The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

I just ate two desserts to celebrate for you!

 

Thanks.

Thanks fellas. @scocar no worries. I actually forgot that it was my birthday, so all good, and Happy Birthday to you too.

 

Lolz I hope it was good.

 

Happy Birthday Aug 1st people...my fiancee's birthday is today as well...there will be toasts this evening at dinner.

 

Happy Birthday @Crom & @scocar

 

It's been a long time between updates.

I took my family to Anza-Borrego in April. We did some desert night operations and traversed a cool slot canyon at night.

During the day we summitted Whale Peak (elevation 5,349). An old favorite. We had great weather and a nice cool breeze for most of the trek. I had not been up there for 12 years--the pine trees that offered cool shelter are dead and all dried out, kind of sad. Anyone who backpacks up there now, takes shelter using stacked rock walls which is pretty typical on desert peaks.



I June I'm going to swap out the rear suspension.

 

Good to hear from you

 

I started refreshing the rear suspension

Pulled out the driver side leaf pack and shock.

When comparing the replacement leaf pack to the old, its clear that ARB / OME made some improvements to the design. However, I don't get why they added a bunch of leaf spring spacers between the leaf's, that just added unnecessary thickness to the pack. I took them out. And I am glad that I did, the leaf pack center pin was all deformed! I am guessing it was abused when it shipped from place to place before arriving at mah house. I resued my old center pin, and recovered the 3* axle shim from my old leaf pack and rebuilt the replacement pack. I also used an angle grinder to taper the rear leaves because I believed they would bind in the shackle. OME made the supporting leafs longer for some reason and they just wouldn't fit into the tapered part of the shackle, I so nipped off some material with the grinder and seems to be okay.

Finally, I picked up some naked shackles and drilled and tapped them for a grease fitting. Thanks @EDDO for your post on ordering the part 04005-65104. Actually my oldest kid did the drilling with a drill press, and I tapped them for 1/4" x 28 thread. The tap and die set I used was probably as old as I am, it was made in Japan, and was quality tools that were my Dads.

I expect to finish the leaf packs this week and get an alignment shortly after.

Here are some bad photos

 

Man I just read through all of this page and got caught up on the last few trips. As always crom well done on all your documentation!