Not one... BUT TWO trucks! '12 JKU and '03 GMC Sierra...

[rho]

Whole buncha updates!! My jeep needed some new front rotors so I decided to go ahead and get a big rotor kit and also replace the front brake lines... Huge increase in stopping power!



Up next...


Here it is with the coilovers installed doing test fits... spoiler, it didn't work out. The shock had another inch of down travel and the ball joint was binding. Whoops... Update to this situation down the thread!!



Back to the stock-ish setup...




So... with the semi stock setup back in, we planed out to go meet up with @JCWages and the gold country crew on a run they were doing and I figured it'd a good shake down run.... soooo! Onward!







The dustlights worked out better than I could have hoped on this trip! They were pretty much the only way @Pi_Baker's truck and mine could be seen in the dust...







Soooooo.... after the trip we got home and during post trip inspections we found the front passenger shock decided to liberate itself from the coilspring mount and then go play with the spring,.. both lower bolts failed, so yeah. got some fixin to do. LOL



So... Last week I ordered some steel segments and sketched up a new upper coilover mount to go onto the top coil bucket. its VERY stout steel and the bracket is well made... So it'd be good platform to build a tower on. I'll be doing more measuring and test fits and so on. gonna start on a cardboard mockup soon to start doing fit checks and interference checks n all that good stuff. Yeeehaw!

 

[JCWages]

LOL the carnage! Maybe that clanking noise wasn't coming from my truck afterall.

So glad you 3 came out!

 

[rho]

LOL the carnage! Maybe that clanking noise wasn't coming from my truck afterall.

So glad you 3 came out!

HAH, she was wondering why it was acting funny around some corners on the way back and uh, it made more sense when we got under it at home...

 

[JCWages]

HAH, she was wondering why it was acting funny around some corners on the way back and uh, it made more sense when we got under it at home...

Yeah, the bottom of the shock playing peek-a-boo through the botttom of the control arm is bad for proper handling. LOL

 

[rho]

Yeah, the bottom of the shock playing peek-a-boo through the botttom of the control arm is bad for proper handling. LOL

'lil bit, yah!

 

[rho]

Welp, after a few more revisions of the upper shock mount bracket CAD model, i got to a point where I was happy enough with it to start making a drawing of the parts to make it and then I built a very rough cardboard model to start working out the overall interfaces of this thing. I still gotta check the clearances on the truck and to see if the upper coil bucket is going to be able to support something like this at all. I also need to crunch some numbers with the shear strength of the 1/2 bolt used for the upper mount and figure out if want to do some big ol spacers to support the location of it or if want to make some inner tabs to support the upper shock bearing. WEEEEEEEE.

Up next I'm going to do more checks on the truck and model the upper bucket to see if I even have space. There is still the change i'll have to just scrap this all together and cut the bucket off totally and weld a full on tower onto the frame. Of course that brings up a whole new set of issues, as we're planning on installing a camburg midtravel kit on this truck here soon and if we do that it'll mean incorporating all of my upper mount changes to work with that kit. The downside is it'll way add to cost but the performance will be worth it.

Esp with how she drives, LOL.
I also have small block for the rear coming for this truck, and the plan is to remove the overload leaf from the spring pack, add another short leave and then put the block in and see where it sits. I really want to go with a slightly longer shackle in the rear as that'll help down travel a bit. I'm sure i'll shortly have to deal with driveline stuff, brake lines and shocks going down that route, but who knows. The Rancho shocks that are on the rear are behaving OK but a upgrade to some mono tube ones is planned.

 

[rho]

Welp... that didn't work, haha. Got some model changes inc but it should work out in the end.

 

[JCWages]

You're like a mad scientist err engineer. It's so rad! Hahaha

 

[rho]

You're like a mad scientist err engineer. It's so rad! Hahaha

Hah! This is litterly a big part of my job as well, CAD, Verifying hardware and processess, working on development hardware and prototyping stuff before we start production on flight articles. Just with the truck and jeep stuff I don't have to go through review cycles and I can instead just make crap.

 

[rho]

Wellp....over the last week or so between work stuff and other BS I was getting pretty stressed out and frustrated with work, life and general stress... So @Pi_Baker let me escape for a quick overnight trip out to the Shaver Lake area!

I didn't have a solid plan as i just threw my camping gear into my jeep, grabbed the cooler, my backpack and gassed up and went. I had a very loose idea of what I wanted to do out there, and bald mountain was one of the trails and I was sort of tossing up the idea of doing Swamp Lake or mirror lake or some of the other shorter trails, but I ended up choosing to do Swamp Lake. Holy crap. so much fun..
Anyways, after a boring drive from the bay area out to the fresno-ish area I headed up to shaver lake to figure out what i wanted to do next... I opted to go out to Bald Mtn first as it was supposed to be a cool drive and it really was! Nothing there was techinical but it was a fun mellow drive across the granite and through little side trails and there were some fun optional hard lines out there too.

