I've been picking away at little projects on mine to get ready for Fall Crawl....
1 - Took apart e-brakes and installed Superior extended dogbone struts, really helped to firm up the e-brake grab that was always weaker than I preferred. Confident now that it'll hold on a good grade...my driveway is pretty steep, and it holds hard both forward and backward with a normal handle pull. Even when properly adjusted before, it never held this well.
2 - Changed my diff fluids...found the rear to be normal stinky murky fluid without any shavings on the magnet. Front didn't have any shavings either, but was more soupy/frothy and had suspended bubbles in it like a cappuccino foam. Was also a little more grey like the CV grease that came out with my old axles...changed these out to the Longfield 30 spline ChroMo's right before Coal Miner. I did change the inner seals with the axles and the new ones came packed with an orange grease and did the rest of the cavity with Valvoline synthetic. Hoping this was an old issue that had a little joint grease infiltrating the diff fluid, but not really sure that it could have been that much. Birf grease in the old joints was slightly thin, but not a soupy mush like it was full of diff fluid. I'm taking it to the beach this weekend, so I'll check after putting a few hundred miles on it. Still need to change the center diff oil too.
3 - Bumped up to a 1/2" spring spacer in the rear and a 2" Delta unit up front to finally level the truck out a bit. I had the Delta 1" up front at Coal Miner, but still not as balanced as I had hoped. Sitting nice and level now with about a 1/2" rake forward that will flatten out when loaded up a bit. I know that this is not the ideal way to get some lift, but this should help for Fall Crawl with an extra inch clearance on the skids and rear bumper that took a bit of a beating at AOAA. These are in addition to the OME 2" lift as a cheap ($200) way to get some extra clearance. My goal is to go with a Dobinson's upgrade over the winter and still really torn about trying the jump to 37"s or keep the 315's. I'm measuring about 3.5"+ of lift if measured from center of hub to bottom of flare (about 23.75-24").
4 - Got the BellFab interior spare mount installed...showed up a day late for Coal Miner to get it in for that trip...loving the "naked" rear end now and got some Slee caps that fit perfectly on the spindles to protect them with a waterproof o-ringed seal. This gives me the option to pop on the rear swingarm/s with one nut for an extended trip to get the spare back out of the rig.
Sooo, if you've read this far, anyone have a set of 37's on 80 spec wheels that would let me try them on mine just for fit? If so, I'd make it worth the effort for you to give me the final push either way to keep the 315's or bump up at some point.
And some pics for content!