CJ7 junk yard parts bin on 42's

Finally had time to wrench and got the trans , t case and engine bolted back together. Little man and I got her back in last night - super tight with the exhaust in the way now. Hope to wire it back up and make all the other connections today and get it running.

Twin sticked the Dana 300 while it was out to. New gaskets and seals on everything... IMG_20231222_192845908.jpg
 
Got it connected enough to run. Rolled over once and then lit off just like it ran yesterday. Now for driveshafts, fluid top offs, run the light harness back through the grill etc.

Ordered a sniper 2 for it yesterday. That'll be here next week. May run the carb for a week or so and dump some B12 down it to clean all the gunk out before installing the EFI.
 
New hardtop on
New door and winder gaskets (that was a royal pain)
Fluids topped off
New rear main seal leaks worse than the original - irritating so I dumped some seal swelling juice in and it'll be fine...

New tires and wheels in way of 40" Mickey thompson MTZ's that @Croatan_Kid found for me local, and some new H2 wheels. Plan is for this to bring the rpms down at highway speeds. Still run the 42 TSL's on beadlocks in the woods

And smeared from VGG gloss shine juice clear coat on it. This stuff is amazing, we're talking @CasterTroy tire shine level of gloss. Literally took 5 minutes, wiped it on and it laid down flat. If you have some faded out old rig that you want people to wow at this stuff if the deal. Only regret is I mixed about half the can and had twice as much as I needed. So without any prep at all I cleared the undermount boxes on the gooseneck and even those look amazing.

Drives great, went for fuel and ran 60 easily, tires are louder than the 35" falken MT's but run just as smooth.

Pic doesn't show hardtop or lights but whatever...that happened the next day. Tires fill in the fenders much better than the dink 35's and daily driving 40's is the deal.

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Drove it to church today. Runs 70mph easily, straight and smooth. Not sure mpg is improved with 40's but rpm is down. Speedometer is way off. 55 on the dash = 70 on the GPS, need to get a different gear for the tail shaft. Rear main is really puking, can't ignore this one. Have to do that again next weekend... uhg.

Of course it rained so the shine juice is covered with grit...
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The third rear main seal seems to have slowed the leak down to what the original seal's leak was... great. Going to dump some seal sweller juice in and call that done for now. Thinking it's going to take some machine work to 100% solve this. Get around to that when I drop in a 440 source stroker kit further down the road.

Got to install the sniper kit when I get a free weekend later this month. Trim and install the new motobilt trans tunnel cover (factory one has been hacked but is still in and covering most of the holes). New speedo gear for better calibration with the 40's and it's hopefully good for this phase.

Next phase is the ecobox and 205 project. Even with the xj leaf stretch and rear shackles hanging off the rear bumper I don't know that the rear drive shaft can handle the extra drivetrain length. Is it 4 link time? Pretty satisfied with the leaf spring ride and flex, never been in a full linked coilover rig, is it light years ahead? I suspect it would float like a sxs right? But can you daily drive a coil overed rig on the hwy at 75mph with 40's? Would I need sway bars? Lots of questions...

Y'all master fab money bags need to educate me on the realities of daily driver + cripple Creek conquering, boat hauling, muscle car era powered, CJ7 possibilities. Should I just keep if leaf sprung and figure out the rear shaft length with the ecobox and keep sending it or is 4 link and coils the legit next step? If so is it simply 4 link fab, oris or ??? air bumps and sway bars? What am I missing?
 
Clubbs said:
The third rear main seal seems to have slowed the leak down to what the original seal's leak was... great. Going to dump some seal sweller juice in and call that done for now. Thinking it's going to take some machine work to 100% solve this. Get around to that when I drop in a 440 source stroker kit further down the road.

Got to install the sniper kit when I get a free weekend later this month. Trim and install the new motobilt trans tunnel cover (factory one has been hacked but is still in and covering most of the holes). New speedo gear for better calibration with the 40's and it's hopefully good for this phase.

Next phase is the ecobox and 205 project. Even with the xj leaf stretch and rear shackles hanging off the rear bumper I don't know that the rear drive shaft can handle the extra drivetrain length. Is it 4 link time? Pretty satisfied with the leaf spring ride and flex, never been in a full linked coilover rig, is it light years ahead? I suspect it would float like a sxs right? But can you daily drive a coil overed rig on the hwy at 75mph with 40's? Would I need sway bars? Lots of questions...

Y'all master fab money bags need to educate me on the realities of daily driver + cripple Creek conquering, boat hauling, muscle car era powered, CJ7 possibilities. Should I just keep if leaf sprung and figure out the rear shaft length with the ecobox and keep sending it or is 4 link and coils the legit next step? If so is it simply 4 link fab, oris or ??? air bumps and sway bars? What am I missing?
Click to expand...
Not that my opinion is worth much. But itā€™s all in how the suspension and shocks are set up. Ultimately you should be able to find a middle ground of driving and crawling. But to be perfect youā€™d need to choose one or the other. Going from leafs to links and crawling shit I used to have to beat on to be rejected, itā€™s worth it. You donā€™t realize what you donā€™t have til you switch over. And I know mines no where near setup right lol šŸ˜‚
 
Maybe just link the rear., That's what I did to my Jeepster and it has been very solid and it really grew it up on the rocks. I don't daily it or even have it tagged but the few times I've driven it on road it has been fine at all speeds. And with just linking the rear you shouldn't need a sway bar unless your front springs are all gooey.
 
R Q said:
Maybe just link the rear., That's what I did to my Jeepster and it has been very solid and it really grew it up on the rocks. I don't daily it or even have it tagged but the few times I've driven it on road it has been fine at all speeds. And with just linking the rear you shouldn't need a sway bar unless your front springs are all gooey.
Click to expand...
Yep! Thatā€™s where I started was linking the rear. After 20 sets of xj leafs I could have linked it 10x. After the rears it was a night and day.
 
You don't have to run coilovers/airshocks/Oris. You can just do coil springs and shocks. If your current rear shocks ride well, you can reuse them. Could run jk springs.

Big advantages are no axle wrap, wheel hop, and departure angle vs leafs
 
Was thinking I could package coils in the back and then eventually graduate to coil overs.

Already roached a set of xj leaves too even with the anti wrap bar. Breakover angle is decent with the 42's, but there's all this leaf spring stuff on the axle. Pretty sure I could get links to have less hardware below the axle...
 
Just been driving the mess out of it lately. Sniper 2 is still on the bench hoping to get that installed this month.

Drove it to work today since my son needed the ram for other projects. My commute is 75 miles one way. Haven't regeared the speedo for the 40's but this is at 55mph per the speedometer:

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Nice and smooth at 10mpg... at around 6:30 am

Well sort of. Had a noticable driveshaft hum at 70mph. This is the rear shaft that got pretzelled in Bear Wallow a few years ago and got cobbled back together on the side of a mountain. Ordered a new one today.
 
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And this just happened on the way home...

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Felt it start going at a light so pulled over before it did any damage. A few forward-neutral-reverse cycles and she dropped out...
 
New shaft runs smooth...
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Changed out the speedometer gear also so that's more realistic, and put the dust cover back on the trans bellhousing now that the rear main is dry - finally.

Considering putting some dynomat or similar on the bottom of the floor (frame side) to keep the heat down. I wrapped the exhaust and that helped some. The floor pans are original and I like the originality of the bare floor and don't want carpet on the inside. But don't want the stick on dyno mat trapping water / mud and rusting the tub out from the bottom side Any thoughts/ suggestions???
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