Member II
Decide to sell my 2010 Jeep GC, so picked this one up today. [emoji16]
What Did You Do With Your Rig Today?
- Thread starter iamout
- Start date
Enthusiast III
- 2,335
- First Name
- Raymond
- Last Name
- Tanner
- Member #
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15810
- Service Branch
- Navy/ army 26yrs
Installed my dig lights
the red ring on pod lights, match color accent in the interior
the red ring on pod lights, match color accent in the interior
Member III
- 2,771
- First Name
- Rolando
- Last Name
- Nispiros
- Member #
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17011
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- KN6JJS
Influencer I
Decided to replace my intermediate steering shaft and steering bearing for the Clunky noise on my 2003 2500 Suburban this fix is for 2000-2006 GMT800 SUV and Trucks.
Doorman steering shaft PN: 425-176
Doorman steering column bearing PN: 905-512
Doorman steering shaft PN: 425-176
Doorman steering column bearing PN: 905-512
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Jim
- Last Name
- covey sr
- Member #
-
16986
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- none - BREAKER BREAKER HAND HELD CB AND WALKIE TALKIE
Did it stop the clunk ? I've never had to replace anything other than tie rod ends, ball joints or drag links on any auto I have ever owned. I've never owned a Chevy tho since 1952. It blew 2 transmissions in a row and I've never bought another one.
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Jim
- Last Name
- covey sr
- Member #
-
16986
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- none - BREAKER BREAKER HAND HELD CB AND WALKIE TALKIE
You won't lose this in the forest I betcha ! Cant be mistaken for a Moose either. LOL
Playing with shovel mounting ideas with some old brackets I had laying around. The tent used to deploy off the back of my TJ, now that’s it’s on my WJ I turned the tent rails so it could mount on the factory roof rails and deploy to the passenger side. The tent rails are now longer than the width of the tent. I purposely didn’t trim the tent rails (yet). I kinda like this shovel location. I’ll certainly make a more permanent mount. This is just a mock up to make sure it’ll fit and clear everything and still have access to the tent cover. 
Influencer I
Yes. Fixed the clunking noise over and no more play in steering wheel over night and day. Smoother steering less vibration from over rough roads so pretty happy with it.
Member II
2015 TRD Pro; all stock except for the BFG AT tires. She will be transformed with much of the Grand Cherokee equipment.
Member II
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Jim
- Last Name
- covey sr
- Member #
-
16986
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- none - BREAKER BREAKER HAND HELD CB AND WALKIE TALKIE
Off-Road Ranger I
- 1,579
- First Name
- Dave
- Last Name
- M
- Member #
-
19695
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- CB Handle: Buckaroo, UK FM Ch.30
Member III
- 2,827
- First Name
- Jim
- Last Name
- covey sr
- Member #
-
16986
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- none - BREAKER BREAKER HAND HELD CB AND WALKIE TALKIE
Advocate I
Dug into the WJ yesterday to figure out what broke. I took it on its first real wheeling trip a couple weekends back that involved real articulation and some legit rock crawling. Everything seemed fine, and no issues on the trail. In fact, this WJ really impressed me compared to the crawlers I used to wheel with and even other rigs in my group like my buddy's long-arm XJ on 35"s and locked D44s. Anyway, I was super happy with how it all went. Then last week my girlfriend's younger brother Jake was driving it when something let go. Jake lives with us and DDs the WJ to school and work for now until he goes off to college next year and we get him economical beater. I was in the Bay Area for work, so I couldn't go pick it up myself, luckily we have AAA and they towed it home. Jake had to get rides to school/work the rest of the week, and I finally got to dig into it (with him) yesterday. He had thought something in the front end broke, and he found a large bolt that had sheared in the threads under it when he stopped. The bolt was obviously a non-stock, zinc-coated 10.9 so we went about checking out all of the IRO long-arm kit mounting points, the trackbar, over-the-knuckle-steering etc. Everything was good and tight, and nothing was missing a bolt. So we went to the rear, and found:
You're looking at the upper "wishbone" on the rear of the suspension. The WJ uses a 3-link rear design with 2 trailing arms going from the body to the outer ends of the axle, then an upper "wishbone" that attaches to the axle in ones spot, via this 3-bolt bracket with a ball-joint. The wishbone looks something like this:
And here's what the whole deal looks like (you're looking from the "front" of the vehicle):
The big spacer you're seeing is part of the rear lift kit, which is NOT a long-arm (the front is on my WJ). It uses the stock arms and wishbone, longer/heavier rate coil springs, and then this spacer to restore pinion angle and axle alignment. It's not the ideal system, and I do plan to long-arm the back of this WJ. However, when I first got this kit a few years back the WJ was only going to be Jake's DD for school and work, and perhaps mild camping, not the crawling I put it through. Anyway, the bolts must have been loose. Now, we had developed a little clunk in the front end a month or two back. For those that don't know, I work in the Bay Area of CA and "live" down there Mon-Thurs (usually Sun night through late Thurs) and then come home to my house in Lincoln where Jake and the WJ live on the weekend. We needed it fixed up quickly, so we took it to a local mechanic to go through everything. He found the Flex-Joint on the Trackbar a bit loose, so he changed it and went through and re-torqued "everything" in the suspension.
