[aemravan]

Did a little further testing in the rear tonight.. it looks like downtravel is limited by the shock travel, literally looks like it’s hanging on by the shock. The up travel is far from hitting the bump stop but I think I’m limited by the spring not wanting to compress further. The shock still has a good inch to go and the tire rub shouldn’t be bad at all to clearance.


If the shock moved out down a inch I could have more down travel and still be able to maximize up travel but meh… I don’t think it’s worth tinkering with.








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[aemravan]

nothing spectacular here, but I did finally have a chance to pull the gopro footage of the rig making its way up the Dickey Bell trail at night last weekend. If you have 10 minutes to spare and want to see my struggle (it wasn't that terrible... just need more seat time and trail comfort) to some terrible music here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wzzLazvsuA

There were easier ways around this particular section that took me a bit to get up, but I figured lets close the season out right. Videos and pictures never do the trails justice, definitely true for this one.. It's basically a 6-7 ft tall boulder climb that has been washed out top and bottom so when you get up a bit both front and rear wheels drop into a wash and without too much ground clearance you end up high centered. Took a bit of repositioning but we made it up.

[aemravan]

With the close by trail closing for the winter I may have to build up a bit more of a serious rock garden in the backyard to pass some time … lol



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[Inv4drZm]

Originally Posted by aemravan

With the close by trail closing for the winter I may have to build up a bit more of a serious rock garden in the backyard to pass some time … lol


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There's a guy I've wheeled with that has a RC rock garden at home made up of rocks scavenged from all the trail's he's been on with his Toyota. I thought that was a pretty neat idea.

[aemravan]

Originally Posted by Inv4drZm

There's a guy I've wheeled with that has a RC rock garden at home made up of rocks scavenged from all the trail's he's been on with his Toyota. I thought that was a pretty neat idea.

thats pretty cool. May not be a bad idea to start collecting a few here and there. I only found 5 in the backyard... not nearly enough to keep me entertained long enough lol

[aemravan]

Here is my next off season project … being one of the lucky ones without major rust issues I’d like to Lee it that way.

Granted I don’t have anything serious going on and it’s mainly surface rust, I still want to strip it down with some wire brush , give it a self etching primer coat and then paint it black. Gave it a quick try to see how it’s going to come off and it’s not that terrible.



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[aemravan]

Making some progress on the surface rust. More work than I thought… really wish I had a lift




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[aemravan]

The off-season is here.. so I figured why not take a perfectly fine coastal off-road bumper and cut it back 1.5 inches

Drivers side is cut back, need to trim the cover plate back so I can reword it flush again and also trim the passenger side. So far not all that terrible and will allow me to push the axle back about .75” , maybe a bit more, if my links and driveshaft allow. This will minimize the amount of rubbing/trimming needing to be done on the door side at full bump. Kind of hoping 37s will fit with some minor rubbing… but worst case I guess I can alway trim the door portion back a little too.








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[aemravan]

So while I was chopping my bumper I got to looking at the links and all again...
I am pretty certain that with fairly minimal effort I could do a pretty awesome long-arm 3-link suspension..

Looking at the my frame and potential bracket locations I *THINK* instead of making a custom cross member for the 3rd link I could just get a 10 degree frame-mounted bracket and retain the factory upper link mount where it is... Obviously it may not be the perfect geometry but I'll have to lay it out and see what it would look like.

Looks like I could have all the brackets, DOM tubing and heims from RuffStuff for right around $1100 and then would obviously need to figure out what I want to run for a shock... The current ICON is far too short with limited travel.. meh.. we'll see. I definitely want to run 37's at some point but only if I'm not having to limit uptravel a ton and lose overall articulation, both front and rear.

Maybe what I'll do first is just weld in a shock mount bracket for the rear that is 2" lower than it is now.. from my last flex test it looks like I can only compress the rear springs so far but still have about 1-1.5" of shock up-travel left.. this is probably due to the fact that I have spring spacers above the rear springs which are obviously not compressing. This would allow me to have more down travel, since currently fully dropped I am fully hanging on the shock itself.. as well as let me use all of the up-travel AND also give me hope of running a 37 in the rear without any, or much, additional trimming..

decisions decisions...

