Money Pit - Phase III

[SpareParts]

Money Pit - Phase II

My D44 lube locker gasket was good. The D60 one sucked... It flattened out to nothing and I threw it away.

 

[KyleQ]

Really? Crap - I was mostly careful torquing it down too. What did it do, leak? I have yet to pour fluid into mine...

 

[Mountain Ram]

I had a D60 lube locker on my last crawler with no issues on a heavy cover like this. It's now running in someone else's crawler.

 

[KyleQ]

I'm trying to remove switches and wire things to the ignition switch so I'm chasing things around trying to find something that is hot under crank and run and that led me to the green/red wire that runs to the voltage regulator. Well - I found it under the dash, and yes, its totally fucking melted from the ignition switch to who knows where.... #!*($!!!!

This is the wiring under the glove box...

 

[KyleQ]

If you said its melted 100% of the way you are a winner... Thankfully it doesn't look like it took any other wires with it..

 

[KyleQ]

Got the rest of the wiring cleaned up tonight - I've got a new little tach to wire up in addition to the other four gauges I'm getting on Tuesday.

I tried swapping out headlight switches with another I had in a spare dash and it wasn't the same, is this for a Centech wiring harness?

I grabbed another headlight switch from my other Bronco and this one is toast too...

Defeated I ordered one off of Amazon simply because it will show up on Tuesday at half the cost of the local parts stores.

Screwing around with more wiring I got my cigar lighter working and nailed down that I'm going to be fusing and connecting my EEC and fuel pump power to my new green/red wire and the rest of the gauges are going to connect to the threaded stud off the ignition switch.

I'll have to find a wire to tap into for the lights for the four gauges and tach lights - should these be off a relay or am I ok to tap into a dash power light?

 

[KyleQ]

Looks like blue/red is the wire to tap into for gauge lighting- I'd love everything to dim together like factory. I'm thinking of running my tiny LED rock lights off the fuel tank selector switch - use what is there is my thought.

 

[KyleQ]

Well I got all of the lightning powered off of the blue/red wire and everything works properly thanks to a new headlight switch. Power for the gauges came off the stud on the back of the ignition switch and seems to be a good choice so far. This took much longer than I would have thought, but I am particular about wiring, so there are no shortcuts.

Pulled the Bronco outside and let it run to test for leaks and/or problems.

Everything looked good so I loaded it up on the trailer for some wheeling-

I didn't take many pictures when I was out as I was pretty tired and it was a new place, so I didn't know what to expect. We don't have a lot of snow for some reason this year but we did end up with a lot of ice on the hills. I put my tires at 3lbs up front and 2lbs in the rear and did some crawling around.

It was fairly unstoppable - a few things I didn't try due to not having a roll cage, but most everything I pointed up I was able to except this one hill that kept pushing the front end over to the right real fast. A friend tried this and on his first try this happened-

 

[68rockcrawler]

Wow, at 2 and 3 lbs those tires don't flex much. You need to whomp on them and get them broken in!

Do you have any pictures of the fenders on your trailer? It looks like they are custom drive-overs. With my full width axles I need to do something like that too.

 

[KyleQ]

Wow, at 2 and 3 lbs those tires don't flex much. You need to whomp on them and get them broken in!

Do you have any pictures of the fenders on your trailer? It looks like they are custom drive-overs. With my full width axles I need to do something like that too.

Yeah - they have really only been wheeled once before and I was over 15lbs at the time, so it was the first time in single digit pressures. I was folding the tires I could see over at times, worked insanely good on ice and snow.

As for the fenders - they came on the trailer that way from Load Trail. They are simply awesome!

Ignore the tire in the last pic, just showing the center support.

They don't even twitch when using then as an RTI ramp-

 

[KyleQ]

Well I got a bunch more wiring done and have been prepping for a full day of wheeling tomorrow and tomorrow night.

Mounted six little LED lights for night wheeling-

The 7" bar fills in the front without blinding everyone-

The headlights take care of the rest-

Tomorrow is Apple Valley Farms and I'm hoping they have some good snow to play in-

 

[KyleQ]

Snow wheeling went well - burned through over a half a tank of gas in a few hours, lol.

It was pretty darn cold out - some wind, but I didn't complain.

We had some carnage early in the day- %)

Brother BOTH u-joints, a few control arms, ripped off the brake lines and I stopped looking... lol

I crawled up this seriously steep hill in 1st gear low range while the two brothers worked on winching one of them out of the woods - he made it about 50' and promptly side sideways into a few trees.

