Nice pics!
I plan on doing a little write up when I get the chance.
Anyway, long story short....
The body lift pushed the radiator far enough up that the fan was hitting the bottom of the shroud (as Garrett mentioned). It wasn't really that bad until it got hot and the blades expanded, I noticed that as it cooled it became progressively easier to turn.
Anyway, after I overheated and let the engine cool down I drove back to Garretts house blasting the heater full on. Mmmm, that was fun in 90* weather!
Garrett and I pulled the cover that holds the radiator and condenser off, the battery, and the battery box. We then were able to pull the brackets on both sides of the radiator.
The brackets have two bushings on them that isolates the radiator from the body.
Code:
____
[---|---]
----|----
[---|---]
----|----
===
If you can imagine the === as being the captive nut (unfortunatly welded to the bracket) and the | as the bolt. The [---] ones are the bushings, and the ----- is the bracket. Top bracket attaches to the radiator, bottom to the body (so the bushings rest on top of the body mount, the radiator bracket is sandwiched between the bushings).
Dang, I shoulda gotten a pic of that.
Anyway, the bottom bushing (between the two brackets) we cut about 3/4ths of it off, it ended up being about half an inch. The top radiator mounts (which bolts directly to the frame with another set of rubbing bushings to isolate it) we had to drill about 1/4th an inch lower than the stock holes. Don't ask me where that other 1/4th an inch went.
It was really a quite easy mod that had I known needed to be done I think could have been knocked out in 30-60 minutes. Garrett and I did it in about two and a half hours, but most of that time was spent figuring out what we were doing.
Also the drivers side front body mount would have been easier to access. :whoops:
Anyway, the fan sits a bit off center now in the shroud. I don't think it's a big deal, if anything the extra gap between the bumper and body should add to air flow, so it probably ends up being a wash.
I haven't
needed to do anything else, but at some point I'll adjust the shifter linkage, which is exposed and extremely easy to get to (and is already slotted so it's designed to be adjusted).
I'm not sure where the t-case shifter can be adjusted at, but Garrett had a good idea for that, which was to spin a couple of nuts down the shifter stick so the handle doesn't screw down as far (it's really quite silly how far down that goes). Should work just fine.
All in all a setback, but it ended up not being a major one and if it was something that you expected it'd be quite easy to handle.
I'd bet that Garrett and I could probably knock it out in under 30 minutes by ourselves.
Well, he did post it here.... Maybe he walked to a library?
The joys of having a mobile phone with access to internet.
Unfortunatly they haven't made one that's greasy-proof yet.
required my appearance also.
get togethers.
