January 10'-11' Build off 1996 Grand Cherokee

[BulletsRain]

The dana 44 came standard on the Grand Cherokees with the V8 engines, or a tow package. Pretty sure I don't have the tow package because then I would of had tow hooks. The 35 is a weak axle... but it can turn 31's just fine.

I did some research and found someone who had the same exact noise and from the description its exactly like my issue. The problem was the U-joints. My are rusted, which means they are BAD. So new U-joints going on this weekend. Hopefully nothing breaks before then!

[BulletsRain]

Okay so refresher on things... up to the current point.

Clunk was the U-Joints
So, I didn't get a chance to post pics of the driveline work. I got all new spicer u-joints and I got my drive shafts rebalanced. They also painted them black, which made me happy.

This cured most of the clunking noise, but it is still there. I believe I have figured out the problem though. Since the rear axle is shifted to the passenger side the right rear sway bar is hitting the coil spring causing a clunk. So, as soon as I can, I'm ordering up a new rear track bar.

Here are the pics.








Then I got took hooks
Got my tow hooks and brackets today! I got to sanding on them right away them shot them with some flat black paint. They look brand new.

I'm going to go get new hardware for them tomorrow then put them on.
I'll take pics tomorrow. Pics are always good :thumbsup:

Brackets before sanding


Hooks after paint


I'll get pics of the brackets painted tomorrow or later tonight. :thumbsup:


Does anyone know where to get factory color paint? I got a couple spots on my roof peeling pretty bad and I would like to get it out of the way. I also have various other small spots around the vehicle, and I would really like to do it myself and not have to take it any where to get it done.

[BulletsRain]

Tow Hook install

So what was a simple tow hook install turned into an afternoon into evening project.

The darn plastic clips that hold the bumper on were being a PITA, so I finally just cut them off. After that, the left side of the bumper wouldn't budge. When that finally came off I got to work installing the tow hooks. It was all going good, until I got to the bracket that holds the hook.

The shop that put my radiator in like a year ago, freaking messed it up. This was after they had already put one in wrong. They didn't line up the bottom radiator bracket with the little snap in plastic thingy. So The radiator stuck out further on the driver side, than the passenger side, not allowing the tow hook bracket to line up right.

After an hour or so moving the radiator around trying to get the clip out, it finally just broke. So I said screw it, forget that little plastic clip. With the clip gone, the radiator when into place and the tow hook bracket went on now.

Everything after that went fine... except the 30-45 minutes I spent at Autozone looking for the right plastic rivets and then waiting in line. :rolleyes:

I hate it when you run into stuff that you have to fix along the way, but hey sometimes it makes the day more fun. :2thumbsup:

I didn't get pics of them on, because it was like 8 pm when we got it all done. Too dark for pics. I'll get pics tomorrow, but here are the ones I did manage to find time to take. :laugh:

These brackets painted


Bumper and grille off


Where my PA speaker is located


Where my ballasts are for the HID lights in the fogs



Pics of Hooks...

Just uploaded some pics of the hooks..

[BulletsRain]

CB antenna Fail

Well, planned to mount my firestik today... but... we got in a hurry, drilled the hole way too big on the first mount, cut and grinded a second one, painfully drilled another hole. Then we drilled the hols under the driver side tail light, well a little in front of it... Well guess what? We never freaking measured the mount so it was way to short. It needs to be about 2 inches longer I think. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Pics..




Spot where it's mounted


Small tight hole to reach the bolts to put the nuts on. That hole made me mad.


As you can clearly see, this mount = fail.


More

Alright well first off, I got to drive in some dense fog this morning. I think it's weird because the camera pics look so much clearer than it actually was. At one point I was using my phone to drive because I could see the road with the phone and I really couldn't see more than 40 feet in front of me. Anyways, took fog pics.



Got the mount done for the antenna.. it is Stainless steel, and I painted it black.


Location where I decided to put the bracket...


Coax cable running through this hole

This is right behind that removable panel in the rear cargo area on the driver side in ZJ's.


Also decided to paint this step thing


I had to take a pic with the bumper off


The mount done


Antenna


Another pic


Step thing


Random pic out when I was trying to tune the antenna tonight..





Okay... and now I think I have a problem. When tuning the antenna, I got really really high SWR's. I checked my coax, moved the washers around to see if that was it... nothing changed. It reads the same high SWR every time. I finally got a hold of my friend to see how the washer went, and I had them right so I was really confused. He said I should of sanded down the spot where the bracket mounted to the body, and I probably should of...
What do you guys think is causing the high SWR? I mean I know I mounted the antenna low, but I kind of figured it would still work... Do I need to raise it up more?

I just really want to get it right... I haven't had my CB hooked up in a long time. I want it back :laugh:

Any help is appreciated.

[BulletsRain]

Rear trackbar on

Finally got the rear track bar on..
Adjusted the front and rear so now my axles are mostly centered. It also fixed my clunking noise, but I have a squeaking noise coming front up front somewhere on the right side. Probably a bushing on something.

I went to the off road place today and there was two lifted Zj's there. They were badass!

Anyways, pic


MOre Updates...

