ZMotorsports Shop Projects 2.0

[WoodsTruck]

Motorized wheelbarrows make yard work funner.

 

[Duker]

Yeah, I’m not thrilled about the yard work but my future daughter-in-law is pretty stressed and I can’t stand seeing her like that so I want to do what I can to help, even if it is yard work.

Tomorrow will consist of removing a tree stump, repairing the area and then hauling bark. Gonna be a long day.


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No good deed ever goes unpunished! You sir are a great soon to be FIL.... !


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[zmotorsports]

It's still better than having anyone step on your lawn. I see what you're doing, crafty!

I guess your on to me. [emoji12]

Actually I volunteered our yard but her dad who passed away about 8 years ago took as much pride in his yard as I do mine and she always wanted to have her wedding in his yard as a tribute to him.

That sentiment meant a lot to me and I was honored to have been able to help with yard work so her dream wedding in her dad’s yard could become a reality.

 

[zmotorsports]

Yard work for the homeowner is a necessary evil if you want your property to look good. A little streaming music and a hoppy beverage always makes it go better. You go Mike!


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It ended up being a good day. Working alongside my wife, son, future daughter-in-law and her family was a rewarding day.

 

[zmotorsports]

Motorized wheelbarrows make yard work funner.

Hadn’t thought of that.

 

[zkdiesel]

Motorized wheelbarrows make yard work funner.

All that leaves me with sadly is more turf damage. FYI 9k skidsteers bad tools on grasss lol

 

[zmotorsports]

No good deed ever goes unpunished! You sir are a great soon to be FIL.... !


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Thank you Duke. I hope she is as excited to be a part of our family as we are to have her. I want her to be proud to be a member of our little family and j would not want to disappoint her as her FIL.

 

[cweidert03]

I was waiting on some before and after shots of the yard!


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[aka Larry]

I was waiting on some before and after shots of the yard!

Ditto. Since when does Mike not have pics of before, during and after?

 

[zmotorsports]

Sorry guys, I didn't get any before, during or after shots as we were in full work mode and I didn't even think about it.

That turned out to be a long weekend and only 11 days left until the wedding and a lot to do.

Thanks for following along.

 

[polexican23]

I think whenever Mike sells any of his personal vehicles, GJ members should get first dibs. no trade in or local private selling.

 

[zmotorsports]

I think whenever Mike sells any of his personal vehicles, GJ members should get first dibs. no trade in or local private selling.

I'd be ok with that. Honored in fact.

 

[gearhead1960]

While pictures would have been nice, just the satisfaction of helping your son and future DIL move forward to a great future would be enough for me.

 

[zmotorsports]

While pictures would have been nice, just the satisfaction of helping your son and future DIL move forward to a great future would be enough for me.

Agreed.

This whole experience has been an opportunity for me to pause, reflect back on my past, who I am today and more importantly, who I want to be tomorrow.

This past month has definitely been an emotional roller coaster for me and I think I have been blessed with a tremendous opportunity to grow as a person.

 

[rattle_snake]

Hi Mike, interesting read on your experience with suspension travel ratios. It seems the OEM set them up with very little drop. Perhaps this limits body roll at high speeds.

When I built the lift for my 2014 F250 the recommended Bilsien shock had less than 1/2" of droop. This seemed completely wrong to me so I bought the next longer shock and tuned the bumpstops for 3" down / 5" up

I've been shopping for coilovers for my 1972 F250 project. Given the adjustability of ride height and spring rate, I can set them to whatever. The vendor I have been talking to suggested 35 down /65 up. Since ride height is somewhat know to clear tires, I'm trying to determine how tall the shock towers need to be to get my ratio close to target. My goal is to get the truck to ride best on crappy dirt roads at medium speeds.

 

[JJC]

Mike You do great projects and everyone enjoys following. You might have broken a rule of Garage journal . While posting on your son home purchase and tool box relocation. There has been no mention of what size garage came with his house . Good luck with the wedding preparations .

 

[gnpenning]

Agreed.

This whole experience has been an opportunity for me to pause, reflect back on my past, who I am today and more importantly, who I want to be tomorrow.

This past month has definitely been an emotional roller coaster for me and I think I have been blessed with a tremendous opportunity to grow as a person.

This is something I have been working on as well. I like to say I like who I am, but more importantly I love who I'm becoming. Life by the inch.


I really appreciate your thread and the detail you include with your projects. Keep up the good work.

Hope the wedding goes well and becomes a special day for all.

 

[zmotorsports]

Hi Mike, interesting read on your experience with suspension travel ratios. It seems the OEM set them up with very little drop. Perhaps this limits body roll at high speeds.


