Project "Thanos" Build

iRonin said:
Wednesday I upgraded the SpiderwebShade, which isn't much to mention, but it came with a cool situation and outcome, so I thought I'd share the story.

I had a basic black shade before; but it was the kind that only covered the front cabin, so it was handed off to the wife's 2 door.

As it goes, for the second year in a row, I was able to join Harvey and Sergio from SpiderwebShade as they passed through Texas on the way to Llano JJ and ultimately EJS Moab . They come into Austin and one of the local clubs here (Austin Jeep People) organizes a lunch/meet-greet with them.

Last year, we ate at a great BBQ place in town (Stile's Switch) and Tim Pellegeino was able to join us as well. This year it was just Harvey and Sergio, and we all met up at Taco Deli.

Knowing that they were coming, I really wanted to snag one of their custom shades featuring the tactical Texas Flag, so I worked it out to have it sent with on their journey.

Arriving at Taco Deli, it was great to see everyone again. They had MatteBlack parked out front for folks to check out:
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After greeting Harvey, I'm given the shade and we all go in to eat and chat. After lunch, there was a raffle for the regularly colored flag shade, and we snapped pics:
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As we broke from lunch, the plan was to head to one of the local jeep shops (Just Jeeps) and take a group photo with our rigs out front. I thought it would be good to have my shade on for the pic, so I unraveled it... only to realize I was given the wrong one (tactical grey, but no flag).

When we arrived I told Harvey about it, and luckily they had just grabbed the wrong one from the truck to bring to lunch- but they definitely brought it. So he offered to let me follow em back to the hotel to snag the right one. So we snapped our group photos and hung around for a while before leaving:
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As we were leaving, they mentioned that they'd seen a cool spot on the way over that they wanted to take some pictures of with the MatteBlack. I didn't have anywhere I needed to be, so I was happy to follow them.

The spot they saw was the underside of the upper deck of 183 as it carves through part of Austin. Below the highway there's gravel, and the road above makes for a nice "long hallway" effect. So we snapped a bunch of pics:
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It turned out, this location just so happened to also be *directly across* from the dealership where I purchased Thanos. (What are the odds?) I told them they had a big rock ramp/pile that they sometimes pose Jeeps on and that we'd be able to play around on it if they wanted. They were hesitant at first, understandably not wanting to piss anyone off, so I called the man who sold me my Jeep, and asked him if it would be ok. "Can we come watch?!" was the confirmation I received :)

So we swung over and started with a basic ramp shot:
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Then switched to something a little more exciting:
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There was a fun small crowd of customers and sales guys standing about taking pictures and videos, it was fun :) I even got to stretch Thanos' legs a bit even though that rear axle is still breaking in (worth the risk);
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After we were done, I followed them back and was soon paired with my requested Texas shade-
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I never thought getting handed the wrong product would result in such a cool opportunity! Those guys really are some of the nicest, chill dudes I've met for letting me tag along, and I love that my shade has a story to it that's much more memorable than finding it on my doorstep a few days after placing the order :) Very cool turn out on an already awesome day!
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Napalm said:
Agreed. This might alter my shade order a bit.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking of swapping my solid black SWS for the flag. That is too damn cool.
 
Damn, Thanos is a beast. Nice rig and congrats on the dynatrac!
Thanks for sharing the spiderweb story. I think the Texas flag shade is getting added to my ever growing jeep acquisitions list.
 
New Adams/Dynatrac Rear Maiden Voyage

Boy, have I got a story to tell. First, a quick before-after wash pic from this weekend, where the name of the game was taking the new XD60 rear out to the trails and, for the first time, having a fully lockable jeep since Thanos started his life as a Sahara.
dirtyclean.jpg

Honestly not as muddy as usual, even with a few sprinkles off and on Saturday. Having lockers also means not having to give certain ledges gas to "bump it" which is where most of the mud gets slung around...

