WonTon JLUR Build on 42's

[RhinoJLU]

The whole reason why i was asking about your lower mounting position and ride height was because i came across this gentleman running 14” oris up front. I guess I didn’t want to see this happen to you lol. His lower shock mount is flush to the axle tube so I think that’s what did it. He may need to cut it off and use your mount

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[WontonJLUR]

The whole reason why i was asking about your lower mounting position and ride height was because i came across this gentleman running 14” oris up front. I guess I didn’t want to see this happen to you lol. His lower shock mount is flush to the frame so I think that’s what did it. He may need to cut it off and use your mount

There are a lot of people who run a mile high with these things. People get absorbed by the idea of sticking the tallest possible strut into a location, and then discover that their ride height needs to be insane in order to have any real use out of the strut.

I’m not a professional builder by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d say I’m pretty decent at finding information that’ll give me the best reasonable results. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been gathering info on how to do this right. Even then, I’ve still discovered a hundred different little things along the way during this build so far, and I’ve got a long way to go.

 

[RhinoJLU]

There are a lot of people who run a mile high with these things. People get absorbed by the idea of sticking the tallest possible strut into a location, and then discover that their ride height needs to be insane in order to have any real use out of the strut.

I’m not a professional builder by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d say I’m pretty decent at finding information that’ll give me the best reasonable results. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been gathering info on how to do this right. Even then, I’ve still discovered a hundred different little things along the way during this build so far, and I’ve got a long way to go.

Your build is top notch that’s for sure. Can’t wait to see it all dialed in. Check out where his lower mounts are.

 

[WontonJLUR]

Your build is top notch that’s for sure. Can’t wait to see it all dialed in. Check out where his lower mounts are.

Appreciate it sir.

yeah who knows. That could have been intentional for all I know. Located there will bring the axle/tire higher up during full stuff/bump, but doesn’t allow for much uptravel of the strut AND a low ride height.

Could be that the jeep was just built for high speed running, which a higher height is ok for to allow for more bump travel. Those also look like Gen 3 ORIs which are built for high speed racing. Zero benefit on those vs the STX for rock crawling.

also packaging. Hard to see in that pic, but it doesn’t look like he’s got the real estate between the C of the axle and the lower link mount to place the ORI mount where I’ve got it. I’d guess that’s a super duty D60. In that instance, and for my uses, I’d be downsizing the strut. But again, I don’t know what the intent with that build was.

this is being built very specifically to be a rock crawler. Of course I’ll get up a bit in speed going between trails and such, but it’s not really the focus

if we were to go out west to, say, KOH or Utah and do some higher speed stuff, I’ll just bump up the ride height by 2” or so for the duration of that. That’s another nifty aspect of ORIs. With the proper stuff (onboard nitrogen fill rig) you can do whatever you want to them in the middle of the desert.

 

[beast40]

You can always make the towers taller. Not uncommon to run long travel coilovers/ORI near the top of the engine bay. Takes some fab work but you look more than capable.

 

[WontonJLUR]

You can always make the towers taller. Not uncommon to run long travel coilovers/ORI near the top of the engine bay. Takes some fab work but you look more than capable.

Oh 100% so. I thought about towers long and hard. Ultimately I decided to run some off the shelf towers because I just don’t want this thing to be down for 12+ months.

one of my good buddies has been on jackstands for 3 years, and another for 12 months with no end in sight. Building is fun, but wheeling is more fun.

and at the end of the day, it’s a full body Jeep that’s gonna be plenty capable even with not being fully optimized with custom towers and the like.

 

[WontonJLUR]

Long random post alert.

Figured I'd add some more in progress photos with no real order. Some of these are semi recent, some of them are a few months old.

In my quest for my target anti squat (under 100, ideally 95 or so) I found that probably the best way to achieve a lower number with my setup was to get an adjustable frame side upper link mount. Here's the mount that was provided with the kit. Comes pre-welded to the frame plate that I welded to the frame.

Chopped that off of the plate:

Goal here was to raise the frame side upper link mount, which the new bracket does by about 1" at the top hole.

Comes unwelded, which is fun to get a bit more time in on the welder. I am by zero means a professional welder, but occasionally they turn out ok.

Tacked up. I had to unbolt the body and raise it up by about 3" in order to get the room needed to get a proper weld on the top of the mount

All welded up and painted now, with the body dropped to normal.

Ended up with a 95 anti squat, which is exactly what we were after.

