XJ Mods VSB 14

[alexbrown64]

Jeep is slowly getting close to the finish line now.

I am playing with drive line angles at the moment. My rear has a good size lift in it but i don't have wedges to tilt the pinion up to within 2-3 degrees of the drive shaft. I think it is because i have larger shackles and this tends to rotate the diff up.

With the front, i have adjustable control arms top and bottom.. but its a pain in the arse if you want to adjust the pinion angle to change caster. You have to unbolt them at one end, use a jack to tilt the front diff, measure angles, wind the control arms in or out then try to align every thing up to get the bolts back in. And thats just one adjustment. Then go for a drive and do it all again.

What i have decided on is to get some double adjustable front upper control arms. You leave everything bolted up. Just undo the lock nut, wind the control arms in or out to set the degrees of your pinion and do the lock nut back up. I can then tune the steering and vibes in or out of the front end much easier. Once i get my new 4.56 gears installed, i will be able to easily adjust everything to have the best compromise. At the moment i have the pinion directly inline with the front drive shaft. This gives me no vibes, but makes my steering very light due to the caster angle.



I have decided on the Currie brand units as they have a very good reputation and are fully rebuildable.

Will be getting these from Summitracing together with a ZJ clutch fan and a few other final goodies..

Cheers,

[alexbrown64]

Work has overtaken my life at the moment. 12 hour days, 21 days straight, then 6 days off and back to 12 hour days 14 days straight...
Should get some time off in a month or so. During the 6 days off, i had a chance to drive the Jeep around a lot. All good except one minor problem. I have one of those isolators on the batter. Didn't realize, but i fitted it to the positive lead, which apparently is incorrect. These isolators also wear out and become unreliable. I didn't know what was wrong as it felt like my battery wasn't getting a charge. Traced it to the dodgy isolator and will be swapping a new one onto the negative side.

Summitracing is also taking ages with my Currie control arms. Still not here, but soon i will have some interesting projects to compete..

Until next month...

Cheers,

[alexbrown64]

Man, the Summit order took ages to get through. The control arms were on back order for about a month. Anyway, the parts should be here the next few days. Unfortunately, i am back at work again until later next week.
I did have time to replace the isolation terminal on the negative battery post. It was making the Jeep behave erratically, but with the new one it is all good.

Pic below of the parts that should be here in a few days. The ZJ fan clutch is supposed to be noisy but a really good upgrade..even over the triple electric fans i have. They just pull a ton of air. The firewall boot is for all the pod i am installing, and so is the vacuum gauge tubing etc. The control arms are there to help make tuning in the front end a lot easier.

So hopefully in a few weeks i can really tick a few more boxes of the project and get closer to DD status..



Cheers,

[awg]

We had a problem in our suburb with some thieving criminal type gang, extremely brazen, left their smashed vehicle behind, threatening neighbours with iron bars & what not. Police taped the vehicle off, but the crooks came back and loaded it onto a trailer.

Meanwhile I fitted an almost brand new battery to my XJ,
and I was thinking about a previous lister showing how he had transplanted an entire relay & fuse box from another vehicle into his, got a few other things to fix first though

[alexbrown64]

Time has been my enemy lately as I have been working insane hours.
Anyway, I found all the parts I need to do a ZJ clutch fan upgrade.

I have decided to swap the Maxxis Bighorns out for Nitto Trail Grapplers. Road noise was my main issue. Expensive lesson.

Might be able to get a few parts bolted up this week. Fan upgrade, gauge pod, control arms, adjust rear pinion angle....does the list ever stop haha...

[alexbrown64]

Went an picked up the new cooling system parts. Bit disappointed when the guy gave me the shroud and the bottom was missing. But the fan did come with a new ZJ upgraded clutch.
So..now i have two ZJ upgraded clutches..

Anyway.. took me a while to find the old plug for the aux fan. But once found, i plugged in the aux fan i just bought from a second hand 96

I cranked the car up (it hadn't been started in 6 weeks and fired up instantly). Next, i turned the aircon on. The aux fan immediately started cycling on and off. Perfect. It actually pulls a heap of air.



One of my theories is that the viscous fan looses it power over time. Once it looses its power, it doesn't work at pulling air as efficiently and folk believe their cooling system is playing up.

When i was driving up and down the beach, i noticed that when i was driving into the wind, my temps stayed cool, but when i drove with the wind and my triple fans had to actually pull a heap of air.. my temps went right up.

This sort of told me my cooling system was OK, but i wasn't pulling enough air through the radiator.

So.. i have gone back to the original design.
I have hood vents, ceramic coated headers, high flow water pump, new stat and hoses, new ally radiator, fresh coolant etc..
And now i have a ZJ viscous clutch that spins faster and pulls more air through the rad.
The disadvantage is that you use a little more fuel due to drag on the engine and its supposedly a little more noisy. However, when all three of my electric fans were on, it sounded like the Jeep was preparing for take off.
(also, i never had it set up so a fan would come on when the aircon switched on). Now, the aux fan comes on as soon as i turn the aircon on.

More pics and a review soon.. next step is to fit the control arms..



Cheers,

[alexbrown64]

Got around to installing my double adjustable control arms today.
Ended up being a bit of a fuckeroo of a job which wasn't helped by a mighty hangover.

Currie sells the kit with fancy bolts that fit perfectly in their control arms and have grease nipples installed. Unfortunately, the bolts are 7/16, which is a bit over 11mm. The originals are 10mm... soooo you have to drill out the original mounts.

I just used a round file on the back mounts, as its chasis plate and only took a minute to enlarge to accept the new bolts. The hard part was the bushes that are mounted on the D30 axle. The bushes are approx 12mm internal diameter, but have a series of nibs inside that take the diameter down to 10mm for the bolt. I guess it leaves room for grease in there. Anyway, i drilled them with an 11.5mm bit. The bushes are not in the best condition and need replacing anyway, but i made them worse as the bit grabbed the nibs and the internal sleeve spun in the rubber bush.

I ended up being able to remove the internal sleeve from both bushes and drilling the nibs down. Then i replaced the sleeves and bolted everything up.

At the moment it all feels nice and tight. I still need to adjust drive line angles and this is why i fitted the Currie double adjustable upper arms. Its so easy now to just turn the arms and rotate the axle without having to unbolt them and use jacks etc..

Anyway, a bit of research and i have another project to contend with.
I am getting some good quality Moog upper control arm bushes that have the internal nibs. Instead of trying to drill them and possibly damaging them, i will use a dremel to just grind the nibs down slightly to accept the bolts.

Also looking at getting a C clamp ball joint remover so that i can press the old ones out and the new ones in.

Pic below of the old single adjustable upper control arm compared to the new fandangled double adjustable arm.


And the control arms fitted. Its now a simple job to test drive the car and turn the arms slightly to adjust out vibes.



Cheers,