Ole Sarge version 2.0

[skymangs]

OK, my truck is showing some progress, so I can start a thread now. First pic is the truck in Jan 08, paid $1300 sight unseen, and had it sitting in my driveway with a big red bow (Thanks Hon) the day I got back from Iraq.

[skymangs]

First project was to get it into the Sky... I swapped the Dana 35 for a 76 dana 44 with disks, and retained the 3.73 gears (wasn't very offroad savvy then!). I scored some 37" Baja Claws for a decent price, and decided to Spring it Over, added 2.5" rough country springs, High steer, front/rear CV's, reversed shackle, and D&C's family cage. It looked something like this.

[skymangs]

Got a little enthusiastic and decided to do some wheeling, added a Milemarker 9500SI winch (just in case) and took it "Snow bashing" in March at 9000ft. I quickly discovered that the old worn out posi in the rear wasn't gonna cut it, and that my 3.73's absolutely sucked. next step was lockers and gears... 4.88's, detroit in the rear and lunchbox in the front... Now it was summertime, and it was pretty decent on the Colorado trails, except the trans was getting pretty weak, and I was learning that my Crawl ratio was absolute Garbage.

Next I decided that Moab would be fun. Slickrock, 37's, and my Dana 44's just did not play well. I had the diffs apart 3 times in 10 days, Behind the rocks blew a wheel cylinder, broke a U-Joint, and glazed the hell out of my brakes. Moab Rim claimed my front locker, and 2 lockouts, and Gold bar Rim claimed a rear wheel bearing. I decided that it wasn't very fun wrenching 2 hours for every hour of wheeling. I decided to go home and make a few more upgrades!

Enter Dana 60 and 14 bolt and Hydro-boost!

[skymangs]

I did a rush install on the 60 and 14 bolt. they were loaded with 4.56's and the 14b had a detroit in it already, so I left em alone. I deployed to Afghanistan for a year a month after the install, so I really only ran a few trails. I did notice that the extra width and unsprung weight REALLY helped on stability though.

The front diff was open still, and the rears still had the 1 ton Drum brakes, so I used a chunk of my deployment money to have parts waiting for me when I got home. I learned a whole lot about calculating Crawl ratio and did a lot of research, deciding that my goal was around 125:1.

I decided to go with a NP203/Dana 300 Doubler setup for gear ratio, gear selection, and size/weight of the package. I sourced a core dodge truck 727 with a NP203 on the back for $200 off of pirate and ordered the Advanced adaptors doubler kit. Since I needed to rebuild the trans anyway, I decided to make it bomb proof. I used Red Eagle clutches, Cloyes steels, reversed manual valve body with low band apply, billet servo, extra springs in the front pump, summit deep cast aluminum pan, a 2.75 RV gearset, and assembled it with the dodge tailshaft and housing, allowing me to bolt up the 203 directly. My new final crawl was 131:1, I now had 12 forward gears and 3 reverse gears.

[skymangs]

I also took the opportunity to completely rebuild the Dana 300 (81 Jeep CJ short shaft) and add 32 spline rear output. I couldn't pass up that awesome Northwest Fab cabled tripple stick shifter ($389!!!) and the B&M Pro stick either!
The crossmember design credit goes to Damion, I styled it after what he used on Project Rusty. It is designed on bushings, so you can pull one bolt, and the whole thing swings down and out of the way. Makes transfer case work so easy!

Here is some pics of the setup installed in the truck, and the cool shifter arrangement.

[skymangs]

I also sprung for an ARB in the Dana 60, and Ruff Stuff disk brake brackets for the 14b. Ruff Stuff's kit was SO EASY! It uses 75 chevy 3/4ton front disks and calipers, great upgrade for only a couple hundred bucks. Here's some pics of the disks...

[skymangs]

I gotta back track for a minute. At some point in there I decided that rocker protection was paramount. To solve the problem, and add some clearance below the rockers, I cut 7" off the bottom of the truck. Then welded 3/16 wall 4x4 boxed steel in, and shortened a set of door skins 4 inches so they fit again. I added 1.75 tube steps, cut through the 4x4 to keep it wife and kid friendly. I also added a soft top I scored on Craigs List.

[skymangs]

My next big wheeling trip was to Las Cruces NM, where I hooked up with Blain from Angus Fabworks and the crew from Homewrecker 4x4. These guys showed me around some of the most wicked trails I've ever run. The short list includes Roccotillo Rapids, Habenaro Falls, and Tabasco Twister. Angus Fab gave me such an awesome discount on a PSC ram setup, I couldn't turn it down. So, 8" throw ram and PSC's full setup with pump, reservour, and steering box. I did all the work myself with guidance from Blain. I really like the axle mounting point, it came out very clean. I love driving this thing in the rocks now, all locked up, bound up in the front end, and it only takes 1 finger to turn those 37's!

[skymangs]

One more backtrack... Sometime in 09 I sprung to fuel inject it, and put together the York Onboard air. The EFI was pretty simple once you get past the wiring harness confusion. Credit of course goes to Bill Hamilton for posting such a dummy proof Injection FAQ! I built mine out of the local U-Pull-U-Pay junkyard for about $400. Now it'll run smooth upside down (I know from 1st hand experience!) Here's a pic of the OBA setup. I can run 1/2 drive impact and my air cut off on the trail with it, in addition to airing up 4 37's in about 9 minutes flat.

[skymangs]

I also took some time to build a proper roll cage for the truck, since my trails are quickly out classing the basic family cage. 72ft of 11ga 1.75 DOM tube went into this cage, it is triangulated and gusseted every place I could and still have a usable back seat. I figured I could have more leg room if I ditched the dashboard, and ran the forward legs all the way forward integrating a dash into the cage. Also good for puting what I want, where i wanted it! I also made a full length snap on Bikini top for it. The top material is OD green Sunbrella (Hi end boat material that is waterproof, fad resistant, and breathable as in not near as hot as vinyl on the underside)