Box Rocket
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- #401
Thanks for the kind words!
Builds Box Rocket 1995 FZJ80 Build (1 Viewer)
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Box Rocket
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- Thread starter
- #402
Well...after driving an 80 series for 16 years on 35's with stock gears, I now have 4.88's. I still feel like a gear swap is not a requirement to run 35's on an 80. Stock gears are adequate. However, the 4.88's feel GREAT! General power feels better and the truck pulls better on the highway. I can cruise at 75-80mph comfortably. Sure it revs a bit higher but not like I'm flogging it. I don't have enough time with them yet to see what kind of change (if any) in fuel economy.
.
The other change is the brake pads. Darren McRae sent me a set of Carbon pads from Australia. There are likely equivalent pads here in the US but I know Darren would send me the correct thing and would save me the search of finding them here. Its necessary to resurface the rotors to remove any residue from the old pads. Bedding the Carbon pads makes A LOT of brake dust, like completely covered the wheels and calipers. Brake dust should subside a bit after that. Braking performance feels a lot better. I should have done some measured tests with the old pads and done some comparisons for stopping distance etc. Alas, I didn't so it's purely a seat of the pants feel. One thing I will say is that with my old OEM pads I could mash the brake pedal to the floor (on asphalt) and the truck would come to a stop but never hint at engaging the ABS. With these new pads, the ABS still didn't kick on, but all 4 wheels were screeching and the truck comes to a stop noticeably quicker. The pads can make a bit of noise under braking, but nothing overly annoying. Overall, really happy with the upgrade.
.
The other change is the brake pads. Darren McRae sent me a set of Carbon pads from Australia. There are likely equivalent pads here in the US but I know Darren would send me the correct thing and would save me the search of finding them here. Its necessary to resurface the rotors to remove any residue from the old pads. Bedding the Carbon pads makes A LOT of brake dust, like completely covered the wheels and calipers. Brake dust should subside a bit after that. Braking performance feels a lot better. I should have done some measured tests with the old pads and done some comparisons for stopping distance etc. Alas, I didn't so it's purely a seat of the pants feel. One thing I will say is that with my old OEM pads I could mash the brake pedal to the floor (on asphalt) and the truck would come to a stop but never hint at engaging the ABS. With these new pads, the ABS still didn't kick on, but all 4 wheels were screeching and the truck comes to a stop noticeably quicker. The pads can make a bit of noise under braking, but nothing overly annoying. Overall, really happy with the upgrade.
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They should improve over the coming week or so with more driving as well.
In our testing the brake pad and rotor package will pull up a full maximum weight 80 on 35s in less distance than a stock 80 on standard tyres.
The Carbon pads will do it time after time after time.
Afew weeekends ago coming home from a snow trip, we have a 30 mile downhill mountain road from Mt Hotham, to Harriotville, which has many 10-30 mph advisory corners. The Jeep Grand SRT8 that was moving along quickly got overtaken by a loaded turbo intercooled 80 on 35 MTRs with this brake set up, and leaving the Jeep behind for a while. I oops I mean the 80 then slowed to let the jeep catch up again, before pulling away, then let the Jeep past and followed closely for some way, until the big red brakes on the jeep were smoking
A good 80 can do many things well.
In our testing the brake pad and rotor package will pull up a full maximum weight 80 on 35s in less distance than a stock 80 on standard tyres.
The Carbon pads will do it time after time after time.
Afew weeekends ago coming home from a snow trip, we have a 30 mile downhill mountain road from Mt Hotham, to Harriotville, which has many 10-30 mph advisory corners. The Jeep Grand SRT8 that was moving along quickly got overtaken by a loaded turbo intercooled 80 on 35 MTRs with this brake set up, and leaving the Jeep behind for a while. I oops I mean the 80 then slowed to let the jeep catch up again, before pulling away, then let the Jeep past and followed closely for some way, until the big red brakes on the jeep were smoking
A good 80 can do many things well.
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Wear is very good with pad and rotor, mud grit and water doesnt effect them or their performance while wet like normal pads, and the friction co efficient of them cold is better than most performance pads have hot.
Box Rocket
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- #407
I was running OEM 80 Series pads prior to the carbon pads. The 100 series pads are the same as 80 pads, just a bit thicker, IIRC.
Box Rocket
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- #408
This is what I'm looking forward to most. Better resistance to fade. On "spirited" drives I was pretty consistently heating up the OEM brakes enough that I was getting significant fade and needed to drop speeds to allow them to cool. That's no fun. It's much more enjoyable to keep going fast.The Carbon pads will do it time after time after time.
A good 80 can do many things well.
Additionally, since the upgrade to the Slinky/Icon suspension my speeds are probably 30-50% higher offroad so corner entry speeds are higher and require a bit more braking, which leads to more heat. All that said, the new suspension does allow better speed through corners too, so I don't have to scrub as much speed. Win - win.
