ya the one next to the pinion. ya, i had clearance issues so i had to cut mine off.
those shiny tubes do look good and i did think of just clear coating them, but i am not a flashy kind of guy…black it is
i started to sand blast tonight, what i got done looks really good, however my buddies compressor kept tripping the breaker and wasnt able to maintain proper pressure to sand blast. i may have to find an alt loctionl to finish cleaning it up.
sand blasting/done
purchased all the brake components. the backing plates with the ebrake mechanism were f’in expensive though, had to get those from ford
purchased install kit from MORE
tomorrow night i’m gonna give the housing a good cleaning inside and out and hopefully, maybe, depending how many beers ive consumed, start on gear setup… 
another question, need to start looking into sye. any opinions on what is avail. should i go for the least expensive, what are the differences… all the descriptions are similar. do they all have the same size yoke
This can’t end well.
I got my SYE from Jeff at Crown. Companies such as JB Conversion and Advance Adapters also make super short SYE’s for Wranglers but I don’t think you really need one of those.
i bought a ProComp SYE and it still works.
gear setup…well i got the housing cleaned out
we hit road block (beer) after road block (pizza). we at least figured out what our pinion depth should be. although the measurement stamped on the pinion is taken from the bottom of the pinion head whicjh makes it much more difficult to dial in.
we’re gonna give it another go saturday in the light of day where i hope the distractions are minimized 
ahhh. got the gears all set up. thank god for my friend dean. doesnt seem all that difficult to do, but i do not have any of the specialty tools to getherdone. the photos showing the wear pattern are not the final setup. we broke it down one more time and added a shim to the pinion. the wear pattern after was much more precise. my only minor concern is pinoin preload. dean did not have a torque wrench capable of measuring the small amount of inchpnds needed for the preload. he did it by feel, and im taking his word for it as he has a pretty good mechanical background.
next step, i guess get my jeep up on his lift to mock up and determine pinion angle
beer me!
looks good. progress is nice.
4wheelonline had a rugged ridge sye for $173…any input in rugged ridge
seems to have good reviews
Thats what Jeff sells up at Crown. 4wheelonline probably gets them from Crown. Same unit I am running.
AA=Crown=RR. same manufacturer different box.
I am running the RR one , no problems with it yet,(just other things 
)
Like driveshafts . . .
YUP,& under the knife as we speak to fix a brake problem once & for all.
Should be safe to remove that plow gear???
Yeah, head gear is off, just got to remove the lower push frame & put the 33s back on. it will be great to actually be able to stop like its suppose to.
can i lose the transfer caase drop i curently have after install of the sye?
and, will it make a diff i fi take drive shaft length with
Yes. t-case drops are for mall crawlers. Lowering the t-case defeats the point of lifting in the first place. Not only that, they significantly weaken the crossmember.
driveshaft length i dont think changes much but if you are ordering a new one i would wait till everything is installed before measuring and ordering. and def loose the tcase drop. you might need shims to make sure the driveline/ pinion angle is ok.