My Dana 30 SAS

[982WDRanger]

Build Day 3

Got the rear of the truck all buttoned up. Shocks, brakes, calipers...etc. Haven't got the new brake lines run do to, I need a flare tool to do a bubble at the master cylinder.

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This is where she sits now, almost 48" from ground to top of wheel well.

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Fired it up, pulled her out and backed her back in for part II, the front axle.
I jacked it up to see where it was going to be when it was all done, looks sick!

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Took a deep breath and began to tear down the whole front suspension, all of it has to go. Here is what I started with.

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Pulled the tires and broke it all down. Here is my current lift, 3" lift spindle, now for sale if anyone is interested. Then worked my way down to the control arms and springs...etc.

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Got it all out except the lower arms, the bolts were being a b*tch, so I said I'll fix you! Plazma cutter...haha. Decided to finish it up the next day.

 

[982WDRanger]

Build Day 4

Got up this morning and finished up the demo in the front. Just hacked off the lower arms and began to remove the arch in my frame rails to prep them for later.

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One down, one to go.

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There, all gone now on to the frame rails. Have to remove the bow in the frame rails so I can mount up my coil buckets, unlike older ranger where the frame is nice and flat, the 2wd coil sprung truck have this arch that need to be removed to be able to mount you coil buckets.

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This is what needs to be removed.

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I just found a reference point on either said, measured them up and transferred those marks to each side and began to cut. Did a small section at a time, and one side at a time too.

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I laid a two foot level against the flat portions of the frame and marked my upper and lower cuts on the inside of the frame to square it all up.

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Then took some cardboard and laid it along the frame and beat it along the seam with a hammer to mark out my template for my new frame rail plate.

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Added a piece of 2"x1/8" flat bar to stiffen the plate from twisting.

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Laid it up against the frame and burned it all in!

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Repeated the same thing on the other side. Then next was the engine cross-member.

 

[escort_gts]

What's your plan for the frame, where the stock coil springs are? Are you going to leave it as is or trim it down/flatten it?


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[escort_gts]

Oh, nevermind. You posted when I was typing. Lol

Looking good

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[982WDRanger]

Build Day 5

Woke up this morning and went in garage and decided to hack up the engine cross-member. Need to shorten it up to clear the axle. Found the seam along the bottom and followed that up to the frame.

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All gone!

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Did the same as the frame, made a cardboard template and cut it out and placed it in there, and tacked it up, then burned her home. Used the jack to help bend it around the curve of the frame, beats using a hammer.

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There, now on to the fun stuff, rolled under the axle for the first time!

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Yea, 4 sets of jack stands to get that thing under there! Adjusted my long arms out to half, on both ends as a starting point. The thing is the mounts are way under my truck though, past my transmission cross-member, seems to be a bit excessive? Input? Centered up the axle, front to back and side to side and just tacked in the frame mounts for now.

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Its sitting at ride height now, but the cross-member I made will not work, still not enough clearance, so just going to chop it out flush with the frame. I marked it in red where I will be cutting.

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Only thing I can think of to do. And will be running a piece of square tube front frame rail to frame rail in the front to keep it all square.

Also, what are you guys, running for lift coils? Guys who have similar set-ups as mine, Dana 30, long arms..etc. Want to see what I have to go by for when I get mine. And and input on my arm length would be helpful too please. Be back soon with up dates.

 

[escort_gts]

The longer the arms, the more suspension travel. My mounts are bout 4-6" behind the trans mounts.

I have the rough country 6.5" coils but only gave me somewhere around 4".
How much lift do you want? Also how much uptravel are you wanting?

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[88_Eddie]

looks good dude....good progress.

i wouldve loved to have a plasma cutter when i did my SAS. still would like to have one even though it's done.

as far as your arm length, like escort said, the longer they are the more travel you'll get. but the longer they are, the easier it'll be to hang them up on stuff.

you could easily build a new trans cross member that wouldnt get in the way if you wanted to leave the arms there.

 

[dangerranger83]

I'm running rustys offroad xj 6.5 lift coils. They are 180ppi and gave me 5 inches of lift before my 302 swap and even then the front of the truck didn't drop much off any after the swap.

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[982WDRanger]

Suspension Issues

I'm thinking I am going to need 6"s of total lift to level out my truck as much as I can. I can live with a 1-1.5" rake but nothing more. For my up travel, I would like enough to flex and be well off out on the trail but I can only do so much with what I have for my frame and clearance issues.

