Again, even slower and lamer. FZJ80 build.

Put some more trips under the belt. This thing is pretty rad. I am constantly impressed by it. Sometimes annoyed, but that comes with it I suppose. Everyone took the sxs's up a narrow canyon on Fathers day, I rocked the cruiser. It was unseasonably cool, nice to have a full cab and heat haha. The driver side rain gutter molding was removed by a tree, not a big deal. Went out this last weekend, camping and a little wheeling. Some place new that none of us had ever been. The road was rocky and slow going, but nothing technical. When we got to the top we ran into a group of guys in sxs's. They seemed impressed we had made it up in the 80. The road really wasn't that bad, so maybe they thought I came up from somewhere else, I am not sure. The driver side bushing for the front anti sway was soaked in oil from the pan gasket seeping. I knew it was a matter of time and meant to get new bushing ordered. Well it decided to squish out somewhere up there. That made for a real pleasant clunk clunk clunk metal banging on metal for the rest of the trip. Got home and pulled the sway, definitely more body roll. Its not bad, but I think on the highway if I had to do something evasive I might get into trouble. I'll be ordering bushing and throwing that thing back in there. Havent been to up on pics, but here are a few.

 

Haven't done much. Just been driving it. Should pull the drivelines and have them looked at. Not really up on taking a ton of pictures. Still really enjoying it.

From the Lake Hawley camper kids trip.




Been coyote hunting quite a bit. Got tired of washing blood off the roof, so I put a hitch carrier on it. Kind of sucks, but its handy for fuel and dead animals.


And Christmas tree hunting.

 

Got tired of the spare lying down in the back taking up most all of the little room that is back there. I really want a bumper with a swing out, but that's not in the cards right now. Between a few projects around the house, and a few of the items this thing needs I don't have the $1400 to dump. Searching the interwebs for some cheaper solution I came across LCP carrier that stands the tire up in the cargo area. I like the idea, but those are still $250, and it looked fairly simple. So I built one. I had some scrap steel around the house and we had some scrap stuff at the shop, so I think I have a grand total of about $40 into it.

 

And I poser'd it up a few weeks ago.

sf3 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

sf1 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

sf2 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

 

Looks Good man!

 

Sub'd.

 

The clunk clunk clunk from the bushings being smoked has been driving me crazy. A little better drivability is just an added bonus.

 

Ah. New Panhard. I’m getting OME front and rear Panhard, upper and lower rear trailing arms, DeltaVS Panhard raising brackets, and a Marlin Crawler steering stabilizer. The clunk was driving me crazy.

 

Nice. Shocks next for me. There are so many options, I am tired of reading what people say will work or wont work blah blah blah. I'm taking this to work tomorrow to cycle the suspension with our forklift so I can get lengths for shocks and go from there.

 

And freakin’ expensive. Mines been a slow build too.

 

I chatted with Mike T. of Dobinsons at Overland Expo last year. Gonna look through their catalog soon to get my cruiser suspension lifted a tad and more importantly not sagging haha

 

You aren't kidding. Between this thing, the livestock and fixing our house up, my cash outflow makes my head hurt. And this thing always takes the back seat.

They seem to build good stuff. This build quality on this panhard is top notch.

 

This is also one of my latest purchases. I can stash straps and stuff. Finally filling the hole in my bumper with a winch too.

 

That's pretty slick. Did you have to cut a bunch of the center out? I've never had my carpet off.

 

You cut the center out. Bolts on where the clips were for the carpet.

http://backbaycustoms.com/store/

 

Awesome. Something else to spend money on hahaha

 

I just love driving the thing. Needs more hp, but will go anywhere. You’re running 35’s, right? I’m on 285’s which are almost 33’s. Have you regeared?

 

I am on 35s. I want to regear, not out of necessity because it goes where I need it to. Maybe a bit slower but its not a race car so eh. I want to lock the rear and when I do I'll regear it. Today I went coyote hunting and there was about 10" of dry powdery snow that had it shifting between 2nd and 3rd a lot so gears would have definitely helped there. On board air came up the list today too. I got stopped by about 18" of snow. Had I been able to air down I'm confident I would have been able to get much farther.

 

I’ve got Harrops front and rear and a portable air compressor. I got the Harrops originally thinking about snow when I’m in Durango. Then I started doing a bit more wheeling. They are unbelievably smooth and quick to engage. Sometimes I have to drive in a circle or figure 8 to get the center diff to engage.