Now onto the tale... Friday I had Thanos in the shop and spent a while under him going through all the suspension bolts. I had a feeling from some creaks that I needed to crank some control-arm pinch-bolts, which ended up being the case. On one of the rear LCAs, even with the pinch bolt completely sandwiched there was still a little play in the jont end rotation, so I ground a bit of the inner pinch sleeve so it could clamp down even further, which did the trick. After all the attention paid to the suspension, and the axle itself, there was no mind paid to the other new component in the mix: the rear Adams Driveshaft. #foreshadowing

So fluids are good, suspension is tight, and Saturday morning it was time to hit the trails. The first group I ran with went after some of the more challenging trails at Hidden Falls - we ran No-Name first, then Wed-n-Wild, and finished up with Carnage Canyon.

The jeep was performing exceptionally well. That is to say, I was really enjoying having completely open diffs for the all around agility (I was used to running a Spartan front, LSD combo before), but then being able to flip a switch (er...3) and be locked front and rear when it really mattered on obstacles. My favorite moment was finally being able to climb the tougher line out of the bowl in Carnage Canyon. It still requires a little gas given that the ledge is concave/rutted out and about as tall as a 37" tire, but for getting up in 2 tries, it felt really great remembering how long other folks have worked on trying it unsuccessfully, and remembering how many other folks busted stuff in the bowl.

After running with that group, I was back at camp for a short while until a second group decided to go out and hit a different set of trails. We had a couple Razrs that joined the convoy, so we took a more scenic route up to Tower for a group photo shoot (my damn phone broke before this weekend, so I have *zero* event pics until others send em my way) and then the plan was to head back towards the back fence-line for a bit.

Halfway down the backside of Tower, cresting over a small hill, this happens:

What you heard is the rear drive-shaft coming loose from the t-case flange. :eek:

If you watch closely, you can actually see 2 of the bolts falling away in the footage:
bolt.jpg

The fact that there's even video of this is pure luck, as just a short while earlier I decided to run the GoPro under there to see if I could catch a pesky "click" sound I'd been hearing for a while, but only under flexy conditions. I had a theory that it was the combination of the EVO Plush Ride coils with the TeraFlex bumpstops that was causing the issue (the TF bump stops are a bit wide in diameter, and the tops of the EVO springs are narrower). Well, the theory turned out to be correct...

...but for now there were more pressing matters, like a detached driveshaft. :eek: I came to a halt pretty quick and after a bit of trouble trying to get it into park at first, I was finally able to hop out and see what happened. The driveshaft on the t-case side had worked itself loose, and very luckily only dropped down a few inches and was caught by he transmission skid. The shaft itself and the flange looked completely fine.. there was only one problem. No bolts.

A second person from our group had stopped when he saw I stopped, so we radioed ahead for the rest of the group to continue on without us, and then I proceeded to walk back up the trail about 50 or so feet to see if I could find the bolts. I actually managed to find 2 out of the 4 in the dirt, again very lucky because it meant I could at least get them on opposing sides and limp back to camp. One of the bolts was a bit marred towards the tip, so my buddy worked on it a bit to try to chisel/file it straight, while I worked on getting the DS remounted with the other good bolt using a 12 point wrench and only about a quarter throw under the jeep as I didn't want to drop the skid plate.

A sinking feeling washed over me as I examined the bolts and noticed there was no Loctite evidence on either, and then I flashed back to the XD60 install, where the driveshaft was the afterthought next to the ProRock, and the plan was to re-tighten everything after the break-in period before wheeling anyways.:doh::doh: My second thought was that for all the tools I pack, I really should make room for my tap & die set...:sigh:

Anyhow I finally got both on, and then it was a short trek back to camp on park roads and a slow pace to keep the RPMs low. I did end up having Loctite with me in my tool chest, and after some asking around, we discovered that a fellow wheeler had busted a u-joint yoke at the tcase in his rig with a matching bolt size/pitch. Since his was out of commission and on a flat-bed for the rest of the weekend, this meant I was welcome to his bolts, and as it turns out, I was even doing him a labor favor pulling them as it all had to come apart anyways :)

So, with a handful of fresh bolts and a healthy dose of Loctite, I was back under my own jeep and locking things down. I also went through and re-tightened the pinion side ubolts. Took it for a quick drive around the lot real slow, and it felt solid, no vibrations, etc, checked the tightness on the bolts one last time and decided things were likely going to be ok :)