This is 100% on me... first of all I shouldn't have ASSumed he checked the rear suspension too. Second, I SHOULD have gone through the entire suspension myself before the first "real" wheeling trip with the rig. But I didn't. It sucks re-learning lessons I learned 20 years ago, and making mistakes when I "know better" but hey, at least I got lucky and this didn't happen on the trail or with Jake driving at highway speeds (it let go on the on-ramp he uses nearest our house).
Again, my theory is that all 3 bolts were loose: that's the only way I can see these large (M14x2.0) grade 10.9 bolts shearing. At this point I had identified the problem, but as any shade-tree mechanic knows the fun was just starting. All 3 bolts had broken off in the rear-end housing, and needed extraction. I jacked the back of the WJ up some more and got to removing/disconnecting things so I could droop the axle out for more access. Luckily a regular old easy-out got all 3 out - but not before I went through a few drill bits trying to drill the hardened 10.9 bolts (I went up in 3 steps from a pilot hole, to an intermediate, to the 1/4 needed for the extractor I was using) and not before I had to disconnect things even further.
Here's about mid-way, before I fully removed the e-brake cables from the wishbone, disconnected the brake-line mount from the body and moved the coil-springs out of the way (basically just wheels-off and lower shock bolts and sway-bar end-links disconnected):
And the mounting holes with the stub of the bolts still in them:
And finally, some success, here's the first one out:
I did manage to get ALL 3 OUT, but I had to call it quits at this stage as I had a Prime Rib going for dinner and some guests coming over for dinner. Luckily I had already planned to "work from home" today, so I'll be headed back into the garage shortly to put it back together. While I'm there I have an oil change to do, air filter swap, and I'm going to pull the 1" spacer out of the IRO skid plate I have, because it isn't needed to clear things at this stage (we ended up not needing the 1" t-case drop). Also, I wanted to do the ZJ washer-bottle relocation and remove the fog lights, but it doesn't look like the bottle came in yet.
-TJ
You're looking at the upper "wishbone" on the rear of the suspension. The WJ uses a 3-link rear design with 2 trailing arms going from the body to the outer ends of the axle, then an upper "wishbone" that attaches to the axle in ones spot, via this 3-bolt bracket with a ball-joint. The wishbone looks something like this:
And here's what the whole deal looks like (you're looking from the "front" of the vehicle):
The big spacer you're seeing is part of the rear lift kit, which is NOT a long-arm (the front is on my WJ). It uses the stock arms and wishbone, longer/heavier rate coil springs, and then this spacer to restore pinion angle and axle alignment. It's not the ideal system, and I do plan to long-arm the back of this WJ. However, when I first got this kit a few years back the WJ was only going to be Jake's DD for school and work, and perhaps mild camping, not the crawling I put it through. Anyway, the bolts must have been loose. Now, we had developed a little clunk in the front end a month or two back. For those that don't know, I work in the Bay Area of CA and "live" down there Mon-Thurs (usually Sun night through late Thurs) and then come home to my house in Lincoln where Jake and the WJ live on the weekend. We needed it fixed up quickly, so we took it to a local mechanic to go through everything. He found the Flex-Joint on the Trackbar a bit loose, so he changed it and went through and re-torqued "everything" in the suspension.
