|
Installation
Disassembly
I have the regular size jackstands, so I had to build some
platforms to raise them higher. I used 2x4s to build 4
platforms approximately 10 inches in height. I sat the
Jeep's frame rails on the four jackstands, near each of the
spring hangers.
We removed the wheels, shocks, sway bar and track bars and
then disconnected the emergency brake line as per the
instructions. Then we started on the steering linkage. I
tried removing the drag link from the pitman arm with a
pickle fork (or ball joint fork). After failing to remove
the drag link, I used my trusty pitman arm puller to pop off
the link (actually, it wasn't my puller but I think I'll
keep it). If you've never used one before, the process is
as follows:
- Put some grease on the threads of the puller.
- Position it so that it clamps around the top of
the pitman arm where it connects to the drag link.
The bolt of the pitman arm should be positioned
against the threaded end of the draglink which
extends through the arm. Tighten the puller against
the link as hard as you can.
- Use the BFH to beat on the link as hard as you can.
It may help to pretend that it owes you money. With
sufficient whacking, it will pop out of the pitman arm.
We used a similar procedure to remove the pitman arm from
the steering box. Remember, as with most things in the
boudoir, strong, vigorous thrusts are the key to success.
A broken leaf and a badly mutilated center pin.
Looks like I picked a good time to get rid of
my old springs.
|
The instructions told us to disconnect both drive shafts
from the axles but we found that wasn't necessary. The only
reason we disconnected the rear driveshaft was because one of
the u-joints was bad and had to be replaced. Around this
time, I also discovered that my rotors were terminally
grooved. After cussing and shouting for a few minutes, I
resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to shell out the
bucks for new rotors and brake pads. For now, I left the
calipers attached to the brake hoses and zip-tied them out
of the way.
After removing the axle u-bolts, we used some ratchet straps
to attach the axles to the frame before removing the spring
packs. An electric angle grinder with a coarse wire brush
was used to prepare the axle tubes for welding. Using a
Johnson angle finder ($22 from Home Depot), I placed the
perches at the correct angle and clamped them in place.
Perch Welding
Master welder, John Edgar, handled the welding
|
I was very anxious about this part of the job because
welding is a relatively permanent process. Rather than do
the welding myself, I hired John Edgar (a professional) to
do the welding. I flitted around my Jeep,
quadruple-checking all the angles (approx 5 degrees more
caster in front and 2 degress more in the rear) and going
over all the measurements before giving John the go ahead to
commence welding. Based on my past experiences, it
shouldn't have been a surprise when I realized that I placed
the front, passenger side shackle too close to the axle
disconnect. There was barely any room for the u-bolt to
squeeze between the perch and the disconnect. Ordinarily,
looking at John's beautiful (ie: PERMANENT) welds would be a
source of comfort, knowing that the perches were solidly
attached to the axle tubes. In this case, it made me
nauseous. I called a halt to the welding and explained my
screw-up. Torching the perch off the axle tube would be
messy and I was afraid it'd weaken the tube. While I
started recalling the previous week's events to determine
what I had done to deserve such misfortune, John came up
with a brilliant solution: cut the anti-wrap plate from the
perch and reposition it on the perch instead of moving the
perch itself. An elegant and simple solution. I'm sure I
would've figured that one out but I don't think it would've
happened till the following week. Thankfully, the other
three spring perches were welded onto the axle tubes without
incident. I'm not positive but it seems to me that after
the spring perch incident, Rob and John started to keep me
away from the power tools and any components of the Jeep
which were critical to its safe operation.
|
Rear Axle
Left :The axle was positioned so that the
stock perch was at zero degrees
Right:The RE perch was positioned so that
it had a 2-degree upward angle, relative to the
stock perch.
|
The angle of the perches was calculated relative
to the angle of the stock spring perches. An
angle finder was used to position the axles so
that their stock perches were perfectly
horizontal. Then the RE perches were placed so
the front axle perches were tilted 5 degrees down
at the front and the rear axle perches were tilted
2 degrees up at the front.