Hung out for a bit as there were a few events going on that weekend (Crawfish Crawl, King of the Falls) and then after dinner, I decided to really roll the dice and agree to night wheel with the crew. I didn't bother running the GoPro for that session as night quality for photo/video is usually terrible without good equipment, but we ran Midnight Run, Bronco Buster, and Wildcat Stairway, ending once again up at the Tower, looking down at the camping area valley, lit up with people's rock lights, camp fires, etc. The more I do it (And now that I have rock lights) - the more I really really enjoy night wheeling :thumb:

By the time we finished it was getting pretty close to midnight, and with no plans to camp, I aired up and rolled out back towards Austin. Getting back onto flat roads, it's one thing when you're going 3 mph on a driveshaft, and entirely another when you're expected to go 55+ mph on public roads and highways. At first I literally just drove along the shoulder and slowly upped my speed in 5-10 mph increments, listening and feeling for any kind if driveline vibrations... which is interesting to try to do over the noise of mud grapplers... I wasn't so much concerned about it coming loose again given that I had it back on properly now, but more that the brief clanging around when it initially dropped may have caused it to unbalance somehow that I visibly verify. To my very appreciative confirmation, I was able to get up to speed comfortably enough to make it back home without issue. :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

The last lesson in this story came today when I pulled up the Adam's Driveshaft page to find out what sized bolts they originally supplied so I could get more (the ones I stole from the buggy were 6 point, and looked to be a lower grade). I arrived at this page where I was hit with some nuggets of wisdom:
http://www.adamsdriveshaftoffroad.com/rear-jk-install/
You will be Installing the Parts you see in the Picture below. Adams Driveshaft Rock Crawler 1310 CV Driveshaft, Dana 44 Pinion Yoke, T-case CV Yoke, 1310 U-bolts, and Four 5/16 12 point Head Grade 10 CV Bolts.

Note:The silicone and Locktight does not come with the driveshaft it is only pictured to show the importance of using these so you will not have a leak, or a bolt come loose.
Click to expand...

The lesson being that no matter how straight forward a task is, it pays to take the extra few minutes to glance through the instructions (if there are any) just to make sure there aren't any gotchas or reminders with the installs. For me personally this goes hand-in-hand with working on my own rig vs. someone else's - I'm much more stringent about following directions to a T when it comes to other peoples stuff, but I get lazy when it's mine. :mad:

But enough on that, otherwise I had a SWEET day of wheeling on most of the tougher trails Hidden Falls has to offer, and getting to run some of the badder lines means I'm getting to play in some of the spaces that aren't used to seeing JKs, which is exciting to me.

One of he more ambitious obstacles I have my sights set on is called Stonehenge, and to my research, I have not seen a single JK conquer it yet... in fact this is one of the only videos out there of anyone making it up:

I may honestly not have the HP to pull it off since there's really just no "crawling it", but we'll see. I may try it winched for safety just to see if it's doable. :fingerscrossed:

Anyhow, I'm still going through the rest of the GoPro footage from the weekend, and I'll throw some more vids up here from the trails.
 
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iRonin said:
Wednesday I upgraded the SpiderwebShade, which isn't much to mention, but it came with a cool situation and outcome, so I thought I'd share the story.

I never thought getting handed the wrong product would result in such a cool opportunity! Those guys really are some of the nicest, chill dudes I've met for letting me tag along, and I love that my shade has a story to it that's much more memorable than finding it on my doorstep a few days after placing the order :) Very cool turn out on an already awesome day!
Click to expand...

Awesome!!!!
 
iRonin said:
Boy, have I got a story to tell. First, a quick before-after wash pic from this weekend, where the name of the game was taking the new XD60 rear out to the trails and, for the first time, having a fully lockable jeep since Thanos started his life as a Sahara.
View attachment 197826

Honestly not as muddy as usual, even with a few sprinkles off and on Saturday. Having lockers also means not having to give certain ledges gas to "bump it" which is where most of the mud gets slung around...

