1969 Wagoneer - Built for Adventure

TrailTestedMFG

Active member
We got about as far as we were comfortable on the cage without having seats to work with and without knowing if the wheel well was going to need to open up so we decided to switch gears and work on the suspension.

In order to get suspension geometry we were happy with we needed to go to a double trianglulated 4 link and get a little creative with the frame side of the lowers. We decided that for this build optimizing the suspension geometry was going to be more important than squeezing every inch of ground clearance out of the belly, so we fabricated a sort of sub frame cross member that will double as a mount for the belly skid.

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The center portion will get boxed once we can asses driveshaft clearance at full droop. Next we sleeved one of the dimple died holes in the frame boxing to provide a solid place for a RuffStuff 3 legged link bracket.

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Time to move on to the axle side! Courtney made quick work of the RuffStuff axle truss.

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We are also using the RuffStuff truss extensions and their upper link bracket. Boone says this stuff looks BEEFY.

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In order to get the roll axis numbers down we had to move the lower axle side brackets (again provided by RuffStuff) about an inch above axle center line. Yes it will put more force on the joints and more leverage on the brackets. Thanks to RuffStuff 1.25 heims and beefy brackets all around, we aren't worried about it.

Now to the fun part. We are trying to keep the interior of this thing as usable as possible, which means no shocks through the floor. Enter the cantilever. I got lots of tech info and inspiration for these from Pirate4x4.

First up was to fab the bell crank:
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Next up was the frame side brackets:
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Then we added some plate work and extended it backwards on the frame to where the shocks will eventually mount.

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Specs:
Motion ratio at bump: 1.2:1
Motion ratio at droop: 1.6:1
Shock travel: 10"
Axle travel: 14"

The cantilever will pivot on a 3500# trailer spindle with a custom made hub using high strength bronze bushings. There will be a cross member connecting the two spindles together. More on that in a future post.

Shocks are Fox 2.5 Performance Series remote resi from Accutune Offroad. Huge shout out the Ryan and the team at Accutune for their awesome customer service. Give these guys a call for all your shock needs. Up travel will be controlled by Fox 2.0 2.5 stroke bump stops also from Accutune.
 
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TrailTestedMFG

Active member
Next up were links and bump stops. All links are RuffStuff 2"x.250" DOM, except the rear uppers, which are 1.75"x.120". We are running the RuffStuff 1.25" heims.

We are running Fox 2.0 (2.5 stroke) air bumps all around. We custom made the brackets that mount the bump cans to the frame.

Once our 2 speed Atlas (3.8 ratio) was ready we headed over to Advance Adapters and picked it up. We pulled the body from the frame, set it in and made the transmission crossmember. WAY better than trying to bench press it in from underneath.

Once that was done we pulled the motor and rolled the frame away from the body. We finished up most of the gusseting/plating and fully welded everything. We will finish the plating on the rear upper link mounts once we have driveshafts installed.

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Next up was paint. We used a gloss black acrylic enamel paint with hardener in an HVLP gravity fed paint gun. Courtney then went in and added some brown accents in the same color that we painted the cage.

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We rolled the axle back under the body and strapped it down to full bump. Our Magnaflow exhaust parts are on order and we will start doing the exhaust once they arrive!
 

TrailTestedMFG

Active member
We've been slowly making progress as we have free time. We got the AccuTune Fox 2.5 Coilovers installed. For the exhaust we end up going with the Magnaflow Builders Kit. We had never done any type of exhaust work before but the kit made it easy to do without needing any specialty tools. The hardest part was getting it to snake between the frame side of the rear upper and lower links.

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itschrisb

New member
Totally drooling over this! I just picked up an 83 J10 with plans to build an offroad rig. Will be keeping a close eye on this. I believe I saw a brief intro to this project on Dirt Everyday.

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TrailTestedMFG

Active member
A lot of progress has happened with this over the last few weeks and we fell a little behind with our updates. Sorry for string of updates that will follow.

We got the Atlas shifters installed.

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Two of the exhaust manifold bolts were broken so we replaced all of them. The easy out broke off inside the bolt so we ended up removing the manifold, welding nuts to the broken studs and backing them out. Worked easy enough.

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As soon as the GenRight XJ Extended Range fuel cell showed up we got to work mounting it. The skid required some modifying, including cutting off the mounting brackets and making our own.

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We are going to be using a stock XJ in tank pump/assembly. In hindsight we would do the fuel pump differently next time. We ended up deleting the XJ fuel pressure regulator and spent a lot of time messing with things that probably could have been put to better use just coming up with a better solution all together. Overall we're happy with the fuel system and plumbing. The particular 6.0 we are using is a return-less system that requires 58 psi of pressure. We are achieving this by using a Corvette style external regulator/filter that has it's own return.

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We also got our PSC power steering pump installed. Gotta love bolt on parts that actually fit like they are supposed to. :D

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TrailTestedMFG

Active member
Another good day of work!

We are using a Winters Sidewinder for a 4L80e. Other than having to modify the bracket to hold it onto the trans, it works perfectly. We may modify the gates a little after we give it a try as is. Seems annoying to have to do so much side to side movement just to get from P to D and back.

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Before mounting the body back on the frame we had to cut out one of the smaller floor cross-members to clear the gas tank.

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Here's one last look of the rear before we covered it up with the body :smokin:

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The frame easily mounted to the body with the aluminum spacer pucks we made on the lathe.

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The GenRight tank filler inlet lined up perfectly with the stock filler. The stock filler tube was in good shape so we just reused that and connected it to the tank with some braided nylon tubing.

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Next up was mounting the shock reservoirs. For the rear we used the RuffStuff weld on mounts. In hindsight we should have gone with a piggyback shock, but we were able to mount the resi's behind the bumper easy enough. The original bumpers are in good shape, and we both love the look of them so for now that is what we are going to run. We will likely eventually modify or fully replace them with something custom so that we can have a spare tire carrier integrated.

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