Leaderboard

Another awesome session with @TowndawgR50 in town to help with the project! A bit more brainstorming this time around than last time, but still super productive. It was great to have him around for a few days! He hand delivered the tone rings and we heated them up and dropped them onto the hubs. They're chunky! Old vs. new... Slapped the hubs on the axle, and for the first time a very long time put the wheels on the axle so we could do some turning checks. There's only so much we can simulate here, but mainly put the axle at full compression and just turned things back and forth as a starting point. Things were looking great overall, and with very few constraints fortunately. The panhard bar and drag link pairing is pretty solid. The WJ gearbox seemed to allow for more right turn than left turn due to the angle of the pitman arm when in a straight-ahead position, so we needed to maximize whatever we could for left turns. The bolt head for the upper panhard bushing was the most problematic item, since it would be struck by the tie rod on full compression and full right turn unless I limited turning with longer steering stops. I absolutely did not want to redo the upper panhard mount. We considered modifying the bolt head, but rather than shave it down, we lopped the head off, welded the rest of the bolt to a tear-drop shaped tab, and secured it with a countersunk screw to keep it from spinning when tightening it down. Looks clean and freed up several degrees on the turn. Next focus was the steering stabilizer and sway bar. The steering stabilizer options aren't great, so no progress was made there. We tossed a JK Wrangler sway bar under the truck and determined the only way to mount it would be behind the axle, but space is pretty tight. We found one specific spot where it looks like it would work. Towndawg got busy surgically cutting off the rear subframe pads (where the LCAs bolt to) and I got to designing something. We came up with this... Unfortunately, the only place I could make that work was to position the bar directly underneath the rearmost subframe bolt, so I'll need to find something a bit more low profile, but that shouldn't be a problem. Not shown (or really, not built yet) is that there will also be a layer of plate between the subframe pads and that sway bar mounting brackets that'll provide some other functions, including spacing the bar away from the bolt head. I will also have something resembling a missing link running parallel to the sway bar, which should also give me some provisions to do a skid plate for the transmission. I incorporated a few mounting points on the subframe plates that will may also be used to build some armor below the oil pan. The sway bar's elbows do consume some turning radius, but only at compression and full turn. If that becomes problematic, there's a backup plan. Also still coming up with some ideas for sway bar disconnects...I have a few ideas. The easiest options are to just use off-the-shelf options for JK Wranglers, since I'll basically be mirroring that setup. But, I'm holding out for a really special approach. Also painted the chassis rails, but no pics. Rattle can paint ended up being a pretty solid color match, so I'm happy with that. The real takeaway about painting is that it means I'm finally done with that part, so I'm getting closer.