So, now that River Shiver is done for another year, I am madly preparing for Alaska.
As you may know, Ziplock has previously been Sprung Over with 4x4lab arms, 4.88's, and running those 38" michelin boots I like. All this on one of those JDM BJ74's with lockers and PTO.
In it's current trim, the tires rub the fenders. Not enough to bind anything, but it's certainly removing the paint and polishing the inner fenders, not to mention the horrible racket and limitation on articiulation.
So, I did the IFS hub wide track trick using the Sky Manufacturing spacer kit. Bolted up some EBI spacers to the rear drums (I'm shelving the 80 disk brake conversion for now).
Then, I started trimming the fenders. The front fenders got lifted 50mm (2"), and the rear, 40mm (bit over 1.5") The tires no longer touch fenders at full stuff, but I did discover that I can touch the spring to the pitman arm! I'll need a bump-stop on that side.
Bottom line, the truck is flexing awesome. A little forklift work, and I can easily lift the rear tire over 3 feet.. More than high enough to put on a standard 45gal drum. Even with two tires litterally dangling in the air, the truck is still stable and not quite close to flopping over. By my calcs, that's a ramp score of about 1105 on a 20 deg. ramp, or about 760 on a 30 deg. TippyR did 840 on the 30 deg. Very nice, indeed, for a leaf sprung, daily driver/emergency wheeling rig.
Next on the agenda... anti-wrap bar, rear anti-sway bar (for the roof top tent), some Loewen Flares to reinforce the flimsy trimmed fenders, a new front bumper (I have a plan to move the front porch back 6" and still keep the PTO), and maybe a better rear bumper. And some rocker protection, I guess. Whew... that's a long list.
Peter Straub
As you may know, Ziplock has previously been Sprung Over with 4x4lab arms, 4.88's, and running those 38" michelin boots I like. All this on one of those JDM BJ74's with lockers and PTO.
In it's current trim, the tires rub the fenders. Not enough to bind anything, but it's certainly removing the paint and polishing the inner fenders, not to mention the horrible racket and limitation on articiulation.
So, I did the IFS hub wide track trick using the Sky Manufacturing spacer kit. Bolted up some EBI spacers to the rear drums (I'm shelving the 80 disk brake conversion for now).
Then, I started trimming the fenders. The front fenders got lifted 50mm (2"), and the rear, 40mm (bit over 1.5") The tires no longer touch fenders at full stuff, but I did discover that I can touch the spring to the pitman arm! I'll need a bump-stop on that side.
Bottom line, the truck is flexing awesome. A little forklift work, and I can easily lift the rear tire over 3 feet.. More than high enough to put on a standard 45gal drum. Even with two tires litterally dangling in the air, the truck is still stable and not quite close to flopping over. By my calcs, that's a ramp score of about 1105 on a 20 deg. ramp, or about 760 on a 30 deg. TippyR did 840 on the 30 deg. Very nice, indeed, for a leaf sprung, daily driver/emergency wheeling rig.
Next on the agenda... anti-wrap bar, rear anti-sway bar (for the roof top tent), some Loewen Flares to reinforce the flimsy trimmed fenders, a new front bumper (I have a plan to move the front porch back 6" and still keep the PTO), and maybe a better rear bumper. And some rocker protection, I guess. Whew... that's a long list.
Peter Straub