When I built the lift for my 2014 F250 the recommended Bilsien shock had less than 1/2" of droop. This seemed completely wrong to me so I bought the next longer shock and tuned the bumpstops for 3" down / 5" up


I've been shopping for coilovers for my 1972 F250 project. Given the adjustability of ride height and spring rate, I can set them to whatever. The vendor I have been talking to suggested 35 down /65 up. Since ride height is somewhat know to clear tires, I'm trying to determine how tall the shock towers need to be to get my ratio close to target. My goal is to get the truck to ride best on crappy dirt roads at medium speeds.

Justin, those suggested uptravel/droop numbers pretty much contradict my experience so I'm not certain why or how they are coming up with their numbers. To have less than 1/2" of droop has me scratching my head. In a situation where you were at speed and hit a series of whoops in the interstate that could cause the tires to actually leave the pavement, which I cannot see any reason to think that would be good. If I wasn't so adamant or firm believing of my own results I could easily argue that I was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about. However, I have experimented quite a bit over the past between sand duning/desert running and now over the past 8 years of rock-crawling/Jeeping and I feel confident in my results. When bouncing or floating through the dunes at high speeds you need more up travel to absorb the weight during compression yet still keep the car under control during extension (droop) by keeping the tires in contact with the surface, so therefore a closer target of around 50/50 is desired. Many of the long travel buggies we were working on had 18-22 inches of overall travel with about half (9-11 inches) being up travel and the other half being droop.

In Jeeping or rock crawling you don't necessarily need as much uptravel but as much as you can get without the tires getting into the fenders, suspension or frame. That is usually the target and depending on how much a person wants to cut away at the body or installing flat-fenders the target is generally closer to 40/60 or even 30/70 uptravel/droop. Many of the coilover guys are close to that 30/70 range to really let those axles droop out but still have a nice compression. Also worth noting, the guys who are usually in that 30/70 group also have more overall travel, some in the 12-14 inch range. I am still running coil springs so I have found the 40/60 ratio works well when you have overall travel in the 8-10 inch range. I prefer this ratio which allows just enough uptravel to keep tires out of interferences yet a bit more droop so it keeps the tires planted on the ground and prevents that "tippy" feeling as well as keeps traction which enables forward progression of the car through the rocks as the suspension is flexing.

Now that being said, you can go too far for certain components and have too much flex and start damaging components. Been there, done that. When I first built my Jeep back in 2011 I wanted as much flex as possible but didn't give as much thought as I should have to the stresses imposed on the components. I had a couple more inches of flex than I do now but ultimately tore the bracketry off of my axles due to the stresses involved with that much flex. During this time of beefing up my brackets on my axles I also started using limiting straps and pairing the proper length shocks to my builds.

Here is a picture of an obstacle that I do on Black Bear Pass in SW Colorado and you can see just how much flex I once had in my Jeep. This was about 6 years or so ago when I had around 11"-12" of overall travel and ultimately tore off two control arm brackets on my axles which led me to start doing more research and adjusting or fine tuning my suspension and ultimately learning a lot along the way. I still crawl over this same obstacle with ease but with just a little additional body roll.


The funny thing is I actually saw little to no decrease in overall affect by limiting my suspension travel slightly to stay within the range of the components. Granted it was quite minimal but the overall ability of my Jeep didn't change. What I mean by that is I had gone from around 12" of travel in the front when I was having issues to now only barely 10 inches and other than a very, very slight lean of the body I see no adverse affects on the same obstacles. I had originally just thrown as long a shock on as possible to get the flex but didn't give enough thought to the other components. Currently I have 11" travel shocks in the front and 10" travel shocks in the rear. I have limited the travel to 10" and 9" respectably with bump stops hitting just prior to full compression and about 3/4" prior to full extension with limiting straps.

If I'm thinking through the numbers that you gave and apply them to the Jeeping world that would mean a LOT of lift and/or a LOT of cutting of the body away to get that kind of uptravel/droop ratios. I think you could get there with enough lift but then it kind of contradicts the notion of keeping a low center of gravity (COG) and things can get very "tippy" off-road with that high of a center of gravity, which is why I prefer to have the uptravel/droop lengths inverted from what your Bilstein rep suggested. Again, I'm not sure why they suggested that and they are the experts but my ratios are just from my much more limited experience.

I hope all of that made sense and I appreciate you sharing Justin.

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike You do great projects and everyone enjoys following. You might have broken a rule of Garage journal . While posting on your son home purchase and tool box relocation. There has been no mention of what size garage came with his house . Good luck with the wedding preparations .

Thank you very much for the comments.

Sorry I broke the standard GJ rule, I don't know what I was thining.

I don't know if I ever got the exact dimensions of his garage attached to his house but it is a 3-car garage and deep enough to pull his 2002 ECSB Duramax in, so I am guessing about 26-28 feet in depth by three cars wide so maybe 32-34 feet in width. The third bay is a bit deeper by about 6' so he has a nice area where he has his toolbox and we will construct him a nice workbench which will be about 30" in depth by about 8' long.

