Elliott said:
What did you not like about your jeep?
I took David a stockish TJ (D30/D35), a Currie gas tank, a pair of used Dynatrac JK44 axles, and a small pile of misc stuff. I asked him to build a simple, no-frills cage ("race car chic") that allowed use of the stock seat belts, stock soft top, and had as much head room as possible, given those constraints. When the axles were new, they would have been bolt-in for a TJ, but the previous owner modified them over the years, setting them up for coil-overs front and back and reworking the front track bar. I asked him to put them back stock-ish, so they'd bolt in with coils and shocks. This meant adding coil buckets and shock mounts on both ends. The front track bar mount was in the way and needed to be modified (or some other resolution found). The link mounts were unmodified. The front had a JK track bar on it, which I wouldn't have minded keeping (they're reasonably strong so long as the tires don't get big, they're readily available, and I already owned it), but I wasn't married to the idea if it didn't work out. The gas tank was mostly a bolt-in affair, but the exhaust was in the way. I sent along an old J-bend that I had so the exhaust could get moved out of the way.
Once David had the Jeep, I also asked him to build a proper transmission crossmember and a new skid plate. I figured that with the amount of suspension work that was going on, it was probably a good idea to get the driveline angles right the first time.
When I went to pick up the Jeep, it was already a few weeks overdue. The plan was to pick it up at noon on Saturday, go spend the weekend shaking it down and camping with the kids, then the next weekend we were gone to a wheeling event. The following weekend was free, then we were leaving on Weds to go to Dixie Run. David knew that it needed to be "right", and that we wheel with our two kids (3 and 18mos at the time).
When I arrived on Saturday, there wasn't much that was finished. The soft top had never been installed, they were in the middle of bleeding brakes, the gas tank had never had fuel in it, etc. David, Josh (with the Tacoma), and myself spent the next six hours bashing on it to get it to the point where it would roll out of the shop.
The following is a brief list of the deficiencies:
Fixed before we left the shop:
Front seat belt height adjusters (at front seat shoulders) installed upside down
Torqued lug nuts to spec, put red lock-***e on spacer lugs
One lug nut was actually an acorn nut installed upside down
Left front shock bolt missing at bar pin (the bolt they found and installed was mismatched, undersized)
Brake fluid low
Seat bolts missing, others not tight
Transfer case linkage not attached at transmission
Transfer case linkage bolts at body missing
Found later that night or over the next several weeks:
Front track bar jam nuts loose (one backed off completely)
Front track bar bolts/nuts loose (both ends finger tight)
Rear track bar bolt at frame finger tight
Left front lower jam nut loose
Left rear lower jam nut loose
All sixteen link bolts finger tight
Transmission rubs on the skid plate (had to loosen the skid plate bolts 1/2" before it let go)
Exhaust pinched tight between new skid plate and new crossmember
Exhaust modifications at gas tank were never done, exhaust was cut off at axle.
Skid plate bolts need to be replaced with standard 1/2x13 bolts and washers, not conical seat bolts.
Left front banjo bolt leaks (this was "fixed" before we left, I found it still leaking the next day)
Left front dust shield rubs rotor
Rear shock tabs on axle installed too high, only have 1" of up travel.
Right rear shock hits right rear coil bucket (tabs on axle installed too close to coil)
Numerous lug nuts rounded off, socket appears to be damaged or wrong size
Two of the nuts holding the front driveshaft to the front yoke backed off, others are not tight.
One of the nuts holding the rear driveshaft to the rear yoke backed off, others are not tight.
Both front coils are bowed at ride height. Frame side coil buckets were cut off the frame and reinstalled not square.
Both front coil spring retainers are missing.
Both front bump stops are missing (cut off for no apparent reason)
Both front springs hit the frame on stuff
Only turns halfway to the right, drag link hits Dynamite-modified track bar bracket.
Rear axle sway bar bolts have been replaced with torx bolts from stock cage, bolts are too long, bottomed out on axle housing, not tight.
Rear axle pinion angle was too high and vibrated badly. When I adjusted the links to fix the angle, I found that the driveshaft bound at the yokes. Had to do a SYE the night before we left for Dixie Run.
Dynamite modified the stock shifter linkage to make it work with the raised transmission location. The welding melted the nylon bushings in the linkage. It fell off in three pieces during a shake-down ride.
Lower radiator hose leaked (while I can't be certain on this one, it didn't leak before I dropped it off, and the JK track bar was scrapped because it hit the lower rad hose.) The cause was a constant-tension clamp installed incorrectly at the motor end.
The front seats won't go far enough back. They hit the seat belt ratchets.
The left-right spreader bar at the B pillars bends forward over the front seats as it crosses the vehicle. I (5'-11) and my wife (5'-8") both hit our heads on it.
Both front seat seat belt ratchets were broken and the covers were missing. Turns out they were installed on the wrong sides, then Dynamite busted the clock spring housings while they were working on things.
The soft top pivots at the cage are 1" too close together. This causes the front portion of the soft top to not go together correctly above the doors.
The soft top pivots are in the wrong locations (possibly too far forward and/or too low), making the rear half of the top not fit correctly. Basically, the top doesn't fit at all. You hook it at the windshield and let the rest of it flap in the breeze.
Rear seat belt shoulder bolts have been replaced with standard gr8 bolts, no spacer or shoulder. Need to source proper seat belt bolts.
The grill, front fenders, hood, cowl, and windshield were all sprayed with grinder dust and weld spatter. I couldn't figure out why the hood looked like it was rusting. The hood was never "nice", but it took me the better part of a Saturday with a clay bar to get this kinda cleaned up.
Only David knows how many iterations the cage went through before it rolled out the door. Suffice it to say that the first few rounds of photos that he sent looked nothing like the Solidworks model.
I did a nut-and-bolt on the entire vehicle before Dixie Run. Had to rebuild the crossmember that David built, modify the skid plate, build a new exhaust (to clear the skid and crossmember), SYE, and cable shifter. At this point, I'm thinking most of the cage work will have to be redone before it's "right". At the very least, the roof spreaders all need to be cut out and redone to fix the headroom issues and the weird splice at the windshield. But if you're going that far, the A-pillar down tubes have weird splices at the bottom (missed the hole in the floor??) that might as well be fixed too.
Before it went in the shop, my wife was daily driving it with the kids. The first month or two that we had it back, something fell off most every time it rolled out of the driveway, so she hasn't driven it since. Didn't feel comfortable taking the kids out in it.