Well set up my old Wilson Lil Wil for a temporary setup to have when wheeling this weekend. Oh yea, don't know if I mentioned but my buddies and I are running some trails with Ozarks Jeep Thing this weekend. Should be a good time, we are hitting some light trails in the afternoon, then hitting mild trails around 7:30 p.m. so night wheeling! :thumbsup:

Hopefully my dad's work will make me the new bracket for my firestik soon, so I can get it on there. I'm also finally picking up my 5th spare tomorrow. It's taken so long because.. well I was low on money, and my 5th wheel had a tiny hole in it so it leaked air. Hopefully we fixed that problem.

Anyways, pic for the day.


Off roadin pics

Well, one of my friends backed out from going because he wanted to watch the MU game, so we didn't go to SMORR. Instead we went to Gladetop in just my jeep, with 8 other jeeps. It was a fun time, my ZJ did great. It has some new trail badges too. It earned some trail stripes even, well maybe not some more like hundreds... :laugh::rofl: Seriously though, when you wheel on ATV trails, they can get pretty narrow. Nothing we can't buff out though. I was really impressed with my Jeep though, and I'm glad I finally got a chance to go.

I took some pictures, but I wish I would have taken about 100 more... :laugh:
We wheeled for about 7 hours, until it got dark. They were going to go up the road about 30 minutes and night wheel, but I decided I didn't want to chance braking anything, since I hadn't yet. :2thumbsup: We even did some rock crawling too, actually there was a lot of rock ledges and stuff, pretty small stuff, but for my first time out it seemed big. :laugh:
Anyways here are the pics.

[BulletsRain]

Christmas Spirit

Dang, I still haven't got that ARB Bumper yet. Luckily the guy is being very nice and still holding it for me. I haven't been able to sell my dirt bike yet, but hopefully this buyer will buy in the next week or so. I'm so anxious to get the ARB.

Meanwhile I haven't done much to the Jeep, but I did add a nice little Holiday touch today.


ARB bumper i got

Sorry it took so long to take pics of the bumper.. I started working on it today. I have it propped up on the saw horses. I'll try to get better pics when i work on it with my jeep out of the garage.
Still needs more sanding... but we got the dents mostly out. At least to the point that the areas look straight. :thumbsup: I'm debating just sanding the whole thing back to bare metal. But who knows :rolleyes:





Minor snow wheeling

Well went wheeling today at SMORR. It was fun. Turned out we only had 2 vehicles, but it was still a blast. We were the only two vehicles in the park the whole day. It was pretty muddy and sloppy, definitely in the valleys. There was still some snow covered trails though and the iced over creek which broke my bumper. Just more motivation for me to finish prepping and painting my ARB bumper!

I will post the video after I upload it on youtube!

Cool little part we had to go through.


Getting ready to face the dreaded creek.


Buddy got stuck in the creek, had to winch himself out. The Ice was about 6 inches thick, and he fell through and his rear axle got hung up.



I wish I would have taken more pictures! The scenery was pretty awesome! :thumbsup:

[BulletsRain]

Video of me not getting stuck

Video is up! It was a crazy day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xbaRK1cBzY

Had some fun climbing snow mounds Yesterday. Climbed some more today as well.



Got the radio in Tuesday evening. Only took a little over two hours. I was surprised to find the people that installed my first one hooked up the speakers wrong. That's probably why it stopped working. Anyways, I took some pics of the install.

Oh... and I got a few more little misc. things... but I think I might be getting a new horn... :teehee::teehee:




Bracket is on the wrong way in the picture... whooooops! :teehee:


Yea I've thought about just spraying it, but it's been so cold here and I want the paint to dry good. If I can get it powdered coated for a decent price I will. IF it's too pricey I'll just paint it myself.

The Strobes turned out really nice IMO. They are cheap ones, which I really could care less. I really couldn't justify spending $80 for a single strobe light. That's why I cheaped out and got them for less than $20. Sure, they are cheaply made... But I can open these ones up and actually change every thing in them quite easily if one goes out.

I mounted them on the crossbar, evenly spaced. They have 3 different strobe modes and are actually pretty bright considering their size. I will get some pics from further away soon. My camera doesn't record the strobe pattern well, but here are a few pictures. The rear strobes haven't came in the mail yet, but they will be mounted inside the Jeep.

I'll get a video of them too. I had one, but they were just taped on for mock up and testing purposes. Now that they are mounted and aimed right it will be better.

Oh, and I need to get black zip ties!!!!

On the white before transition to the amber


Timed it just right.


Got a few pics. It's been a crazy week. We have had 4 snow days, and I've been driving around trying to help people out.

Tonight I pulled a Yukon out of a pretty deep ditch. Then I directed traffic around another truck pulling a car out of a ditch. The strobes help so much in this kind of weather, which is exactly why I put them on.

The Jeep looking good while directing some traffic.



But then somewhere after that, the bumpy, icy roads broke my rear left shock mount. The mount was broken when the shop that put my lift on replaced the shock. So they welded it back on then, but they must of done a really bad job welding because it broke again!




So now I gotta take the shock off until I can get it welded tomorrow or Sunday.