 

[zmotorsports]

This is something I have been working on as well. I like to say I like who I am, but more importantly I love who I'm becoming. Life by the inch.


I really appreciate your thread and the detail you include with your projects. Keep up the good work.

Hope the wedding goes well and becomes a special day for all.

Thank you very much for the comments and for taking the time to read all of my ramblings.

We all should be striving to be better versions of ourselves but I fall short more than I care to. Progress, not perfection is what I guess I need to remember.

 

[gnpenning]

We all should be striving to be better versions of ourselves but I fall short more than I care to. Progress, not perfection is what I guess I need to remember.

Trying to become the type of person I would want to call a friend or family member. I'm so far from purfect I don't even know what the word looks like. Maybe some day.. I just need to keep making progress as well.

 

[rattle_snake]

.....I hope all of that made sense and I appreciate you sharing Justin.

Yes, thanks for the info and your experience. The truck won't need a lot of flex or travel really, so I'm planning a radius arm and 12" Fox coilover up front. Probably only get 9-10" of usable travel. Looking to keep overall height and COG as low as possible so going to section/stretch the fenders to make room for rubber. At least that is the plan...

 

[TTMotorsports]

In my experience slow speed and rock crawlers do much better with more droop than bump which allows more flex and stability. Desert trucks I setup closer to 60 bump/40 droop travel which is needed when hitting the face of a whoop at speed. Up travel keeps vehicle planted without upsetting the chassis as if you were to hit the bumpstop.

 

[zmotorsports]

Yes, thanks for the info and your experience. The truck won't need a lot of flex or travel really, so I'm planning a radius arm and 12" Fox coilover up front. Probably only get 9-10" of usable travel. Looking to keep overall height and COG as low as possible so going to section/stretch the fenders to make room for rubber. At least that is the plan...

That will be fun to follow along on and for you saying you're not going to have much flex in my experience 9"-10" is still quite a lot of flex.

 

[zmotorsports]

In my experience slow speed and rock crawlers do much better with more droop than bump which allows more flex and stability. Desert trucks I setup closer to 60 bump/40 droop travel which is needed when hitting the face of a whoop at speed. Up travel keeps vehicle planted without upsetting the chassis as if you were to hit the bumpstop.

Awesome. Thank you for your feedback, which pretty much confirms my experience as well although you even go a little more uptravel than I have in the desert with going even further than the 50/50 uptravel/droop to 60/40. I'll keep that in mind if/when I play with another high speed car running the desert.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

In my experience slow speed and rock crawlers do much better with more droop than bump which allows more flex and stability. Desert trucks I setup closer to 60 bump/40 droop travel which is needed when hitting the face of a whoop at speed. Up travel keeps vehicle planted without upsetting the chassis as if you were to hit the bumpstop.

I agree with this; especially for what Justin is working on. Radius arms are really bad about wanting to unload when climbing, so you will want to keep the truck as low as you reasonably can. Also, you will likely want to add some limiting straps if you plan on wheeling it hard. I'd try to go with the longest shocks you can squeeze when at full bump, figure your ride height, and then strap your suspension at the downtravel that keeps your steering linkage and driveline in place without binding.

 

[zmotorsports]

Last night I moved mine and my son’s bikes out of the RV bay and into the shop so I could work on locating my hydraulic leak on the coach.

I also pulled the Jeep into the shop to give it a quick once over now that I have about 6500 miles on the new powertrain. I also thought I’d check tire pressures seeing as how our temperatures here in northern Utah have jumped up about 15+ degrees over the past several days.




Thanks for looking.

 

[C2tuck]

Nice! I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the silver one is your sons? My next one will be either a streetglide or a breakout, probably the streetglide.

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice! I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the silver one is your sons? My next one will be either a streetglide or a breakout, probably the streetglide.

You are correct.

Mine is the Ultra CVO and my son's is the Street Glide, in stock form at this time as he hasn't had time to start building it yet.

 

[lilscorpion]

Thought I’d ask this one out in the open since others may be interested in the answer -

Are there better wire looms (split or otherwise) and heat shrink tube? ‘Commercial Grade” or heavy duty? Where do you source yours? The auto parts store stuff seems like cheap junk.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Thought I’d ask this one out in the open since others may be interested in the answer -

Are there better wire looms (split or otherwise) and heat shrink tube? ‘Commercial Grade” or heavy duty? Where do you source yours? The auto parts store stuff seems like cheap junk.

Yes, definitely. I get my basic automotive stuff at Waytek and its far better quality for cheaper than the auto parts store. They sell different grades of each product you're asking about, so you may need to do some reading on the differences.

 

[lilscorpion]

Yes, definitely. I get my basic automotive stuff at Waytek and its far better quality for cheaper than the auto parts store. They sell different grades of each product you're asking about, so you may need to do some reading on the differences.

