Project Fordzuki

[Loanranger]

You're always welcome to tag along. I was thinking about going to the funnyrocks comp too, but like you said, it's a pretty far drive just to watch.

 

[dogboy]

Have you headr anythign else about the Funny Rocks thing, or just what I've said? I've searched a few things and haven't found anything.

 

[Loanranger]

Nope, just heard about it from your thread.

 

[dogboy]

Which day were you planning on going to Evans? The 5th, or 6th?

I'm going to talk to my dad about what we are going to do, but honestly, I'd rather go to Evans Creek. That and I can't find anything about the Comp. if I search Google, and haven't seen anything on any of the other North-West sites.


EDIT: Just talked to my dad, and I'm not going to the Rock Crawl thing. Ah, I hate taking over your thread.... Let me know which day you are going to Evans so I know when to go up.

 

[Loanranger]

I'll be heading up saturday (the 5th) for Evans creek, I had a shortlived dream of heading up friday and spending the night, but it's still too cold up there to camp. Probably head out of here at 8am, so i would be up at the entry parking unloading by 9am.
As far as the rock comp goes, I have heard very little mention of it in the nnr thread on nww, but nothing definative. I would just assume run Evans anyway, if I went up to the rocks and it was open to anyone, I could see myself really fawking the LJ up, competing with buggies.

And as far as threadjacking goes, I'm not one of those thread nazis, the way I look at it, is anything is a bump to bring it to the top, so people who may not have found it might find it.

 

[dogboy]

Ok, cool, I'll aim for being there at 8:30-9 then. I never want to be the one that people wait for, haha.

EDIT: dang, that is the day after the 4th of July... I guess I won't be up too late, haha.

 

[84projectFORD]

absolutly awesome build!! my sami is not quite like that but is does really well! One question though, why not swap in toyota axles? I did that in our sami and i know i will never have to worry about them breakin from hoppin or too much torque from the sami. was really cheap to do, only did it because we busted the front hubs out on the sami axles and didnt want to have to worry about them again. plus to them also is they are 4 inches wider over all too

 

[Loanranger]

absolutly awesome build!! my sami is not quite like that but is does really well! One question though, why not swap in toyota axles? I did that in our sami and i know i will never have to worry about them breakin from hoppin or too much torque from the sami. was really cheap to do, only did it because we busted the front hubs out on the sami axles and didnt want to have to worry about them again. plus to them also is they are 4 inches wider over all too

Thanks.
The reason for the sami axles, is because they are readily available, less expensive, and I have yet to break one. They are already 8 inches wider than the original LJ axles, so I don't need it any wider. Outside of tire to outside of tire is right at 66", and the wheelbase is 87", so any wider isn't really needed. Do you have any pics of the busted hub? Was it a stock Aisin?


On a side note, I did a little work on the LJ this past week. The last trip to Evans this past weekend resulted in a little carnage. The first thing was the common Weber inclination stall, which basically floods out the carb on climbs, and is an interesting setback in the middle of a "make it or die hill". This was mainly caused though, by the lack of fuel pressure regulator, and an unknown pressure from the pump. I had been meaning to buy one, and tonight I found one in my shop I didn't know I had. So I hooked it up, and tried out the ramp, and it was idling at the top of the ramp, something it wouldn't do before. So this problem seems to be solved.

The second problem last weekend, was a broken secondary leaf in the rear quarter elliptical pack. Luckily it wasn't the mainleaf, so I was able to continue down the trail, and back to camp before doing a trail fix on it. I just took the piece that was held in by the centering pin out, and stuffed the leaf end in up to the centering pin, and cinched it down again. This kept me wheeling the rest of the weekend, but got fixed this week. I took the old packs out, which were made of the mainleaf and a secondary from a Ranger rear springpack. I replaced these with a mainleaf from a dodge ramcharger rear springpack. These are about 3/8ths inch thick, compared to the rangers 3/16ths? With just the mainleafs, it is a little stiffer than with 2 leafs per side with the ranger springs. So this problem is solved, and I will now carry the good side of the old set, in case one of the new ones should break on the trail.

And the third was something I should have done awhile ago, and that was to ditch the "coffee can" muffler. The big chrome one that all the ricers have. I thought it would be funny, and was what I had laying around when I went to build the exhaust the first time. I replaced it with a cherrybomb turbo style muffler, and while I had it apart, I welded up a small leak that had been bugging me. I put a chrome 45 slant cut tip on the end, and it quieted it down quite a bit. It did seem to cut the power a little, it doesn't rev as quickly anymore. So this is temporarily fixed. It sounds good, but I need a muffler with a little better flow. It may be getting a flowmaster here soon.

