WJ: Build on a Budget

[Turismo07]

Harvey Dam Trip on Easter

Me and a couple of mates decided at the last minute to spend the Easter Mon down in the Harvey dam region for some easy wheeling and relaxing.

We drove down Sun arvo and arrived at Hoffmans Mill campsite just as it started to get dark, got the last campsite avail.

After a late morning sleep in, we had bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast, then set off for the dam area around 10am.

I have only been to Harvey once before for wheeling and didn't really know anything about the area. I know there are fantastic tracks out there that'll test all sorts of crazy rigs but generally I have no idea where they are or where to go. So we just drove around and explored the area and were just happy to do just that. It really is a beautiful place to spend time just chilling and taking it easy.

The vehicles that went was my WJ (obviously), a 2" lifted XJ on 31"s, and my old Jimny.

All the tracks we were driving on, we all had no prob negotiating as they were all easy stuff, however my low WJ just kept banging and scrapping its undercarriage everywhere! I was deliberately making the tacks more difficult by driving bad lines to make it more interesting for myself, but seriously I just can't believe how low the belly is (always had even moderately lifted 4wd's before so not used to wheeling at stock height!). Totally motivating me to lift it, and drive better lol!

Right at the end of the day, approx 4pm, we were on our way out towards the main dirt road to get us back on the hwy to head home and the sun was in our eyes and blinding us everytime there was a break in the trees. I was doing about 50kmh when I was completely blinded by the sun for maybe 5secs (could still make out the edges of the road still though) and happen to run over a fallen tree running right across the road with a 6" thick trunk! Obviously this took us by surprise and I jumped on the UHF to warn my mates following to slow down. Immediately after that I could hear a loud metal on metal rattling coming from the front end of my WJ...

After pulling over and investigating, it was my front right shock that had a stripped thread on the top stem and the nut had come off and nowhere to be found, so the shock had come loose and was banging around in the wheel well. I thought I'd try and remove the shock and drive home without it but when trying to undo the bottom x2 nuts (bar pin style bottom mount with round head studs/bolts pressed into the bar pins), I got one off successfully but the other was rusted and ceased on and trying to undo it meant that I broke the stud/bolt loose in the bar pin causing it to spin freely... .

So what I did was replace the removed nut on the bottom mount, re-located the top stem into its top shock mount (the stock top bush was still sitting in place somehow) and used vice grips on the stem to try and hold it in place while driving home. I also cable tied the vice grips loosely in place just in case they came undone as I didn't want them falling down onto the road or whatever.

Somehow the vice grips did the job and I drove home fine and after checking it when I got home it didn't even look like it had moved .

I personally think that the shocks top nut and stem thread was giving way slowly over time and me running over the tree trunk at speed was just the final straw as there's no way that bump could've done such damage to the threads in one go. Either way I'm glad this happened to me now on this trip when I was leaving instead of on my planned trip in a couple of weeks down south exploring places like Gardiner River which is quite remote.

Now I'm in the process of figuring out what to do to get the shock functioning again, or more importantly my Jeep functioning again! I actually don't have a replacement shock to use and can't get one fast enough before my next trip, that's in my budget anyway (which is nil right now).


Pics:

Our simple campsite at Hoffmans Mill:


Down by the water:


Mates XJ and Jimny:


Parked up before walking a track that was way tooo difficult for any of our vehicles or our experience:


Shock loose after the nut came off after stripping the threads:


Shock back in place, threads stripped and nut missing:


Vice grips holding the shock stem in place for the drive home (cable tied just in case they came loose so I wouldn’t lose them):


Got home and after a few days I had a look under the bonnet to start working out what to do about this shock and I notice the shocky nut had fallen onto the radiator skid plate and stayed there for the whole trip home:


The nut obviously has stripped threads as well:

[Turismo07]

Scored a BB!

In light of my stupid stripped thread on my shock etc, a total unexpected blessing was to find a guy around the corner of me put his WJ up for wrecking.

I went around there and scored his Skyjacker 2" budget boost and Tough Dog RTC steering damper for $100!



