Some more updates for those still following along
Pulled her into the garage for some maintenance. LF strut had been leaking for a bit and the last desert trip killed it. Put another cheapy one on after hacking the old tabs off the old strut and using those as templates on where to open up the strut mount holes. Put some washers on the bottom hole and welded them half way round. didnt want to put too much heat into the body and they worked just fine this way on the last strut. no washers on the top holes so i can still adjust camber and cant say ive ever had them move as is. no more bouncy bouncy
Also, the exhaust has been driving me nuts. i guess im getting old or its just cause its a V6 and i had the noise they make till the upper rpm range (i love driving the sand car but it has more of that porche note and it rarely sees below 4k rpm). had a resonater added and a decent sized chambered muffler (no packing so it stays quiet) was put on as well as a new y-pipe built and ran out to the back end of the rig. it was dumped straight down by the gas tank and was decent (better than how it was dumped under the cab with one muffler) but still had some drone. So i tried running the exhaust the rest of the way out the back and pointed it towards the back. muuuuuuch better, think im finally satisfied with the exhaust. its only tacked in though as i ran out of gas. get some pics when i weld it up.
this heat sucks but i wanted a break from either just sitting around or working on remodeling our bathroom.
picked up more welding gas and finished the exhaust finally.
then tried messing with pinion angle again to get the damn driveshaft to smooth out. had it reblanced twice and its still not agreeing with me. i think there is just too much working angle at ride height. if i drop the rear end 2", its smooth as butter but that ride height is too low. Think im going to have to make a DC style shaft work and ill see if TAD still has the one i had them make a while back.
Then moved onto the front end where i blew the front mount up for the diff. It also blew the CV up with it, good thing for lifetime warranty lol. was going to make a whole new mount but that would take quite a bit of time to do and felt i could weld to this cast well enough to keep it together. pushed the bushing out and tacked the mount back together, then tacked supports in place, test fit in tracker, clearanced the frame mount, pre-heated the mount to 500*, welded it all in and let it slowly cool with a map gas torch. did this to weld the cast center section to the steel tubes on the diff and seemed to work. see how it works on this. Its not pretty but it will get the job done. just need to pick up a new CV axle to stab in.
trimmed up frame mount. had concerns of going too much and weakening it. didnt remove too much so i think it will work well still
got the rear axle adjusted so i can put a DC style shaft in and have the pinion angle correct. pulled the shocks and set pinion angle. Then started the 1500 times cycling the rear end to check for clearance. i thought for sure i would have to clearance the truss to make it miss the gas tank mounts near full bump but after sucking the links in and checking tire clearance to the front of the fender, shes clear by about 1/4 - 3/8". the rear brake hard line comes real close so i bent it in some and added another holding clamp to keep it out of the way. twisting the axle around screwed up my shock mounts and made the shocks hit the axle pretty bad at full droop. That was the other half of my battle. fix wasnt too bad though, just pie cut the mount with the plasma, hammered it backwards 1/2" and up 1/2" and we were golden
i also ditched the e-brake cables as they kept hitting the driveshaft and it will not do ken block shit as they keep popping off the ends of the lever that connect to the shoes.
Stabbed the new drive shaft in, set pinion angle and put a new CV axle in the RF. smooth as silk on the highway now.
