XPLORx4

What will you be recovering? Currently there is only one "off-the-shelf" winch-mountable front bumper for the Pathy. It's made by Kennesaw Mtn Accessories. Reports about the manufacturer's product quality vary. Search separately for "wincher" and "KMA" in these forums for more info.

When replacing the axle when a boot is cracked, generally it's much easier to swap out the entire axle shaft with a new one (which includes new boots, too) than it is to try to replace or repair a cracked boot on an old axle, so they did you right by that. Siliconing the boot may or may not have helped, and technically you could have just kept an eye on it if the boot wasn't split and leaking grease yet, but at least you shouldn't have to worry about it for many more thousand miles. But, unfortunately you got swindled if they replaced BOTH the left and the right axles if only one boot on ONE axle was cracked. As for the ABS light issue, definitely have them fix it AT NO COST TO YOU.

You don't need to replace the timing belt except every 105K miles, so you have another 20K to go!

Depending on how the mechanic removed the CV joint, it's possible that that the ABS sensor wire was stretched, damaged, or otherwise disconnected. If you turn your steering wheel fully left, then look at the front of the left strut. Look at the smallish wire that's clipped to the front of the strut between the two big bolts near the bottom of the strut. That wire should be terminated at the ABS sensor pressed into the knuckle, and the other end should be connected to a wire harness attached to the body. The wire insulation is much larger between the strut and the body. This is a pic of the left strut (without the tire on, of course!) You can see the ABS wire extending from the lower left of the photo to the upper right. The other hose going from the upper left to the lower right is the brake line. Turn the steering wheel fully right and look at the other strut to check the condition of the ABS wire. Do you know if both front CV axles had cracked boots? Or was it only one side? If it was only one side, I'm curious why they replaced both axles...

Note: the ABS sensors aren't used for the speedometer, they're just used to detect speed differences between each wheel during braking. The VSS (vehicle speed sensor) in the transfer case measures your speed.

Pretty hard. Much more effort than it's worth. The older H233B's have a 4.625:1 ratio and 31-spline axles, while the newer H233B's have a 4.636:1 ratio with 33-spline axles. But what's even more difficult is that the axles from WD21's have different mounting brackets than those on the R50, and the gear ratio is slightly different on the pre-R50 H233B's, so you'd need to do a bunch of cutting, grinding, and welding to fit the old axle on your R50.

I agree. It's possible that one of the sensor wires on the front wheels may have gotten stretched or damaged when they removed the CV axle. It's not dirt.

It looks pretty dark, dude. Brake fluid is supposed to have the color of a Chardonnay wine.

Looks good! Also looks like you need to replace your brake fluid!

Looks sharp, especially with those X wheels!

I have a double-din Kenwood in my dash: Photo 1 Photo 2 It works great and doesn't interfere at all with the climate controls.

I do not have spacers in my front suspension at all, and I have never condoned their use in 4WD R50's. The use of spacers between the strut and body will result in destroyed CV axles when the suspension is fully extended because the max operating angle of the CV shaft is exceeded. Installing a spacer inside the strut is no different than installing a stiffer spring, except that with a spacer, the strut can no longer compress fully, and the coil spring will bottom out before the bump stop is reached. IMO, it's best to completely avoid the use of spacers, unless you never drive where you might lift one or both front tires off the ground.

You should get new bolts and nuts only if the current ones are severely rusted or if you bugger 'em up during removal. Here's the way the strut must align: The flat part of the spring goes up. When you try to place the spring in the strut's spring pan, it will be quite obvious how they need to be oriented.

The Jeep guys would be clueless about the front struts and IFS, but they could probably help you with the rear suspension. You're probably better off taking it to a brake/suspension/alignment shop and asking them to replace your struts and "old sagging" OEM front springs with your new, customer-supplied parts. Remember: It's not a "lift!" It's just replacing worn out sagging coil springs. The instant you mention "suspension lift" to your average mechanic, the price gets jacked up or they refuse the job. Note: Pep Boys charges around $40 per strut to replace them (with possibly a little higher fee to also replace the springs), so I would not expect other mechanics to charge hundreds of dollars for the same job.

If you mean the studs that are pressed into the mount, then yes, you just reuse them.