After doing the peak, taking photos and all that stuff I snagged some lunch and then waffled about what i wanted to do next for a while, and I ended up choosing to go do Swamp as it was a bit more remote and away from folks but sitll looked like it'd be a fun trail to go do. I found another small trail on the way to the north end of Swamp Lake and found the underside of a CUV or a suburu or somethig and packed that out. then found more of it. Anyways, Swamp was a SUPER fun trail and it turned out to be a really fun challenge. Only got stuck to the point where i had to winch once but as I was solo on this trip it very much was a challenge to get through everything and to stop and self spot through some of the tighter spots. I ended up destroying another steering damper and I totally mashed the crap out of my gastank skid and my transmission crossmember so i'll pull the skid and beat the dings out sometime and the xmeber will be replaced before I do the rubicon in October.

GPS!
Day one: GaiaGPS - shaver, dinky, bald, swamp day one
Day two: GaiaGPS - swamp, dinky, shaver day 2




meh, its me.



lookout! tons of smog in the valley but it was still super cool getting up there. Bald mtn is super fun little trip.



3rd steering stabilizer i've destroyed on this truck now.... ordering parts to re-locate the stupid thing now.



Some of the post trip carnage to my gastank skid and to the transmission crossmenber.



Got my self pretty well and stuck here. High centered on the gastank. Oops. Had to winch off of this...

 

[rho]

Finally got around to getting some projects going... FIrst, the heep. I started measuring and planning a new overhead console for the jeep. Want some more switch space, more radio space and some better storage options. plus a place to put patches.


Next up is some stuff for the GMC....

Got some rear lift blocks in the rear installed which brought the rear up and level to the front so no more negative rake on it. I'm getting ready to start on some of the bumper stuff and I have some fender flares. Sometime soon near rear shocks are going to go in as well the rears are, well, not quite long enough now.


And last, I got around to starting on new upper shock mounts for the front to switch to CO's in the front. I gotta weld up em sometime in the near future and then pick up some new UCA's... We're also planning on some slightly wider rims soon, but who knows when we're going to get around to that. Just trying to finish up the big projects that are in work.

Hopefully after all this stuff is done and my jeep gets whatever is fukin broke in the steering box and new shocks we're going to try the truck out on the Mojave Road sometime this winter. Wooo!

 

[rho]

Got a major amount of work done on the front end of the GMC... they're no fox or king coilovers, but its still a huge increase in control for the front of the truck.
I still have to get some brackets fabbed up for front limit straps and find some UCAs for it but so far so good.

Also did a front end alignment on the truck, relocated the rear brake line (I really need a tube bender) and got measurements so I can make a spacer and get some taller/more progressive bumpstops for the rear. Relocation of the shock mounts and building a more progressive pack will happen at some point as well as ditching the block. So far it drives a ton better than it ever has. Next to do on the truck-o is getting some storage boxes for the rear done, some bed rails inspired by @JCWages , cleaning up the bed slide, and adding some water/fuel storage...

 

[Dilldog]

I dig the stance of the GMC, and those upper mounts are awesome looking.

 

[rho]

I dig the stance of the GMC, and those upper mounts are awesome looking.

I ended up scrapping that upper mount idea, I'm just going to run the tbar setup for now.

It's going to make more sense in the long term to go with a new shock tower and new upper/lower control arms. I wish these trucks had slightly more between full on prerunner or brodozer mobiles for parts, but oh well. A long travel setup and coilovers will be happening at some point I guess...

The stance right now is pretty dialed in on it, the truck has a TON of clearance under it and it flexes out surprisingly well. 550lb springs in front and 3leaves and no overload in the rear help. Locker helps too... Aired down it does shockingly well in the dirt.

Up next are some bed boxes... also I got a compressor for the truck.

Meanwhile...

 

[rho]

meanwhile... when a box like this comes in it's going to be good...

inside:


got some bumpstops for the front of the Jeep, it's been in pretty dire need of some new ones up front so I got these. Gonna do the install tomorrow.
Meanwhile the Jeep also gotten a lot of love lately. New shocks happened a while back but it's also gotten a steering stabilizer relocation, longer rear lines, some spacers to help correct the sag in the front and some other stuff.

 

[rho]

digging these so far...

 

[Dilldog]

I ended up scrapping that upper mount idea, I'm just going to run the tbar setup for now.

It's going to make more sense in the long term to go with a new shock tower and new upper/lower control arms. I wish these trucks had slightly more between full on prerunner or brodozer mobiles for parts, but oh well. A long travel setup and coilovers will be happening at some point I guess...

The stance right now is pretty dialed in on it, the truck has a TON of clearance under it and it flexes out surprisingly well. 550lb springs in front and 3leaves and no overload in the rear help. Locker helps too... Aired down it does shockingly well in the dirt.

Up next are some bed boxes... also I got a compressor for the truck.

Meanwhile...

I used to run a ZR2, little bit different but it always amazed me how much it would get through in just 2wheel drive. Flexy rear springs and a rear locker are amazing things.

 

[rho]

it was a weekend! watching Justin and Pete get hung up on this small feature was very amusing

 

[rho]

Not much of an update but some trip pics from a CA, AZ, NV and UT trip we did in the start of June... We did part of the Mojave road, Alix broke her truck, visited Zion and generally had a blast. I'll try to toss up more pics later... more truck stuff is in the works too... esp to get some of the broke fixed.

 

[rho]

I also picked up a welder finally... so, there is going to be some truck fixin' soon. I've already put a basic front skid out of some scrap steel for the GMC, I'll have to re-do it at some point because my welds look like crap and I'm generally not happy with how it turned out, but... its on there and adds a degree of protection that wasn't there before so thats good at least.
during paint: