Almost finished up the rear tire mount, unfortunately I only have a 31" tire to test it. I put some weight on it with the tire installed and I am going to add a gas tank carrier or a high lift mount as well.

I am 100%  sure that a 33" tire will not have an effect, the carrier it is very stout.

I added in an extra brace and plated it at the pivot point. I am not the best welder, I am self taught within the course of this build but it seems to be going okay.







I got my latch from TMR customs today, I will remove the rack paint it and finish up the latch tonight.

Nice work.  I have been wanting to build a mount very similar to that, just too busy right now.

Question - How constant is the spacing if you opened the door and tire carrier at same time.  I recognize they will move at different distances, but if you utilized a poly spacer as a slider, will the distance between the door and tire rack remain constant.  Or would the angle between them change enough to cause binding?  Do you understand where I am going?

What did you use for your spindle?  Housing for the races?  Bearings?  This looks very useful.

That 31 looks huge back there.  Cant wait to see what a 33 looks like.

BRD HNTR

Are you thinking you could somehow mesh the two so that the rack would take the load but operate as a single unit w/ the tailgate ? If the two are mounted at a different axis point they will defiantly bind. Mine have to be opened seperatley, partially due to the mount position of the pivot, which was chosen based on my rear bumper design.   

If you could somehow mount the pivot inline with the tailgate hinges I think it would interfere with the tailgate operation ?

I tried to take some pictures below to show you what I mean.

Drone

Unfortunately I've got to put tires on my daily driver and my track toy. Unless I can find a good deal on 5 33's I will be rolling on these till they are bald 

Update

This thing really ruined my night, I had a hard time getting the mount to work with the latch I bough. Ended up cobbling together a piece that works, but I am not happy with it. I'll run it though as I have a hundred other things to do.

Its a piece of angle filled with rubber horse matting as a damper / compressor for the latch. It does not rattle at all. You can see where I "fixed" my mistake by cutting the lower tire carrier beam an welding in new steel so the latch would close.


Clearance between the carrier and the tire / tailgate and the carrier. I have room for a 33 for sure.





Done and on to the next thing.

I lost the crush sleeve that goes on the pinion so I am a bit behind. I did however wire up the ARB compressor and rear line lock.

I also cut the fenders out. Got a bit aggressive as I didn't care about these fenders. I just used a grinder + zip disk, thats why it doesnt look like BRDHNTR's DIY.



The fender is hardly attached, I'm thinking of doing the 2x4 rockers as the ones on it are questionable anyways.


Line Lock in a dangerous place ? too late now.





Flexing it on a hill



The front is not flexing, the springs are still brand new so I am hoping they wear in a bit. Once the Steel diff is in there it may help a bit ?


Remaining;
1) Skid Plates
2) All New Fluids
3) Front Diff Assembly

Ah, you got the big ARB pump.    BRD HNTR and Moonzuki both put a t on the end where the pressure sensor is and ran it to a quick disconnect.  That way you can use it as on-board air to air up your tires.

Looks good though, the white stands out well.

Thanks, they up-sold me on the pump, but I couldn't stomach the price of the ARB branded tire inflation kit / adapter piece. I'll make a run to princess auto when my list gets a bit shorter and put something together myself.

I remounted my compressor under the drivers seat, and use a 1/4"X20' coiled air hose.  I cross to other side through the door.  Moonzuk52 has his mounted up front like yours and has no problem reaching all tires.   Also get an air nozzle to use, doesn't have much capacity but short bursts will clean things up.

I finally finished this thing up, I took my sweet time building the diff but in the end wouldn't call it a hard chore, just precise.

With the diff installed and the Hagen Mod complete (I made a new stubby shaft) I went up north to test it out for the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised with its capabilities. Being a manual transmission fanatic I wasn't too sure about the automatic, to be honest I hated it driving on the roads but it had many advantages off road, so I will live with it plus it is geared way better with the 5.12's.

Definatly went some places with the ARB that would have been inaccessible before. Very happy with the truck, couldn't break it other than the exhaust which I jammed into a rock. Note: I also kept up and trail blazed for the Rubicon in some of the pics. All the work is starting to pay off, but the front end suspension is still not performing as I would like it to, perhaps new coils will help out.  I also need to figure out some sort of bump stop to limit axle travel in the rear.         