[Inv4drZm]

I like your bumper cutting process in the rear, I've done the exact same with my bumper. I've found with 37's you'll need to cut out the body seam or relief cut and flatten it similar to the front pinch weld on the firewall. Youll need all the room you can get, and my 37 rubs all the sides of the wheel well at full stuff. It's rubbing a good amount of the paint off the door side of the wheel well. I wouldn't recommend trimming the door portion, I think that would look ugly, I would just move the axle back as needed and keep trimming the body and bumper.





Trim this guy:

[y=mx+b]

my rear seam started to bend with 35s, so I hammered them all the way in so it wouldn't cut the tires. First thing that made me wince in pain as I realize I'm destroying a perfectly good car lol. I definitely went a bit far with the bearing, and it also looks like crap haha

I still need to throw some paint and seam sealer on oopsie

[aemravan]

Originally Posted by Inv4drZm

l]

Thanks man, thats golden information right there. and judging from what I'm seeing with your bumper cut I somehow magically might have gotten RIGHT on the money.. impressive lol. With regards to the pinchweld, yea I already started cutting and beating that in and will do some more work on it once I get the tire off and out of the way.

Its really awesome to see an example with non-cut doors, I def did not want to go that route but wasn't opposed to it. I've already rubbed just about all the paint off from there anyhow because it looks like my axle is sitting way too far forward at the moment so it doesn't bother me. I call rubbing self-clearance when its plastic in the way lol. Now onto figuring out how much work it'll take to functionally make a 37 fit up front without a long travel kit..... I have some wheel adapters on the way to be able to mount my brothers jeep wheels with 37's on them to see what sort of clearance i'm working with. I know for a fact I will have to do a lot of firewall work, since my 35 is still rubbing as it articulate midway through the steering range. I'm fully set and committed to tubbing the firewall instead of beating it to insane amounts, but we'll see how it actually fits at full bump and lock.

[aemravan]

Originally Posted by y=mx+b

l]

Also thanks for the info! Luckily I have no issue performing any sort of surgery on my rig.. the way I see mine is that it was resurrected from a junkyard salvage car anyhow so not like i'm hurting the value any lol.

Also don't feel bad about how that looks... better than slicing a tire
I'll have to grab some pictures of what my progress is looking like, not only did I beat that in, but I also first cut it up with a grinder lol. I'll have to grab some seam sealer and smother it all over as well when I get done to make sure I don't have water making its way into places it shouldn't. We're already prone to frame rusting, don't need the same issues on the body lol.


Now I just need to figure out if I have enough Link adjustment and driveshaft left to push the axle back.. I know for a fact i'll be clearing 35's no issues after this and looks like 37's may be rubbing a bit of paint but I'm ok with that

[aemravan]

So here is where I’m at with my trimming and beating…. Correct me if I’m wrong , but I think I JUST may have made enough clearance for future 37s? I could trim the bumper back more.. but don’t really feel like it, and the weld/panels are beat and cut quite significantly at this point, not sure how much more I’d like to go if I needed more lol.

I basically cut and beat the pinch weld all the way back to where the drain plug underneath is. I figured if the pinch weld above the 6" line needs to be beat and flattened that is easy work and I can do it if I ever decide to run 37's, hopefully this is gets me just about there though.. now to wait for the primer to dry to so I can throw on some paint and then later get some seam sealer to glob all over the area

Oh yea, I also decided that in order not to have to trim the bumper back I'm recessing the camp into the bumper vs on the outside like it started, that way the general dimensions of my cut will remain the same and I won't lose any clearance, Clarence.












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[Inv4drZm]

Originally Posted by aemravan

So here is where I’m at with my trimming and beating…. Correct me if I’m wrong , but I think I JUST may have made enough clearance for future 37s?

Seems about right. Just need to extend the links, I think mines about 3/4" longer, the exact number is probably somewhere in my thread. And drop the bumps down.