UPDATE:
So the ol' girl and I have been getting up to some shenanigans as of late. Priscilla is her name, if anybody was wondering.
Anyway, the next step for my project was to get some proper shoes. I looked around, and concluded that a set of 265/75/16's would work well. I picked up a set of five 16" Land Rover rims last summer for $125, and they've been waiting for rubber since then. Earlier this summer, I got my hands on a set of BFG All Terrains. I would have picked something a bit more aggressive, but this
is still my daily driver, with which I drive about 100-120km a day. As such, the All Terrains made more sense for now. Once those were fit to the vehicle, it became quite clear that a lift was needed in the near future. They did the trick, but there was some noticeable rubbing from the front tires when cornering, especially if I was turning up into a driveway or onto a curb.
Priscilla with her new shoes:
With a lift on my mind, I started looking around for some options. Quite soon afterwards, I was in discussion with Scotty over a set of springs he had from his P38 from when it was on coils. After various e-mail exchanges, I ended up getting Scotty's springs. He was very helpful and a pleasure to deal with. Thanks Scotty!
The springs in question are OME 779 for the front, and OME 751 for the rear. They were supposed to give approximately a 2" lift as far as I'm aware. Once installed, it became evident that I would need just a little bit more height in order to get to the position I wanted. As such, I had a set of spacers rigged up to give an extra 1.25" of lift. Once those were in the rig, everything looked just right.
Priscilla sitting at her new ride height (new springs and spacers):
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Along with the new springs, I purchased myself a set of Terrafirma TF125 and TF126 shocks for the front and rear of the vehicle, respectively. These units were somewhat hard to come by, as apparently Terrafirma are on backorder worldwide. I sourced a pair down in Texas, but the shipping costs were near the same price as the units themselves and I would have ended up paying upwards of $450 for the set. As such, I kept looking, and luckily I found a set at Lucky8 in NY. They were also very helpful, particularly Justin. I ended up driving down on a Saturday morning to pick them up, and had them back at shop by Saturday evening. They went in smoothly with the springs. However, when I went to remove them in order to install my spacers, the rear-left shock broke. I can only attribute the failure to a bad spot weld. I immediately got in contact with Justin at Lucky8, and within hours he had contacted Terrafirma and arranged for a replacement unit. In the interim, I threw back in my old shock as a quick-fix. It's still there, doing the trick.
Broken shock:
Lastly, I needed a set of sliders made up for the vehicle so that I could properly participate in a local wheeling event on the August long weekend up in Bobcaygeon, ON. The event is called Trailfest, and is run by the London Area Jeep Owners Club if any locals are interested. It's a very well run event, with wonderful people and a large range of trails ranging in difficulty.
Anyway, I spoke to Martin at great length about the sliders. We swapped ideas and drawings so as to come up with something that suited my tastes. In the end, unfortunately, we were unable to follow through with our deal as Martin was very busy down on his end and my deadline was too soon. Thankfully, Martin was of great help explaining his product and helping me with measurements, and even offered to help me find somebody local to try and get the job done! I ended up googling something like "metal fabrication toronto", and luckily stumbled across a shop that does custom Jeep work only 30 minutes from my house. Their name is Staang's Fab for anybody in the Southern Ontario area. They do fantastic work, and have amazing customer service. I couldn't recommend them higher!
I drove out to their shop to meet them and discuss my ideas. They had made many rock-sliders for Jeeps in the past, along with bumpers, roll-cages, roof racks, and various other mechanical modifications. As such, they knew almost exactly what to do. I showed them a couple of sketches, and left the vehicle with them. The next day, they had a unit roughly mocked up for my approval. The following day, the unit was finished and ready for painting. After day 3, I came to pick up the finished, installed product. I was very pleased.
The sliders in-shop:
The sliders, finished:
I also installed a set of Carroll Rovers sway-bar disconnects. They proved very handy on the trail and were very simple to install and use!
All in all I'm very happy with the project so far. The vehicle drives well, with very minor driveshaft vibrations at highway speeds. That will get fixed in the future. Thank you very much to all who helped out along the way! Martin, I'm sure your sliders would have been great as well, but you probably had more fun on your family vacation that in the shop :lol: I will be installing some shock re-location brackets in the next few weeks, once I get my fourth shock in the mail. That will give me a little more down-travel, as the shocks are about 2.5" from topping out at the moment.
I also plan on removing the brush guard. It's seen better days, as it is heavily corroded under the rubber, and is quite literally falling apart. Once I take that off, I'm going to Back-to-Black everything and really give the Rover a clean!
Up next: Undercarriage armour; I'll be doing the diffs, fuel tank, steering, and maybe the transfer case as well. That will all be followed by bumper(s) front and rear, along with some longer springs to accommodate the added weight. Then a winch and some lights. Follow that with lockers and new gears.
That's the idea at least! `) :dance:
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