PEAK PUTTERS

The trails have been calling, wheeling season is coming fast, and there's not enough hours in my day to get the CJ to where it needs to be. In all honestly, when the CJ works, it works well, but the reliability issues have been gnawing at me, and frankly kept me off the trails.

I know it's almost blasphemy to infer the name of the somewhat famous (infamous) Bunny on another vehicle, but I hopefully v2.0 will carry a little luck of the Bunny and be just as much fun!

Meet Bunny 2.0

It a '93 Explorer Sport, 4.0L, 5 speed, 3.73L 8.8 rear, D35 front. Runs great, shifts good, A/C blows cold, all the windows work, every bushing in the suspension is wasted and the brakes are junk.

The goal here is reliable, streetable, tough and fun. Intended purpose is trails, back country adventures (long distance), mild whoops, occasional sand and maybe a tough truck race or two.

There's the plan:

1 - complete brake/ wheel bearing rebuild, front to back (parts on the way)
2- James Duff 5.5" system, long arms, quad shocks up front, fabbed coil buckets, lift leafs in the rear (parts on the way)
3- Aussie locker up front
4- 33" tires. Looking at the new Grabber MT (not the desert tires)
5- Cage, bumpers, body protection, swap the winch over from the jeep

This should be a solid base to start with. Down the road I'll do things like air compressor, storage, spare tire mount, etc, etc, etc.

Lets start the fun! See you at the 50th Anniversary run!

I love this plan.

Awesome!

Parts for explorer

http://yakima.craigslist.org/cto/5655487775.html

Does anyone have any opinions on 33x12.50 vs 33x10.50? I'm leaning toward the 10.50, especially if I can get my hands on the new Grabber X3's. The only downside I see on the 10.50's is snow flotation and potentially lower sidehill stability. The 10.50's will keep my overall width down, I can run a factory a factory wheel, should be easier on wheel bearings, will make sure I keep the sweet turning radius of the TTB, should reduce rolling resistance ...

What's your thoughts?

Danny accidentally bought some 33x10.50r15 BFGs. They worked fine and he went everywhere everyone else did. Of course, his Jeep weighs next to nothing and. . .well. . .he's Danny.

Honestly, I think they would be fine. You are the engineer but it seems like diameter has more to do with aired down contact patch than width. Comparing 1" to 1" that is.

Don, why the worry about overall width? TTB Fords aren't all that wide to begin with.

What's the rim width? If it's 15x7 I would go with the 10.5, if its 15x8 I would go with 12.5. That is if you want to air down the tires under 10psi with less chance of losing the bead.

Lud wrote:What's the rim width? If it's 15x7 I would go with the 10.5, if its 15x8 I would go with 12.5. That is if you want to air down the tires under 10psi with less chance of losing the bead.

Your comment just invoked a ptsd like reaction, I have a deep hate for losing beads! If I went 10.50 I'd run stock 15x7`s. I'd have to buy some 15x8`s for 12.50`s. Bead locks may be in the future, just not in the budget right now.

Got my shipping confirmation, 340lbs of James Duff is scheduled to deliver on 8/11!

I'd go 12.5s. I like the look better and it will add to stability in off camber spots.

Here's the laundry list of parts ordered this morning:

Brake rotors, brake pads, calipers, wheel bearings, bearing seals, brake drums, brake shoes, wheel cylinders, brake hardware kits, adjusters, ball joints, ball joint camber eccentrics, master cylinder

... That ought to take care of the brake issues!

I also ordered my front aussie locker and parts for the c clip eliminator.

Aside from the tires, all the big purchases are out of the way. Guess next weekend is going to be a wrench fest!

Should have left cookies for Brown Santa!

So, after taking two days off last week to clear my plate of house/ yard chores, I've gotten about 10 hours in to the Bunny project. Right now, both axles are off the truck. The front is stripped down to bare beams and ready for cleaning, trussing, painting and the Aussie locker install. The rear has the brakes stripped down. Still need to pull the axles and get it ready to truss.

I've been considering the rear axle truss design a lot. After personally having broke an 8.8 housing on the race truck this is important to me. All of the trusses on the market are designed for Jeep axle swaps and do not extend past the SOA perches. I'm leaving the Explorer SUA, so I really want to get that support all the way to the ends of the axle. So, I need to figure out a truss that integrates the bump stops, accommodates the u bolts, and gets as far out as possible on the axle tubes. I'm considering using 1.5" DOM as opposed to plate, to minimize the amount of welding I have to do on the tubes to prevent warpage.







Next on the agenda is grinding rivets ... lots of rivets. I've got the remove the spring buckets, radius arm cross member and the stock pivot brackets, all of which are held in by Fords beloved rivets.

I wouldn't stress the truss too much. That thing will never see the abuse the race truck did.

I seem to recall a pic in the old banner rotation....
The original bunny in flight.

How much do you think the rig will weight when done?

Air chisels work great for those rivets.

SPR wrote:How much do you think the rig will weight when done?

I'm finding the specs for stock weight as 3800lbs. I figure I'll add 150 in suspension and 300 in cage and accessories.

Also, the wheelbase is 102".

Interesting comparison, the Jeep LJ`s are 3800lbs and 103".

The explorer weight bias is going to be a little different. Obviously the TTB front end is going to put a different twist on things.

Wrench wrote:Air chisels work great for those rivets.

I'm planning on taking the approach of skinny wheeling the head off then air hammering the nub out. I've got about 20 to do.

With what I got done last night, the rivets and a couple frozen brake fittings are all that's left of the tear down.

Don:+20, Dreaded Rivets:0. Rivet removal went smooth using the grind and air hammer method. Only took about an hour.

Tear down is now officially complete! I want to start putting it together so bad, but I've got cleaning, painting, reinforcing and a locker to do.

Progress has been a little slow on the Bunny over the last couple of weeks because now I'm taking care of all the tedious stuff that will hopefully pay off in the end. I'm cleaning and painting everything i touch, installing the front locker, installing the rear axle truss and diff cover, reinforcing the front diff, doing ball joints, replacing wheel bearings, replacing axle seals, completely replacing all of the brakes.

Here are a few pictures:

Barnes4wd 8.8 axle truss. It's simple, smallish and should help. This will be complimented by a 3/8" thick fabricated steel diff cover.








Knuckles and spring plates sand blasted and painted. All ready for new ball joints and adjustable eccentrics


Front Aussie locker installed. The front end will be getting a c-clip eliminator, skid plate and reinforcement plates.

Got some iron in the mail yesterday!




As soon as I mock up the suspension I'm going to make a decision on bump stops. These are what I'm thinking:
http://www.kartek.com/parts/progressive ... 2bbfd4696e

Air bumps would be cool, but I think maybe unnecessary. I also don't want to worry about checking the nitro charge, seals, etc.

Any thoughts on the kartek bumps?

No issue as long as the shocks are doing a good job.