Thanks Mike !! Your truck, and your daughter helping, is an awesome project. I am sure you , and your family will enjoy all the handwork in the future!!
(Another) Forest Living Suburban Build Thread
- Thread starter Burb One
- Start date
Thanks Mike !! Your truck, and your daughter helping, is an awesome project. I am sure you , and your family will enjoy all the handwork in the future!!
Thought some of you all may like these...
The one part of the rough country kit (and stock) I did not like was the sway bar links. Way too thin, and I have always wanted to have quick disconnects for the rear.
ALSO as can be seen in the pictures, my rough country shocks were getting tired in the rear after a 3 years(and were never great in the first place) so trying some Monroe sensatracs with load leveling spring we'll see how they do(can I call them a coilover? Lol)
BIG NEWS is currently have a 9.25 front diff in my driveway. One of my buddies bought a burb and is going to 4.10's so instead of him rebuilding a diff, figured it could fund a 9.25 in mine and he can get the 4.10 8.25. we'll see how it turns out....
Sway bar link parts:
Pac racing threaded tubes (5in for front and 11 in for rear with my ride height. May differ for other 6 in lift and obviously stock/cranked trucks. The heims add around 1-2 in when measuring)
4x right hand and 4x left hand heim (1/2inch) (Amazon)
Grade 8 hardware (pretty self explanatory other than making sure to get left hand jam nuts for the LH heim, I forgot those and had to go back to the store. I made quick disconnects stealing the idea from the link at the bottom of the post)
An hour of time
(Note rear disconnect I made too short on V1.0. Had to redo it but forgot to get a picture so disregard the screw not seating in the nylon. You get the idea. Works great! We'll see if the clip snags anywhere...
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/diy-quick-disconnect-pins-bolted-1415746/#/topics/1415746?page=1
The one part of the rough country kit (and stock) I did not like was the sway bar links. Way too thin, and I have always wanted to have quick disconnects for the rear.
ALSO as can be seen in the pictures, my rough country shocks were getting tired in the rear after a 3 years(and were never great in the first place) so trying some Monroe sensatracs with load leveling spring we'll see how they do(can I call them a coilover? Lol)
BIG NEWS is currently have a 9.25 front diff in my driveway. One of my buddies bought a burb and is going to 4.10's so instead of him rebuilding a diff, figured it could fund a 9.25 in mine and he can get the 4.10 8.25. we'll see how it turns out....
Sway bar link parts:
Pac racing threaded tubes (5in for front and 11 in for rear with my ride height. May differ for other 6 in lift and obviously stock/cranked trucks. The heims add around 1-2 in when measuring)
4x right hand and 4x left hand heim (1/2inch) (Amazon)
Grade 8 hardware (pretty self explanatory other than making sure to get left hand jam nuts for the LH heim, I forgot those and had to go back to the store. I made quick disconnects stealing the idea from the link at the bottom of the post)
An hour of time
(Note rear disconnect I made too short on V1.0. Had to redo it but forgot to get a picture so disregard the screw not seating in the nylon. You get the idea. Works great! We'll see if the clip snags anywhere...
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/diy-quick-disconnect-pins-bolted-1415746/#/topics/1415746?page=1
Last edited:
I got it lined up yesterday. Seems to be way more than possible with only welding the front mount lower on the front drop down bracket in terms of welding.
I would assume its a pain on a non-lifted truck (or almost impossible). It looks to be definitely possible with my lift because with the diff drop, the diff sits below the steering linkages so its bigger footprint doesn't hit them. I am going to grind off the front mount tonight on the diff drop cross member (no going back- well actually I can just reweld the mounts on for the 8.25 if I want to go back
) but it looks like all the clearances fit. For the CV's It looks like because the lift brings the hubs out 2 inches (and use a spacer) on the 8.25. The 9.25 which is an ~inch wider on each side plus the .5 inch longer 2500 half shafts, should work perfectly. If not, I can have some .5-1 inch spacers made in lew of the longer Rough country ones. One "problem" is the drive shaft will have to be shortened. (Not a big deal, just something I will have to pay someone else to do.)
So far I am looking at
9.25 diff bought (with weldable lift bracket already installed off a wrecked lifted truck) ($400-$250 for selling my 4.10 8.25)=$150
Grinding front brackets off front mount and welding them lower... materials- $10
2500 CV half shafts- $150
Shortening drive shaft- $100
A lot of time and awkward bench pressing a heavy diff- $100,000,000 (my time is valuable
)Possible
-Local machine shop make custom CV spacers ~$100
I'll keep everyone updated!
Last edited:
Jelorian
Adventurer
I got it lined up yesterday. Seems to be way more than possible with only welding the front mount lower on the front drop down bracket in terms of welding.
I would assume its a pain on a non-lifted truck (or almost impossible). It looks to be definitely possible with my lift. I am going to grind off the front mount tonight on the diff drop cross member (no going back- well actually I can just reweld the mounts on for the 8.25 if I want to go back
for the CV's It looks like because the lift brings the hubs out 2 inches (and use a spacer) on the 8.25. The 9.25 which is an ~inch wider on each side plus the .5 inch longer 2500 half shafts, should work perfectly. If not, I can have some .5-1 inch spacers made in lew of the longer Rough country ones.
So far I am looking at
9.25 diff bought (with weldable lift bracket already installed off a wrecked lifted truck) ($400-$250 for selling my 4.10 8.25)=$150
Grinding front brackets off front mount and welding them lower... materials- $10
2500 CV half shafts- $150
Shortening drive shaft- $100
A lot of time and awkward bench pressing a heavy diff- $100,000,000 (my time is valuable
Possible
-Local machine shop make custom CV spacers ~$100
I'll keep everyone updated!
