Meet Jupiter- a Homebrew thread - Page 6

wadewaydo · 07-16-2015, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shenrie

really great pix, but you left out the part about the van on the wrecker....

Oops hit submit, instead of preview.... I wasn't done yet, and you were too fast on the rebound.... now it's there. Thanks for reading.

**BroncoHauler** · 07-16-2015, 01:14 PM

Fuel pumps seem be on a bad roll lately.

That couldn't have been a fun/inexpensive tow. Glad you made the best of it.

Herb

wadewaydo · 07-16-2015, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BroncoHauler

Fuel pumps seem be on a bad roll lately.

That couldn't have been a fun/inexpensive tow. Glad you made the best of it.

Herb

Yeah, $400 for the tow, and $300 for the pump. And me over a barrel. Kristi and I split the cost... so it took away some of the sting.

86Scotty · 07-16-2015, 05:21 PM

Damn, you too? What is that area, the Bermuda triangle? I just lost mine a couple of weeks ago between Kayenta and Page, and spent a good bit of my vacation, and about the same money, getting ours fixed in Page. Sheesh, sorry to hear of your troubles! I'll tell more about mine in a TR I'm compiling. Excellent pics.

wadewaydo · 07-29-2015, 12:21 PM

It's always nice when your S.O. has buy-in to your projects and jumps in right there with you. Kristi hated the dated interior door trim panels. The old ones were left over from the Waldoch van conversion, back in the 90s. After some thought we decided to integrate some bungie-mesh pockets into the door panels. We ordered some fabric headliner in two complimentary colors, light and dark, got some marine grade vinyl from the local fabric store, as well as some black mesh fabric. The bungie string was hard to find locally, eventually I found it at REI. We worked together folding and stapling the fabric and mesh onto the masonite panels, right over the old fabric. I moved a speaker originally installed on the drivers side panel to the small side cargo door. Now in camp we have stereo sound with the doors open! We repeated the process with all the doors, and also added mesh to the back of the seat covers, and over the sun visors.

wadewaydo · 07-29-2015, 03:30 PM

You may recall in some earlier posts about the 4wd conversion that the front spring set-up was really unconventional. It was set up much like a Jeep, where the rear spring mount was a bracket welded to the frame, and the front was a shackle. The Jeeps use an 'H' style bracket bolted to the frame in the front. My conversion was SKETCHY. They welded a small mount/pivot to the frame and bolted in a strange shackle thingy. If there were ever an accident, or a wear issue this mount would surely be the weak point in the link, and no parts available to repair....

Nobody I've spoken to has even seen a set up quite like this, although it was perfectly functional. Functional, but not serviceable. It also had an annoying pull to the right. Not bad, but not good either. After an alignment I found out why. There was too much castor on the right side, that could not be adjusted, except by new springs.

I contacted Chris at U-joint, to inquire about his kit. Although it would work on my chassis, it would not work on my 86-91 Dana 60 king-pin style axle due to the spring pad position, welded to the housing. I would have to get a newer style axle, with all the trimmings.... Cha Ching!

Good thing I have a guy. He custom made the front spring perch, had new springs custom made, and put in new Bilstein 5100 shocks. It took a little while but it came out better than I had expected. You can see his cardboard mock-up below.

And the finished product (sorry for the iPhone pics)

Bye bye crumple zones

I love the smell of new Bilsteins in the morning...

Due to a ride height and side sway issue in the rear I installed some new air helper springs. No more saggy butt...

Now were riding smooooooth.... time for another trip!

86Scotty · 07-29-2015, 05:37 PM

ert01 · 08-01-2015, 11:52 PM

Am I understanding correctly that there is no shackle at all on the front leaf springs now?

wadewaydo · 08-02-2015, 07:54 PM

The rear bracket was torched off and a custom shackle was made for the back. Sorry for the confusion.

The frame takes a turn there however, and in order for the spring to be square, there was a spacer made to offset the bushing, as you can see in the above photo. The ride would be extremely rough if there were no shackle.

ert01 · 08-02-2015, 11:18 PM

Ah makes a lot more sense now. I thought all they did was remove the front shackle and replace it with a solid bracket. Didn't realize they did added the shackle in the rear as well. I knew it'd be a terrible ride with no shackle but I didn't see it in there and I was wondering how they achieved such magical goodness with no shackle