I'll try and get some pictures up of the carnage on the spring, and the new springs and exhaust.

 

[84projectFORD]

Thanks.
The reason for the sami axles, is because they are readily available, less expensive, and I have yet to break one. They are already 8 inches wider than the original LJ axles, so I don't need it any wider. Outside of tire to outside of tire is right at 66", and the wheelbase is 87", so any wider isn't really needed. Do you have any pics of the busted hub? Was it a stock Aisin?

oh i see. didnt know that teh LJ had shorter axles. that explains it though. unfortunately i dont have any pics as we threw the old hub away, it was stock though

 

[Loanranger]

Alright, I've been slacking on the pics, but I've gotten alot done on the LJ the last week or so.

Here's pics of the previously mentioned mods.

The carnage, the top leaf in the picture is the one that broke. The bottom one is the main leaf.

Fuel pressure regulator

New leaf, Just a single mainleaf from a dodge ramcharger rear. It's a little stiffer with just the one leaf as it was with two leafs from the Ranger pack.

No more rice. Cherry Bomb Turbo muffler with 2.5" in and out

And the new sliders I made up.

 

[mkpecor]

nice der, diggin it.

 

[Loanranger]

CARNAGE! Well, the good news is the sliders work great, rubbed the drivers side from front to back today, and it worked great. Also used them to jack the front tire off the ground on both sides.

The carnage included 1 broken birfield cup, 1 broken starter ear , and a crankcase full of water. The first happened backing up a vertical rock wall (literally) with the wheels turned. I think a guy wheeling with us got a picture of it, I'll post it later if he did. The starter ear, I have no idea when it happened, but it has been making noise for a while now, I thought it was just mud in the bellhousing. Got to the point today where the armature stuck, and wouldn't let the starter disengage from the flywheel. Pulled the starter and got it started again, but it'll need a new one cause of the broken ear. And the water in the crankcase happened when I submerged the LJ on the swamp trail. Hoping it sucked water in rather than blowing a headgasket.... I guess we'll find out tommorow. Pics of the damage to follow.

 

[Loanranger]

Well, I got a chance to dig into it tonight. I went and bought a case of oil, and two filters, and drained the oil/water. I ended up draining about 2 gallons from the motor, so it was about a 50/50 mix of oil and swamptrail water. I drained, it, pulled the old filter, and poured 3 quarts of new oil straight through. It was barely starting to clear up after the 3rd quart, so I put the plug in, put on the first new filter, and filled it with 4 quarts. I started it up, and after a second, the oil pressure shot right up to 60 psi where it belongs, and let it sit and idle for a few, then brought it up to about 1250 rpms, and let it sit there for a few minutes, and then let it idle again. The smoke was totally gone, so thats a good sign, I was worried a little about the rings, but all was looking good. I revved it up to about 3500 a few times, and shut it off. Pulled the plug and filter again, and it was looking a little cleaner than the first time, but not much. By the end of the drain, it was looking pretty clean with a few grey swirls coming out, so I stopped there, and will do one more oil change tomorrow night, and it should be good. I pulled the fuel pump block off plate (which I think was the culprit of why the water got sucked in) and looked in with a flashlight. Everything looked pretty clean, so I think I should be good to go after one more flush and a refill.

I moved on from here to pulling the right front shaft, where I was pretty sure the birf had cracked and spewed it's guts, and sure enough, it was. I pulled the hub and spindle, and tried to pull the shaft, but couldn't cause the guts of the birf were lodged, so I had to pull the knuckle, and that is when parts started falling out. I knew the birf was done for, but I was hoping to have a good inner shaft still, but no luck. Basically, the bell cracked, balls dislodged, then the star and cage exploded into little bits, and it marred up the splines pretty good, and pulled the clip off the end. No biggy, that's why I have spare shafts laying around. And it just happened to be the long side, which I have two of, so now I still have a complete spare set left after installing the one long side.

So anyways, as promised, heres some pics

How I swamped the motor.

How I popped the birf, backing up this hill.

The cracked bell

The guts

 

[Sunk]

Nice shots, and nice carnage. Sliders look good too.

 

[dogboy]

Looks good, not so much the oil or burf., but the rig! haha


So is it being taken to Evans this weekend then?
It'd be nice to have atleast one other 4wd, not just a quad...