Picked Up A 71 For A Buddy Of Mine......

Anytime she complains..... I just tell her.... "If this doesn't get done, you wont be driving on the Rubicon trip."

 

I may or may not have woke up at 6:15 Sun morning....wandered outside the hotel in my underwear and fished around the cooler for a beer..... "Shower Beer" helped a bunch.....
"After Breakfast Beer" made me a little sleepy..... The short nap I took on the way to lunch really helped...
You know you are hung over when you are able take a nap in the front seat of a CJ5 while your wife bounces it down a logging road. I slept hard enough that I had a dream we were fighting off a Monitor Lizard with rocks and sticks.....

 

Drive shafts are installed!
The orange dots are showing up everywhere, the more orange dots, the closer we are to driving!







I am anticipating that the normal 6" deep water spots on the Rubicon will be 16" deep this year. Axle vents hoses will run up to the engine compartment in the front and inner fender well in the rear.





Installed a new High/Low beam switch.

 

That thing is starting to look pretty clean underneath.

 

First drive last night!!!!!



Drove the jeep about 15 miles yesterday.
First impressions.......
Dana 18's are annoying..... Sm420's are equally annoying..... Hopefully they will be less annoying when all of the floorboards are installed.
The engine runs excellent! 1980 even fire 231 does not have as much HP as the oddfire dauntless.
13" clown car steering wheel is going in the trash can ASAP.
Stock power steering pump does not have enough pressure/volume for ram assist.
Overall the jeep is very stable on road, actually drives fairly well.

 

Killer!

SM420 is annoying, yes.... No getting around it, but that low gear......D18.. over drive, what else can you say? Buick V6 225 is the best stock jeep engine ever. Whats the fix for the PS pump?

 

New high pressure, high volume pump from PSC.
I have read where a stock pump can be adjusted.... but that is a bit of trial and error, I don't have the time for that right now.... so I shell out the big bucks instead.

 

Steve’s ‘71 is looking great! Can’t wait to see it on the trail!

 

The weekend was very productive.
Lots of little things were buttoned up, a good chunk of Saturday went to sorting out the taillight wiring. I do not believe the jeep had rear marker lights the entire time Steve owned it. Brake and signals worked, just no running lights. I ended up pulling all the wiring down to the floorboard and installing a new used headlight switch from the parts stash as well as a cigarette lighter outlet.

A ton of useless wire was removed from the harness!





Steve had a trasharoo type of bag hanging on his spare tire. I never bothered to look in it until Sunday, figuring it was stuffed full of trash still....... I removed it from the tire and walked it out to the dumpster.
Imagine my surprise to find this in the bag!

 

So it was a "tool a roo"? Looks like he was aware of the wiring issues...

 

A while back I teased about the front tubular crossmember that was welded in to address the floppy front frame horns. That front crossmember not only strengthens the front of the frame, it serves as a housing for the front swaybar.
On my jeep I installed a Currie Antirock swaybar system. I am very happy with the Currie system, however it was pretty expensive for what you got.
Speedway Engineering makes custom swaybars in a variety of diameters and lengths. The Currie bar is .700 in diameter with bell shaped ends to fit all of their arms. Speedway offers a straight .750 diameter bar with 3/4" ends that takes up less real estate behind the bumper. The swaybar links and rod ends are 7/16" diameter sourced from McMaster Carr.
Overall I am into this swaybar assembly roughly half the cost of the name brand unit.





The swaybar bushings were made out of delrin, the same material the Currie uses. $20 for a 12" long chunk at McMaster Carr.









The swaybar is 32" long.





Speedway Engineering supplies the sway bar arms blank so the user can custom fit them to their application.
These arms come in 1-1/4"x1/2" steel, 14" long. For my application I needed an additional 4" added to them.
The extensions were made out of 3/8"x2" flat bar.





Please forgive my sloppy a*% welding..... It was one of those days.....





Mocking up and measuring for the axle mount location. It is important to turn the wheels to full lock so that you can make sure the swaybar link does not contact the tie rod!





I am really happy with the final product! I feel like it needs a sticker of some sort on it.

 

RE: Swaybar^
Once again I'm learning about stuff and resources, thanks! But some questions too: How does the sway bar affect articulation? I'm thinking about your fork lift photos... Also thinking about how my stock Wagon handles; cornering isn't its best feature. I think back to a story about a frame swap a couple of Jeep engineers did putting a Wagon body on a late model Jeep. It had a sway bar but also had a disconnect. I thought that was pretty cool but a frame swap is way beyond my everything. Seeing your set up here makes me wonder if just adding one would help; my Wagon is a daily driver so road manners are a priority.
And the disconnect thing brings me to my other vehicle; a '16 4x4 Sprinter. An after market company makes a very simple disco that claims better off road articulation with the bar being disconnected, hence my original question.

 

This is an offroad swaybar, with the small 3/4" diameter and 18" long arms it is not stiff like a traditional on road swaybar.
It could be better described as a 5th spring which distributes load for increased traction offroad.
For your wagon I would imagine that a later model swaybar would work just fine. It certainly would improve on road handling.

 

Missed a couple pics in the weekend update post.
Side shot of the swaybar and link at a 90 degree angle.




Winch installed and tested.
I added the "quick" recovery hook on the passenger side and the shackle mount on the driver side.
It's very tempting to just leave the front bumper off........

 

That was good torpedo juice!

 

Lightweight

 

Looking at a few options including a shackle style. Just liking your version and the clean install.

 

My 69 jeep needed a new set of AT's prior to this years Rubicon trip. AT style tread is perfect for daily driving my 69.
Steve's 71 will never be the freeway runner than my jeep is.... so I picked these General Grabber X3's up on Memorial Day sale. 33x10.5x15
Flex testing the swaybar.

 

Kyle, you need to set the glass pipe down and back away!….you have been working your a$$ off for over a month to get this thing close to your standards and now on to your rig and you have been keeping us all happy by posting pics of your progress, thank you. I just want mine back in my garage so I can prep it for Rubicon trip.

 

I have actually been feeling bad for you.....
This must be torture not being able to work on your jeep.... and then I just go posting boundless amazing upgrades on a jeep 3 weeks before the Rubicon trip.