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Marc Bryson's K30---Errrr '94 Wrangler----wait, '4x MB---I don't know what it is.....trail rig?

Marc Bryson's K30---Errrr '94 Wrangler----wait, '4x MB---I don't know... "Jeep" works

Owners Name & City-

Marc Bryson, Woods Cross, UT


Make, Model & Year of Vehicle-

Excellent question. Titled as a '80 CJ


Engine-

'89 TBI 350


Transmission-

700R4


T-Case-


D300


Axles-

Front: Chevy Dana 60, 4.56 gears, Eaton E-Locker. full width

Rear : Shaved 14 Bolt with spool, 4.56 gears. full width

Suspension-

Waggy fronts

XJ rears (reversed) 101" wheelbase


Wheels and Tires-

38" Super Swamper TSL/SX on stock H1 wheels with PVC beadlocks


Winch-

T-Max 9000

Favorite Trails-

Pritchett, Coyote Canyon, Mineral Basin


Other-

lots......


backontrailer.jpg


abandoned_rig.jpg



I'll get some 'action' pics next time I take it out. (it might be all one color by then, but who knows.......)

Attached are 'all one color' pics.......

freshpaint.jpg

freshpaint2.jpg
 
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mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
LT. said:
Ah, okay. That makes sense. I did run across a company named aquala that makes stretched body tubs. But, I thought you would have a better and cheaper solution to this issue.

LT.
Click to expand...

Those are sweet tubs! I've considered one more than once. The biggest trick is the hood. I still don't think it looks "right". Fenders aren't to difficult to fab (if I can do it, anyone can). I'm hoping to retry the hood again soon using the process outlined above. Remove the "skin" from the YJ hood, fix the understructure to where I want it and then lay some fresh sheetmetal over the understructure.
 
L

LT.

Well-Known Member
Location
Los Alamos, New Mexico
mbryson said:
Those are sweet tubs! I've considered one more than once. The biggest trick is the hood. I still don't think it looks "right". Fenders aren't to difficult to fab (if I can do it, anyone can). I'm hoping to retry the hood again soon using the process outlined above. Remove the "skin" from the YJ hood, fix the understructure to where I want it and then lay some fresh sheetmetal over the understructure.
Click to expand...

I am gonna keep a look out for your idea. You still have my favorite jeep. Thank you for your quick and through answers.

LT.
 
SSR

SSR

Active Member
Location
Santaquin, UT
So, it appears I'm a little late to the party, but I guess that provides me the advantage of reading the entire build thread at once. It's a great build, interesting to see how they evolve. Can you provide an update of how the linked front/leafed rear is performing?

My plan is to triangulate my rears and keep the leafed fronts, but I'm questioning if leafed front vs. leafed rear provides an advantage. Do you have an opinion on this?

Also, where are you getting your tube adapters and what size tube did you use for lowers/ uppers? Oh yeah, what paint did you use that's available for $75? Is this the paint i would have seen at 2015 EJS, it looked good to me.
 
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mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
That would be same paint. It was an "industrial enamel" from National Coatings and Supplies. I'm not sure what it's current price is but I think that's what I paid for it.

As far as parts, I bought 75% of my stuff from RuffStuff. Other stuff I've just had kicking around for a while.

Front radius arm-leaf rear.... Drives and wheels a lot like a 1 ton XJ without the creaking uni-body. I do get some wheel hop on less tractible surfaces. This was expected but it's more than I like. I'll likely leave the lower parts of the radius arm and just add an upper link making a 3 link. I'll have to consult with my friendly geometry experts about that but I think it'll work pretty well.

I'm done with buying leaf springs and want the rig lower by about 2" as I'm older now and losing mobility a little. I do plan to link the rear. Parallel lowers and triangulated uppers. The uppers will have to be shorter than normal and end prematurely compared to other setups due to size/location of fuel tank. I think I have this worked out but not sure about the tie into the housing on the 14 bolt yet. I have a plan in my head that I think will work.

In some ways, it would have been good to stay with the leaf setup. What I had worked well, rode decently and was really reliable. I swapped to a different brand of leaf springs and had some issues. To make those springs work, I would have had to move the stationary mounts fwd and I think they would have been fine. A LOT less work than what I have in the radius arms.
 
mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
Oh, rig is currently down for a fresh flexplate. I need to get my butt out in the garage and pull the t-case/trans back and see if that's my "cool" sounding noise from the other day. I'm assuming there's a crack or two in the flexplate I put in about 4-5 years ago when I swapped the trans
 
mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
update for operation flexplate: No bad flexplate. Loose trans mount. Good result.


Now I'm on to one of my least favorite things, wiring. Who's got a good resource for wiring techniques and such? Most of my wiring is pretty hack. Likely pretty safe, but not aesthetically pleasing in any manner. I plan to change quite a bit of that for my Easter Jeep Safari project (the deadline is a good thing).

My Jeep has an engine and interior harness out of an '89 Suburban. This is good in that all electrical still thinks it's in a Sub. Engine controls plug into ECM, steering column into interior harness, etc. The bad: A Sub is a little wider than my Jeep tub. I've got a loop on the interior harness but that doesn't bug me a whole lot up under the dash. Strangely over the years, I've just found a hot source and wired an accessory to this, found a switched source and wired an accessory to that. It's kind of a mess to be honest. I started thinking through the interior and then remembered I have about 4 leads on the positive and 2-3 leads on the negative side of the battery. In doing a bit of research, I've run across electrical bus bars. I'm thinking of adding a ground and positive version and mounting my winch leads, ARB compressor harness, interior fuse block (this will be where I fix all the stupid stuff on the inside from and leave the native GM stuff to be native GM stuff), HAM radio etc.

Will I burn my Jeep down or will this help me make it so I DON'T burn my Jeep down? I'm as dumb as a rock about electrical. Anybody have some good reference materials? There's been a few YouTube videos that pointed me to the BUS bar. Guy was using it in an RV. Seemed like a good use case?
 
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Bart

Bart

Registered User
Location
Arm Utah
I'll be watching this closely. I think I'll be rewiring my beast next fall, when it gets a new motor and paint. I like your plan but personally I would leave your winch leads on the battery. They can get so hot that I wouldn't want them on a firewall or with other wires.
 
mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
Bart said:
I'll be watching this closely. I think I'll be rewiring my beast next fall, when it gets a new motor and paint. I like your plan but personally I would leave your winch leads on the battery. They can get so hot that I wouldn't want them on a firewall or with other wires.
Click to expand...

I've thought about that exact thing. Hoping someone has some good input? I would assume if I put an appropriately sized connection to the bus, I should be OK?


attachment.php





noting some online "articles" here.... Not sure of validity and such. Comments welcome

http://www.k0bg.com/wiring.html

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/top-10-electrical-fixes/

http://www.zeebuck.com/bimmers/tech/batteryrelocation/underseatbattery.html


bus bar link - http://www.remybattery.com/power-distribution-bus-bar-4-point-positive.html


http://www.marinco.com/en/products

http://www.digikey.com/products/en?lang=en&keywords=

WOW, repair connectors for various OEM stuff....http://www.repairconnector.com/
 

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