I couldn't get a lot of video as it was so cold the Go-Pro either wouldn't turn on or start recording. %)

Here is a hill that is fun all year round - typically you battle through a couple of feet of mud in each dip, but ice was the challenge in the winter.
[youtube]LxCWKU7aQYM[/youtube]

Russ powers up this hill with ease as well-
[youtube]B-ZTLl5nPKo[/youtube]

We had some good snow on the fields, which allowed for some 2WD fun-
[youtube]mIt5f2MdHfA[/youtube]

Joe realizes that the Ranger just isn't enough so we try and pull him up this icy hill - it doesn't go so well...
[youtube]gGQXJe6GsRs[/youtube]

I'll get some more video up as it uploads - I didn't end up getting to night wheel as the four bolts holding the T-case adapter to the transmission backed out and started leaking transmission fluid onto the exhaust. I didn't want to push it and possibly damage anything so we called it a day. It was the only tool I didn't bring with..

 

[68rockcrawler]

That hill climb looked like fun! That yellow explorer is a monster!

 

[KyleQ]

That Explorer was pretty awesome, just needs some beadlocks to follow me around.

This is an area called 4 hills - this was the first set of hills we hit and when we started climbing we knew what we were in for the entire day.
[youtube]3i5lm8evwLU[/youtube]

 

[KyleQ]

Well I had another fun day of winter wheeling close to home - sure is nice to only have to add gas before a trip.

As usual I took a few pictures and much more video - this was a cool opportunity.

Drive shaft angles look awesome and the bump stops are working perfectly

I've got about 4GB of video to upload off my phone's unlimited 4G data plan - should be up in a few hours ;D

 

[KyleQ]

Well - cutting things off and progressing forward seems to be the name of the game as of late...

 

[KyleQ]

It looks like the aluminum box will have to get removed and relocated. I've got a feeling that my cell is going to change to save space - I'm thinking a tall and narrow cell will fit behind the seats and the box can rest next to the tailgate for much easier access.

I'm thinking a RCI 2161A with a Artec Fab mount will be a good and safe solution, the ~$400 for the pair is going to hurt though - not to mention the fittings for the modified fuel system... The low height and skinny profile is going to be perfect though.

I ordered a few color swatches from PRP for my seats - I'm going to pickup a pair of the PRP Premier Hi-back seats. I've done quite a bit of reading and wanted a little more build quality than Corbeau without having to spend a mountain of cash - the choice was easy. I'm undecided on sliders at the moment as I'm not sure I have the room for them, but I'll be ordering covers and harnesses.

 

[KyleQ]

More progress - got my windshield wiper motor relocation bracket. Nice piece - real trick how it flips the motor over and lowers it to maintain linkage alignment.

I got the cage kit out of the barn and started mocking it up - an extra hand would have been nice, but bungie cords will do the trick.

Now for sitting on blocks (it was cut short for some reason....) and being held in by bungie cords I'm stoked with how nice everything actually fits. There is room room around the wiper motor, the legs both fit inside of the kick panels and it sits real tight to the dash. I've got some .25 wall 1.75 tubing I'm going to slug and extend the bottom of the cage with - no strength issues there.

I've got my cam on the way - Comp XE264HR. Nothing crazy as I want to put this engine in my 96' Bronco, but enough to notice something is up... I'm at a leisurely pace as not having seats or my bender kinda holds up the project. The seats are 2-3 weeks out and I think the bender is about the same as well - once I've got what I need its go time.

I'd like to see the roll cage in and tied to the frame, suspension seats and harnesses mounted by Memorial weekend. I would like to get a rock ski on the pass side and re-do the door post, but when it comes down to it - it doesn't really need to get done.

More to come-

 

[KyleQ]

Got my swatches - I'm liking the 3rd from the left.

 

[KyleQ]

Ok - got my big box from PRP!

I couldn't wait to test fit them -

Ignore the cage work - it's all getting scrapped. I'm either going to have to move the main hoop back or slant the angle back to have room for my head - the seats will be angled back as well.

The seats do fit nicely and there looks to be room between them, but I'm not sure there is enough room for a C4 shifter... Only time will tell-

The quality of the materials and stitching is awesome -

I got the mud option with a mesh back so I can easily wash the seats out. My RaceTrim seats would literly fill up with sand and mud and it was a PITA!

Time to get motivated - I'm going to hack off what is left of the pass side rocker and straighten the floor out in prep for another rock slider. After the slider is in I'm going to make a new A pillar for the door support and cage tie in.

I got some armor out and I'm looking at getting the rest for the rear 1/4's and the tail light stuff from PNW Bronco's and then tying everything into the cage to make the chassis really stiff.

More to come - started to get motivated again....