The lateral position of the perches was determined by
placing them directly above the old perches and
ensuring that they were 33 inches apart (measured at
the inside edge of the anti-wrap plates).
Before John finished his official duties as master welder,
Rob suggested that I ask him to weld the track bar extension
to the cast axle mount. This seemed like a good idea since
we've heard other other Jeepers suffering from broken track
bar extensions. And since John was already there and had
his welding gear setup, it made sense to do it.
No special welding process was required to attach the
perches to the axle tubes. Arc or MIG could be used
(RE recommends MIG because it imparts less heat to the
surrounding metal). The standard welding practice of
welding individual short beads rather than long beads
was sufficient to avoid tube warpage.
Reassembly
This phase of the conversion went considerably faster
because a number of offroading friends dropped by to
spectate and inevitably lend a hand. I thought this to be
rather remarkable in light of the fact that I had no beer on
hand at all. Others who couldn't make it called throughout
the day to see how things were going. I felt like an
expectant father (who was performing the delivery). Thanks
and cigars to the following people who dropped by to help
out: Jonathan Yim, Wil Girindra, Traci Deman, Phil Gough
and Mark Dietelbach.
The parking brake lines were removed, a lower mounting hole
was drilled, and the lines were re-routed a few inches
lower. The flexible brake lines were removed from where they
attached to the frame-mounted hard brake lines and the RE
brake line extensions were installed. The longer Doetsch Tech
shocks were installed. The fronts were installed upside
down (shock rod down) because at extreme articulation, they
would hit the springs or knuckle assembly if the shock body
was at the bottom. To facilitate upside down mounting, RE
included a couple of adapters for the shock towers which let
me use eye-mount shocks in the top instead of the threaded
stud types. Using their transfer case lowering tubes, the
case and skidplate was lowered approximately one inch.
Rob was having trouble attaching the rear driveshaft to the
axle, even after we had lowered the rear of the Jeep so that
it was resting on the wheels. The resulting lift was
approximately 10 inches over stock. This accounted for
while Rob couldn't extend the driveshaft far enough to
connect to the axle. Something was definitely wrong.
Although comparisons with Traci's stock YJ and previously
gathered information from Jeep list subscribers indicated
that the 5-leaf spring pack should go in the rear, we
decided that the springs should be switched. Hopefully, the
4-leaf pack which we had installed in the front would, when
put in the rear, lower it to a more reasonable 6 inch lift.
When this didn't work, we were really confused. Why was it
sitting so high in the rear? Then I smelled something
burning, like an electrical short. I quickly recognized it
as coming from the bad wiring for the dim light bulb in my
head: I was having an idea. We had been testing the lift
height with the rear of the Jeep sitting on its wheels and
the front on the jackstands. The problem was that the
jackstands in the front were located behind the front spring
hangers, which was at least two feet farther to the rear of
the front axle. This meant that the weight distribution
was skewed. So test this theory, we put the wheels back on
the front axle and lowered the Jeep onto all fours. Sure
enough, the lift measured out to the advertised lift of 5.5
to 6 inches. Having been at the job for far too long, we
elected to leave the springs as is since the Jeep sat
"kinda" level. I couldn't find the nut and bolt to attach
the track bar to the axle so I left it unattached. I've
been driving my Jeep for over a year with no track bars so I
wasn't too concerned about not having it connected, even
though RE suggests that the front should be attached.
The last bit of reassembly had to wait till Sunday morning
because Canadian Tire had given me a mismatched set of brake
pads. Then, to liven things up, I tried to bleed one of my
rear brakes with the drum off. That earned me some penalty
time while I frantically tried to tear apart the brake to
put the piston back together. Oh, did I mention that we
were supposed to meet some friends to go for a 4x4 day trip
up to Blue Mountain?
|
