Compression fitting install (SS Braided line)

I put the compression fittings on my braided stainless steel oil lines tonight. I was pretty happy with the ease of installation in comparison to the ones I used on the fuel lines. These have an additional collar that provides an extra layer of confidence, and you don't have to muscle them on. You simply tighten the threads. Allow me to show you..

Unthread the female end and remove the inner collar. Leave the male end to the side for now.


Push the braided line through in the inside of the female end, threads facing out.Push the plastic tubing (inside the braided line) into the inside of the collar until it is almost flush.




Slide the female end over the collar. Thread male end and you're complete.


Clean fit.


Ready for the cooler. Which by the way I'm still looking for.

Alloy USA axle tube seals

Picked these up a while back. I'm going to wait to install them when I pull the front axle out from under the Jeep and truss it. But for now, they're just eye candy. Anyway, Alloy USA offers these in multiple sizes. These are the D30/44. As you all know I have a D34, a combination of both axles, so these will slide right in. As for the color, you're stuck with red because that's all they offer. After last year's front end debacle, where water ruined every race, bearing, and seal, I won't more protection. We'll see how it works. I'll post up after I install them.



Rebuildable inner seals

Fuel Line/ Filter install

Well I should have posted this before. I have installed the braided fuel line, EFI fitting, and fuel filter going back to the fuel tank. I originally mounted the line on the inside of the frame rail on the driver's side. This posed a problem with interference from the traction bar. So I had to move it to the transmission hump and paired it up with the brake line. When I install the electric pump I will touch base on this subject again.

Manual Brakes- Balance Bar Restrictor

After I tested out the brakes I noticed upon braking the balance bar was not remaining horizontal, thus deflecting energy. In real terms it means the brakes weren't as good as they should have been because the master cylinders were not compressing straight in. One was going up and one down. Yes I was stopping but I knew they could be better. So I headed up to ORC to discuss this with Keith. I drew him a diagram and left my Jeep for a couple hrs.

This is what he came up with. The red arrow shows the fork in the rear of the design. This allows the balance bar to move forward and backward (to allow for individual compression of the MC's), but does not allow the balance bar to move up and down (which is how it was deflecting the energy.

The blue arrow is the thumb screw Trey installed. It prevents the spherical bearing from over-rotating. Obviously the thumb screw decided not to do it job and the bearing/balance bar needed a restrictor.

Oil cooler sandwich adapter

I decided against using the oil relocation setup. Mainly because it was going to take up too much space under the hood. In addition, the cooler (I unfortunately purchased) was only 3/16". This was going to pose a problem with pressure in the smaller lines, thus building heat and negating the purpose of the cooler to begin with.

I decided to purchase a sandwich adapter that has (2) 1/2"ID ports. This will allow me to direct the oil flow to and from the oil cooler right from the filter area. I also purchased (4) #8AN fittings and 10' of 1/2"ID braided stainless steel lines.



We tapped the adapter from pipe thread to standard thread and installed a Boss fitting with an O ring. I refuse to have SS lines hooked up to a pipe fitting with teflon tape. So this is the route I decided to go.


All the new gear. Now I'm looking for an oil cooler. It has to fit certain specs though. So I'm looking at some racing stuff.

Rear Shackels- Rebuild

Well after installing the shackle relocation kit, I decided to customize it further by removing any adjustment holes to choose from if say for instance my leaf spring were to soften up. Which led me to this point. I needed to relocate the shackle mount and improve the angle.

The shackle kept slamming into the rear of the mount. So these little beauties had to be removed.


Plasma gun does wonders.


Get everything straight and tack on the new mounts. We set the Jeep down to level it out then finished the welds.


Flat black and voila! I got the opportunity to try these out right away and had absolutely no problem. The spring sits flatter and the shackle angle is better.

Manual Brakes-Brakes Pedal Spherical Bearing Install

This should be the last step in completing the manual brake system. In order to emulate the Wilwood braking system I bought a 3/8" ID spherical bearing to install in the pedal. This will help alleviate binding of the all-thread as it passes through the pedal and attaches to the master cylinder clevises.

The top of the pedal is the location of the bearing. You can see here it is just the all-thread with two threaded collars.


Trey milling out the new location. Giving it that extra attention. Normally he doesn't even look at what he's doing.


The hole had to be milled off center rather than drilled due to a rivet located just above the hole.


Tapping the set screws holes. The are used to prevent the bearing from over-rotating. If that occurs the MC's will not compress straight in and deflect energy elsewhere.


Paint and ready for install. I had the opportunity to try these out right away. I would have to say I finally feel like I have consistent brake pedal now. Something I can cross off the list.

Rock Rails-Installation/ Finishing the rails

The rock rails were only 50% done. The rocker panels were still exposed if the Jeep was on lean. So I took it down to my local fabrication geniuses, namely Offroad Connection. I knew they had it under control so I just took off (after a couple of hours).

When I returned Wayne had tacked on both sides and was getting ready to fuse it together permanently. He matched the tubing size to the tubing used in the front fenders and rear coffin rails. 1.5" rails with 1" struts.



Wayne getting ready to finish the welding. Wayne has helped me a lot throughout the years