Nice upgrades! I hope the install goes well! You gonna have that beast put back together for the meet on Sunday?
Going to try! Worst comes to worst I'll just take out the front drive shaft.
Not sure if I'll need 4WD for those Oakland/ Emervyille roads.....
Well got it in today afterwork... Went a lot easier than expected, a little more grinding than I would have wanted on the diff in the normal place the lifts require you to grind, but it's in. Rear and side mounts all lined up. Just need to weld a new hanger bracket and skid plate mount.
Next is sourcing 2500 CV's from the store and making the final measurments to get the driveshaft shortened!
Next is sourcing 2500 CV's from the store and making the final measurments to get the driveshaft shortened!
Last edited:
Had to run out and check... You made me nervous lol! Felt like it went too easy..
It sits below the front bracket, but above the rear one. The rough country kit on the 8.25 does the same. There's a skid plate from the lift kit which I'll remake the mount for that will cover it just like before We're all good there it looks like!
..
Last edited:
Also got some oreilly precision new CV's for $70 bucks each. I never noticed how much more beef there is on the 2500 CV's... once I held the box it felt about 2x heavier than I expected. Much stronger, probably lose some mpg though with the rotational mass lol.
Also looks like the CV's will bolt right up. On full droop the tripod joint is slightly more pulled than I would like but it's not bad, and it's still better than a cranked 6 inch lift on the stock axles (I'm limited by my limit straps on droop for this reason) I'll eventually get some .5 inch aluminum spacers machined, but it's more than good enough for getting it all together, running and testing on some off road trips...
Also looks like the CV's will bolt right up. On full droop the tripod joint is slightly more pulled than I would like but it's not bad, and it's still better than a cranked 6 inch lift on the stock axles (I'm limited by my limit straps on droop for this reason) I'll eventually get some .5 inch aluminum spacers machined, but it's more than good enough for getting it all together, running and testing on some off road trips...
Last edited:
'05TJLWBRUBY
Adventurer
Interested to see how this turns out for you. The 9.25s in the 2500s and 3500s hold up far better than the smaller 8.25 in the 1500s. They don't like Elock units but ARBs work well if you want traction. I recently gave a way mine to a buddy doing custom narrowed IFS setup with it using two short side shafts with some machine work of course. Will be interesting how it works out. I didn't realize it was that easy to swap units out-assuming suspension/brackets were more difficult to work around. This is neat to see, looking forward to your progress.
Best of Luck,
Mike
Best of Luck,
Mike
Very nice those do look beefier! Good to know.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
Well spent all day Saturday and some of Sunday (It was hot here and I was by myself so moved slowly with having to move the diff around...., with two hands probably would have only taken 2 hours to do the front mount welds.)
It's all 100% done (except the cv spacer and drive shaft shortening, which are in the works... )
As an overview of what needs to be done to the truck at minimum:
Currently Pending/ not on the truck but should be straight forward-
The old mounts cut off the front cross member for the diff. One part of the RC design I did not like as it had both the diff and skid plate being held by the one screw(albeit it is a 1/2 grade 8, so I changed the skid plate to have one mount through the diff mount screw, as can be seen below, and then two other mount points. You can see how much larger the new mounts are They are simple ~1/2 steel welded into a L bracket and bolted to the front cross member
THICK mounting points. These will support the front of the diff and one of the three front mount points for the skid plate (the space where you can see the threads is where one of the skid plate mounts connect)
Another view:
View with skid plate. I elongated the skid plate so if the two outside skid plate mounts fail instead of all of the weight going into the screw the diff is mounted to it will also contact the front cross member which is more than strong enough to carry the weight (as it was designed to )
GETTING PICTURE...
It's all 100% done (except the cv spacer and drive shaft shortening, which are in the works... )
As an overview of what needs to be done to the truck at minimum:
- 6 inch lift . I don't see how this would be possible without dropping the diff. It is just too big to fit with the steering linkage right there/ Probably any lift kit will do with diff drop, however your mileage may very. It worked for me with the Rough Country kit. In fact, I helped install a "2017" model RC kit on a friend's 2001 Suburban 1500 recently and they have redesigned the front mount, where the mount is bolted on to the front cross member which would have made it easier than my few years old design where the bracket had been welded by RC and I had to cut off and reweld)
- 9.25 differential (obviously) wit the front aluminum mount shaved off, as well as extensive shaving on the rear side fins (where you normally shave for most of the lift kits)
- 2500 lift kit steel front mount for diff
- Ability to weld a new front mounting point onto differential drop cross member
- A few 1/2 grade 8 hardware for the new mount (rather than weld the new front mount, this way the diff can be dropped without getting stuck on the front support)
- Some shaving on the rear lift kit mounting point for the wider supports on the diff (a few mm) (I ended up welding a support piece to make up for this as can be seen in the pictures, but this is optional IMO)
- 2500 CV's
Currently Pending/ not on the truck but should be straight forward-
- CV spacers
- Shortening drive shaft by ~30mm
The old mounts cut off the front cross member for the diff. One part of the RC design I did not like as it had both the diff and skid plate being held by the one screw(albeit it is a 1/2 grade 8, so I changed the skid plate to have one mount through the diff mount screw, as can be seen below, and then two other mount points. You can see how much larger the new mounts are
They are simple ~1/2 steel welded into a L bracket and bolted to the front cross memberTHICK mounting points. These will support the front of the diff and one of the three front mount points for the skid plate (the space where you can see the threads is where one of the skid plate mounts connect)
Another view:
View with skid plate. I elongated the skid plate so if the two outside skid plate mounts fail instead of all of the weight going into the screw the diff is mounted to it will also contact the front cross member which is more than strong enough to carry the weight (as it was designed to
)GETTING PICTURE...
Last edited: