Off-road excursions

After waiting for almost 1 month to have my new XJ shocks (sad story about Rusty's service), I finally had a brand new set of Old Man EMU shocks on the truck. I could hardly wait to take it off-road. However, due to the known reasons (twin babies in the house, work, etc), I couldn't take the XJ for a real off-road trip, so I took advantage of the weekends, while my wife was at the beach, to get some flex on that suspension. The pictures below are from several weekends, spend in the hills of the southern Athens suburbs, Varkiza and Agia Marina, near the sea.

Here are my new shocks, Old Man EMU part numbers N35L for the front and N36L for the rear. Nice shocks, they offered my Cherokee a much better ride, than the crappy Rusty's hydraulic shocks.

For some reason, I had the impression that the rear tires were not staffing as much as the fronts, in other words the flex of the rear suspension was not what I expected it to be. So I tried to get the truck to flex as much as possible to see how flexy the rear suspension was. As you can see, even though the front wheel is all the way up, the rear one has not extended fully.

As I was wandering around the hills of Varkiza, I found a road leading to an abandoned mine. I followed it and here is a small creek that I crossed.

At that point, I noticed that the tie rod could damage the disconnector's pins, which I usually put back in their location, to keep the plastic ring on the lower mounts from falling off. However, as you can see in the picture, with the passenger's wheel fully staffed, and the steering to the right, the tie rod end touches the pin. Later on, I found out that even with the pin out, the tie rod end there, where the drag link attaches to the tie-rod, there is some binding at the lower antisway bar mounts and possibly at the track bar's mount on the axle. I'll have to check this more.

Here is the creek I just crossed, quite deep!

Then I came across this little ledge, which I climbed without any problem. The approach angle of the XJ is very satisfactory.

Some more pictures trying to flex the suspension.

I then moved to another location, where I noticed some rocks, which I was hoping would give me a chance to flex more.

It was at this position that I noticed another problem. With the passenger's wheel going up, and before it can reach its full travel, there is some binding at the axle mount of the track bar, as you can see at the picture at left. I need to trim that mount a bit, in order to allow some more travel.

Some more attempts to flex the suspension.

Some days later, I took the truck to my Argyroupoli play ground, where I knew there was this road section that would allow me to fully flex the truck. The front wheel is fully up (at least as much as the fenders will allow it to go), but the rear is not flexing enough.

Here is a shot of the opposite corner. You can see that the rear tire hasn't moved up, at least not as much as it could go. At that moment, the tires were almost starting to slip. I am not satisfied with the rear flex, but it would take a miracle to get the rear as flexy as the front, given how hard Rusty's rear springs are.

At this position, I knew I could almost lift the rear driver's tire, and I did. At this shot, the rear tire is barely up in the air. Still, the rear wheel is not in the fender.

It was at this position that I discovered another problem. The second leaf from the top of the spring pack has a curved edge. With the suspension flexed, and the leaves moving lateraly, that edge is binding on the shackle, causing some serious dents in that are. I think I need to take the springs apart and trim that edge a bit. You can see it better on the picture on the right.

Another problem was that the shackles of the compressed wheel, were moving back enough to touch the bumper's mounting bolt. I tool those bolts out and trim them so that they are now flat with the welded nut that is in the shackle's mount. That solved the problem.

This is a picture of the XJ at the same spot, but from the opposite side. See that the wheel hasn't moved down as much as you would expect.

The front driver's wheel is as high as it can go, the spring is almost totally compressed. I guess I need some extended bump stops at the front.

A few days later, I took the XJ on a hill, which is right above the village of Agia Marina. Nice paths to follow, which lead almost to the top of the hill, where the locals have installed a small flag. Here the XJ is posing in front of the flag.

One more attempt at flexing.

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