Nate's crappy 93 XJ

kungfufighter06 · Jan 16, 2015

What trails are you running for wotr?

N-Smooth · Jan 16, 2015

kungfufighter06 said:
What trails are you running for wotr?

No plans yet but I assume the usual:
Maze
Plan B
Double Sammy
Sliplock
Nasty Half
Upper Chain (if I can find it again)

I'm up for suggestions or people to go with

mbryson · Jan 16, 2015

xj_nate said:
No plans yet but I assume the usual:
Maze
Plan B
Double Sammy
Sliplock
Nasty Half
Upper Chain (if I can find it again)

I'm up for suggestions or people to go with

SO WISH I was headed down. I believe we are actually moving that weekend (finally) and then I can get back to whatever my "normal" life is.

N-Smooth · Jan 16, 2015

mbryson said:
SO WISH I was headed down. I believe we are actually moving that weekend (finally) and then I can get back to whatever my "normal" life is.

Wish you were going too, it's crazy we've never wheeled together. Congrats on finally moving!

N-Smooth · Jan 17, 2015

Got the rearend back together today, finally! Here are a few pics.
Getting the whole rear slide back into place was a pain. Luckily I have two friends in the form of ratchet straps!

Here's a shot of it out in the daylight. It's kinda hard to see but I'm happy with the mounts.

I also got my 24" eBay light bar mounted up. I had to ninjaneer something to keep my door-knocker from flipping up and smacking it. Easy enough.

Here's an overall shot of the bar.

And here's what it looks like. I'm impressed considering it was $58.99

N-Smooth · Jan 25, 2015

Well alright, another winter event in sand hollow is in the books. Had an awesome time! I'll break it down-
Wednesday night myself and two buddies made the drive down. Our Thursday started with a stop at BK for some breakfast and coincidentally a poser shot across the street from Dixie 4x4

I got a text from Kevin (kmboren) and he said he'd love to run Plan B with us. So we headed out. We literally ran it so fast that I got no pictures until we were heading down the dunes and I came around the corner to see Kevin's jeep just settle in after 1.5 times over.

After confirming he was okay we laughed a bit and then got it back on it's wheels and laughed some more at the new sand farm living inside his jeep. It was crazy. We let it sit, bumped the starter and it sounded bad so he pulled the plugs, shot some oil and all was good. We then went to hit Milt's Mile with a guy in a JKU that he admitted cost him $150k. Nice guy, nice jeep. No pics of it cause I don't care about nice rigs

Our buddy's red TJ pictures above was having battery issues all day and it turned out to be that his battery was 8 years old so it was sick of living. Took this pic while he was being jumped by the JK repeatedly. Three awesome XJ's!

I then got ahead of the group and took a couple photos of the amazing place they call Sand Hollow. I've been there a bunch and I love it more each time.

That was it for Thursday. Friday we met up with a bunch more people and headed out to run Plan B. We knew we'd end up running it twice but didn't care cause it's so fun. We had 9 rigs in our group!

N-Smooth · Jan 25, 2015

I did a great job of getting us lost/taking the long way to a trail I had run the day before. Ridiculous for sure but we made it there. A shot of us starting the trail-

Amongst our 9 rigs was this bearded, cover-all wearing guy driving his all-electric JKU. What a character!

Here's an attempt to get all 9 jeeps in one pic.

It's impossible, here's another try. Yes, Plan B is amazing!

N-Smooth · Jan 25, 2015

We then went on to run Milt's Mile (yes, exactly mirroring the previous day) because it was so much fun. I really like the new section. This time around I got in a bad spot on a particularly difficult obstacle and heard a snap. A concerned onlooker is seen here mocking my non-Dana60-ness.

So that was fun. I broke an alloy 8.25 axle shaft. I carry spares for this reason. Changing it on the trail with my buddies making fun of me the whole time was actually awesome until the wind picked up and sand blasted me. Made it out of there after dark and headed to dinner and bed.
Saturday we went to run the Maze and I only have one pic. My buddy Mike trying (and failing) the Soup Bowl. I'll see what pics I can get of that day from others and update this. Good times!

kmboren · Jan 25, 2015

That's a good looking group of cherokees.

N-Smooth · Mar 11, 2015

Man it's been a while since I've updated this. I haven't really worked on it since WOTR but I cruised it around the other night with Dan and it made me want to work on it. I forget to post pics on here since I post them all on Instagram...

So I decided to work on it tonight. I broke that rear alloy shaft during WOTR and messed up my axle seal in the meantime so tonight I replaced both of them and replaced the gear oil. Towards the end of working on it on the trail it got really windy so it was good to get all the sand out of there

I had a lot of things planned for EJS but decide to laserify the ol' eyeballs so that took some time out of my schedule. On top of that my friends have some more major projects I really need to help with so I decided to only worry about the necessities for EJS. It's actually nice not having to worry about crap being done. I should probably do this every other trip.

