Mildly Out of Hand 02 Sahara Build

I finished up the truss on my jk 44. Next steps is to finish tacking up my link/shock mounts and cycle. I added some extensions to the Barnes truss since it’s designed for factory jk coil buckets and I widened it to be a bit stronger and look more complete. Hopefully I’ll have it under the jeep and cycled this week so I can move onto making bump pads and brake lines.
I’m pretty happy with most of the welds and took my time pre heating and cooling before welds. According to my straight edge the housing stayed straight.

I have all my mounts tacked on for the rear axle and found a big crack in my shock tower welds. I think this issue was documented previously on the forum so I’m going to fix the cracked weld, weld the inside and make a strap on the top of the tower. Glad I caught it before the shock blew through especially with coilovers.
Word of advice for everyone running these towers, weld the insides before install.

I was able to weld up the one cracked weld as well as the insides and made a little top strap reinforcement for both sides. While I was there I cut out some gussets for the towers themselves.
Then I finished tacking all of my rear axle brackets and tossed it under the jeep to cycle it.

Everything worked perfect and I went to a different axle side shock mount so that I could go back to 6” up 6” down in travel and not have to trim the fenders.


There’s full bump at compression. I also flexed it and it just barely kissed the coil spring. I’m planning on getting beadlocks with less backspacing so it should work or I may try and move the mount inward on the axle.

Rear axle is finish welded and painted ready to go back under the jeep.

Made some more progress on the jeep. Rear is done aside from e brake cables and locker wiring. I've also cut off the steering box mount, coil/shock towers, and trackbar mount. I hope I never have the displeasure of having to remove the factory trackbar bracket again. I'm shooting for roughly 4" of front stretch.

I need to still adjust my coilovers to bring my ride height back down (also jeep has no spare or cargo in it). I'll be looking at an even 6" up 6" down with no rubbing which is nice.

The jeep still had more flex to go in this photo.

Point of no return

Here’s a little preview of my front stretch work. It is far from done so don’t judge anything yet. I’m using a modified version of Barnes new steering box stretch. I really wanted to sink the 8274 down and am really happy with the result so far. I also have an idea to keep use of the front anti rock. We’ll see if that actually works. I’m hoping the 4 inches of front wheelbase stretch and additional 5 inches of width makes up for lack of sway bar if it doesn’t work out.

Rickyd said:

How do you plan to maintain the rigidity in the front of the frame ?

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Lots of gussets/reinforcements, shock tower crossmember, and potentially a front bumper hoop if it seems necessary. I’ll show a finished product of the front crossmember and winch mount when it’s done. Currently it is pretty flimsy but I have plans to rectify that.

G’s Jeep said:

We need updates

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Ask and you shall receive!

Here's the front crossmember and winch mount all fabbed up:



I also made progress on the front axle. I made a bridge on the top of the truss for the upper link mount, cut off all the JK coil spring stuff, and welded new lower CA mounts on. I need to put the upper mount on but am still playing with locations and possibly making a custom lower radiator hose. I also installed the dynatrac ball joints and have been mocking up steering.




I was able to match all the link mount locations and separation numbers to the existing savvy truss and mounts I had on the dana 30.

Steering shaft: (thanks for the help @Wildman you're photos were helpful!)



I have been working on it as much as possible and haven't taken many photos, so I will do my best to continue updating this thread.

Wildman said:

Glad I could help out. Your 8274 winch mount looks great BTW... Any plans to run a front swaybar?

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I have an idea to reuse my anti-rock in the front, but am prioritizing getting more important things done first so that I can get it back on the trail!

I've got some major catching up to do on this thread. Here is a fast summary of the work done:

Tie rod, drag link, and trackbar are made. Trackbar and drag link are the exact same length and angle, which meant I had to go under the knuckle to maintain the 6" of uptravel with the approximately 4" inches of front stretch. I also had to make a custom lower radiator hose for upper link clearance. On top of that I put a 10 degree bend in the upper link to clear the motor mount at full compression. I used a flat pitman arm as well.



Constant cycling (probably have 20 hours into just cycling haha):


Installed shock hoops, tb mount, and bump stops (a lot of this has been since gusseted and cleaned up but these are the photos I have)

More steering pics:


































More cycling with shocks installed: Everything clears lock to lock in every possible position on both sides.


That about brings me up to date. I brushed over many details to have something in this thread for future reference, so many things in these photos may have since changed.

PS please don't judge the hay; I'm building this in a barn with no door and hay bales are stored right outside. I usually try to blow it all out with a leaf blower before a day of wrenching but it's a losing battle

The current state of the jeep is that it is currently sitting on its own weight. Rough final specs are 103" wheelbase, 21" to the frame, 37" BFGs, 6" uptravel 6" downtravel front and rear, antisquat/antidive numbers are very close to neutral. It looks really wide, but with the wheel spacers it is equivalent to a 3.25" b/s wheel on JK axles. I may remove the spacers, but it was to simulate a future beadlock decision.

On its own weight:




Funny pic of it pretty much full droop to test hydro assist ram line lengths (which are barely too short to reuse)


There's still lots to do but its getting close!

Squatch said:

Remember when...? View attachment 668095

View attachment 668096

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Man that brings me back! I miss that era. Poor thing didn’t deserve this! I still am on the lookout for some solid 17” steelies and I still have the hubcaps. I will own another stock jeep except it will be a cj7 with another 6 cyl. Luckily my long term girlfriend has a nice cruiser that her grandpa bought brand new that I won’t ruin.
I do have a period correct 8274 for it and I put an 8.8 in it, but other then that it’ll stay nice!

I like rock crawling too much to keep this one nice!