Going to set in my coil buckets today and set her on her own weight and see, then jack it up and see how much lift I will need. Figure I measure compressed coil length compare to what my desired height I want would give me the lift measurement I need.

This is a major learning experience for me and my friends for no one has done this before, a 2wd to a 4x4 conversion or a newer style sas, so we are taking our time to tackle obstacles as we come upon them. Thanks for the input tho, escort. More will be appreciated.

 

[escort_gts]

The coil springs I had on my 89 gave me around 7-8" of lift. They were the Deaver ones from Bronco Graveyard. I cant remember off hand what the specs were.

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[982WDRanger]

Build Day 6

Things I got done. Went ahead and installed my coil buckets. First I had to further mod them, by cutting out the little finger that hold in the ranger coils, since I am using stock 4x4 ranger coil buckets that I shaved the shock mount off of. Then I went ahead and plated the inside so the jeep coils could sit nice and flat inside.

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Then I just set the coils on the axle, tied them down so they sat flush in the axle side buckets and set the coil buckets on top of the springs and set them up against the frame rails. I leveled the coil bucket up against the frame and marked the holes and drilled them out and bolted them up.

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I accounted for a bit of adjustment since I have not set my pinion angle yet.

Now on to the steering!

I went with Ruff Stuff GM M100_1744_zps6b2722288.photobuck1-ton steering links and thick DOM tubing.

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[982WDRanger]

Sorry, Internet is a tard!

So back to what I was trying to post. Went with heavy DOM for the steering and GM 1-Ton ends.

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I put my tires on and centered them up as good as I could them measured between the tie-rod holes in the knuckles with my rod ends set in and adjusted halfway out to find my tube measurement. Cut the DOM and pounded in my jam nuts and welded them up.

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Threw it in the truck to see how it fit!

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Yeah, all done!....NOT. I hit, like everything, the coil mounts on the axle and trac-bar mount...blah blah so I had some work ahead of me to make this work since I already cut shit and reamed out my knuckles. Will tackle this tomm.

And to add to the fire, we set the truck down just to say on the ground and realized that; that nice engine cross member I plated had to go. My upper control arms would hit, and would have no flex what so ever, so that too is needed to be addressed, so I will be busy...

 

[982WDRanger]

Build Day 7

Back to the drawing board. So I posted up earlier how I was going to fix my engine cross-member, but chopping it down more than it was, and I did today. Was a little nervous bout doing it because it didn't seem the truck would hold up after cutting out as much as I did but she did.

I chopped it down an inch below the motor mounts and then plated the bottom with 1/8" plate for extra support.

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Welds are a little messy but it wasn't in the greatest place to get to, but it will hold. This is what I took out...

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That is done, now on to steering clearance issues. Looked up online and saw that other jeep guys make this kit work by shaving down the axle mounts and adding an over the axle trac-bar mount to run this heavy steering setup. So I took my plasma cutter and went to town.

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Shaved it down and boxed in the inside too keep the clearance I made.

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Got the OTA bracket off Seriouseoffroad.com. it was like $45.

Then we rolled the axle back under and hooked it all back up to see her sit on her own weight. Before we dropped it down I re-installed my stock trans-cross-member and just trimmed down the sides to clear my long arms, worked pretty good.

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Down she goes...!

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Nice rake right, LOL. Gained and 1 1/2" over what I stared with, but need to go up 7"s so be level with the rear. Ordered some 6.5 coils and running stock rubber insulater to get me where I need to be. Also picked up a bomb proof trac-bar and bracket from Rock Krawler Suspension.

Tomorrow I'm going to set up my bump stops and my shock towers...hopefully! will be back to post up.

 

[escort_gts]

Wow, deja vu. Lol

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[nooch450]

I would add a cross member to the front (considering you cut the other out) in front of the motor and build a track bar mount into that. This way you get a strong frame rail distributed track bar mount and you will bring the structural support back that you cut out and need.

Also make sure your track bar and drag link are the same length and at the same angle. If not you will get bump steer and you will have a higher chance of death wobble.

Use a drop pitman arm and try to keep the drag link and track bar parallel to the ground at ride height. If you take the time to do all this you will like how it drives much better over other solid axle trucks.

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