85 jimmy pickup build

[smichaelR22]

nice.  solid rig.  

[Wingman]

Unless you\'re good at welding aluminum, steel ramps get heavy fast.  I opted for these...

Discount Ramps

Built well and light enough (50 lbs each) to manage.

[85jimmyguy]

Those ramps look pretty good. Pricy but nice... I suppose if I were to buy the aluminum needed it would add up pretty quick anyway... Figure it out when I get to it I guess..

[85jimmyguy]

Finally jumping pack into this project while im waiting for the painter and the powder coater to finish up the final pieces for my motorcycle. Started to tear into the 292 last night to asses my rebuild situation. This is my first inline 6 and I must say I really like this thing. simple and stout. Anyway here are a few pics of the tear down.

[85jimmyguy]

and the head..

[85jimmyguy]

and the jugs.. more pics to come later. The plan with this thing is to put a TBI on it so I found a fancy used aluminum Clifford intake for a 4 barrel that i can adapt a 4.3 or a 350 tbi unit to. It should flow a whole lot better compared to the stock one.

[85jimmyguy]

here is the intake comparison.. it is a slight improvement..

[85jimmyguy]

after sandblasting..

[85jimmyguy]

Nice valve cover i found burried in my father garage that came off of a chevy 250 straight 6 of the same vintage.

[Crusarius]

going back to the front suspension ideas.

when you do your top link I highly! reccommend going to the side with the diff. if you run it to the other side of the axle you will get alot of twist in the axle tube which could very likely lead to the tube cracking or breaking off completely.

the front in my TJ has 2 arms on drivers side. 1 lower and one upper going to the stock TJ mount. and the passenger side has 1 lower arm. then don't forget the trac bar.

the only issue I had with this setup is the fact I get so much travel out of it that I am maxing out the tie rod end on the pitman arm and keep popping the cap out of the joint.

here is a pic for reference. http://www.rockmodified.com/me/woody0043.jpg the tires are 35's just for reference.

[MrMindless]

when you do your top link I highly! reccommend going to the side with the diff. if you run it to the other side of the axle you will get alot of twist in the axle tube which could very likely lead to the tube cracking or breaking off completely.

I wouldn't worry about extra forces on the tube so much as the diff pointing the wrong way on articulation and bottoming out the ujoint on diff-side droop flexing.

[85jimmyguy]

lots of reading and looking at front link setups.... tried and true seems to be the 3rd link on the dif side... even though its going to be crowded over there this will most likely be the route with the least amount of headaches. I apprecieate the input. I might re think this after the engine and tranny are mounted. There has to be a way to get the diff to rotate in the more favorable direction, keeping drive angles cooperative when flexing while having the 3rd link on the passenger side...

[xjh3]

Most XJ builds I saw were using a pre-fabbed tower from places like Ballistic on the passenger's side for their uppers. I went with the differential side for strength.

Not sure, but from my research/in my mind, a longer upper link will make the pinion rotate up as the suspension drops which will keep it pointed at the t-case. My upper is shorter because that's where it fit. For the useable travel of my suspension, the pinion angle isn't really an issue.

[xjh3]

That valve cover is sweet.

[85jimmyguy]

so if im thiniking about this correctly, like you said if a longer link is on the top, either side, when the axle cycles down equally on both sides it rotates the dif yoke up keeping everything in line. Now if im thinking about this correctly, if the top link is longer on the drivers side, the diff angle stays nice when the drivers side droops and nice when the passenger side droops... but the opposit would be true if the longer link was on top on the pass side.. so it would just have to be opposite and have the longer link on the bottom to keep diff angles nice while the axle articulates.... to keep nice angles on the diff (using a d30 with driverside dif)... i'll get it right eventually... will probably have to just start building to see what way will work best for the jimmy truck....