Now to get this fitted and everything else I need to get done in prep for my trip on 25/04/13 ..

[Turismo07]

Fitted BB

Pretty straight forward process.

The only thing I did differently was cut the front spacers down to 1.25” instead of keeping the full 2”. Ideally if you’re doing this you want to use a bandsaw as it’s the safest and easiest way to cut it. I couldn’t find anyone with a bandsaw close enough to me so I just used my sawzall, was not a clean cut and very dangerous considering I didn’t have a vice… I do not recommend this..

The reason I did this was that my WJ already has the factory ‘Up Country’ susp that gives 1” of lift (arguably it would’ve sagged a bit over the years, but so would have a stock susp so its relative), and if I had just added the full 2” then it’d be sitting approx 2.5-3” higher than normal. This would put it right in the danger zone for front driveshaft issues and DW when only upgrading the springs/spacers and shocks without touching anything else.. And considering that my WJ has over 250,000km on it the tie rods, CA bushes, and trackbar bushes would not be up to the task. So just wanted to keep things as simple as possible in order to gain a little lift and also get the new (to me) shocks in. I kept the rear spacers at 2” to get some rake on the WJ when its empty but to also compensate for the extra sag that my stock rear springs has compared to the front.

Cutting the spacers down was fun as they normally fit on the front upper soil locator on the WJ’s but this is not straight forward as the locators have a cone shape to them and the spacers incorporate new locators etc. It would be very difficult to successfully cut them down to fit in this location safely. So I cut them down and just fitted them under the front coil instead where they fit much nicer around the lower coil locator.

The new shocks are Skyjackers and the fronts are 23” long fully extended and the rears are 25” fully extended.

Hub to fender measurements:
Before:
FL = 470mm, FR = 445mm, RL = 475mm, RR = 455mm
After (this after approx 30kms of driving around including deliberately on the side of the road on dirt at speed to try and settle the susp a little):
FL = 495mm, FR = 490mm, RL = 515mm, RR = 515mm
Because the right side of my WJ was lower than the left, I swapped the front coils around to try and get it level again, which I came close but ah well (didn’t swap the rears over because I didn’t want to go to the other extreme and have the left side sit lower than the right).

Some important measurements for susp setups that I made while doing this:
• If you have the rzeppa to rzeppa style front driveshaft, you can only allow the front left shock to extend 20” before the front driveshaft CV joint max's out (at the TC end the shaft will bind on the cap resulting a cut CV boot)… This is bad news for me as my front shocks are 23” long (maybe need a limit strap). The way around this is to get a upgraded driveshaft with at least a ‘double carden’ joint at the TC end and a slip joint on the main shaft (more $$$ to spend ).
• With the stock rear swaybar endlinks, the rear susp will only extend 22” before the rear swaybar hits the lower coil seat. The way around this is to get longer swaybar endlinks to reduce the angle of the rear swaybar at full droop.

Also fitted the Tough Dog RTC steering damper. Pretty straight forward, nothing special here.

I also swapped my JKS discos to mount on the outside of the swaybar so that they would clear the chassis at less than 2” lift when trying to disco (although by lifting my WJ I now didn’t need to do this, but thought I’d do it anyway).

Also made a way to secure the swaybar when disco’d by drilling a couple of holes in the wheel well and will just cable tie the bar up there when needed. Will cost me a couple of cable ties each time but I always carry a bunch anyway.

Totally stoked with my purchase, best $100 I’ve ever spend on a vehicle . Its given me some extra much needed ground clearance and drives sooo much better than before. I didn’t think my WJ drove bad before, not great or anything, but it was sloppy and wallowing (thanks to the rear Addco swaybar and waterbed like, but the new Skyjacker shocks (even though they’re not rated as a top of the line shock) were so much better than the garbage Aussie no-name-brand shocks that were on there. And according to my Jeep’s service history these Aussie aftermarket shocks were fitted by Ultratune 18 months ago and when I pulled them out, the rear right was completely stuffed, a baby could’ve compressed it, it had absolutely no damping force whatsoever, and not to mention my front shock’s stripped thread issue! Also the TD TRC steering damper is a interesting unit, never had one before and the extra coil really makes a difference to the steering feel. The steering literally just wants to return to centre all the time, and the further you turn the steering away from centre the harder the resistance. Its not a bad thing and its not overbearing, but you can def feel the diff. not sure if I love or dislike it.

But hey, I would not have personally chose any of the above myself if buying new, but $100 for the lot, I’m not complaining!!

Next on the list is along these lines are:
• Adjust bumpstops to suit shocks (just didn’t have time and the resources to get it done all at once, so have to take it easy offroad so I don’t hammer the shocks in their compressed state)
• Source a double carden front driveshaft
• Keep an eye out for new bigger tyres (mine are almost illegally bald, and they don’t grip on anything..)


Pics:

The ceased/rusted front lower bar pin shock bolt that I cut off in order to remove the front right shock:


2” front BB spacer cut in 2 pieces:


Here’s the x2 new front spacers cut down, one upside down to show the bevelled inner edge (this bevelled edge fits perfectly around the lower front coil locator – without it and the spacer would not fit at all on the lower coil locator):


The cut down spacer’s measure 1.25”:


This is the lower coil locator where the spacers will sit, they are just under 2” tall and with the 1.25” spacer mounted there will be 0.5-0.75” exposed that the lower coil isolator will hang onto and locate the coil:


Front shock side by side (Skyjacker shock = 23” fully extended, and 14” compressed):


Fronts done:


Rear 2” spacer fitted as normal, at full droop with the rear swaybar connected showing where it binds using ‘standard’ length endlinks (will only allow the rear shock to extend 22” with this setup, therefore need longer endlinks to get around this):


Rear shock side by side (Skyjacker shock = 25” fully extended, and 16” compressed):


Rears done:


Tough Dog steering damper fitted:


Holes cut for the cable tie, did this on both sides, these cable ties will remain here permanently and another cable tie will be used to loop through the disco and the permanent cable tie to secure the disco:


Disco secured out of the way:


How the WJ sits now:

[Turismo07]

Roof Rack Crossbars

Replaced my factory crossbars with some tubing.

The factory crossbars started to get a bit loose in the way that I could grab onto Rola roof basket and rattle it and the movement was in the crossbars as they mounted in the roof rails. This would allow the whole rack when loaded up to rattle around on the roof which isn’t good esp when driving on corrugations.

I already had some square tubing at home that I was going to do something similar with, but when I was getting the BB from the wrecked WJ the guy had already done this to his so I just grabbed them off his WJ as they were already cut to length and the holes were already drilled and it saved me a bit of time..

They are rough looking with some rust on them etc so will need to sand it down and paint it later on but for now I just wanted to get them on as time running out to prep for my trip.

Pretty simple install, just literally needed to drill through the factory roof rails and the tubing and put a bolt through.

The roof basket is totally solid now without any movement at all and can easily mount an awning and other stuff on the sides if I want.


Pics:

This is before on factory crossbars:


Roof basket mounted on factory crossbar (the factory crossbars mounts into the factory roof rails with a hard plastic fitting, no doubt its tough and durable ‘plastic’, but overtime they do wear and allow movement, and makes me worried that my roof basket is going to fall off on corrugated roads):


Now with square tubing with bolt going through the tube and roof rail and roof basket mounted:


How it looks after - I hate roof racks/baskets that sit unnecessarily high on vehicles so was worried that the tubing might push up high, but its actually not too bad IMO, looks higher in the pic for some reason, could be lower bit its prob the max height I’d tolerate:


Plenty of space there for an awning, hilift, etc:

[Turismo07]

ANZAC Weekend Away

I had this trip planned for ages with my mates and the date set to go and explore the D'Entrecastreaux NP in the South West of WA. This is a late post as ANZAC day was a few weeks ago now as I was going to make my trip report a little more tailored to this forum, but can't be bothered now so I've just cut and paste my trip report from a Perth based forum . I've also got some vids which I might edit together etc when I can be bothered..


So myself and a bunch of mates (x4 vehicles in total) wanted to explore D'Entrecastreaux NP primarily visiting places like Fish Creek Hut, Moores Hut, Coodamurrup Beach, Gardner River etc. Basically the coastline between Windy Harbour and Broke Inlet. So first thing ANZAC day morning we headed off with Fish Creek Hut set as our first camp.

Fish Creek Hut:

From top of the hill:



Sunset from top of hill:


From cliffs:


Front entrance/driveway:


Exploring the Cliffs Nearby:




Then we set off to explore the area and find a spot for our next camp

Some of the gorgeous landscape you travel through down here:


Went as far east as we could which I think was West Cliff Point, and then turned around and headed back towards Coodamurrup Beach as every campsite area we came across was already occupied.

As we got to the dunes on Coodamurrup Beach we started to have some fun getting stuck mainly cos our tyres were running about 20psi.

As I was first I found out the hard way but still managed to get around easily enough, but the Cruiser got himself bogged first:



Then me trying to come back up the dune to snatch him - I made it up first time, the Cruiser followed and got stuck at the top, then when I was coming up the 2nd time I lifted off the throttle to drop speed so I didn't hit my mates Cruiser (or anybody standing nearby) and lost too much momentum, then when reversing back down I kept crabbing towards the drop off... , so just got another mate to snatch me back:


After this we all had our tyres down to sand pressures and myself and my mate in the black XJ Cherokee had no issues driving around, we were mainly just messing around in the area as we really didn't need to be here as weren't planning to fish or camp in the area lol. The Cruiser still wasn't too comfortable in the dunes but mainly due to lack of HP and the other ZJ Grand Cherokee was struggling with a misfire which we later found out was the wiring to a O2 sensor that had been ripped off (brand new and only fitted 1 week before our trip..).

The misfire on the ZJ led to lack of power, which led to getting stuck on the same hill as me. But instead of doing what I did by trying to reverse down and end up crabbing over to the drop, we used this opportunity to test out the Cruiser's new winch:




Got the ZJ’s O2 sensor fixed on the track by twisting the wires back together.

Ended up camping not far from Coodmarrup Beach on a nice grassy area as all the other campsites were taken, but we were happy with this:



Full moon that night:



The next day was making our way towards Gardner River.

The Gardner River crossing was easy, approx 1m high max, was enough to get the Cruiser’s diffs completely submerged and he’s running 35” tires, the base is slightly rocky but very hard with plenty of traction. Absolutely nothing to worry about at all.

The road I wanted to take was Lower Gardner River Road which according to maps would take us right down to the river mouth on the west side, but this was closed and meant that we actually had to head all the way out onto Windy Harbour Road, which meant air up again and drive down to Windy Harbour.

Stopped in Windy Harbour and emptied out all our rubbish that we'd accumulated over the last few days in their bins and headed east towards Gardner River.

Again most of the campsites, huts etc were already taken but we did manage to find a nice little one free. Was really tight to fit all of us as there wasn’t much flat ground for the tents and swags:



Our spot on the river where we tried to fish, no luck at all but nice spot to chill out for a while:



On the last day we packed up and headed back to Windy Harbour again to air up before making our way back to Perth:


We all had a great time in The D’Entrecastreaux NP. It's is an absolutely beautiful place to visit, and I can’t wait to head back now that I sort of know my way around there a bit better, will also like to check out Broke Inlet next time as we didn’t have time to this trip.

[Turismo07]

New Front Driver's Seat

My front driver's seat always had a tare in the leather. it didn't bother me too much cos the WJ didn't cost me very much. Torn leather is to be expected for a vehicle of this age, but overall apart from the driver's seat the rest was in great condition.

So lucky me I came across a guy selling the exact same seat as my WJ (throughout the WJ models and years, they had 7 different interior trims). Went and checked it out, it was in great condition, so gave him $50 for it.


Pics:

Old seat:


New seat:

[Turismo07]

Mundaring Powerlines

http://youtu.be/LOkemjF9Gow

How do I embed a vid like I see most people do on forums..?

[Clarky]

paste the web address of the youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOkemjF9Gow&feature=youtu.be

Delete http:// & =youtu.be

[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOkemjF9Gow&feature[/ame]