Iwaxmyjimmy!

1st your springs are unseated so there's no down force pushing them to the ground for traction.
You don't need more up travel chances are your tires are close to stuffing you meed longer springs and raised lower mounts with longer bumps....lcg builds can only do so much unless someones a progressive long soft spring or coilovers with a sacraficial spring...

You can do 14" shocks but raise lower mounts and move all the junk hanging on fender wells abs etc but you will also look to your drive shaft hitting tranny pan and cross member and track bar will be fun.
Its best to go 3/4 link set up and run sway bars, get rid of track bar...just my thought been doing this (fab/race/prerun)18+ years now. But I could be wrong lol
2nd reservoir shocks have the IFP in the reservoir allowing for an inch more travel in the same shock
Reservoir shocks also allow for more oil staying cleaner longer and yes jeeps aren't hammering like desert trucks but as heavy as they are the shocks get worked and fade is still a issue.

Your ticked off that there's posers and mall crawlers...I agree its sometimes laughable a d I won't wheel with someone unprepared for the trails...there are o es we do that if your not on 35s a d dual locked your gonna hang up and get winched...stacking and winching is not my cup of tea I cringe at either when i have to do it....id rather get it sideways and scramble bjt sometimes i have to....winching someone unprepared is irritating and takes up alot of time....

So not to p!$$ on the parade but theres views from all points.

And I use bead locks, 37s, locked front and rear, ten factory rear and rcv front, fox reservoir shocks.....

 

Top of my list tho is led light bars on jeeps that don't night wheel lol

 

This I'll jump in on lol...the guys that mount them to the hood or right above windhsield....man the scatter and dust being lit up as well as the hood is a huge hinderence that's the reason in desert racing and pre running we stick them back on the roof abit. It gets rid of light deflection.

But it is their money and it stimulates the economy.....

 

Even though my front springs can come unseated, you're still gaining traction because the tire is on the ground. When I started playing around with shocks trying to figure out how to get the most travel in the shortest distance. I looked at piggy back reservoirs along with remote reservoirs and still the cheap shocks I found with a twin tube design had the shortest collapsed length over both those mentioned above. Also curious how low do you take your bead locks?

 

I was more or less annoyed with the fact that if you are building a mall crawler, everyone pushes for you to do this. I still want to see how thick these housing are. I'm not completely sold on the concept. Was his jeep purchased used? Does he have any clue to what it might have been driving like its whole life? I feel like if there was that bad of a housing that more would be done about that from the factory. I know there are factory freaks that just have issues. But also take into account, remember when nobody ran bigger than 33's on a dana 30 in the old wranglers? I definitely do. I feel like 35's are bigger than what most should run. I do plain on eventually trussing my front axle, but I feel like there was some un-lying issues there that happened that caused some of that to start happening. Maybe I'm just to used to wheeling older junk that isn't as fragile lol

 

He bought it new in 2010 and took it straight to the lift where parts were waiting. this happened a year or year and half later. Not saying d30 is a tooth pick, just saying freaky shit can happen when you least expect it. Be it a factory defect or just wheelin hard and livin life. I do tend to recommend truss and gussets to people with 35's or bigger for the mere fact of value. $130 and a few hours with a friend who welds and your d30/ 44 is significantly stronger than stock. I wouldn't rag on people for that, even if they wheel 3x a year.

Now people who spend 100's on meaningless lights, pay $450 for 35's on an 18" wheel, ect ect that I don't get. But to each their own. I will never rag on a jeep I see on the trail, unless the driver is an arrogant ass.

We all had to start somewhere ya know. Some people don't know about setting up shock travel, some just don't care. You don't need a finely tubed machine to have fun. I wheel blues and blacks just fine with my $2500ish of mods consisting of 35's, 15" wheels, truss/gussets, 2.5" budget boost, stock rubicon shocks and a rubicon transfercase, cut stock bumper and Flares keep on jeepin on

 

Try it un seated with out lockers. With only the weight of the tire, half axle, brakes and the rest of the unsprung weight to provide normal force there isn't a lot of frictional force available to the tire from the ground. While impressive in its own right, you might consider limiting straps as a temporary fix until you get longer springs. I know it seems silly to limit your wheel travel with all the work you have in it, but it is only a small recommendation.

 

Well like I said, I'm using 3inch bumpstops all the way around. I know once I eventually go to 35s I'll have some fender clearance issues with the stock flare that a sawzaw/jigsaw can take care of. I've been through that same spot completely bone stock with 30 day tags on it, and 2 wheeled it though there with my lockers on. I want to extend the upper mount atleast 2 if not 3 inches which I feel like it could be easily done. I haven't gone out and measured yet but the should should be outboarded more somewhat if I do that to keep from contact with the frame. I feel like I could get a 14 inch travel shock in there and gain some uptravel doing so. Just need to bust out the grinder and welder. I'm not worried about the driveshaft contacting anything other than the exhaust. With moving my upper mounts up 2-3 inches it will free up up travel (my shocks I am running are 17"-29.5") because the 14" travel shocks I am looking at are 18.5"-32.5". By moving the upper mounts I should gain atleast an inch uptravel if not 2 and then keep the droop almost the same. I'm using 3 inch bumpstops so I would have to use only a 1 inch then. And these bumpstops are also added onto the factory length ones. So I really can get away with just raised upper mounts on the front. The rear I don't want to do anything but maybe raise the upper mount 2 inches to get some up travel back, when on an RTI ramp it gets a little tippy when the rear starts to unload that 12 inch shock and I feel like this should limit that factor by not allowing so much droop.

I agree 100% my jeep shouldn't go to the hammers because I don't feel like stacking rocks. I don't mind using some finesse, but I don't like holding up the group either. And I know alot of people don't want to baby sit other who are very new to wheeling. Some guys should start on the baby trails like Cleghorn and then move up to Big bear or Calico, then maybe do Cougar Buttes and Sun Bonnet. And that's mainly for the guys just starting out even if they are on 37s. Experience is key to alot of this. Half of this rock crawling stuff barely involves throttle input at all. One of the best upgrades one can do for rock crawling is a double, range box, or different gear set in their transfer case to slow down the speed and have more control to place their tires better. I'm so tempted to buy some prefabbed shock towers to raise my upper mounts, now just to see how much up travel I can gain back. Right now I only have 3 inches. Sorry I've been researching that all day and googling the crap out of it.

 

I grew up where 40"-44s were the norm. 35s are really small. Most JKs on here are the Unlimited and have a longer wheel base. If they don't have a bigger lift and tires, they scrape way too much. Short arm lifts become useless over 3.5". The arms are shoved into the frame instead of using the coils like they are intended. How can you not be sold on sleeves? They spread the load out over the entire axle. If this is your idea of a perfect Jeep, enjoy.

 

I wasn't using my lockers going up or down that section. Going down was easy because of gravity. Going up I had some wheel spin but nothing to excessive. I wasn't aired down either that was quick just to see how it all worked together.