Took some time to figure out exactly where I wanted to put the ORI mount on the front axle.
Originally had it here, fairly close to the lower link mount.

This would probably have worked fine, but I wanted to get it a bit more outboard to get the struts leaned in a bit more. Did some modifications to the bracket to get it to fit up to where the C is welded to the axle tube:

That'll obviously be its own challenge to weld the outer portion of that, but I can get good access to the inside of the bracket and a decent chunk of the outside of the bracket with the MiG. Then we'll see if we can't get the TIG to cooperate with a hefty stickout to get in that crack, but it should be fine if we can't.

Got the frame portion of the rear brake lines ran to the upper link mounts. At this point I think I'm just going to run both rear lines down the driver side link instead of running them to each respective upper.

Was able to re-use the factory heat shield for the steel lines. Fresh aluminum tape is where the retainer clips pierced the shield. And yes, that's the current end of the exhaust. Don't ask what the plan is for that, that's way too far ahead to think about right now

Playing around with some 3D printed brake line retainers. Pictured above is the first "revision" I made, but I printed (not installed yet) some smaller ones

Next I got everything finalized as far as placement for everything on the rear axle, so got to welding it all up.

Paint is still FRESH in those pics, it's dried to a matte black. Last picture is the tabs for strapping the jeep to the trailer, so I don't need axle straps anymore.

Had a clearance issue at full bump in the rear, where the upper links wanted to just touch the crossmember under the cargo area.

Himmed and hawed about various ways to modify the crossmember. This issue was with ORI tabs on the axle that were 1.5" to on center of the mounting bolt. Decided to buy some 2" OC tabs and trim them out. This gave me back about that 1/2" I needed to get into the bump stops of the ORI without modifying the crossmember.

I still need to box that in on the sides. Forgot to do that before I painted it.


Kind of visible along the link is a prototype of a mount I'll use to secure the brake lines, air line, and electric parking brake wires to the upper links.

Rear brake line routing along the axle. Still undecided. Briefly considered hard line straight into the caliper, but 2 things stopped me: 1) it's a sliding caliper, so needs a flexible line. 2) pain in the ass if i need to remove the caliper to change pads or whatever other reason.

At this point I'm strongly considering just using a long run of braided stainless starting at the upper link mount and going all the way to the caliper.

Some cool builds on instagram and the like use hard line everywhere with braided stainless transitions only where flexibility is required (joints) but that's just so many fittings and all that. Still undecided, I may end up doing that anyways but I'm not sure.

Got my rear bench seat in, then immediately loaned it out to a buddy who wants to build the rest of his cage around it. This picture is not my jeep, but is my seat:

Insane how different the colors are compared to my front seat that have seen 2 years of sun and dust:

We'll have to see if some carpet cleaning wizardy ran close that gap a bit, otherwise i might just throw dirt at the rear seat.


Would have been cool to keep the rear anti rock, as that would've given me a few more options for tuning the ORIs in the rear. Definitely not gonna work.

And finally, just some random pictures that I took in the process that I thought were cool:

As of today, the rear is completely done and painted (with the exception of boxing in the ORI tabs on the axle). The driver front tower is welded and painted.

Still need to secure a wiring harness before I can weld up the passenger side tower, then final weld the ORI mounts to the front axle.

Hopefully within the next week, I can have the Jeep off of jackstands and sitting on its own weight.

Then after that comes the mess of wiring and brakes, running new air line for the lockers, and putting the interior back together.

 

[WontonJLUR]

Jeep is finally on its own weight. Ended up going with a new tie rod from RPM steering. Drilled out the knuckles and used their heim ended tie rod, which brought the tie rod height down by close to 1". this gave me back some uptravel in the front while maintaining a low ride height (This is not ride height, this is either at or near full extension on the struts)

Also moved the hydro assist ram from it's mount at the track bar to being mounted on the diff cover. Needed the clearance as I started pushing everything higher up. Full hydro would give me even more, but, I'm just not trying to deal with the electronics relocation for all the steering wheel controls. Ready to be done building this Jeep and move onto helping the wife build something.

Some pics of the front at full bump. Pretty tight!

Cleaned up the wiring at the rear axle and got hoses routed to where they belong. Wheel speed sensors and electric parking brake goes up the passenger upper link, brake lines and air line will go up the driver upper link
Before:

After:

I guess I didn't take pictures after I put up those hoses. Don't judge the white zip tie at the end of the axle tube. Maybe it's permanent, maybe it's not.