It still feels very odd to me to talk about an 80 in this way with "corner entry speeds" and "brake fade" etc. This is more sports car talk and seems very foreign when talking about a cruiser, but I'm learning that an 80 really can "perform" at better speeds than many of us are used to.
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We had a spin in the bush on the weekend with some dealers in town with my 80, and a hybrid truck and after the morning run,
" I have never been in an 80 you can throw around like a rally car.... f&%$#@g awesome"
A good 80 can do many things well.
" I have never been in an 80 you can throw around like a rally car.... f&%$#@g awesome"
A good 80 can do many things well.
Box Rocket
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- #410
haha, yes. Now I'm looking at upgrading the rear sway bar too. It's a good thing superchargers were discontinued. My wallet....er...my wife would never forgive me.We had a spin in the bush on the weekend with some dealers in town with my 80, and a hybrid truck and after the morning run,
" I have never been in an 80 you can throw around like a rally car.... f&%$#@g awesome"
A good 80 can do many things well.
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In stock, and I have some gear shipping to Redline this week.
Having had 3 turbo 80s and 1 supercharged, the turbo with 310 rw hp and 550 rw ft lb with auto, modded higher stall converter to get on max boost faster, 4.56s, 35's, is pretty good for a 7300lb truck. Easier to ask the wife for forgiveness, than permission
Having had 3 turbo 80s and 1 supercharged, the turbo with 310 rw hp and 550 rw ft lb with auto, modded higher stall converter to get on max boost faster, 4.56s, 35's, is pretty good for a 7300lb truck. Easier to ask the wife for forgiveness, than permission
Not too late..... Just installed mine a month or two ago.
Box Rocket
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- #414
Hopefully soon. The gears are being looked at again. I was getting some noise from the rear diff so once that's taken care of I'll be able to give better feedback.
Box Rocket
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- #416
I did see a drop in temps but it wasn't huge. Probably 10-15* lower than with the factory intake. All that said, temps this summer in Utah have been mostly around 100* so ambient temps have been hot to begin with. Through the summer I was seeing 180-190* intake temps.
Box Rocket
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- #417
Little update. I had my new 4.88 Nitro gears installed recently by a local shop (which I won't name) that I've had generally a good experience with in the past. I had considered doing the gear setup myself but I'd only be able to work on it a couple hours a night after work and it would have likely taken me most of the week to get it all buttoned back up. So for the sake of time I had this shop do the work since it was only going to take them two days. That two days turned into 3 weeks for a number of reasons that I can't even remember at this point. When they said it was done, I went to pick it up. During the drive home, there was a distinct noise from the rear diff. There was also a leak at the front pinion seal. It was frustrating especially after how long the truck had been at the shop (which is what I wanted to avoid by taking it to the shop in the first place), but I called the shop and they had me bring it back to take care of the issues.
I got a call saying that the only noise they could hear was tire noise. I chuckled because the noise was obvious and there should be no way they missed it. So I went to the shop and took a test drive with the tech to point out the noise. I was able to point out the noise in the first 30 seconds of the drive which the tech acknowledged and said he'd have to pull the diff back apart. Back into the shop.
After a few more days I get a call saying that they have had multiple techs looking at it to verify the setup was correct and backlash etc was right, but they could not get rid of the noise and said it must be a problem with the gears. So I got a hold of Carl @ Nitro and he was awesome. While it meant I'd be without the truck for a bit longer he had us ship the diff to him in Washington and said they'd go through it and make sure everything was just right. Turned out that there was a bad bearing (could have been from bad preload during the install at the shop) which Carl replaced and for good measure he swapped out the ring and pinion as well just so that he knew there would not be other issues. They sent it back to the shop and everything was put back together. We were now 6 weeks after I had originally dropped it off. I drove home again.
There was now noise coming from the front end. In addition, the passenger side rear axle seal was leaking and there was damage to my front driveshaft. It was pretty obvious that the dustcap at the splines had been spinning against the front swaybar, which is not possible during normal driving or at full droop. My only explanation was that the truck must have been moved at the shop with the diff end of the front shaft detached so it was hanging against the swaybar. I was getting pretty irritated at this point. I took the driveshaft to a local driveshaft shop that built it for me a few years ago (DC front shaft) to have them check the ujoints etc to rule out the driveshaft was causing the noise. The driveshaft/ujoints were all good and the damage was limited to just the dust cap that they replaced free of charge. I still took the truck back to the shop to have them fix the axle seal.
I had a Moab trip coming up that weekend and told the shop I was still getting noise from the front end and would bring it back in after my trip since I had already changed the dates of the trip twice because of how long this "two day job" had taken. I still had a couple days before the trip and I decided I'd dig into the front end myself to see what I could find. I picked up a front end rebuild kit from Cruiser Outfitters and tore it apart that evening. More disappointment. The driveside wheel bearing was WAY to tight and by my estimation was torqued to about 60ft/lb and the bearing was cooked. The knuckles were almost totally empty with very little grease. The passenger side wheel bearing nuts were not much more than finger tight and I estimated set to ~12ft/lb at most. So I tore the whole thing down and replaced all the seals and all 4 knuckle bearings and wheel bearings. I notified the shop of the condition I found it in that was clearly carelessness on their part.
