Bty34 TJ build

[bty34]

Passenger side sway bar mount was running on the spring occasionally, but couldn't move forward due to the trackbar. Raised it up a little and rotated the bolt 90°.

Made it out on the trail for the weekend. Managed to bend the tie rod. I need to stop using it as a feeler. Conveniently it straightens easily. Hopefully I can get a replacement next time Blaine is doing a batch. I may try 7075 as an intermediary until then, just might need to dimple my diff cover a little more for clearance at full lock.

My math has my current setup good for 900 lbs.
1.5" 7075 should be around 1800 lbs.
Depending on the heat treat, solid 1 1/4" 4340 could be up to 2600 lbs.

 

[bty34]

Weighed the Jeep for the first time since the axle swap and new transfer case. Full tank, back seat, half doors, soft top, full size spare and 210 lbs. driver.

For comparison, here is a 98 4cyl auto, full doors, back seat, steel skids and rockers, stock cage, no spare or winch, Dana 30/Dana 35. It's the light blue one below. Also with a driver.

And a relatively stock CJ3a while we're at it. With me and a 5 year old kid. A little under half of the Wrangler.

 

[bty34]

Had a 7075 tie rod on order with Total Metal Innovations. After 72 days and reaching out every couple weeks for a status and only getting that it was still in process with no ETA, I decided to cancel and go another route. Hopefully Branik will be better.

Picked up a Liberty pdc off eBay. Liberty units seem to bring less than wranglers and was actually less than my local upull. Kids stripped it down fairly easily.

Added a couple of circuits to the stock pdc to get rid of the Blue Sea fuse block. Everything comes apart fairly easily once you see it on the scrap box.

 

[bty34]

Branik was 8 days from order to delivery on the tie rod. That's better than I was expecting.

 

[bty34]

Got the new tie rod installed and spent a weekend at Rausch Creek. Didn't do anything crazy and didn't get many pictures either. Weather turned out pretty nice for late in the year.

Tie rod made it through without bending, even with some light rock contact. Not having to pull it afterwards was nice. I did turn it to tweak the toe a little bit.

The reduced flexing of the belly skid with the stiffer rear brace does seem to correlate with the engine skid to main skid mounting bolts no longer working loose. Before I had to check them daily while wheeling.

 

[bty34]

Rear axle is currently a rj60 center with 99-04 super duty full float ends. The downside of that is it currently has 99-04 super duty brakes, which aren't well suited for a TJ due to their size and don't hold up well off-road with how low they hang. There are some kits available to relocate the calipers higher or mount new calipers, but everything I've seen keeps the current piston areas.

After way too much time looking at rotors and calipers, I think there are some others that will work with some modifications. Goal is to get the piston areas closer to a standard TJ rear, keep a mechanical parking brake, move the calipers out of the rocks, and possible lose some weight. Progress will be slow and may not even work out in the end.

Started out with a drill guide to get 8x6.5 to 8x170mm and open up the center bore.

New holes did line up ok

The parking drum diameter on the new rotors is close, but they utilize a narrower shoe and have a step on the inside that stops the rotor 3/16" shy of mounting.

 

[Apparition]

Rear axle is currently a rj60 center with 99-04 super duty full float ends. The downside of that is it currently has 99-04 super duty brakes, which aren't well suited for a TJ due to their size and don't hold up well off-road with how low they hang. There are some kits available to relocate the calipers higher or mount new calipers, but everything I've seen keeps the current piston areas.

After way too much time looking at rotors and calipers, I think there are some others that will work with some modifications. Goal is to get the piston areas closer to a standard TJ rear, keep a mechanical parking brake, move the calipers out of the rocks, and possible lose some weight. Progress will be slow and may not even work out in the end.

Started out with a drill guide to get 8x6.5 to 8x170mm and open up the center bore.

View attachment 578146

View attachment 578147

View attachment 578148


New holes did line up ok

View attachment 578149


The parking drum diameter on the new rotors is close, but they utilize a narrower shoe and have a step on the inside that stops the rotor 3/16" shy of mounting.

View attachment 578150

View attachment 578152

View attachment 578153

Are they the Currie F450 knuckles? I bought Black Magics F450 brake kit for my Currie 60.

 

[bty34]

Are they the Currie F450 knuckles? I bought Black Magics F450 brake kit for my Currie 60.

Isn't Blaine's kit 5x5.5? I do have the Currie F450 knuckles up front, with stock Ford unit bearings and brakes. I was planning to stay 8x170 to keep my current wheels. I would need new hubs and axle shafts for the rear to get the bolt pattern down to 5.5". The stock sterling hubs have a 5" OD.
What are you running for the brakes in the rear? Currie didn't have anything last I checked in 8x170, but they do have a 8x6.5 rotor that looks like it could work with some modifications.
https://www.currie4x4.com/jk-6031m8...WHAvSt-_24pSoCkxSVAme8dsz4CtvAl43CoD6JTRRGvAc


I wasn't able to find a smaller caliper to pair with a stock 30mm rotor. Switching to a 20mm rotor opened up some options.

 

[Apparition]

Isn't Blaine's kit 5x5.5? I do have the Currie F450 knuckles up front, with stock Ford unit bearings and brakes. I was planning to stay 8x170 to keep my current wheels. I would need new hubs and axle shafts for the rear to get the bolt pattern down to 5.5". The stock sterling hubs have a 5" OD.
What are you running for the brakes in the rear? Currie didn't have anything last I checked in 8x170, but they do have a 8x6.5 rotor that looks like it could work with some modifications.
https://www.currie4x4.com/jk-6031m8...WHAvSt-_24pSoCkxSVAme8dsz4CtvAl43CoD6JTRRGvAc


I wasn't able to find a smaller calipers TJ pair with a stock 30mm rotor. Switching to a 20mm rotor opened up some options.