I don't understand what you're trying to do. Where did you get the struts? Are they new or are they someone else's used hackjob? I don't know what you mean by "bolts fit through the hole past the the top of the spring" and how they could "get stuck". There are 3 studs pressed onto a plate near the top of the strut. The studs should extend through the body in the engine compartment. The studs are pressed into this plate: The strut shaft retaining nut (in the center of the mount) must be secured at all times while the spring has tension against the strut. (Note the 3 studs.) If you are going to install a spacer, the studs will not be long enough to extend past the spacer, so you will need longer bolts. • Press or hammer out each of the 3 studs, and insert longer bolts into the plate (with the bolt head on the bottom side of the plate, so that the result resembles a longer stud). • Use epoxy or JBWeld to secure the bolt heads to the plate so they won't fall out when you try to reinstall the strut assembly. • Place the strut spacer on top of the strut and make sure that the bolt threads extend at least 1" higher than the spacer. • Install the strut back on the vehicle. If this makes no sense to you, then it's because whatever you're trying to do involves parts that are hacked up beyond what I can explain from my own experience, so if you want further help, you're gonna have to provide your own pics so I can understand your situation. BTW, if you are using spacers, how thick are they, and why are you using them?

It sounds like you're confusing the strut mount studs with the strut shaft retaining nut. When installing a strut spacer between the strut mount and the body, you only need to remove the entire strut assembly from the vehicle, pound out the 3 pressed-in studs and replace them with longer ones that can accomodate the spacer. The only reason why you would need to remove the strut shaft retaining nut is if you were going to completely disassemble the strut. And yes, if you intend to remove that nut you will most definitely need to compress the spring first! As for cutting/removing that stripped nut from the studs that hold the mount to the body, yep, go ahead and grind away at it. And as 02silverpathy pointed out, keep the other two nuts attached loosely so that the entire strut assembly doesn't fall down once you've finished cutting the stripped nut/stud off.

The factory airbox won't be big enough to serve as a decent heat shield. Fabricate a shield with some cheap sheet metal instead, and use fuel tubing, slit on one side, to line the sharp edges. Someone has done this already and has pics, but I can't remember who.

They actually debated whether to do cow spots or zebra stripes, and in the end they decided cow spots would be faster and easier to stick on my truck than zebra stripes. They had about 3 guys slapping on the vinyl in just a few minutes. The vinyl was very poorly applied, with tons of bubbles and wrinkles, so if I decide to keep with the cow motif, the vinyl will have to be reapplied correctly (and when my truck doesn't have dust all over it). As we continued driving down the trail, they started joking that they're gonna get me a cowbell and attach an udder to the body above the rear diff, and I kept hearing over the FRS radios, "Hey Dean..... mrrrAAOOOOOOOOahh!" or "Hey Dean, please stop dropping cow-patties on the trail!" (the trail passes through some free-range ranches). Should I go with the cow motif, or decorate it some other way?

While on a recent 4-wheeling trip, my friends decided to play a little practical joke on me. Someone distracted me and got me away from my truck for a few minutes while others did this to it: Clicky clicky for a pic Comments?

I have seen heavy high-void-area car parts arrive in severely damaged packaging myself before, so I know where you're coming from. But just to put your mind more at ease, it takes a lot of pressure to damage spring steel. The other parts in the package (shocks and/or struts) would have been obviously trashed if the spring were really damaged.

Well, if he's not happy because when he puts the the springs next to each other crooked and complains that they look crooked, then sorry, I don't think that AC should have to exchange anything. You can't expect a company to make an exchange at its own expense if the purchaser's reason for wanting the exchange has nothing to do with the quality of the product purchased.

That gap can be explained by the relative rotation of the springs, the poor resolution of the photo, and the camera angle. Note that the bottom spring is not in the exact same orientation as the top one. If you want to more accurately measure the height of the springs, place each spring on a level flat surface with the top (which has a flattened/shaved coil) on the ground, and the end of the last coil against a vertically placed ruler.

OK, you're being too vague. What do you think is the problem, because all I see in the 2nd photo are the tops of the two front springs, and they look just fine to me. Look at the edits I made to your first photo, in which I have rotated the springs so that they both are straight, instead of crooked as you've lined them up.

Guys, I still don't even see what the problem is here, and why the heck y'all are screaming "send them back". The springs in the photo are the front springs, and they both look like the same length to me.