WTF-J

I chose MAD4WD over Dynatrac and Currie in part because of MAD4WD’s Ohio location but more because I found in Larry Davis a real axle fanatic who was dedicated and passionate about building great axles.  In talking through the "what" of my axle specs, I also got a real sense of "why" one option was better (for what I wanted to do) than others.  I ended up with high pinion D60s loaded with ARB lockers and discs that should last a long time.  I really wish I could have rated MAD4WD higher, as the axles are first rate, but…

The steering and the RE 4-Link connections aren’t 100% "there."  Ran into interference between the pitman arm and the high-steer setup.  I couldn’t get it to go together, so I trailered the rolling chassis to Larry’s shop and hired them to put together the steering and Currie AntiRock solution.  After 6-8 weeks, I went back to pick it up and it was mostly finished, but the interference was still there and I ended up having to fab up the AntiRock brackets.

It’s not that Larry doesn’t walk-the-talk, but I suspect he is somewhat "interrupt driven" and literally has more business than he can handle.  Larry was going through a restructuring of a business deal with Rockcrusher (Australia) and they were in the process of building a new shop, but that was little consolation. While going after a quasi-local resource, it still felt like stuff fell through the cracks and got put off until the last minute, with the resulting loss of quality.

Next time, I’ll probably go with process over passion and stick with a more out-of-the-box (versus outside-of-the-box) solution.