Got about 20 miles from the NY/ Penn on the i-90 and the driveshaft,ujoint and rear yoke broke. Cost me about 430 for the parts,labor and tow. Coming from Canada that's not bad I think. The tow itself was 180 because I was pulling a trailer and had to get that towed aswell.

 

Square for the front would be "ok" but the long one out back I would say no way! I had my rear shaft built with a 1410 joint on the axle side and the factory s10 1350 or whatever they come with out of the trans with the only part I supplied was the yoke for the trans they supplied everything else including new ujoints and brand new heavy wall tube built and balanced for less than $300 if I remember correctly. Then for another $75 I had an XJ shaft shortened for the front. It cost me more for them to do the joints in that shaft than it did to shorten it (I didn't authorize them to do the joints they just did it because I asked for a quote so they figured they would do it) I wasn't happy about that!

 

That's not so bad at all considering the yoke and shaft both broke. But oh man, breaking down with a trailer had to be stressful. Glad to hear it all worked out though.

Rexmburns you think that it would be that bad for the rear driveshaft, even for just a temporary solution? I doubt if id even hit 30 miles an hour with it. I've read of a few people doing it with yotas (all off-road only use).
That's a pretty good deal on the the driveshafts though.. did you have any issues with not having enough slip in the d-shafts?


As far as progress goes:
I finished up porting the had, and did the valve job...2 of the exhaust valves were pretty burnt up though, and don't seem to sit as well as I'd like...So I'm going to buy new exhaust valves for this head tomorrow .

Hopefully I can get some time to paint the head tomorrow night so it can get assembled and installed Saturday. I want to have it running by the end of next weekend

 

Got a bunch done this weekend...Me and my buddy were at it till 5am this morning and back on it at 10. I'm exhausted but got some much needed work done.

Got the pinion angle set, just over 20 degrees from level is where she fell.

Got the passenger side head assembled and Installed, lower intake, mpfi injectors, upper intake, and throttle body on.


Details.


Painted the alternator and power steering brackets, got them installed with the power steering pump., cleaned alternator, tensioner pulley up with a wire wheel, and got the aluminum looking pretty nice. Got them installed too, power steering pulley went on, as did the idler pulley


Buttoned up some other things, fuel lines, some vac hose fixings, set timing/installed distributor.

My buddy fabbed up a cover to make the area where the AC used to mount look nice and clean.

With the engine mostly set, we decided to assemble the rad. Support, fenders and the rest of the front body




Tried flexing her out a little bit, she wasn't having much of it. I'm not happy with that, I'm thinking I may have to adjust my shackle angle back further to get more, or maybe remove a leaf out of the front spring packs. Not really sure yet. But I gotta get more flex than that.

 

I'm a little jealous... Have you decided on your tires yet?

 

Not 100% on tires yet, but I'm leaning towards tsl swampers. 37 or 38 inches though. I'm holding off in hopes I'll find a good deal on a lightly used set for cheap, but so far I haven't had much luck

 

My front pinion angle is about in the 18-20 degree range as well. Looking good man!

As for the driveshafts, i still don't know that I'd do it. If the balance is off a little you're possibly going to tear up the bearings in your transfer case/tranny. I'd just rather protect that more expensive stuff haha Once I get to that point I'm going with tom woods cv driveshafts. Expensive at about 300 a pop but they're worth it.

 

Also is that your stock steering box??

Side note on the flex issue..I have an answer for you leaf spring wise but you probably won't like the price of it. That was the first part of my research before deciding on going with coils, then to coilovers because screw it, I'm spending all the money anyway. A couple of companies out west build super flexy leaf springs, one of them named Alcan springs. I guess they use a bunch of thin packs together and little socket looking things in the bushing "eyes". But at about 600 a set...

 

That is some good progress. It looks a little funny with the stock wagoneer wheels and tire size. Cool dog too.

 

Awesomeamerican, I'm glad to hear my pinion angle isn't way too much, it seems like alot looking at it... Definitely going to have to rotate my C's. Steering box is out of a 94 2wd astrovan. Mounts to the factory holes in the frame, and same input/output shaft, but spins the opposite rotation of the stocker(so pitman arm points forward)

From what everyone has said, I'm pretty convinced not to do the square rear shaft, but the front one is going to be square for now till I can get a nice one made.

I've heard of alcan before, and everything about them I've heard seems to be good. 600 a set isn't too terrible either for a custom set of springs. I'll be looking into that for sure.

Thanks tajohns, yeah it does look pretty funny with the 31s. Waggy wheels are probably going to hang out for a bit though,( with bigger tires ) until I get or make a set of beadlocks


Right now I've been getting beat down by the wiring catastrophe that goes into this engine compartment lol. Almost got it all set though. God willing, she should fire up this weekend