Nice work! You probably wont get the same amount of " slow " flex out of the front as you get from the rear. I've expermented with a vareity of different coil weights and lengths and for the best all around performance I settled on a 550 lb non progressive 16" coil trimmed to fit, purchased from FOA. Works very well without the eventual sagging of other coils. On your rear swing away I'm using the same latch and have no issues with it, it's very secure. However I did find the the whole assembly did tend to wobble back to front some, so I eventually built a stablizer that attaches to the top of the swing away and mounts to my rear roof rack cross bar. Secured with a large Eye bolt for easy removal, it does require one more step to open the door, but it's worth the extra effort. Keeps the thing from wobbling front to back.

It is nice when the pieces are all working at the same time, and when they do you can do incredible things with these little beasts.  Like Bentparts said, my front does not flex like the rear.  I can get pretty good compression jamming it up against steep rocks, but for most part it usually climbs over stuff rather than compression.  And there just isn't that much distance between full compression and fully extended.

I am planning on adding a Trailer hitch, so will need to beef up bumper attachment, and I want to add a tire mount also.  Your tire carrier looks good, and would match my bumper construction.   
So if you don't mind, some questions on your tire carrier:  What tubing did you use for the sleeve?  What did you use for the Spindle?  What are the Bearings #?  What did you use between the races for spacing?

What sort of issues are you seeing with the rear?  My problem is with the 4-door springs and coil spacer my shocks are topped out, when running rough roads the rear end is really rough from topping out all the time.  A set of Ford shocks in the back should fix that problem, then I just need to extend my bump stops to fit the new travel expectations.

bentparts - Thanks for the comments. I will keep an eye on the latch but so far it seems to be bullet proof. I will also look into the springs you mentioned. Wow 16.0" ? How much did you cut off ? I have the OME 956's which measure 13.0" according to Low Range Off Road and a 500lb spring rate, they seem pretty tall when installed but maybe that is due to the increased OD of the spring material. I figure I am getting 4" of lift with the spring perch mods as well. If I didn't have the heavy bumper and winch    I would not be happy with the ride on the road. 

BRD HNTR - It was a relief to have it running again, I ran into a a lot of issues in the end but got it to work. Kinda lost some motivation and forgot to update this build as well.   

Front End
I am running the Top Hats off a set of old man emu struts, 2" strut spacers and limiting straps on KYB stock replacement struts (they limit just before the strut bottoms). I think this is killing a lot of my "droop". The CV angle with the diff drop and uncompressed suspension is not being pushed at all, this is probably good from a reliability standpoint but I think I am loosing a bit of performance. The Fox Front Struts (not the coilover) offered by Kreator would let me do away with all this "junk" spacers etc. I am really considering that as an option.  I'll post up pics of the underneath ASAP.

I wish I could provide you with more information on the hinge. The one thing I am missing is a lathe, as far as I can tell this would be a challenge to make without one. I was looking at TMR and some US vendors but found a small company in Quebec (good for me as its in Canada) http://www.ztechfab.com/ and picked their hinge up for $60.00 a fraction of the cost others are asking. To me it looked like a 2.5" by 1/4" wall pipe with the inner edged machined to match the bearing race OD.  I will try to get some better measurements tonight.

Drone637 - The rear is on 1994 Honda Accord Coils, they are Moog or some aftermarket replacement bought new for $60.00 a set w/ a progressive spring rate of 200lb. They flex and ride amazing with the aftermarket KYB cavalier rear shocks and have a Ton of droop (this is probably due to the remounted rear shock mount as it is higher up on the axle). When it is compressing however the tire is rubbing the body as the coil begins to bind and the rear shock reaches its lower travel limit. It is still a few inches away from bump stop. I would like it to be reliable so need to figure something out.    How do you intend to extend your bump stops ?

I was actually thinking about putting in a set of Daystar Stinger Bumpstops.  They have a weld-on mount, I was thinking of cutting off the existing bump stop and putting it in it's place.  I just need to get underneath the White Rabbit, pull the rear springs and figure it out.

For a temp solution I will probably just build a spacer, similar to what Calmini sells with their 3" lift kit.

I was able to snap some pictures of the CV's / Skid plates in the drive way over the weekend.

Not much of a update but here they are regardless.

 

I do not have much down travel from this point with my current strut setup, I think I can push it a bit further.









Drove it pretty hard this weekend and it is still holding together.