Expensive lessons learned from my 4x4 build

[higgys72]

I’m building my 72 into a crawler/driver and I’m finding some very expensive mistakes I’ve made. I’m starting this thread to help people doing similar builds and will be on going as I’m sure there will be plenty more before this build is done.

1. Dana 60!!! I found a smoking deal on a Dana 60/14bolt combo both for $400 it’s almost too cheap to not buy.

Problem: It’s a dually front axle and I kinda want 4 wheel disc brakes. So I bought srw hubs $500 new studs and lug nuts $120 new rotors $180. Since I basically got the rear axle for free since the guy wanted both gone or nothing my $400 Dana 60 is now a $1200 axle and I still haven’t touched gears or lockers.

Lesson: If a deal comes along look at the full expensive to set up how you would like. I’ve seen srw dana 60 with a locker and correct gearing for under $2000. By the time I set my budget dana 60 up to these specs I’ll we’ll over $2000.

2 Shipping cost and parts sourcing. I went with off road designs 4 link kit. This is a good quality kit that eliminates a lot of guess work out of a complete suspension redesign.

Problem: This kit contains a lot of large heavy tubing that requires freight shipping. All together I’ve spent about $700 on shipping plus slightly inflated prices for tubing. They also use rock jock Johnny joints for the link ends. Again this is a great product better streetability than heims and better angles achieved. Problem is ORD price is about $20 a joint more than through rock jock. That’s another $80 savings for literally the same product.

Lesson: shopping locally for the simple straight tubing pieces would have saved enough for a tire or wheel. Shopping directly with parts suppliers for this kit would have saved at least another $80.

3. Shock choice. Again not complaining about part quality. Im not sure it gets much better than king shocks.

Problem: Lots of things go into making a suspension work properly like bump stops and limiting straps kings are cheaper than comparable ORI struts. Once you include bumps and straps the prices are about equal.

Lesson: a little more research into ORI air struts would have changed my mind on my shock selection. It’s not so much a price saving decision but an ease of set up and tuning. Plus if I change stuff later and need to change spring rate or calving then the price of kings will put weigh the ORI pretty quickly.