FJC Long Travel Build: 3Link Rear w/ Coilovers, Camburg, and more

[FJLED]

Haven't been on this forum for awhile, but I thought I'd post up my latest project for those who don't venture to some of the other forums.


Vehicle originally had ICON coilovers in the front and their shocks/coils in the rear. Lefty and a whole bunch of other goodies to boot.


Out goes the old axle

In goes the Total Chaos 2" Long Travel setup.

Rear Axle

Misc Parts all over the place

 

[FJLED]

More of the front and rear comming together.

Old link to frame mounts gone.

Trying to keep the link mounts from being too low while still targeting the #s on the calculator

For reference here is how low they normally hang on an OEM/normal currie 4 link + panhard setup.

 

[FJLED]

Lower link position when upper link contact crossmember.

Upper link tack'd on frame.

Track bar looks like it will need to be bent a bit.

Ride height

New frame mounts

Link clearance at frame at full uptravel

Some stuff just gets in the way

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[FJLED]

Wheel position @ full uptravel (I think...can't remember when I took the photo).

Coils & Jounce Shocks in place

So close to being finished, and then things changed. I didn't like the fact that I wasn't getting the travel #s advertised on the front. UCA uniball would have to go through the fender (and LCA uniball through the rotor) to get those numbers.

The advertised rear numbers weren't accurate either once taking a closer look at the spring. Definitely weren't getting as much use out of a 14" shock as I had hoped. So we are starting to tinker around with some other options. Since the axle is 4" wider than normal it freed up a bit of space at full uptravel.

Still a bit tight though at full articulation. Although I think some spacers should take care of that. But if I'm going to be 3.25" wide or more on each side in the rear, I'm going to have a bit of headache with law enforcement in Houston....already were checking how far out my wheels were with respect to the fenders the one time I got pulled over.

So fiberglass is in order. If I'm doing that in the rear I might as well toss them on in the front. And if the are on in the front I might as well shoot for a wider front setup to match the track width...plus I could go with another kit which actually is supposed to meet their advertised numbers. ​

 

[FJLED]

Front locker/gears going in.

Thought I had also snapped a few pictures of the rear end parts order that showed up Friday, but apparently my memory card is full and or didn't grab them. Basically we'll be notching the the frame and possibly coming up through the wheel wells if needed with a tower to run a 14" coilover with reservoir.

Rear interior and storage system removed in case the fender wells need to be modified a bit.

Here is a shot of the storage system that will hide the coilover towers once installed.

 

[FJLED]

 

[FJLED]

 

[FJLED]

Sorry, fuzzy cellphone pics on the next few

 

[FJLED]

15" of total wheel travel.

 

[FJLED]

New front came in. Camburg setup is much nicer than the Total Chaos all around. Definitely no regrets going with Camburgs over TC's 3.5"kit. Right now it looks like we are getting about 13.375" of wheel travel. Have to figure out how we can eek out a bit more cause the shock still has travel left. Flipping the LCA spacer will buy a bit of travel. Uptravel could be gained by chopping the fender well and reframing. Waiting for a call back from Camburg.


For comparison purposes - upper uniball on both kits.

 

[FJLED]

 

[FJLED]

Well tires and wheels came in.

Might switch over to MT/R's depend on how the pitbulls do at higher speed desert type stuff. Simply couldn't find any in stock.

Might run an inner air lock down the line on the wheels as well. Really wanted the forged beadlocks, but between $650 price tag an the fact that I still had to pay for machining then to a 6x5.5 bolt pattern (come as blanks), I couldn't justify it. Weight was sure tempting...27lbs for a beadlock.

I'd be at 33-34lbs with the aluminum wheels an an inner air locks.​

 

[FJLED]

Able to roll around now...won't be the final ride height since some adjustements will need to be made with the bumper on and weight in the back.

 

[FJLED]

Swung up to the shop today. Got there and Dave had the rear axle at full droop, made me drool a bit.


Not at full droop in the photo below, but gives you an idea.

On the front end CVs bind at full droop. I'm guessing some custom RCVs will solve that problem. Apparently they are just about to start offering FJ CVs again. I'm hopeful they'll do a custom CV for me with pro 4 outers. For now we might do a differential drop, to prevent the binding at full droop, all depends on how accessible the RCV CVs are. Issue with uptravel is once the wheels are turned past 15-20 degrees or so you start touching off on the rear fenderwell.

Not sure what the best solution is to deal with this...body lift might buy a bit, but doesn't seem like it is the final solution. The top of the fender well can be modified to accomodate full uptravel, but the rear is the root cause of the issue when trying to lock the wheels at significant uptravel.

Seam below and rearwheel well/firewall is where we see the issue.

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Not sure if we will chop everything out completely and only frame in what is needed, just grind it down a bit and live with it/just modify the top, really cut things away and start doing a engine cage to support everything.

 

[FJLED]

Photos of binding. Dif drop doesn't solve anything cause the tripod starts to pull out of the inner cup at full bump as is. Dif drop would only exacerbate that issue.

Tower's boxed in - will be covered over by the storage box, but Dave did a sick job on making it look like a factory stamped sheetmetal.