Now onto the tale... Friday I had Thanos in the shop and spent a while under him going through all the suspension bolts. I had a feeling from some creaks that I needed to crank some control-arm pinch-bolts, which ended up being the case. On one of the rear LCAs, even with the pinch bolt completely sandwiched there was still a little play in the jont end rotation, so I ground a bit of the inner pinch sleeve so it could clamp down even further, which did the trick. After all the attention paid to the suspension, and the axle itself, there was no mind paid to the other new component in the mix: the rear Adams Driveshaft. #foreshadowing

So fluids are good, suspension is tight, and Saturday morning it was time to hit the trails. The first group I ran with went after some of the more challenging trails at Hidden Falls - we ran No-Name first, then Wed-n-Wild, and finished up with Carnage Canyon.

The jeep was performing exceptionally well. That is to say, I was really enjoying having completely open diffs for the all around agility (I was used to running a Spartan front, LSD combo before), but then being able to flip a switch (er...3) and be locked front and rear when it really mattered on obstacles. My favorite moment was finally being able to climb the tougher line out of the bowl in Carnage Canyon. It still requires a little gas given that the ledge is concave/rutted out and about as tall as a 37" tire, but for getting up in 2 tries, it felt really great remembering how long other folks have worked on trying it unsuccessfully, and remembering how many other folks busted stuff in the bowl.

After running with that group, I was back at camp for a short while until a second group decided to go out and hit a different set of trails. We had a couple Razrs that joined the convoy, so we took a more scenic route up to Tower for a group photo shoot (my damn phone broke before this weekend, so I have *zero* event pics until others send em my way) and then the plan was to head back towards the back fence-line for a bit.

Halfway down the backside of Tower, cresting over a small hill, this happens:

What you heard is the rear drive-shaft coming loose from the t-case flange. :eek:

If you watch closely, you can actually see 2 of the bolts falling away in the footage:
View attachment 197909

The fact that there's even video of this is pure luck, as just a short while earlier I decided to run the GoPro under there to see if I could catch a pesky "click" sound I'd been hearing for a while, but only under flexy conditions. I had a theory that it was the combination of the EVO Plush Ride coils with the TeraFlex bumpstops that was causing the issue (the TF bump stops are a bit wide in diameter, and the tops of the EVO springs are narrower). Well, the theory turned out to be correct...

...but for now there were more pressing matters, like a detached driveshaft. :eek: I came to a halt pretty quick and after a bit of trouble trying to get it into park at first, I was finally able to hop out and see what happened. The driveshaft on the t-case side had worked itself loose, and very luckily only dropped down a few inches and was caught by he transmission skid. The shaft itself and the flange looked completely fine.. there was only one problem. No bolts.

A second person from our group had stopped when he saw I stopped, so we radioed ahead for the rest of the group to continue on without us, and then I proceeded to walk back up the trail about 50 or so feet to see if I could find the bolts. I actually managed to find 2 out of the 4 in the dirt, again very lucky because it meant I could at least get them on opposing sides and limp back to camp. One of the bolts was a bit marred towards the tip, so my buddy worked on it a bit to try to chisel/file it straight, while I worked on getting the DS remounted with the other good bolt using a 12 point wrench and only about a quarter throw under the jeep as I didn't want to drop the skid plate.

A sinking feeling washed over me as I examined the bolts and noticed there was no Loctite evidence on either, and then I flashed back to the XD60 install, where the driveshaft was the afterthought next to the ProRock, and the plan was to re-tighten everything after the break-in period before wheeling anyways.:doh::doh: My second thought was that for all the tools I pack, I really should make room for my tap & die set...:sigh:

Anyhow I finally got both on, and then it was a short trek back to camp on park roads and a slow pace to keep the RPMs low. I did end up having Loctite with me in my tool chest, and after some asking around, we discovered that a fellow wheeler had busted a u-joint yoke at the tcase in his rig with a matching bolt size/pitch. Since his was out of commission and on a flat-bed for the rest of the weekend, this meant I was welcome to his bolts, and as it turns out, I was even doing him a labor favor pulling them as it all had to come apart anyways :)

So, with a handful of fresh bolts and a healthy dose of Loctite, I was back under my own jeep and locking things down. I also went through and re-tightened the pinion side ubolts. Took it for a quick drive around the lot real slow, and it felt solid, no vibrations, etc, checked the tightness on the bolts one last time and decided things were likely going to be ok :)

