I hope you don't have a run of this kind of luck! Everytime I think that I managed to tidy up all the loose ends, something completely unexpected fails. I am a little bummed that my goal of being able to wheel it, then park it after a run with minimal maintenance hasn't been obtained yet.

As far as the attitude goes, I've had worse things happen in my life than a broken truck. And thankfully, I've got some AWESOME family and friends that have been able to help out when push comes to shove. If it weren't for them, I'm sure I would have sent the truck down the road by now.

Of coures, alot of those same friends are often quick to remind me that the damn XJ allways made it home under its own power.... assholes

i'll give you $500 for the truck... just sayin'.. .remember my offer (unless its totally destroyed) lol.

truck still looks good tho. just go for the 60's. and get some nitto mud grappler's!

That's kind of the plan for now.

I got dibs on the rear 60!!
SVT

It looks like I might go 35 spline in the rear after all. I'm just not feeling the warm and fuzzy about throwing a lunch box in the back (to keep the 32 spline stuff). With the way my luck seems to be going, that damn lunchbox would give out half way between here and Moab next year

Anyone got a good deal on a full case 60 locker?

 

[kroussinoffroad]

they are out there. just gotta find somone that has a truck with it and that doesnt wheel it. found a guy that bought a lifted f-150 that's got a detroit in the rear and 4.56 gears he's gonna trade me straight up for some factory gears and carrieres. he said he's wearing tires too fast and thinks that they are suckin up WAY to much gas. allready got a set of 15x10's from him just had to throw som 31's on some other rims he had cuz the big tires were also robbing gas milage. he gonna hate his milage now with those gears and a 5.8L

 

[RangerSVT]

Ben, I'm not having luck finding one of those 60's you have around here, can you keep your eye out for one and let me know if you spot one?? Thanks
SVT