If you recall the Currie early years of rock crawling comps, they used a swing arm on the rear that wrapped under the tube and attached to the bracket on the backside of the tube. It was their red TJ 'Fire Ant'. As for lifting the bolt points, you are basically doing a JeepWest geometry correction layout.
@Mickale-Moranis I remember the Currie J-arm, neat one. My approach is a little different than Jeep West, at least on the JK. I'm not lowering the frame side lower mount. On stock width axles, there is more to worry about with clearance for the upper tower. With the wider axles I have a bit more freedom that way....and I don't want to lower the frame side mounts for clearance reasons. Accutune also dabbled in geo correction brackets back in the day. I know I'm not the first person to do it, but I am more wondering why it isn't a more popular idea across the aftermarket axle market. Seems win win to me across the board as value added for basically no extra cost.
Agreed, I have a TJ Brute project on a JKU chassis that mostly sits in the back of my garage. It will be stock ish height. I ended up pushing the front forward 2-3” to get a 40 to clear the frame curve inward at the firewall.
When I did the one ton swap on my JKU this was something I wrestled with as well. I ended up going with a junk yard 14b (aam 10.5) because I was able to manipulate the geometry fairly easy with a truss/swap kit. With the front being a little more complicated, considering castor and diff offset being an added factor, I chose a Fusion axle because they did all the things I asked for without adding cost. Excited to see what you come up with here.
@tslucam thanks for following along! I looked at the junkyard options, but like you mentioned, I think the front lower control arm mounts with the increases diff offset quickly becomes an issue. I'm trying to pick my battles on this one, I came really close to doing a fabricated housing for 10.5 Toyota Tundra 3rds with late model dodge pickup outers.
@@brennanmetcalfok. I would love to hear about the tundra axles and the thoughts around it. I know Tyler from moreflate has tundra axles. But your choice of outer has me intrigued.
@lgray647 the Tundra center is a monster 10.5 ring gear....so splitting the difference between D60 and like 70 or 14 bolt stuff. Drop out 3rds means a fabricated housing which makes all the brackets easier in front. The dodge pickup outers are plug and play ABS compatible with the JK if you use the right years....14 to 18 I think.
Overanalyze? I feel your pain on that one. I plan to do long arms on the front of my jeep this fall. I have been planning it for ~1 year now. To solve the issue of moving the lower mounts closer to the center of the vehicle, why don't you also shift the upper mounts an equal amount. That would. keep your arm lengths the same as stock, and also give a small amount of stretch to your wheel base.
The arm lengths can't really stay 'stock' if you move the lower arm up to the front of the axle tube ( at least not without moving axle back a lot more than I want ). I don't really think that trying extra hard to keep the stock arms is worth it generally. If you could flip the upper and lower arms for length, it gets closer, but the upper and lower arm use different construction and different width joints. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think replacing the arms with something stronger and adjustable is a bad thing. I am sure there will need to be fine tuning on everything for length in this kinda prototype stage.
building a JLU with same setup. i almost when portals as well, the reason i didn't was to truly do portals right you also need to replace the housings and then your total is about double the price of one tons.
I would agree with that, the cost on the portals does really add up the further you get into the project. I was really lucky to find this let axles for about 1/2 the cost of just the portal boxes. That still seems like a lot, but is sure easier to swallow. We can dream that Jeep will offer something like this in the future from the factory!
It will probably make an appearance at EJS, but I usually like doing most of the week in the flatty. It's gonna be late in 2025, so the weather should be nice!
If you recall the Currie early years of rock crawling comps, they used a swing arm on the rear that wrapped under the tube and attached to the bracket on the backside of the tube. It was their red TJ 'Fire Ant'.
As for lifting the bolt points, you are basically doing a JeepWest geometry correction layout.
@Mickale-Moranis I remember the Currie J-arm, neat one. My approach is a little different than Jeep West, at least on the JK. I'm not lowering the frame side lower mount. On stock width axles, there is more to worry about with clearance for the upper tower. With the wider axles I have a bit more freedom that way....and I don't want to lower the frame side mounts for clearance reasons. Accutune also dabbled in geo correction brackets back in the day. I know I'm not the first person to do it, but I am more wondering why it isn't a more popular idea across the aftermarket axle market. Seems win win to me across the board as value added for basically no extra cost.
Agreed, I have a TJ Brute project on a JKU chassis that mostly sits in the back of my garage. It will be stock ish height. I ended up pushing the front forward 2-3” to get a 40 to clear the frame curve inward at the firewall.
When I did the one ton swap on my JKU this was something I wrestled with as well. I ended up going with a junk yard 14b (aam 10.5) because I was able to manipulate the geometry fairly easy with a truss/swap kit. With the front being a little more complicated, considering castor and diff offset being an added factor, I chose a Fusion axle because they did all the things I asked for without adding cost. Excited to see what you come up with here.
@tslucam thanks for following along! I looked at the junkyard options, but like you mentioned, I think the front lower control arm mounts with the increases diff offset quickly becomes an issue. I'm trying to pick my battles on this one, I came really close to doing a fabricated housing for 10.5 Toyota Tundra 3rds with late model dodge pickup outers.
@@brennanmetcalfok. I would love to hear about the tundra axles and the thoughts around it. I know Tyler from moreflate has tundra axles. But your choice of outer has me intrigued.
@lgray647 the Tundra center is a monster 10.5 ring gear....so splitting the difference between D60 and like 70 or 14 bolt stuff. Drop out 3rds means a fabricated housing which makes all the brackets easier in front. The dodge pickup outers are plug and play ABS compatible with the JK if you use the right years....14 to 18 I think.
Tack!
Overanalyze? I feel your pain on that one. I plan to do long arms on the front of my jeep this fall. I have been planning it for ~1 year now.
To solve the issue of moving the lower mounts closer to the center of the vehicle, why don't you also shift the upper mounts an equal amount. That would. keep your arm lengths the same as stock, and also give a small amount of stretch to your wheel base.
The arm lengths can't really stay 'stock' if you move the lower arm up to the front of the axle tube ( at least not without moving axle back a lot more than I want ). I don't really think that trying extra hard to keep the stock arms is worth it generally. If you could flip the upper and lower arms for length, it gets closer, but the upper and lower arm use different construction and different width joints. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think replacing the arms with something stronger and adjustable is a bad thing. I am sure there will need to be fine tuning on everything for length in this kinda prototype stage.
building a JLU with same setup. i almost when portals as well, the reason i didn't was to truly do portals right you also need to replace the housings and then your total is about double the price of one tons.
I would agree with that, the cost on the portals does really add up the further you get into the project. I was really lucky to find this let axles for about 1/2 the cost of just the portal boxes. That still seems like a lot, but is sure easier to swallow. We can dream that Jeep will offer something like this in the future from the factory!
@@brennanmetcalf hoping to see you in Moab with it this year, plan is for mine to be done and tested prior to EJS.
It will probably make an appearance at EJS, but I usually like doing most of the week in the flatty. It's gonna be late in 2025, so the weather should be nice!
Strong pointer you have there to just remove the coil bucket like that! 😂
@@justinscherrman gotta keep it fun.