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is this basicly how the flow works

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is this basicly how the flow works

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Yep, that's how it works. I bet there might be a cleaner way to contrapt it, just what I mostly had on hand to test the theory and seems to work. Steering is a touch whiney cold but after 10 minutes seems silent after it builds some heat/pressure l but still the safety of over pressure. Seems Radial Dynamic said in his testing started having pump seal problems at 20 psi precharge and 10 psi seemed to be the happy medium.
 
Damage report:

WE Rock, Rangely CO, July 9-10
Saturday, A1 (3rd course of the day)

Gate4 was a solid boulder climb, no one made it. We were first up, stacked a few rocks, and did a full whiskey throttle to try and get my 112 wheelbase up and over....no dice. Slid to the driver's side around the boulder and took out the cone. Drivers front wedged into a crack tight enough that: 1> I could see the passenger front tire spin and the driver front remain wedged (spool front) and 2> the inner bead of that wedged drivers front tire as spitting water

I knew it twisted, but no breakage...took a reverse and reposition to climb the "normal" gate4 line.

Pulled apart this morning....over 90 degrees of twist but no spline issues (inner pulled from the housing with minimal effort, inner separated from the RCV cleanly) Obviously striations on the shaft showed the amount of twist.

Spare inner going in today, and pulling the diff to fix a lube drool I'm tired of...

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So, HUGE props to Jeff Clibon for his assistance today with brake bleeding...the Mityvac MV6840 is a damn beast, and made short work of getting the brakes perfect. Even the rear cutters are firm...HIGHLY recommended tool, every shop (or addicted enthusiast) should own one. We DID have to make a custom cap setup for the Wilwood remote resi, but that only required a 6mm drill and some pipe sealant.
Woody What was the process on bleeding the brakes with the Mityvac and the hand brakes ? I'm struggling to bleed mine right now so ordered a mityvac it'll be here thursday
 
Woody What was the process on bleeding the brakes with the Mityvac? I'm struggling to bleed mine right now so ordered a mityvac it'll be here thursday
Search RedBullRocker's posts on pirate4x4....I'd have to dig it up, but that's what I followed.
 
I just reread this entire thread but couldn’t find what I was looking for. When you get a a chance. Can you measure from the B pilar to the A pilar? Curius how close that measurement is to my buggy.
 
I just reread this entire thread but couldn’t find what I was looking for. When you get a a chance. Can you measure from the B pilar to the A pilar? Curius how close that measurement is to my buggy.
B to wing is 33", wing to A is 11". B to A is 45". (all at the door bar)
 
Ran most of The Wong Way on Sunday....stages 1 and 2 aren't bad at all, but stage 3 was a workout. My long/heavy/wide car did NOT like that first gate, but I did make it.

Video from Stage 1, Gate 3.

 
Shock revalving...HUGE thanks to Jeff Clibon for his expertise today.

Revalve all 4 of my 16" 2.5 Radflo air shocks today....the goal was to smooth the ride and add better control. The puck has 3 holes for rebound and 6 for compressions...we plugged two of the compressions holes in the front to force more fluid thru the shim stack. Shim stacks all contained 7 or 8 shims (8 means two shims of the same size, doubling that rate....noted by the > on the towel notes) We mixed/matched between the exisiting shims and the ordered sets from Radflo.

The large washer (bottom right in the first pic) on all 4 shocks was coned from some HARD shock unloading...we pressed them flat, but will be ordering replacements for any future changes.

The whole process wasn't too hard....I was surprised. And learned a TON about shim stacks (and realized there is still a ridiculous amount I don't know)

Facts: The car weights about 3900#. 60% front bias. Front tires are 275# of water in each tire. Clearly, the same valving front/rear isn't adequate.

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And should anyone ever need it, this is the pdf of the Radflo 2.5 Air Shock Valve Stacks / Valving Chart...info you WON'T find online easily...

My 16" 2.5's came stock with the following valve stack: 40/85 1B
We had two shim sets ordered, but one was for 2" shocks not 2.5....once I know which stack we used, I'll post it. We mixed/matched existing with new to get the valving set.
 

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If you play hard enough, you'll eventually tear the driver front or passenger rear steering bracket...my tear was roughly 2" long.

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Jesse's fix is a piece of machined tube and a longer bolt. (Dave Wong's car)

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My fix was to plate the gap and spread the load (plus I didn't have the material or a lathe handy...) You do need to press the original plate as flat as you can first, then mock it up and weld while installed.

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BTW, those top two bolts are blind holes, sono reason to not run longer bolts. 1" long plus a lock washer was perfect.

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Shock revalving...HUGE thanks to Jeff Clibon for his expertise today.

Revalve all 4 of my 16" 2.5 Radflo air shocks today....the goal was to smooth the ride and add better control. The puck has 3 holes for rebound and 6 for compressions...we plugged two of the compressions holes in the front to force more fluid thru the shim stack.
Are you talking about plugging bleed holes? Or did you actually plug the compression ports in the piston? From that pic of the piston I don't see any bleed holes.
 