This is 100% on me... first of all I shouldn't have ASSumed he checked the rear suspension too. Second, I SHOULD have gone through the entire suspension myself before the first "real" wheeling trip with the rig. But I didn't. It sucks re-learning lessons I learned 20 years ago, and making mistakes when I "know better" but hey, at least I got lucky and this didn't happen on the trail or with Jake driving at highway speeds (it let go on the on-ramp he uses nearest our house).
Again, my theory is that all 3 bolts were loose: that's the only way I can see these large (M14x2.0) grade 10.9 bolts shearing. At this point I had identified the problem, but as any shade-tree mechanic knows the fun was just starting. All 3 bolts had broken off in the rear-end housing, and needed extraction. I jacked the back of the WJ up some more and got to removing/disconnecting things so I could droop the axle out for more access. Luckily a regular old easy-out got all 3 out - but not before I went through a few drill bits trying to drill the hardened 10.9 bolts (I went up in 3 steps from a pilot hole, to an intermediate, to the 1/4 needed for the extractor I was using) and not before I had to disconnect things even further.
Here's about mid-way, before I fully removed the e-brake cables from the wishbone, disconnected the brake-line mount from the body and moved the coil-springs out of the way (basically just wheels-off and lower shock bolts and sway-bar end-links disconnected):
And the mounting holes with the stub of the bolts still in them:
And finally, some success, here's the first one out:
I did manage to get ALL 3 OUT, but I had to call it quits at this stage as I had a Prime Rib going for dinner and some guests coming over for dinner. Luckily I had already planned to "work from home" today, so I'll be headed back into the garage shortly to put it back together. While I'm there I have an oil change to do, air filter swap, and I'm going to pull the 1" spacer out of the IRO skid plate I have, because it isn't needed to clear things at this stage (we ended up not needing the 1" t-case drop). Also, I wanted to do the ZJ washer-bottle relocation and remove the fog lights, but it doesn't look like the bottle came in yet.
-TJ
Pathfinder I
It's almost funny how we can still suffer from wisdom we learned so long ago. lol I'm heading to Roseville around 2 and can swing by if you need a hand.Dug into the WJ yesterday to figure out what broke. I took it on its first real wheeling trip a couple weekends back that involved real articulation and some legit rock crawling. Everything seemed fine, and no issues on the trail. In fact, this WJ really impressed me compared to the crawlers I used to wheel with and even other rigs in my group like my buddy's long-arm XJ on 35"s and locked D44s. Anyway, I was super happy with how it all went. Then last week my girlfriend's younger brother Jake was driving it when something let go. Jake lives with us and DDs the WJ to school and work for now until he goes off to college next year and we get him economical beater. I was in the Bay Area for work, so I couldn't go pick it up myself, luckily we have AAA and they towed it home. Jake had to get rides to school/work the rest of the week, and I finally got to dig into it (with him) yesterday. He had thought something in the front end broke, and he found a large bolt that had sheared in the threads under it when he stopped. The bolt was obviously a non-stock, zinc-coated 10.9 so we went about checking out all of the IRO long-arm kit mounting points, the trackbar, over-the-knuckle-steering etc. Everything was good and tight, and nothing was missing a bolt. So we went to the rear, and found:
View attachment 119760
You're looking at the upper "wishbone" on the rear of the suspension. The WJ uses a 3-link rear design with 2 trailing arms going from the body to the outer ends of the axle, then an upper "wishbone" that attaches to the axle in ones spot, via this 3-bolt bracket with a ball-joint. The wishbone looks something like this:
And here's what the whole deal looks like (you're looking from the "front" of the vehicle):
The big spacer you're seeing is part of the rear lift kit, which is NOT a long-arm (the front is on my WJ). It uses the stock arms and wishbone, longer/heavier rate coil springs, and then this spacer to restore pinion angle and axle alignment. It's not the ideal system, and I do plan to long-arm the back of this WJ. However, when I first got this kit a few years back the WJ was only going to be Jake's DD for school and work, and perhaps mild camping, not the crawling I put it through. Anyway, the bolts must have been loose. Now, we had developed a little clunk in the front end a month or two back. For those that don't know, I work in the Bay Area of CA and "live" down there Mon-Thurs (usually Sun night through late Thurs) and then come home to my house in Lincoln where Jake and the WJ live on the weekend. We needed it fixed up quickly, so we took it to a local mechanic to go through everything. He found the Flex-Joint on the Trackbar a bit loose, so he changed it and went through and re-torqued "everything" in the suspension.
