A Custom UJOR-Sportsmobile Build

[notmiller]

Thanks for all the kind words guys! I've always had the vision for those brushguards, I'm just glad I could bend them up without going through too much tubing! I can definitely provide the DXF file to anyone who wants it. Some trimming and finesse may be in order where the top plates blend into the body. It was difficult to measure the exact curvature of the front end. PM me if you're interested.

[rebar]

Very cool Van you've got there.. Great travel pics..

I read through the thread but missed what you had to modify to clear the steering arm.

I'm looking at installing a used dodge BJ D60 axle in my 95 E350, but there's allot of gray unknown area..

[notmiller]

Very cool Van you've got there.. Great travel pics..

I read through the thread but missed what you had to modify to clear the steering arm.

I'm looking at installing a used dodge BJ D60 axle in my 95 E350, but there's allot of gray unknown area..

I put a 1/2in (I think) shim between the steering arm and the knuckle to raise it up enough to clear the Deavers. It still hits at extreme droop, so I may shim it another ~1/4in or make a custom steering arm and eliminate all the shimming.

[idamanzz]

Again. You have done a great job with your van!
I'm wondering if the issues you experienced with steering / spring interference would have been lessened with the UJOR 6" lift option
Thanks

[notmiller]

Again. You have done a great job with your van!
I'm wondering if the issues you experienced with steering / spring interference would have been lessened with the UJOR 6" lift option
Thanks

Thanks! I'm not sure the problems would be lessened with the 6" lift. Most of the clearance issues occur at the extremes of articulation. At ride height, there's no issues, but a 6" pack would have a little more arch and therefore sit a tad bit closer to the drag link but probably not too noticeable. I think the main problem is the thickness of the Deaver leaf packs. The ball joint on the pitman arm would still hit a 6" pack in max compression (assuming it compresses to the same limit as the 4" pack). The drag link rubs against the pack on the passenger side at full droop. Since this is caused by the relative position of the steering arm to the leaf pack (which is fixed), the lift wouldn't really affect this except maybe the leaves arching even more under full droop which would make it worse. The real solution is to have a steering arm that jogs up a little to give more clearance in all conditions. I may pursue this, but I've been taking some time off from building in order to work on our neglected house. I did strongly consider the 6" kit early on, but in the end I prefer the "minimalist" approach when it comes to setting up 4wd suspensions, meaning get the most amount of travel out of the least amount of lift. We're very happy with the Ujoint 4" kit coupled with the Deavers despite some of the clearance issues that had to be worked out. My dad drove it up into the central valley to SMB earlier this week when we had severe winds and he kept talking about how it handled like a champ even when it started to rain. He even said my mom wouldn't have had any trouble driving it, which is saying a lot!

On another note, the whole reason it was being driven to SMB was because my parents took it out two weekends ago to go camping and during the drive out to the desert, the coolant line running to the diesel furnace/hot water heater decided to come loose and proceeded to dump gallons of engine coolant all over the interior floor. Besides having to get towed back home, there's now water (coolant) damage at the base of half of the built-in cabinetry. Unfortunately, the stuff doesn't evaporate either. Luckily everything is still under warranty but this is definitely a quality issue with the SMB build. Seems like whoever installed the furnace probably didn't tighten the hose clamp. They really should be using spring clamps instead of worm-drive clamps to avoid these mistakes.

[bknudtsen]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. It's so hard for me to put that kind of trust into someone else's work.

[notmiller]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. It's so hard for me to put that kind of trust into someone else's work.

For sure. I still have a hard time paying someone else to do something I can do myself. Consequently, I'm super nit-picky about quality and attention to detail when I'm paying for it. They're also fixing a number of little things that bugged me. I asked them to call me when they've got everything torn apart because I want go up and inspect the damage and make sure they replace everything that got saturated. They already told me I shouldn't worry about any of the coolant having gotten under the sub-floor, which I refuse to believe since it was leaking out the underside of the van from a number of different points. We'll see....

This being said, though, overall their build quality was very good and probably better than I could've done. They've pretty much worked out the bugs in their designs, for the most part, so I still believe the money was well spent. It's just the little things that bother me. That, and 7 gallons of coolant getting dumped all over the floor puts a little dapper on my day.

[bknudtsen]

Good on ya for keeping them honest. I think they are used to customers who have little to no experience with building vehicles. As we both know, coolant gets everywhere, and it will always be there and will always smell if not dealt with properly.