View attachment 578203

Ah, I see. Yep mine are 5x5.5. Not sure what'd take to change that.

 

[bty34]

Trimmed the friction material on the backing brake shoes with a hacksaw. Only took a couple minutes and was enough to get the rotors rull seated.

I don't think the first set of calipers I picked are going to work. The mounting bolts sit pretty far from the outside edge of the rotor and overlap the bolts for the backing plate.

With some measuring, I get something like this. Blue is stock caliper mounts, the 4 bolt pattern in the center is the backing plate and the red is the only possible mount that doesn't overlap a partial hole in the backing plate. I fortunately it puts them lower than the stock arrangement.
Purple is a different one I forgot to take off the sketch.

 

[bty34]

Round 2 of the caliper trials. Keeps the single 48mm piston, but the mounting holes are closer to the piston.

My measurements layout like this. Blue is the super duty calipers mount, red is the first caliper I tried, yellow is the new calipers rear mounted and green is the new calipers if I move them to the front side. Caliper overall is 1" shorter, so the yellow gains ~1 5/8" of clearance and the front gains ~5". Up front I might be able to use the backing plate bolts for a bracket.

 

[bty34]

Took a set of snips to the dust shield to do some test fitting. Haven't committed yet to cutting the whole thing off.

The caliper is made for a little bit smaller rotor, but looks like it should work ok.

 

[bty34]

I don't have a 3d printer, so we're using printouts and cardboard to check dimensions.

Picked up some pads and pushed the piston out with some air. Have the caliper bracket 1/8" off the rotor edge, which matches the edge of the pad with the edge of the rotor in the center.

With keeping the parking brake assembly, I think that is about as good as I'm going to be able to do. With a manual I'm not sure it's worth giving that up.

Measured the caliper position and added it to the sketch.

At this point my bracket looks like this. It starts as 1/2". 1/8" is removed around the larger holes to match up with the existing stud length. The opposite side needs some material removed to get the offset correct.

The mounted holes on the caliper bracket I'm mocking up are not threaded. There is room for a bolt head on the backside, but it will make removal a pain with the bolts being captured by the backing plate. Tapping them to 7/16-20 would make that easier but make none of this off the shelf parts.

 

[bty34]

Starting to look light it might work.

Caliper is a little inboard of being centered. I was thinking adding a washer as a shim to push it out would be easier than trying to remove more material.

 

[bty34]

The current mounting doesn't quite have the caliper mount centered over the rotor. I offset it just a little to make sure I had clearance on the backing plate, but probably could give up some to center them up a little better.

Parking brake diameter is slightly larger on these rotors, but did have enough adjustment to get the shoes out there.

Moving to the passenger side, things went a little quicker without as many rounds of test fitting. Bracket is a mirror image of the driver's side.

The casting did need to be clearances a little, moving the caliper down a little would have taken care of it, but I didn't want to remake the bracket.

 

[bty34]

For the brake hoses I needed a little extra length with the calipers moving to the front of the axle. Found a set that was workable.

The end for the banjo bolt needed to be narrowed up a little.

 

[bty34]

Rotors are pretty similar, but the smaller calipers save some weight.

I ordered some wheel spacers that were listed as a 130mm center bore, think they measured to the outside of the chamfer. The drill guide for the rotors worked.

Here is how things look at the end, with the spacers.

 

[bty34]

A little late on the update. Got one of kids to stomp on the pedal for me to bleed the brakes. Little easier now that the brake hoses aren't right up against the bleeders.

Got a little bit of mileage in it. Pedal feels firmer than before. Time will tell if the calipers stay out of the rocks. Parking brake works, but needs some adjusting. I'd like it better if the cable on the passenger side didn't come in the rear of the backing plate. I need to compare my cable lengths to stock Tj and lj cables to see if I can improve the routing. I'm currently using some 8.8 cables from ecgs.

Also straightened out the engine skid while it was off. It has gotten bent enough to be rubbing on the oil pan.

Little better.

 

[bty34]

Decided it was as good a time as any to get rid of the rear auto locker and install the ARB that has been sitting in the shelf.

Doing it in the garage, the full float did make it nice to be able to pull the shafts outside the door and then roll it the rest of the way inside.

Pinion seal was leaking a little, so I decided to do that at the same time.

Spacer on the rockjock outer pinion bearing.

 

[bty34]

Shortly after I got the ring gear mounted I realized I made a mistake.

I pulled a shaft to confirm spline count, but did not double check carrier break. Turns out I have thick cut 5.38 and the wrong ARB.

Someone local had a ARB for sale. Bought that and had it shipped to save a little drive time. Turned out to it was the same locker I already had, but was in the wrong box.

Returned that one and ordered ARB #3.

Little bit of a delay, but back to being able to make progress.

Made some adapter plates for my case spreader out of some 1/2" plate.

Rest of the install was pretty straightforward. It would have been nice if ARB included a couple more shims. Luckily I had an extra pack from the first locker, but ended up being able to make the right combination with just the one set.

Borrowed some Play-Doh from the kids to make sure the copper line wasn't routed too close to the cover.