This is 100% on me... first of all I shouldn't have ASSumed he checked the rear suspension too. Second, I SHOULD have gone through the entire suspension myself before the first "real" wheeling trip with the rig. But I didn't. It sucks re-learning lessons I learned 20 years ago, and making mistakes when I "know better" but hey, at least I got lucky and this didn't happen on the trail or with Jake driving at highway speeds (it let go on the on-ramp he uses nearest our house).
Again, my theory is that all 3 bolts were loose: that's the only way I can see these large (M14x2.0) grade 10.9 bolts shearing. At this point I had identified the problem, but as any shade-tree mechanic knows the fun was just starting. All 3 bolts had broken off in the rear-end housing, and needed extraction. I jacked the back of the WJ up some more and got to removing/disconnecting things so I could droop the axle out for more access. Luckily a regular old easy-out got all 3 out - but not before I went through a few drill bits trying to drill the hardened 10.9 bolts (I went up in 3 steps from a pilot hole, to an intermediate, to the 1/4 needed for the extractor I was using) and not before I had to disconnect things even further.
Here's about mid-way, before I fully removed the e-brake cables from the wishbone, disconnected the brake-line mount from the body and moved the coil-springs out of the way (basically just wheels-off and lower shock bolts and sway-bar end-links disconnected):
View attachment 119761
View attachment 119763
And the mounting holes with the stub of the bolts still in them:
View attachment 119762
And finally, some success, here's the first one out:
View attachment 119764
I did manage to get ALL 3 OUT, but I had to call it quits at this stage as I had a Prime Rib going for dinner and some guests coming over for dinner. Luckily I had already planned to "work from home" today, so I'll be headed back into the garage shortly to put it back together. While I'm there I have an oil change to do, air filter swap, and I'm going to pull the 1" spacer out of the IRO skid plate I have, because it isn't needed to clear things at this stage (we ended up not needing the 1" t-case drop). Also, I wanted to do the ZJ washer-bottle relocation and remove the fog lights, but it doesn't look like the bottle came in yet.
-TJ
Advocate I
Wow, hit me up. Biggie was going to stop by and lend a hand around that time. How funny would that be if you, Biggie and I were all wrenching on a Jeep of all things after all these years (for those following along, JCWages and one of my neighbors were all in a LS-based car club ages ago... but haven't seen each other in years). Oh yeah, don't laugh at how fat I got.
Anyway, I'm prob going to work on it in a bit here, I just got done with some work. I have to meet my girl around 1 in Roseville to look at a car for her new business, but I should be home by 2!
-TJ
Off-Road Ranger I
- 1,579
- First Name
- Dave
- Last Name
- M
- Member #
-
19695
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- CB Handle: Buckaroo, UK FM Ch.30
drove it home after work....good grief, my life is gonna be boring for the next 2 weeks.
I'll be back in 14 days to answer this question again.
I'll be back in 14 days to answer this question again.
Advocate I
Off-Road Ranger I
- 1,579
- First Name
- Dave
- Last Name
- M
- Member #
-
19695
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- CB Handle: Buckaroo, UK FM Ch.30
yeah I know, I smile every time I get in it...it's also my daily drive, actually, it's my only vehicle :-)
Enthusiast III
2400 miles..and then the front wheel bearing went.