Oh and last but not least I've had some people ask me how I like the walbro pick-ups in my fuel cell. I love them! Check it out-

It's really hard to photograph but I have around 5/16" of fuel. I know because I don't even have enough to cover the 5/16" hose on every spot. The center of the cell is actually dry but there's just enough to keep the pick-ups wet and that's all it takes. I was just out wheeling this thing around the other night. Way cool!

N-Smooth · Apr 25, 2015

Went to EJS, it was fun even though it was kinda Moab:1, Us:0.
http://www.rme4x4.com/showthread.php?107823-Our-EJS-15

Starting to get ready for OSRC since it's 4 weeks away. Woot! I've been planning on doing a flat belly, a little more lift and some random odds and ends. Not sure if the flat belly is going to happen so I went after the lift today. I had some 1.75" coil spacers kickin' around so I threw them on.
Before:

After:

It looks like a monster truck to me but it will perform better for OSRC so I'm good with it. I almost want to get another set of fenders and cut them differently but I bet I'll be lowering it afterwards anyways.

Can't wait!

blznnp · Apr 25, 2015

Looks good Nate, taking away the low rider look. Once my blazer is next to it, it won't feel look like a monster truck

N-Smooth · May 2, 2015

Been working on some shackle drop boxes aka shackle replicators to get a little more lift out of the rear. I'll also get a better shackle angle out of the deal which will improve the ride for hauling and crawling. I drew them up (on paper), sent them to Carlos and he's drawing them in CAD and cutting them for me. Can't wait to get them together.

In the meantime I decided to fix an issue with my leaf spring bushings. I put new poly bushings in a few years back and the exhaust was aimed at them so they melted on the first run. Great. Check it out.

Not good so I'm glad to have that fixed. I cut the exhaust a little higher and am making a 90 work as a turndown to keep the exhaust off of the good stuff.

N-Smooth · May 2, 2015

blznnp said:
Looks good Nate, taking away the low rider look. Once my blazer is next to it, it won't feel look like a monster truck

That's a good point- it's still pretty low by comparison

I think the height will really work a lot better for OSRC since Craig is an evil man and puts giant rocks in bad places. I'm building the shackle boxes with some adjustability so I'm hoping to dial in about an inch of lift in the rear and I'll cut the front spacers to match after OSRC.

N-Smooth · May 12, 2015

Got it all tech'd and signed up for OSRC. I even put myself in Carl's group so I can talk trash to him the whole time

My driver axle spit the u-joint caps again coming out of Pritchett even with the beefy tack welds on there. I'm sick of it. I decided it was time to modify the stock shafts for full circle clips and see how that treats me. Ryan got me some so I got it done tonight.

Took a little getting used to modifying the shafts to make it work but it was easy enough. Got both sides done with new Spicer joints and buttoned it all back up. I laid out all my spares just for fun, pretty awesome...

Hopefully I get started on the shackle box relocation on Thursday but we'll see. I can't wait for OSRC!

I Lean · May 12, 2015

xj_nate said:
Got it all tech'd and signed up for OSRC. I even put myself in Carl's group so I can talk trash to him the whole time

It also looks like you can provide me with spare D30 shafts too. Thanks, man! :greg:

N-Smooth · May 12, 2015

I Lean said:
It also looks like you can provide me with spare D30 shafts too. Thanks, man! :greg:

Ohhhhh yeah, I'll be your Huckleberry.

N-Smooth · May 16, 2015

Got a lot done today! I got my version of the shackle relocation box done. They look like this:

And here's what they look like installed:

I got about 1.5" of lift out of it and the shackle angle is better obviously. It rained all day so I didn't get to drive it but is amazing how much better the suspension feels when I even push down on the bumper. The shackle being straight up like it was is the worst! I can't wait to see how it handles and I'm excited for the extra lift for OSRC.

Since I have all the important stuff done I decided to do some painting. I finally tore the front end apart and painted the new tube work. Here it is all disassembled.

I also decided to paint the wheels an awful, offensive color just for fun and was battling between pink and baby blue but this gold really grabbed my attention so I went for it.

Funny thing... I really like it lol. I can't wait to see it shining in the sun! Tomorrow I'll put the front fenders back on and take it for a spin.

I Lean · May 17, 2015

I like that you painted the ends of your axles and your brakes gold too. That helps.

N-Smooth · May 17, 2015

It really adds braking performance when you paint the rotors. I used to take the wheels off the Jeep to paint them but let's be honest, that's unnecessary at this point...

I Lean said:
I like that you painted the ends of your axles and your brakes gold too. That helps.

Nate's crappy 93 XJ

out of my way bitches!

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.......a few dollars more

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