First Jeep build! Here we go...

I am thinking about making me some longer shackles for the front 4 2 different reasons. Reason number 1: It will give me a bit more angle and give the jeep a bit of lift in the front. Reason number 2: that would give me a spare set of shackle plate to throw in the parts pile in one of those "just in case" situations. My current shackles are 6.5 inches long and are 3/8ths thick. Will it be safe to run any longer shackles than that?

 

Mine are longer than that. Don't remember how much longer, but my fronts are probably about 7 1/2" . If you have some scrap flatbar laying around, I'd recommend making a set about 1/2" longer and see what they look like before you burn up the 3/8" stuff. I made a set out of some 1/8" x 2" just to see what the angle was before I started fabbing the final set. I couldn't drive it with the 1/8" shackles, but it gave me an idea of how much longer I could go with the shackles.

 

ya i cant afford to buy too much steel right now so I will do that....I think i have some angle i can split then use that as a mock up and see what happens. im not really disapointed with my front shackles now, but from what everyone keeps saying bout them being too flat, i might as well make some more.

 

Also been trying to figure out how to hook up my e brake. I came up with what I hope to be a simple and quick solution, but we will just have to wait and see. Im going to get a piece of rectangular tubing and cut a piece out of it. On one end, i will drill a hole where the toyota cable can go through and the 2 nuts can hold the cable in place on the bracket.(Toyota cable is all treaded with two locking nuts) On the other end, i will drill another hole and then cut downwards about 1/2 inch so the Cj ball on the end of the brake cable will insert through, then slide down into place to lock. I will then have a pin holding the cable in place so the ball dont pop back out the hole. Here is a quick micro paint shop picture....yes having another tweaker night. (please excuse the metaphore.)

 

You might want to take the Jeep out where you can flex it before you make another set of shackles. If the springs don't bind on compression (ie: the shackles are too short) you'll probably be fine with that angle. I originally had mine set at about 40 deg. , but after the springs flattened out I had less than that, so I re-did the shackles. You get a really nice ride with that much angle.

 

For compression, i dont have that much, bout 5 inches or so. Soon as its done (really really close) i will be taking him straight to the local wheelin hole to stretch his legs and see what happens.

 

Well I gots me some good news...and some not so good news. Had the guy i did the spring over for, come by and give me a hand dropping my tranny to change the clutch fork. Got it down, changed the fork and bolted it right back up...went purdy smooth. I used Steve's (cj5/442) idea of running the winch cable up and over the roll bar and then straight down to the tranny. Worked great...besides the fact that the cable creased my hook bout 6 inches and wore it down to the metal. Here is where it went south. I pulled my gear shifter to fill with fluid (tranny and tcase have been empty since I bought them). I have ALWAYS kept the tranny covered while in and out of the jeep. Well when i pulled the shifter, i noticed some water on the shifter so i crawled under the jeep and removed my drain plug and then got soaked by a stream of water pouring out of it. I will guessimate a solid 2 gallons of water in my tranny which has sat there for right around a year.....NOT a happy camper. So i filled it with gear oil and fired it up. Tranny was stuck in neutral and would not let me go into any gear. So, thinking my tranny was toast, i got upset and tried putting the shifter through the dash....it went into 3rd. Let it run at 2k for a few minutes then i could go into 3rd no problem. Did same thing to all other gears and now I can hit any gear without an issue and no noise coming from the tranny. So im thinking its good, what do you all think? Here is a pic of the amount of water that came out.

 

I'd still open the cover and look. Assuming there is a problem with it, it's cheap insurance to catch it sooner than later.

 

not really cheap because if I pull the tranny to have something replaced (i dont do transmissions) I will have the entire thing rebuilt. So my plan as of now is to flush it a couple more times and see what happens. After a minute or so running in each gear, it unstuck and felt good. i could shift into any gear (cept 1st and reverse since they are both so deep i had to easy the clutch out for a second to get the gears to line up which i have had to do in my cummins and the old t15) and no whinning sounds or anything. So like i said, im going to flush it a few times and put the best fluid I can find in it the last time i flush it and just run it. Worse case is it goes out and I have to have it rebuilt...but at the moment that is just not in the cards so i have to do what i can.

 

Fair enough. You should be able to get a pretty good idea of whats going on inside of it by looking at the fluid that comes out when you drain it. One of my dana 300's had been sitting with water in it for I don't know how long (pulled it from a junkyard) and after a clean up it works fine.

 

My business partner bought a junkyard SM420 that was about half full of water. He drained it and cleaned up what he could without taking anything apart and it runs great. It's been in there for at least 5 years. Once you get a chance to run it you'll know. If it's relatively quiet and shifts OK you're probably good to go.

 

SWEET!!!! Thats exactly what I was wanting to hear. I was really worried about it when i first fired the jeep up because it would NOT go into any gear. But once I forced it into a gear and just let it run for a few minutes to get that new fluid up everywhere, it started to shift easier and easier and now I can hit all gears. Also, that tranny has a small "H". I was thinking it was going to be long shifts but actually its purdy dang short. Thanks guys, needed to bit of confidence, i cant afford ANY mishaps or my con trip, again, will have to be put on hold and I do NOT want that to happen.

 

You might want to consider putting some miles on the tranny and changing out the fluid again.

 

:iagree: definitely before a trip

 

Oh i plan to. Soon as my brakes are done, i am going to drive it around town for about 80 miles or so and then drain the system, fill with reg tranny fluid and some seafoam and run it another 20 or 30 miles then drain again and fill back up with 80-90w. Should that be enough flushing?

 

some of the pics from the early part of your build are missing, running out of space at photobucket maybe.

 

Sounds good to me. Most times any rust that forms in the tranny is right at the waterline where it can get a little air (oxygen). The parts that are submerged in water take a lot longer to rust. At least that was the case with my buddy's tranny.

 

grant: I moved my pics around so the link broke I will post a link to all of my pics. I will sure be tickled if it all turns out good.

 

Well...as I said in the rubicon 2012 thread...I may have to cancel....not for sure yet but its not looking good. A lot of things have been putting loads of pressure on the trip for me anyways, but I put the rear drive shaft on the other day after fixing my flange and noticed that once the rear end starts to drop (used a cherry picker on the rear bumper to lift jeep about 3 inches) the rotator cup inside the CV joint itself is hitting on the edges. So im not too worried about articualtion since the rear diff stays in the same place, more or less, but once the hole rear suspension starts to unload, the outer edges of the cup will hit as the CV extends down at a steeper angle. Is this somthing to worry about?

 

Also, Here is the link to ALL of the photos for my build thus far and will also put the link in my signature. http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i111/Mforrest327/1972%20Cj5/