Here's some various ride heights after playing around with the ORIs

Full bump front and rear:

Full extension front and rear:

North Carolina Chevy Tahoe:

That's pretty much it for the "big" stuff on the project.

Last things to do:
-Flare brake lines at both ends (all factory lines removed from downstream of ABS block)
-Install braided brake lines once they arrive, fill and bleed brakes
-Exhaust, muffler on the way, still have to figure out exactly what this will look like
-Fill rear diff, fill and bleed power steering
-Put interior back together, wire switch for electric park brakes
-Tighten essentially every bolt on the Jeep, because it's hard to think of one outside of the engine bay or dash that wasn't removed

Hopefully have it put back together in time to make it to Rausch Creek with Great American Crawl in a few weeks, but we'll see.

 

[WontonJLUR]

Finally “done” and the Jeep is mobile! Unfortunately, the weather looks like trash this weekend, so it’s gonna stay home and we’ll find another weekend for the shakedown.

there’s about 2” of travel left at each corner, except for the pass rear. That’s stuffed.

Still tons of “finishing” to do, but nothing that’ll stop me from driving it around on nice weather days.

probably clean up some of the routing on the links/axles. Still need to weld on the rear brake line retaining tabs to the frame, but the hard lines keep them in place well enough for now.

all new hard lines. Transition to custom length braided stainless at the pass front upper link, and the rear driver upper link. Unbroken braided stainless run all the way to each caliper.

exhaust is done, as long as I can get reflective heat tape to satisfactorily redirect the heat that’s currently soaking the driver side lower link. Currently getting the link/joint to about 145F, read on a laser therm. Not catastrophic, but would rather address it.

Scavenged an exhaust hanger from the factory muffler and welded it to the new muffler. Scavenged the factory hanger from the frame and welded it to the new RPM rear crossmember

Sound is actually pretty much fine. Just factory cats and a walker muffler, with a basic bitch turndown welded to the exit of the muffler.

Drilled 2 holes in the RPM skid to allow the NVM engine skid to grab the sandwich washers in the trans crossmember.

Still working on designing and 3D printing a cover panel for where the parking brake used to be. Just a simple panel to match the contour of the console, with a slot to hold the switches for the parking brake

 

[HMB392]

Amazing build, look forward to hearing how it performs on the trails!

 

[WontonJLUR]

to my happy surprise, the rear cargo shitass still fits! And works perfectly as a fuel cell access hatch

Almost done with my packout mount. Just need the single mount to show, weld it to this support, and we’re golden

Sound bar is back out, gonna poly fill the bar and close it up finally from where I cut it open to fit the roll cage.

PAC AP41, mono amp, and shallow mount sub are on the way. I’ll build a box to sit under the rear seats once my buddy is done borrowing it.

 

[WontonJLUR]

Working through installing a new sub since the factory one had to go.

PacAmp AP41, JL mono amp, and JL 10TW3-D4 sub

I know I didn’t need the AP41 for a mono sub, but I hate rework. The AP41 will work for just a sub addition, but will also allow me to switch to a 5 channel amp and power new speakers if I change my mind

waiting on the UPS man to bring the rear seat mount so I can measure for, and make a sub box to mount up under the rear bench. More to follow

2 years ago or so, when I installed the cage, I had to carve out the factory sound bar to fit around the roll cage. Closing it back up has been on my to do list since then, but like so many things, it basically got forgotten.

used some kydex plastic to make some caps and did an absolutely heinous job with epoxy to close it back up. Don’t care what it looks like, no one can see it anyways.

sounds WAY better, no surprise. Also put some poly fill in there, since I got some for the sub box.

I’m a sucker for how contrarian it is to have a fairly built Jeep, while maintaining most of the factory finishing that I can. So cut out the carpet to fit the towers. Looks ridiculous and I love it.

Now I’m on the hunt for the passenger side plastic trim and carpet for a no subwoofer, but not in a huge rush

 

[WontonJLUR]

Couple random tasks finished up.
Sub box done, just need to secure it down

Took about 5 revisions, but a workable switch panel has been made for the electric parking brake. Designed in fusion360 and 3D printed in ASA

I’d like to think I’ll go back and clean it up and make the lines match someday, but I know myself. That may never happen

got the last piece for the packout holder. Welded up. Just needs paint

2 long pieces of flat 1/4”, 4 spacers, some scrap 1/8” plate, and 2 metal packout mounts from Etsy.
Mounts to the factory tie down location, 4 bolts away from removal.

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