The adventures of a Jeep and its driver.
When I ordered the LEDs, I decided to put something in the Special Instructions box that everyone else leaves blank.
I entered something to the effect of “Please include an original drawing of a Unicorn. Your artwork will be judged on originality and effort and not accuracy. Please give it a name.”
I noticed this on the bottom of the box today as I WAS about to throw it away. A+
Teraflex HD ball joints came in, plus the Lube Lockers came in today. I almost didn’t get the LLs but I figured – might as well. LOL!
Took a little break from the axle for a cheap upgrade to the interior lights. Ordered a few of replacements from Super Bight LEDs for the license plate light and the interior lights. Definitely a noticeable improvement in brightness. Any brighter, and they’d probably be annoying.
License plate:
Interior:
The part number for these was WLED-CW5-CBT (cool white). For $3.95 a piece, and $2.99 for shipping, how could I go wrong?
Painted the steering knuckles and diff covers.
Still need to clean off the machined surfaces on the knuckles with a Dremel.
Got the bearings in today. These are NOT what the cross reference says I should use for a 2014. The only difference was the length of the ABS wire. These were much easier to find and a lot cheaper.
I’ll be ordering the Teraflex ball joints and some Lube Lockers this weekend.
Got these back from the sand blaster today. They look so shiny. Now to paint them blue!
A couple of updates.
Got the housings back from Davis Race Car on Saturday morning and the situation was much better than expected. Jason went ahead and took apart the rear carrier and the pinion to make sure everything was OK. Everything checked out just fine. He did notice the bulkhead connector for the locker was broken, so he replaced that. Put it all back together and installed the stock pinion flange. Even after all of that, the total bill was only $65.13. He could have easily charged me a lot more. Super nice guy. He came highly recommended, and now I know why.
Davis Race Car is about 45 miles from my house. I borrowed a trailer from my old boss for a while to drag the housings from place to place. Went and picked them up, got about 500 feet from my house and CLANK, CLANK! I looked in my side view mirror and saw the front housing hanging over the side of the trailer by the ratchet straps I tied it down with. Oops. I don’t believe it hit the ground, but pretty scary. I lifted it up and put it back on the trailer. I wish I had taken a picture. No harm, no foul. But I’m glad it happened on my street than at 75MPH.
After I got them home, I was looking over the axles, and noticed this:
This is where the truss on the driver’s side is welded to the pumpkin. Not sure what happened. It could have been related to the above mishap, but could have also been a cold weld? Texted Andy and took them back to his place Saturday evening.
All fixed! Thanks, Andy!
Quick update on the gear situation.
I took the axle housings to Davis Race Car in Madison, OH to have Jason take a look at them, just to set my mind at ease. After checking the backlash on both the front an rear, they were BOTH within spec. The front was .006 and the rear was .007. The patterns were acceptable. Great news!
My great news was short lived.
While I was there, I wanted him to replace the rear pinion yoke with a stock flange, so it would mate with my rear drive shaft. Once he removed the yoke and started tightening down the pinion nut on the flange, the pinion quit moving. Which means there is either no crush sleeve in the pinion, or it was over tightened prior. We hadn’t even started torquing down the nut enough to even start to crush it, had it been intact.
So rather than take any chances, I decide to leave them both there, have them each disassembled and the pinion checked. The gears were fine, they will not be replaced, at least not at this point, unless he finds something else. Plus, I’m going to have him replace the inner seals while he is in the front.
I have really broken the budget on this mod, I think I’ve pretty much shattered it. LOL!
BUT, I am still ahead of the game had I gone a different direction (i.e. new housings, etc.)
Well, another 90 minutes, and another 1/2 bottle of MAP gas (not really, it just felt that way) and the other side is done!
The top one came out fairly quickly, less than 10 minutes. The bottom, as expected, was MUCH more difficult. I had to heat it up repeatedly. Got out the wire wheel and cleaned all of the rust off of the top of the joint and the adjacent C. Even used a little Pb Blaster after the heat, and then applied more heat. I’m wondering if that didn’t help more than I think.