Hung out for a bit as there were a few events going on that weekend (Crawfish Crawl, King of the Falls) and then after dinner, I decided to really roll the dice and agree to night wheel with the crew. I didn't bother running the GoPro for that session as night quality for photo/video is usually terrible without good equipment, but we ran Midnight Run, Bronco Buster, and Wildcat Stairway, ending once again up at the Tower, looking down at the camping area valley, lit up with people's rock lights, camp fires, etc. The more I do it (And now that I have rock lights) - the more I really really enjoy night wheeling :thumb:

By the time we finished it was getting pretty close to midnight, and with no plans to camp, I aired up and rolled out back towards Austin. Getting back onto flat roads, it's one thing when you're going 3 mph on a driveshaft, and entirely another when you're expected to go 55+ mph on public roads and highways. At first I literally just drove along the shoulder and slowly upped my speed in 5-10 mph increments, listening and feeling for any kind if driveline vibrations... which is interesting to try to do over the noise of mud grapplers... I wasn't so much concerned about it coming loose again given that I had it back on properly now, but more that the brief clanging around when it initially dropped may have caused it to unbalance somehow that I visibly verify. To my very appreciative confirmation, I was able to get up to speed comfortably enough to make it back home without issue. :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

The last lesson in this story came today when I pulled up the Adam's Driveshaft page to find out what sized bolts they originally supplied so I could get more (the ones I stole from the buggy were 6 point, and looked to be a lower grade). I arrived at this page where I was hit with some nuggets of wisdom:
http://www.adamsdriveshaftoffroad.com/rear-jk-install/


The lesson being that no matter how straight forward a task is, it pays to take the extra few minutes to glance through the instructions (if there are any) just to make sure there aren't any gotchas or reminders with the installs. For me personally this goes hand-in-hand with working on my own rig vs. someone else's - I'm much more stringent about following directions to a T when it comes to other peoples stuff, but I get lazy when it's mine. :mad:

But enough on that, otherwise I had a SWEET day of wheeling on most of the tougher trails Hidden Falls has to offer, and getting to run some of the badder lines means I'm getting to play in some of the spaces that aren't used to seeing JKs, which is exciting to me.

One of he more ambitious obstacles I have my sights set on is called Stonehenge, and to my research, I have not seen a single JK conquer it yet... in fact this is one of the only videos out there of anyone making it up:

I may honestly not have the HP to pull it off since there's really just no "crawling it", but we'll see. I may try it winched for safety just to see if it's doable. :fingerscrossed:

Anyhow, I'm still going through the rest of the GoPro footage from the weekend, and I'll throw some more vids up here from the trails.
Click to expand...

Man I haven't even gotten a chance to even look at Stonehenge with my own eyes, I heard it's impossible
 
WJCO said:
Crazy story and sound advise for others. Glad it worked out in the end.
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DWiggles said:
Damn man. Glad luck was on your side!
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Judesign said:
Awesome story and awesome jeep. I gotta get one of those shades.
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Thanks guys, I'm extremely thankful it worked out and it wasn't an expensive (or threatening) lesson in the end.

Sithwindu said:
Man I haven't even gotten a chance to even look at Stonehenge with my own eyes, I heard it's impossible
Click to expand...

Driving past the sign every time I leave Area B to hit the fence line kept nagging me, so a few months back I finally broke down and went up it because I didn't understand why no one ran it even though it was "only" a 5 (for those that aren't familiar with HF, there are plenty of 5s that are challenging, but doable, and technically 6 is the hardest ranking for the trails)

Anyhow just getting up to this wall obstacle is interesting due to the sheer incline and completely loose rock/dirt, but I made it up, and even crawled up onto the wall itself to see what it felt like. It's the first time I've had Thanos up on something that is longer than the entire length of the Jeep - I mean Jody's Revenge has a good steep approach but at least you can get your front end up onto the shelf. This... not so much... pucker factor was off the charts from the steepness and the fact that you have to launch yourself a good 5-10 feet just to *begin* cresting over over with a moderate chance of flipping backwards if you don't make it. I very quickly decided it wasn't time yet and backed down off of it, vowing to one day return lol.
 
Yesterday was my birthday so I went through like 6 rags detailing Thanos to then head to a bday bash at the local water in' hole :)
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