Super Shopper Special

[HillBilt]

Then I put together Artecs HD trac bar mount, which was decent quality


Got it tacked on the axle, only thing I don't like is it makes my trac bar shorter. If you look in the pic at the bottom of the passenger coil mount, you can see the factory trac bar mount location, so will be a good 4"s shorter



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[HillBilt]

Now onto the truss. As mentioned before the D30 one I was told to used was a total joke, not only did it not work it was a cheesy piece of crap. So I picked up some 5" x 3/8" flat bar and went to work


Got it all bent up and clearanced for the trac bar bolts



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[pointsnorth]

hopefully that shorter trackbar doesnt give you savage bumpsteer there was no way to tip the axle mount out that would allow you to mount the track bar further out?

[HillBilt]

I also had to make new UCA bushings. The plan for the lift is to use a Rubicon Express 4.5" long arm kit so will be running a radius arm in the front and will use the stock style UCA bushings. I decided to build my own beefier version of the stock ones. I had a few TMR weld in bushing kits laying around so turned them down on the lathe to fit inside the UCA mount


Also shortened up the bushings and made new inserts


Here is the turned down bushings beside the original ones



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[HillBilt]

And then made some Bushing mounts to capture it. Finally got to use my HMF stencils I had Jordan cut me awhile ago


Test fit



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[HillBilt]

Burned in the UCA bushing mounts and got them measured up and tacked on the truss for a test fit




I had to make another hole for the air locker line and it just clears the mount, will be tight



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[HillBilt]

A little arts and crafts session to finish up the truss


CAD transfer to some 1/8" plate


Burned it all in. At this point I had already test fitted the axle into the jeep a few times. If you look at the top drivers side of the truss youll see I notched it out to clear the upper trac bar mount



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[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

It's annoying how Jeep made the UCA bushings press into the axle. Looks like that's a reasonable solution.

hopefully that shorter trackbar doesnt give you savage bumpsteer there was no way to tip the axle mount out that would allow you to mount the track bar further out?

It tends to get really tight on the steering... Which is why mine wound up where it is on my XJ.

To do it over I'd run a bent drag link and tie rod, like Ford does with the Stuperduty, and make a little breathing room for everything else.

[pointsnorth]

I rolled mine forward as much as I could to give me room it has about and 1/8 of clearance between it and the steering at full lock


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[pointsnorth]

It's annoying how Jeep made the UCA bushings press into the axle. Looks like that's a reasonable solution.

hopefully that shorter trackbar doesnt give you savage bumpsteer there was no way to tip the axle mount out that would allow you to mount the track bar further out?

It tends to get really tight on the steering... Which is why mine wound up where it is on my XJ.

To do it over I'd run a bent drag link and tie rod, like Ford does with the Stuperduty, and make a little breathing room for everything else.

I may need to put a bend in mine yet as it’s super tight.


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[HillBilt]

It's annoying how Jeep made the UCA bushings press into the axle. Looks like that's a reasonable solution.

hopefully that shorter trackbar doesnt give you savage bumpsteer there was no way to tip the axle mount out that would allow you to mount the track bar further out?

It tends to get really tight on the steering... Which is why mine wound up where it is on my XJ.

To do it over I'd run a bent drag link and tie rod, like Ford does with the Stuperduty, and make a little breathing room for everything else.

I may need to put a bend in mine yet as it’s super tight.


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I fully expect bump steer, how much, not too sure but I will do my best to minimize it. Its super tight with the drag link as Im running high steer. Been looking at the freddy link from Evo and mounting the drag link to the tie rod. Will deffinatly help my drag link to match up angles with my trac bar, it doesnt help with it being shorter but will be the best I can do with the setup.

[HillBilt]

I should clarify that Im unable to run the tie rod in the high steer position as I don't have clearance. I drilled out the stock location on the knuckles and moved the tie rod to be mounted from the top and not the bottom, so the Freddy link would be used with the tie rod in that location, not the high steer location

[HillBilt]

So heres a few issues I encountered with some test fits of the axle.
With it being a D44 and using a bigger truss the UCA axle mounts ended up have more separation at the axle and being higher. I extended the length of the control arms to reach but had to notch out the truss right here on both sides


Next up the truss would just touch the oil pan at full stuff. I ended up pushing it ahead another 1/2 inch and notch the truss for extra measure


Also got the LCA mounts from Artec and being a HD stock replacement they had a notch for the stock cam bolt, issue for me


and this is how much i needed to shorten the trac bar roughly 4"




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[HillBilt]

I spun up some heavy duty weld washers on the lathe for the LCA mounts


I also made up some new bushings for them as I wanted to up the bolt size from 7/16 to 1/2"


Burned them in and can also see where I notched clearance for the UCAs





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[Scott Cee AKA 2drx4]

I like the weld washers, and going up to 1/2" bolts on the UCAs is definitely worthwhile. It's actually amazing how few people break the factory M12 or 7/16" bolts in there, but it does happen.