What did you do TO your Gladiator today? [ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS, NO GUN TALK]

[Stan H]

Went to Windrock this past weekend, had a little too much rowdy fun in the big rocks and ate my rear driveshaft, mind you it's a custom length, 2 pc Adam's that was installed in February and has had 7 trail days on it. I mean I get it, we got rowdy on some double black trails on Friday, but sheesh was expecting it to be a bit tougher.

Emailed Adam's and they are reviewing the close to a dozen photos I sent them.

I had a local driveshaft shop close to me one time re-tubed a driveshaft for me. Added a tube with a thicker schedule and balanced etc. I could do some major clutch popping and burnouts and never have to worry about it bending or twisting .

Sponsored

 

[WILDHOBO]

I had a local driveshaft shop close to me one time re-tubed a driveshaft for me. Added a tube with a thicker schedule and balanced etc. I could do some major clutch popping and burnouts and never have to worry about it bending or twisting .

I did the same with my Dana two piece 1350 before the Adams. Worked great until I killed it again.

 

[WILDHOBO]

I did the same with my Dana two piece 1350 before the Adams. Worked great until I killed it again.

I should start counting things. 6…driveshafts…ah ah ah.

 

[drewcnit]

I had a local driveshaft shop close to me one time re-tubed a driveshaft for me. Added a tube with a thicker schedule and balanced etc. I could do some major clutch popping and burnouts and never have to worry about it bending or twisting .

I did the same with my Dana two piece 1350 before the Adams. Worked great until I killed it again.

Sort of the plan, depending on what the response from Adams' is, my request of them was retube it with a thicker schedule tube and rebalance it.

If they can't/won't do that, Knoxville driveline has enough tube to do a couple more driveshafts out of the thick wall tube they use. It's roughly 3x the advertised thickness of Adams' tube. But it also means buying another rear driveshaft at nearly twice the cost. Also they are...slow for my tastes...

Second on the list of plans, but quickly becoming my favorite, is ordering a custom kit from Wide Open Design, they are literally down the road from me, so I could pick it up in days and have a driveline shop assemble and balance for me and their tubing is about 2.5x the advertised thickness of Adams'. This ironically would also be the cheapest option.

I should start counting things. 6…driveshafts…ah ah ah.

I'm on the third in the front, second (so far) in the rear, so I'm catching up!

 

[WILDHOBO]

Sort of the plan, depending on what the response from Adams' is, my request of them was retube it with a thicker schedule tube and rebalance it.

If they can't/won't do that, Knoxville driveline has enough tube to do a couple more driveshafts out of the thick wall tube they use. It's roughly 3x the advertised thickness of Adams' tube. But it also means buying another rear driveshaft at nearly twice the cost. Also they are...slow for my tastes...

Second on the list of plans, but quickly becoming my favorite, is ordering a custom kit from Wide Open Design, they are literally down the road from me, so I could pick it up in days and have a driveline shop assemble and balance for me and their tubing is about 2.5x the advertised thickness of Adams'. This ironically would also be the cheapest option.



I'm on the third in the front, second (so far) in the rear, so I'm catching up!

My original front lasted really quite long. The second one only a few months. Apparently 4” lift in front is just at the edge, and 4.5” grenades the boot. Now I’m on a local shop (Rocky Mountain Driveline) 1350 up there. I’ve already hit it as well. Dammit Pritchett! It’s only been there since August. Let me know what you decide. Are you worried about weight with thicker tubing? I ask as someone who doesn’t know the physics/math though. Could a heavier shaft damage the transfer case?

 

[Stan H]

Could a heavier shaft damage the transfer case?

Very good question maybe wear on Seal some .. come on techs pipe up Inquiring minds want to know.

Dammit Pritchett

Bwahahaha

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Put some electric back from the 2022 in prep for snow plow and winch mounting.
They've cut back my essential tremor meds making it even worse. Man, dealing with those nuts and lock washers on the solenoid connections - what a #@$%

 

[jsturges18]

Swapped out the common windshield lights brackets for Maximus Side Shooters.

