In the last week, I ...
installed the "warm white" interior LED kit from
@FullyLitLED ...
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finished my "minimal effort overlanding" sleeping platform ...
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drove some fantastic trails in Cherokee National Forest, TN - the first off-road day of a planned 8 - 10 day trip ...
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blowed up my front differential in that mud hole and drove it 500 miles home with the center locked and some really bad binding & clashing at higher steering angles and slow speeds ...
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and promptly bought a new differential and installed it along with some new CV axles I happened to have had so I can rebuild the ones that came out since one of them (also going to put in new front drive flanges while I have it apart - one of them felt like the splines were starting to round over and it was hard to get on and off of the CV joint splines).
(to help with other people searching for this in the future, the part number is 41110-6A171 and its the 4-spider-gear / 4-pinion front IFS open differential with 4.30:1 gearing - it fits the 1998 through 2002 model years ... don't ask what it cost, I had that memory erased and I black out every time I try to remember)
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Once the front diff is broken in (I'm going to use the 500 mile break-in procedure from Cruiser Outfitters) I'm going to go ahead and ...
- figure out why the rear locker isn't locking
- run extended breathers for the front, rear, & transfer case for peace of mind & street cred
- change all the fluids in the above
- inspect what looks like a coolant leak (please don't be the water pump ...)
- maybe clean it