Checking it out, thanks

 

[jbmatth]

I hope Mike doesn't mind but I picked up this split braided loom on Amazon and have been very pleased with it. You can get other sizes as well as lengths. Link

 

[GeoRoss]

Thought I’d ask this one out in the open since others may be interested in the answer -

Are there better wire looms (split or otherwise) and heat shrink tube? ‘Commercial Grade” or heavy duty? Where do you source yours? The auto parts store stuff seems like cheap junk.

On my future wiring projects in cars I'm going to give this stuff a try. I've used woven before and just found out about this split woven. Should be good with a little tessa tape.

https://www.techflex.com/general-purpose/f6-woven-wrap

 

[e015475]

You can buy techflex by the foot at Aircraft Spruce.

For my last harness project, I made a spreadsheet for all the different sizes and lengths I needed and IIRC was about $20

Seems like the last time I bought from Waytech I needed to buy way more than I needed and was much more expensive.

Try the woven split loom that Aircraft Spruce sells - it is the bomb. I'm never gonna depin a harness to get woven loom over the connectors again.

The stretchy silicone tape they sell makes a fine termination for the loom too - much quicker than shrink tube.

 

[lilscorpion]

Sorry Mike, realizing now that this was a bit of an aside from your thread, I keep thinking about how meticulous your engine compartment was after the swap and figured you and your followers were the right ones to ask.

All - I genuinely appreciate the recommendations. All are better than I would have hoped and it’ll be using one of them on my upcoming LJ project. Thanks.

Now wheres Mike been? Wheeling I hope...

 

[LXCam]

Now wheres Mike been? Wheeling I hope...

I’m pretty sure the boys wedding is this weekend. So mikes probably putting the final touches on the yard. And knowing how detailed he is, I’m betting it went from this



To this






Mike, here’s to you and the family pulling off a perfect extravaganza and my best wishes to the bride and groom.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Hahah, he's probably helping put napkins on tables and doing flower arrangements about now!

Really though, I hope he's having a good time and things go off without a hitch.

 

[shortykorte]

Y’all funny.


Shorty Korte
Always remember quality in QST

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[zmotorsports]

I appreciate all of the warm wishes for our son’s wedding and I don’t mind the wire loom sidetrack one bit as it is all great information.

I’ll post up a few pictures of our son’s wedding and it was picture perfect. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.

Friday and yesterday I was quite emotional and it was exhausting but it was a good kind of emotion to see our son so happy AND we got a great daughter out of the deal.

This whole week has been non-stop. I took Wednesday and Thursday off work in addition to Friday for the wedding. I’m glad I did as it was hectic and had a large unexpected project pop up.

My son called me on Monday asking if he could bring his truck by the shop after work and get my opinion. Evidently he noticed his oil pressure was a little lower than normal and when he checked the oil level he noticed it had started making oil. We finished up installation of the rear bumper on his Jeep Monday evening so he could drive it and leave the truck at the shop as I didn’t want him driving it and causing any damage to the bearings.

I suspected a leaking return line seeing as how we had just installed brand new injectors about 2500 miles prior and I doubted the CP3 pump was leaking just after an injector replacement, although possible.

Tuesday afternoon after work I tore into his engine by removing everything down to the injectors, again.


I found the problem. The return line wouldn’t hold a vacuum after pinching off the return from the pump so I injected a little air pressure and sure enough cylinders numbers 3 and 7 were leaking at the return banjo bolts.




I hate having to do a job twice.




I disassembled the return rail on the passenger side head so I could acquire new seals on Wednesday morning from my local dealership.


I hooked up my vacuum pump and pulled a vacuum while plugging the port in the passenger side head to verify that the driver’s bank was sealing and it was good.






Replaced all of the banjo seals on the passenger bank, reinstalled and tested again to confirm they’re holding this time.






As I was pulling a vacuum on the cooling system I noticed that it had a small leak and wouldn’t hold. He didn’t have a leak before and the only hose I removed during the repair was the upper radiator hose but it sounded like the leak was coming from near the coolant bottle so I sealed it off thinking maybe it had a crack in it but it was holding a vacuum perfectly. I then noticed the rigid aluminum line had a hairline crack/pin hole where the mounting tab was welded so I removed it and welded the crack closed. After removing the aluminum line I noticed a small trace of coolant under the bracket so it must have just barely cracked and started to leak very recently.






The cooling system now held vacuum and I could fill with coolant and finish up the repair.

After reassembly was complete I put the truck on the lift and changed his 5-gallons of oil & fuel mixture.


I finished this up Wednesday with the exception of changing the oil which I did on Thursday morning before we went over to our daughter in laws mom’s house to do yard work all day in preparation for the wedding on Friday.