I’ve helped do ball joints a couple times before, and by far, these were the most difficult. I’m sure there are quite a few factors that went into that.
I also completely removed the rear shafts. Hoping to take these to a drive line shop on Saturday to have them checked out and anything I can make it easier, and less labor, and cheaper, I’m going to do.
So I figured I’d spend an hour or so tonight and remove the ball joints on the front housing.
If only it were that easy! Hah!
With the housing loose, I can’t put a breaker bar on the ball joint press and get any good leverage, so my only option was the impact wrench.
Took me nearly two hours and a lot of heat, and a little sledge, to just get one side off. I’m saving the other side for later in the week.
Before I install these bad boys, I want to double check that the gears were done right by the shop that did them. I know at least one thing is wonky, the actuator bracket for the rear locker isn’t right. There’s a tab that fits into a slot on the actuator, and it’s not even close. I bought a new bracket, hopefully, I can take care of this myself.
I also bought some Prussian Blue – man that yellow stuff is EXPENSIVE – painted the ring gears. I put a load on the pinions and tried to run a pattern. Being blue, it’s not as clear as the yellow, but here they are. I just don’t know if these are within tolerance, or do these need to go to a drive line shop for new gears and install.
Any R&P experts out there, please feel free to chime in.
The rear:
The front:
With this axle project going on, the last thing I had planned on doing was spending money on something that wasn’t part of it. But sometimes when a deal is too good….
When I bought the Jeep, it only had the standard radio in it. No touch screen, no nav. We’ve had navigation in the last two vehicles my wife has driven, and I’ve wanted to add it to the Jeep. The plan was to pick up an aftermarket radio, like a Kenwood or a Pioneer AVIC (I want Apple CarPlay).
As has happened more and more recently, my plans and their timing changed once again. I found, on Detroit’s Craig’s List, a listing for a Jeep JK Wrangler OEM 730N RHR radio. It’s the one with the TomTom navigation in it. Although I like my wife 430N (Garmin) better, for $400, I had to try and get it. These things sell for twice that.
I arranged with the seller to ship it to me, rather than meet up. As soon as I opened up the box, I knew something was wrong. There is no way this was out of a JK. The mounting tabs were on the top and bottom, not the sides, and it appears the seller had cut the bottom tabs off in order to fit it in his JK. Ugh! I was pissed. I later found out this was likely out of a Challenger SRT. Included in the box was the microphone and the plug for it.
I tried installing it anyway, just to see if it would even work in my Jeep. It mostly did. The mic in my JK wouldn’t work, but the included one did. The USB in the center console does not work. And I was having problems getting my iPhone 6 to pair with it. I eventually found a forum where a member is hosting DVD images of the updated software for the radio (not the NAV). I downloaded it and was able to upgrade the radio, bluetooth problem solved.
For those interested in updating their MyGig:
http://www.mydrive.ch
u: mygig@soxag
p: gasolio
I still decided to return it, but the seller was being a jerk. I tried to work with him, but he wasn’t going to budge. I opened up a claim with PayPal. I originally had the seller send me a PayPal invoice, hoping it would help protect me. But the only thing he put on it was the part number and that it was a 730N. Not that it was out of a JK. I still had a decent claim, I think I had a chance of winning it, even though he deleted the CL ad. But I knew I wouldn’t find another radio like this for that price. So I spent New Years Day fabricating some brackets to mount the radio in the JK and to get it to look reasonably OK. It’s not perfect, but it’s close. I did convince the seller to refund the shipping, PayPal fees as well as the $10 I had to spend to get a security code (he didn’t have the original VIN).
I still need to fix the center console USB – that shouldn’t be hard, outside of pulling the center console to get to the port and running a cable from the USB port on the back of the radio.
When a deal seems to good to be true, it probably is. Had I known this was not out of a JK, I would have passed. Knowing what I know now, I’m glad I didn’t.