I woke up on Saturday having planned to work on my Jeep with 2 RME’rs. I looked out the window and was immediately concerned as I new both places would be working out in the driveway.
I saw blue skies way out to the south of Utah County where my first half of the day would be spent. Cascadia gave me the info for an RME’r out in Santaquin who he said is the guy to work on axles, named Nate. I don’t know what his RME name is. I forgot to pull the camera out and take pics of the work for this part. Nate is a really good dude, and is just who I needed to get the job done right. Goal was to replace my axles seals in my Dana30. Nate had my front axle stripped down quite quickly, I am glad that I enlisted him to help out as he quickly identified that both my wheel bearings were shot. When he got the differential opened he identified a slightly cracked tooth in one of the teeth in the ring gear. So it looks like a new ring and pinion next time I get in there. Nate was very thorough and very meticulous Got the new seals put in the diff. Put everything back together, including some new wheel bearings and we were done by about 2:00pm. No more leaks, and the wheel bearings made the ride much smoother. It was a good learning experience for me, and a good opportunity to meet a good RME guy like Nate.
Now it was off to work on the swing out tire carrier with krawlereng (Shawn). Made it out to Lehi by 3:00pm. Shawn was in his garage under an 86’ 4runner redoing his brake lines. I took a look under the 4runner and saw that he did an SAS, all the suspension work, and the brakes on it and it looked really clean. So I was sold on letting him hack my bumper down.
This is the bumper before he started on it
From where it mounts the bumper sticks out almost 9” which is terrible for any decents. The other issue was where it mounts to on the Jeep needed some reinforcement help
Shawn prepped the mount area by pounding it back into shape and grinding it to prep for some initial welds
He welded the cracks
Fabbed some plates out of his axle jig metal. We gotta get Shawn a plasma cutter, he’d be a dangerous man
Beefy reinforcement plate ready to weld on
Much better. The welds looked great
Ready to chop the bumper. First he chopped the post the swing out carrier is on and moved it to the edge of the bumper. We determined that we could cut out about 3.5” – 4” of the bumper.
And the carrier now is so much slimmer on the back of the YJ. Thank you krawlereng for your work. We even got some removable mudflap mounts hidden in there.
And a special thanks to Superfly for the spare 35” BFG KM
Driving home the carrier was solid. It didn’t seem to move forward and back as some carriers do. Now to do some surface sanding, priming and painting.
It was a good long day for me, I met two really good RME guys that were really awesome to work with. If you need any welding or fabbing work give krawlereng a PM, he did great work. I am sure if Nate wants to promote his services he will chime in as well, although Nate seems to keep a pretty full schedule with work, I am just happy he let me take a Saturday morning with him.
I saw blue skies way out to the south of Utah County where my first half of the day would be spent. Cascadia gave me the info for an RME’r out in Santaquin who he said is the guy to work on axles, named Nate. I don’t know what his RME name is. I forgot to pull the camera out and take pics of the work for this part. Nate is a really good dude, and is just who I needed to get the job done right. Goal was to replace my axles seals in my Dana30. Nate had my front axle stripped down quite quickly, I am glad that I enlisted him to help out as he quickly identified that both my wheel bearings were shot. When he got the differential opened he identified a slightly cracked tooth in one of the teeth in the ring gear. So it looks like a new ring and pinion next time I get in there. Nate was very thorough and very meticulous Got the new seals put in the diff. Put everything back together, including some new wheel bearings and we were done by about 2:00pm. No more leaks, and the wheel bearings made the ride much smoother. It was a good learning experience for me, and a good opportunity to meet a good RME guy like Nate.
Now it was off to work on the swing out tire carrier with krawlereng (Shawn). Made it out to Lehi by 3:00pm. Shawn was in his garage under an 86’ 4runner redoing his brake lines. I took a look under the 4runner and saw that he did an SAS, all the suspension work, and the brakes on it and it looked really clean. So I was sold on letting him hack my bumper down.
This is the bumper before he started on it
From where it mounts the bumper sticks out almost 9” which is terrible for any decents. The other issue was where it mounts to on the Jeep needed some reinforcement help
Shawn prepped the mount area by pounding it back into shape and grinding it to prep for some initial welds
He welded the cracks
Fabbed some plates out of his axle jig metal. We gotta get Shawn a plasma cutter, he’d be a dangerous man
Beefy reinforcement plate ready to weld on
Much better. The welds looked great
Ready to chop the bumper. First he chopped the post the swing out carrier is on and moved it to the edge of the bumper. We determined that we could cut out about 3.5” – 4” of the bumper.
And the carrier now is so much slimmer on the back of the YJ. Thank you krawlereng for your work. We even got some removable mudflap mounts hidden in there.
And a special thanks to Superfly for the spare 35” BFG KM
Driving home the carrier was solid. It didn’t seem to move forward and back as some carriers do. Now to do some surface sanding, priming and painting.
It was a good long day for me, I met two really good RME guys that were really awesome to work with. If you need any welding or fabbing work give krawlereng a PM, he did great work. I am sure if Nate wants to promote his services he will chime in as well, although Nate seems to keep a pretty full schedule with work, I am just happy he let me take a Saturday morning with him.
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