JRI Gen1 Raptor

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

The time has come for a modern~ish family adventure-mobile. We have been thinking Raptor for a little over a year now and the time came for us to scoop one up. We ended up with this 2014 with 88k miles on the clock and a bit of bolt-on work done to it. I really wanted a bone stocker but had a tough time finding a low mileage one. I was a bit hesitant to buy a truck that had some work done to it, I prefer to buy stock and do my own thing, however this one popped up and seemed to have decent parts so we went with it.

2014 Raptor
88k Miles
ADD Mid-Travel front with Fox 3'' Internal Bypass, I believe this kit is discontinued (not a fan of it and will likely build my own)
Rear Deavers (leafs party harder)
Rear 3'' Fox 3 Tube Bypass
Rear (unknown make) Bump Stop Kit with Fox Bumps
37's
Methods
4.88 gears
Rear ADD bumper (will be up for sale soon)
ADD "Chase Rack" (will be up for sale soon)
Magnum side steps (will be up for sale soon)
Seems to have had as bunch of misc work done to it over the last 5 years. New steering rack, plugs, shock rebuild (didn't do the bumps) claims to have replaced the "ball joints'' but it has uniballs, loose ones at that. Upper arms are bushed and loose, seems to have had a winch at one point and the wiring was cut and abandoned. Has a SCT (I think) tuner/controller, claims it is to fix the speedo after putting on the 37's and the re-gear. All in all we are happy, the truck needs love all over the place but we are happy with it. Oh, it seems to keep eating SDHQ cv boots on the passenger inner, not sure what is going on but I will figure it out.

I do not have any glamour shots at this time, but here is "The Long Way Home" Raptor

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

I have been reading up on the other Gen1 threads and want to take this time to thank folks for their threads, postings and knowledge. I hope I can contribute some knowledge with my thread here.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

We have had the Raptor for about 8 days now, I feel like I need a good month to go through things and get parts on order. Here are some shots of the stuff someone bolted on and some shit limit strap tabs

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

Some bits I recently installed



I also ordered some limit straps clevises from Kartek, might be a few weeks before I get them on.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

I ordered some OE steering rack boots and the rear seat back latch pulls today thanks to @WW_RANGER_X build thread.

Also, the truck already has the Saudi Trans cooler on it

 

[LoganB]

Damn. Upper arm and limit strap mount look like they’ve seen some better days

You’ve done such badass work in the past, can’t wait to see what this looks like.

 

[Fenix Motorsports]

It still amazes me how some of this stuff makes it out of the R&D Phase, assuming it even had one.......At least its in good hands now.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

Bloody mole, this thing has terrible road manners. She needs some love....stay tuned

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

Records indicate the shocks were rebuilt 6k miles ago. I think one of the fronts may have been re-assembled incorrectly. I looked on Fox's website for a manual and I could only find the installation guide, anyone know where to get a parts diagram or the like? I can do the re-build but I do not want to pull both off at the moment to compare side to side. I am not sure how to explain it but I am getting a weird diagonal (left rear to right front) bobble, very unsafe at highway speeds. It feels like a dead spot in the R front. I believe they are can in can IBP? I wonder if it is possible to put the can in upside down?

 

[the bodj]

@WW_RANGER_X would be a good resource for this

 

[WW_RANGER_X]

You can't put the IBP sleeve in upside down. It simply will not seal up. The seal head is machined to fit the sleeve only in the correct orientation. The front gen 1 shocks are super weird. removing and setting the IFP is a trick in it self that not a lot of people know how to do correctly. If they set the IFP correctly, and everything was re sealed correctly, only thing i could think of is they didn't add the correct amount of oil and there is air in the system, but even that is hard to do because the seal head has bleed screws to release any trapped air. Sucks to say but the best way to do it is pull them back apart and double check. Also check to make sure both coilovers are on the same "perch", there is low, mid and high. Sometimes the springs will either be assembled in the wrong perch side to side, or the spring could be cracked. that happens a lot as well.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

They are not the OE Fox shocks, they are these


The previous owner had them rebuilt at a driveline shop, I don't have much faith that they were done correctly.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

I drove this pig the Monday after the Offroad Expo and noticed when parking the front would hike up and seemed to have aggressive toe-in. I thought I would make a quick toe adjustment since it was toed in about 1'', this turned into a big ordeal. It is pretty obvious when jacking the truck up that the front also has terrible bumpsteer (more toe-in at droop). I figured I can deal with that another time and just toe this thing out to see if that made any difference. All was going well until the passenger side steering clevis on the rack rotated, so I needed to remove it and actually line it up correctly and re-install with some red loctite, however the ground down/stripped out bolt head had other plans.







I win! Got er out!

Now the other side came off and I was shocked to see that the high-mis heim did not have a reducing spacer in it and was moving around in the clevis. So yeah, 1/2'' bolt and 5/8'' bore, not cool.



Insert a few new parts and cleaned up the tie rods on the lathe, once these issues are sorted I will have some 7075 tie rods machined.







...to be continued

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

Now as I am starting to re-install the tie rods I noticed the 7/8'' outboard heim was hitting the inside of the mount on the knuckle, I could see a score mark and figured this could be part of the odd steering we have noticed. So I popped a hole in both sides and the heim now moves freely.







And now for a bumpsteer adjustment. I machined one spacer to make a small up or down adjustment of the heim at the knuckle. I really don't think it will be enough, but it is an easy adjustment in the moment.





That is all for now. I need to get back outside and mess with it some more, once this storm passes.