One of the rear shocks was so hard to compress that I could barely make it move. It didn't feel that stiff on the road but I'm guessing it is a big contributor to why the Jeep feels like it's jumping across the road when you hit a pot hole or bump...
Back is in and break-in done. It rides so much better already that my daughter is going to think it's a new Jeep. The brakes feel much better too and it's only the rears that are new. The parking brake works 100% and it holds the Jeep still even on the steepest part of my driveway. The gears make cruising the hills in the area with OD on possible now. It adds a little bit of 'oomphf' off the line, but it's certainly not a V8 by any stretch of the imagination. My only wish was that the 42RLE wasn't so poorly programed - I swear it will shift into OD as low as ~20 mph.
Switching to the front axle today. The OTC adapters (#7894) arrived and boy, I'm not sure why I have never bought these before. That stupid little angled cup makes installation a breeze.
With the balljoints installed, the only thing that remains is finding the correct U-joint for the short-side shaft. I checked the axle that we removed and it also has a smaller joint than the passenger side. Once the old axle was out, I tackled the scale rust on the front of the frame. It looks worse than it is - there is absolutely no cancer anywhere but the person clearly parked this rig on a lawn or never rinsed this thing off in the winter, but all the chunky stuff has been knocked off and I'll give it a thorough coat of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator Pro.
Back is in and break-in done. It rides so much better already that my daughter is going to think it's a new Jeep. The brakes feel much better too and it's only the rears that are new. The parking brake works 100% and it holds the Jeep still even on the steepest part of my driveway. The gears make cruising the hills in the area with OD on possible now. It adds a little bit of 'oomphf' off the line, but it's certainly not a V8 by any stretch of the imagination. My only wish was that the 42RLE wasn't so poorly programed - I swear it will shift into OD as low as ~20 mph.
Switching to the front axle today. The OTC adapters (#7894) arrived and boy, I'm not sure why I have never bought these before. That stupid little angled cup makes installation a breeze.
With the balljoints installed, the only thing that remains is finding the correct U-joint for the short-side shaft. I checked the axle that we removed and it also has a smaller joint than the passenger side. Once the old axle was out, I tackled the scale rust on the front of the frame. It looks worse than it is - there is absolutely no cancer anywhere but the person clearly parked this rig on a lawn or never rinsed this thing off in the winter, but all the chunky stuff has been knocked off and I'll give it a thorough coat of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator Pro.