The end of the story is that the front end is all done correctly now (by me) and the noise seems to be gone, go figure. Needless to say, I was angry and frustrated with the shop for the shoddy work and for 6 weeks of time to do a 2 day job. However, I have to give major props to Carl and Nitro for stepping up and taking care of the diff even when the issues with it were likely not even their problem. Excellent customer service from them! Same goes for Six States for taking care of the driveshaft free of charge, and for Cruiser Outfitters for having a good knuckle service kit that makes that job much easier.
Glad that's all over!
Damaged driveshaft
This is how I found the knuckles
On the up side, the Moab trip was great! Really enjoyed the lower gears on the drive and on the trail. Per usual, the sliders, bumpers and some control arms got some rockrash. My SCS wheels got a bit of rash too, but no biggie.
I got a call saying that the only noise they could hear was tire noise. I chuckled because the noise was obvious and there should be no way they missed it. So I went to the shop and took a test drive with the tech to point out the noise. I was able to point out the noise in the first 30 seconds of the drive which the tech acknowledged and said he'd have to pull the diff back apart. Back into the shop.
After a few more days I get a call saying that they have had multiple techs looking at it to verify the setup was correct and backlash etc was right, but they could not get rid of the noise and said it must be a problem with the gears. So I got a hold of Carl @ Nitro and he was awesome. While it meant I'd be without the truck for a bit longer he had us ship the diff to him in Washington and said they'd go through it and make sure everything was just right. Turned out that there was a bad bearing (could have been from bad preload during the install at the shop) which Carl replaced and for good measure he swapped out the ring and pinion as well just so that he knew there would not be other issues. They sent it back to the shop and everything was put back together. We were now 6 weeks after I had originally dropped it off. I drove home again.
There was now noise coming from the front end. In addition, the passenger side rear axle seal was leaking and there was damage to my front driveshaft. It was pretty obvious that the dustcap at the splines had been spinning against the front swaybar, which is not possible during normal driving or at full droop. My only explanation was that the truck must have been moved at the shop with the diff end of the front shaft detached so it was hanging against the swaybar. I was getting pretty irritated at this point. I took the driveshaft to a local driveshaft shop that built it for me a few years ago (DC front shaft) to have them check the ujoints etc to rule out the driveshaft was causing the noise. The driveshaft/ujoints were all good and the damage was limited to just the dust cap that they replaced free of charge. I still took the truck back to the shop to have them fix the axle seal.
I had a Moab trip coming up that weekend and told the shop I was still getting noise from the front end and would bring it back in after my trip since I had already changed the dates of the trip twice because of how long this "two day job" had taken. I still had a couple days before the trip and I decided I'd dig into the front end myself to see what I could find. I picked up a front end rebuild kit from Cruiser Outfitters and tore it apart that evening. More disappointment. The driveside wheel bearing was WAY to tight and by my estimation was torqued to about 60ft/lb and the bearing was cooked. The knuckles were almost totally empty with very little grease. The passenger side wheel bearing nuts were not much more than finger tight and I estimated set to ~12ft/lb at most. So I tore the whole thing down and replaced all the seals and all 4 knuckle bearings and wheel bearings. I notified the shop of the condition I found it in that was clearly carelessness on their part.
The end of the story is that the front end is all done correctly now (by me) and the noise seems to be gone, go figure. Needless to say, I was angry and frustrated with the shop for the shoddy work and for 6 weeks of time to do a 2 day job. However, I have to give major props to Carl and Nitro for stepping up and taking care of the diff even when the issues with it were likely not even their problem. Excellent customer service from them! Same goes for Six States for taking care of the driveshaft free of charge, and for Cruiser Outfitters for having a good knuckle service kit that makes that job much easier.
Glad that's all over!
Damaged driveshaft
This is how I found the knuckles
On the up side, the Moab trip was great! Really enjoyed the lower gears on the drive and on the trail.
Per usual, the sliders, bumpers and some control arms got some rockrash. My SCS wheels got a bit of rash too, but no biggie.
Thanks for the report and the motivation do more jobs ourselves.
RiverCityDave
SILVER Star
This is why I do everything I can myself. This sort of thing happens so often to be almost commonplace. I have a good service shop near my house that I use for little thing s requiring special tools (AC work and the like) but i try to do everything else myself, or only deal with proven folks on the few things I feel are beyond my scope. Unfortunately gear work is one of those things I have very limit d experience with, and my front diff is in need of a rebuild.
Box Rocket
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- #420
precisely. I also do most everything myself with a few exceptions. I believe I can probably do a ring&pinion setup but I don't have a lot of experience with it so it's one job I consider hiring out. Ironically, in this case had I known it would take as long as it did, I'd have done it myself, but I chose to take it to the shop because it was supposed to go much quicker than if I were to do it.
