Alright so the last 2~ days the Jeep has had plates, insurance, and has been paperwork wise road-legal. Put maybe 20 miles on it while still ironing out some final issues. Has a driveline vibration, which makes sense, since the U joints in the driveshafts haven't been even looked at in at least 5-6 years. Axle shaft joints are easily just as old/bad. So, out comes Mr. Mastercard and Spicer Life joints were ordered for Rear driveshaft and front axle shafts. I was going to do the front driveshaft as well, but I'm not super confident in my ability to rebuild the double cardan front shaft. Last time I tried it, the shaft immediately grenaded. So I called up my local driveshaft shop.
Record scratch.
They were forced to downsize after COVID. They no longer do driveshafts. Well BEEP.
Quick google search. Seriously, the closest driveshaft shop is now 2 hours away?? What the BEEP. Call them up anyway. $270 to rebuild the front driveshaft. OK, OK, not terrible. Let me check Tom Woods just for laughs.
Wait. $270 for a rebuild job, or $320 and I get a brand new TW shaft with free shipping? Uh, yes please. Ordered. I'll keep the old/existing shaft for a trail spare.
So now I'm on hold waiting on those parts, so I wrapped up some interior/dash electrical issues. The stock gauge cluster would bounce terribly/lose power while I was doing my test drives so that needed addressing. And the oil pressure gauge was constantly pegged at max. Had to repair some shorted out/burnt off traces on the instrument panel PCB, and replace the oil pressure sender. But now all the gauges in the stock panel work properly. Oh, and I ordered a 33 tooth speedo gear to correct the speedometer being off by about 10%.
Heres some "cockpit" pics as my XJ buddy calls it:
PXL_20211109_214647859.jpg
PXL_20211109_214622506.jpg
Shouldn't see much activity out of me for a while. There's really not much more to do to this truck except drive it. I have some future projects in mind, like a 52" front leaf shackle reversal with Liquid Iron slider boxes, front RCV shafts, maybe an atlas... aluminum heads...650hp...hey I can dream!
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