Are you talking about plugging bleed holes? Or did you actually plug the compression ports in the piston? From that pic of the piston I don't see any bleed holes.
There were no bleed holes to plug. There were 6 compression and 3 rebound. Now the front is 4/3 and the rear is 6/3. Yes, we plugged two compression holes in the front.
 
If you play hard enough, you'll eventually tear the driver front or passenger rear steering bracket...my tear was roughly 2" long.

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Jesse's fix is a piece of machined tube and a longer bolt. (Dave Wong's car)

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My fix was to plate the gap and spread the load (plus I didn't have the material or a lathe handy...) You do need to press the original plate as flat as you can first, then mock it up and weld while installed.

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BTW, those top two bolts are blind holes, sono reason to not run longer bolts. 1" long plus a lock washer was perfect.

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I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can't see that plate helping much as the cracked plate and the two affected bolt holes are beyond the added plate. please explain;)

Jessy's fix literally ties the upper bolt hole to what looks to be 3/8" bracing.

No offense intended just trying to learn !!
 
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can't see that plate helping much as the cracked plate and the two affected bolt holes are beyond the added plate. please explain;)

Jessy's fix literally ties the upper bolt hole to what looks to be 3/8" bracing.

No offense intended just trying to learn !!
Can't bend the arm back if the plate supports it. Spreads the load wider.

No different than a gusset.
 
There were no bleed holes to plug. There were 6 compression and 3 rebound. Now the front is 4/3 and the rear is 6/3. Yes, we plugged two compression holes in the front.
So were you looking to decrease the compression flow through the piston? I've never seen anyone block off the valve ports in a piston. I know people have flipped the pistons to get more rebound and people block off and open bleed holes as needed for low speed stuff. Just seems like a stiffer compression stack would have achieved the same results. Dunno. Slow speed crawling stuff is.... different.
 
So were you looking to decrease the compression flow through the piston? I've never seen anyone block off the valve ports in a piston. I know people have flipped the pistons to get more rebound and people block off and open bleed holes as needed for low speed stuff. Just seems like a stiffer compression stack would have achieved the same results. Dunno. Slow speed crawling stuff is.... different.
Actually got it on the sand today....huge improvement in ride too. Still sucks on the really choppy spots, but the rebound increase helped a ton.

Pulled some solid lines today, super stable...need to run dumber lines 😉
 
Actually got it on the sand today....huge improvement in ride too. Still sucks on the really choppy spots, but the rebound increase helped a ton.

Pulled some solid lines today, super stable...need to run dumber lines 😉
Thats where free bleed would help, in the choppy stuff, but I'm pretty sure that just leads to unloading with airshocks.
 
Thats where free bleed would help, in the choppy stuff, but I'm pretty sure that just leads to unloading with airshocks.
The big issue with rock crawlers is getting weight bias correct....60/40 F/R split. That nearly always means water, shot or something in the front tires, even on a front engine car. Which DESTROYS any OEM rebound settings due to that added unsprung weight. I have 275 of water in each front tires, and that's only 2/3ish full (10:00 on the valve core). Bumping that to top of wheel (12:00) or fuller quickly bumps that weight into the 325-400 range.

Because the front rebound was stock, the top out washer was coned around the shim stack since the shock would regularly top out HARD. It's supposed to be flat. We pressed it back, but I have new ones ordered.
 
Thanksgiving weekend fun....

Have had an odd noise for a few trips...guessed it was the flexplate/adapter for the torque converter, but the first inspection didn't show a issue. Inspected again on Wednesday afternoon and found a crack. So that came out Wed evening, was reinstalled Thanksgiving morning, and buttoned up Friday morning....required pulling the trans/t-case back a few inches, but not actually removing. A pain, but could be worse. The replacement is now a full-circle design.

During the button-up process, I noticed a bent heim....drivers side lower at the chassis (below my feet). Clearly, my recent penchant for dropping off stupid ledges is paying off.... So following Friday's 30 minute banzai run up Broken Chain, I contacted my local buddy who owns HeimJoints.net to see what he had. Zipped by his place on Saturday morning and picked up 4 spare 7/8 thread-3/4 bore heims. Took about an hour to replace the bend one. No, these are not the expensive ones, 30k rated only.

Sunday wheeling, brake issues. Right cutter had ZERO pressure, so assumed it blew a cup seal. Pulled it that aft and disassembled...and found no visible issues. "guessing" the internals just jammed somehow, and ordered a rebuild kit just in case. While I was in there, I pulled the 1-1/8" master and replaced it with a 1". Reassembled and rebled everything and brakes are working great.

Supposed to be headed to JV this weekend for some tire testing, hopefully the issues only came in threes ;)

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