Needed extra PPF under the brackets but so far for for looks and light pattern it’s much, much better than the windshield mounts.

 

[Stan H]

Put some electric back from the 2022 in prep for snow plow and winch mounting.
They've cut back my essential tremor meds making it even worse. Man, dealing with those nuts and lock washers on the solenoid connections - what a #@$%

Are you making those plastic plates ??

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Are you making those plastic plates ??

I made the terminal block mount and cover. I made it so I can insert a screwdriver to access the screws, but otherwise, nothing can fall onto the terminals and short anything.

 

[BlueScapegoat]

Took a couple days off from working on the Gladiator to work on some other projects.

Finished buttoning up the new winter daily. Going to try to keep the salt off the Gladiator, unless it's a winter road trip of course. I do love snow wheeling.

Got the ram in, all lines run, intercooler pipes back in and started the bleeding process. It's slow going. The line from the rear of the steering box to the driver's side port on the ram was one of the most difficult single things I've had to do on a vehicle. Funny how the indisputably high-end parts providers don't really provide much in the way of instructions (looking at you PSC and Savvy) but when they do provide instructions they just gloss over the most difficult parts. It's like they know it's going to suck and they don't really have a great way to do it either so they just show in detail how to position the lines off the ram then just rush right through "(oh and then hook them up on the other end real quick.)"

If I were to do it again, I'd just hook those lines up first before dropping the box into place. It needs to get lowered in from the top anyway, just snake the lines through. Would have saved me 4 hours today and a partially cross-threaded fitting. And I'd probably still have skin on my fingers.

Aaaaaaand I'm just realizing now as I'm typing this that the ram is installed the wrong way around. Well, I guess not technically wrong, but it'd make more sense for the cylinder body to be fixed in place and not dragging the lines around. I'll have to flip that around in the morning.

Working two overnights in a row, on top of my double overtimes last weekend.

Hey gov guys (I don't want to sound too political by naming fucking MTV's Sean Duffy or our entirely incompetent union president Nick Daniels' name) You keep talking about retention in the FAA, paying bonuses to those that are eligible to retire, paying the trainees more. Pay us that are actually working more, you dumb fucks. We're losing employees to Australia. I'm doing ok but I won't put up with this shit much longer before I go work for a machine shop. Pilots I'm talking to that don't know what the fuck they're doing are making 3-5x what I am. I'm getting paid a quarter what some widebody captain is to babysit him and 25 other pilots at the same time and tell them there is indeed a thunderstorm in front of them that was there when they took off two hours ago. Wtf is dispatch doing?

Anyway I came home from my mid-shift and mowed the lawn, hit a bees nest. Mowed the lawn hit a bees nest. Mowed the lawn hit a bees nest. Mowed the lawn hit a bees nest.

Then I flipped the PSC ram. Cool.

 

[Stan H]

I made the terminal block mount and cover. I made it so I can insert a screwdriver to access the screws, but otherwise, nothing can fall onto the terminals and short anything.

That actually was really cool like that idea

 

[RudeJeepin]

Working two overnights in a row, on top of my double overtimes last weekend.

I'm getting paid a quarter what some widebody captain is to babysit him and 25 other pilots at the same time

I've always said, "the harder you work, the less you make."

 

[Stan H]

I've always said, "the harder you work, the less you make."

And I also notice that there was a certain point in the overtime hours that if you went above you would jump up into more taxes with held and I seem to remember its around 20 hrs.

 

[BlueScapegoat]

So with the ram the correct way the nut on the drag link rubs the ram body at full left lock. I'm not sure what the solution is here. Flip the ram back the way it was, I guess. Or come up with new mounting locations entirely. Or I guess a longer rod end. Running out of time to get this done.

Sponsored