08/01/2026
Lot of Sammy love this week. 1988 Zuk in for some legitimate maintenance and long overdue upgrades haha. Between all the things that went wrong, we discovered wrong, difficulty sourcing parts and specific tooling, even making some tooling, and rushing to complete as much as we could before he ships out this weekend, we had a great time and got it back up and rolling again with many more projects ear tagged for the future on this rig.
It has officially been christened “Echo” for the sound it made after it yeeted the front driveshaft over the highway on the way to our shop, but in so doing the vibration went away and it could get up to 50mph! Wild times. 😂
Front axle tear down to fix the blown wheel bearings and seals, make new spindle nut socket extension to properly torque the 50mm nuts, replace the front brake system entirely with new rotors pads calipers and stainless brake lines.
Cut off the old shocks, made new shock towers to convert from eyelet upper mounts to stem tops to run the OME leaf spring and shock kit. Got the OME leafs installed and cycled, new bushings and hardware. Bled the brakes and removed the remaining half of the front driveshaft that was still attached to the tcase lol. Pulled the retaining plates and shackles and anything we could and gave everything a good wire brush and black stainless coating for longevity and durability.
Rear end got new rear shocks speccd for this specific setup and ride height, also new OME leaf packs and all new hardware and bushings. Kristian also completed a rear disc conversion out back before bringing it over and it looks awesome!
Probably a lot more I’m missing but what a wild project and so much fun working on this rig. This is what we live for. Keeping the old fun stuff alive!