GW Backwards re-Build...v1.7

[ONEtonXJ]

Originally Posted by GreatWhiteXJ

Soooo anyone got any exhuast advise?

Connect the exhaust manifold to the throttle body





All the gangsters run it through the frame and out the boatsides

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Fuggin sheet man! (Be gentle, me es no electical savey)


Ok this is fuggin retarded but....... Im inside now. Floorboard has been going great. Seat mounting, internal cage and all interior work has been going very well and coming out fantastic.

Yesterday I started cleaning up the dash. Stock dash but I removed, replaced, and changed a few minor things so it was time to reasseble and get the massive amount of wires out of my way. Upon doing so I found a harness that I caught on fire. Dont know when it happened, but Im pretty sure it happened when I was doing boatsides and somehow I lit some of the Automotive seam sealer on fire. Which the harness was laying directly on.

Soooo now....I have a massive amount of wires melted together. (well, they are sperated now but...) 12 wires to be exact and melted in about a 3 inch section. Heres the retarded part....

Do I need to cut out the damaged wire and resplice in some new?
Or can I simply retape all the exsposed wire? '

For reference, its the main harness on the driver side running towards the back. The harness with all the rear lights, interior lights and I think the fuel pump electical is in it too.

What should I do?

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Originally Posted by xj9140

Make it easy and get yourself a 15" roll of stainless http://www.flexatube.com/flex.htm It's what the 18 wheelers use

Well dont put the tip in and not jiggle my balls now.....


What is this stuff? Are you being serious or was that a joke? Ive never seen anything like this....but I did check out the link. Not sure on it.....more info?

[AgitatedPancake]

I'm more of a fan of regular exhaust tubing possibly with a peice of flex tube in there near the engine.

I'd personally cut out those sectiong and splice in some new segments. It's only a little bit of work vs years of possible electrical gremlins down the road. Just do it so you don't have that in the back of your mind as a "what if"

[Chaps]

I would also cut out the damage and solder in new wires.

[ONEtonXJ]

side note.....

i wish i heat wrapped my exhaust.... it make da feet hawt.......


that is all

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Did everyone else with aftermarket supsension seats have as hard of a time mounting them as I am currently? The driver side is kicking my ass.

I dont really understand why either. I completly redid the floorboard and actually gained room and Im still getting fugged. My seat is 2 1/2 wider than stock....1 1/2" wider than a Corbea SS. That extra 1 1/4 is completly screwing me.

Id apprciate anyone who want to post of pic of there seats mounted. Looking for aftermarket pics and tell me how wide the actaul seat is and how wide the mounting bracket is. Thanks!





Oh and Ill do an update tonight and its gonna be a big one. Like 60 pics prolly.

Still not done tho....


Lots of reasons but none that matter. Just dumb daily life things slowin me down.

Things left...
Booster, master cyl, prop valve for brakes.
Final fab driveshafts
Shifters
Seats, belts and partial internal cage
Fill all boxes....tranny, diffs, t-case.
Finish center piece on belly skid
Bout $100 in new bolts
Paint
Still gottafigure out headlights....
Install all the expsensive junk Ive held off on or fit and removed for theft reasons. (All steering, all front axle internals, motor goodies, shocks, tires etc)



Any pics or thoughts on the seats is much apprciated.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

*** Note this is driver side only. Passenger side will not be a problem.


This is what Im trying to work with. You can see Im laying on the tranny tunnel and Im wedged on the B-pillar on the other side. The other problem not noted above is head clearance. Im not a huge guy, but not small. 6'2" 210. In the pic below....I would have about 5" before my crown kisses the sunroof.





Im very limited on options. Heres what I can do....

A.) cut a notch where the seat rail is sitting atop the tranny tunnel. That would net me about 3" inward to get me off the b-pillar and it would also drop the seat about 2" from where the pic shows. (This option still puts head clearance at risk.)

B.) Get diffrent seats

C.) Clock the tcase one positon lower and run a 2 piece front shaft indefinatly. That would gain me the extra space to drop that section in the tranny tunnel further down and inward getting the seat off the b-pillar.

D.) Get a chevy 60 and flip the t-case and scrap the front.

Heres a shot of it framed out. You can see that I only have about 2" before the top of the 300 meets the bottom side of the tranny tunnel.






Open for suggestions.....

[AgitatedPancake]

Do you know anyone around with different style seats you could borrow to check fit? Just to see if they could get you closer, without having to buy seats and hope they fit. If that doesn't work I say two peice driveshaft it, Chevy 60 would be insane just for your seat mounting issue haha. Wouldn't the passenger seat run into the same issue at that point?

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Im a step ahead of ya....but your right....

Grrr....2 piece driveshafts :shakesfist:

Hoping to work around that but that seems to be the most logical at the moment unless....


Ive been playing with the tape all morning and ran to a friends to snag a corbeau. Id be in the same boat with the SS.

Sooo I grabbed one of my stockers.......shit that ones the worst!

But the stocker got me one the track I was missing. Of course I dont have actual mounts on my seats yet. So I sat the 3 next to each other and carefuly compared them. My seat is smaller overall than a stock seat. Not nessicarly in overall diminsions but there where 2 things I wasnt really considering correctly. Seat depth vs height. My seat cushion sit my ass about 3" further downward. (Or in otherwords I sink into the seat more.) Which nets me that few extra inches not to bang my noggin. Which is essentially what has me worried. The further in I go on the tranny tunnel...the higher the mount would need to be. Not good.

So In finding this, Im going to go in steps. I absolutly must notch it somehow. So I think I can notch it to lay in a chunk angle for a flat mount. If Im looking at it right....it will net me 2" down and in. And it will not be an issue for the t-case. That would leave me almost 2 3/4 before the t-case hits. Im running a rubber tranny mount with poly motor mounts so I dont think it will be an issue. Thoughts if you think so tho....

So I'll start there and see.

Thanks AgPan

[AgitatedPancake]

Sounds like you've got the makings of a plan! Random question, is there any way you can do some fab work on the seat rails themselves? Cut that right hand seat rail off and move it inward an inch or two (if that wouldn't be too far to interfere with the suspension seat ability), then you'll be able to drop the seat down to where the seat frame is sitting on the tunnel. Give you a couple inches before you even start notching.

I honestly have no clue if that is even realistic as I don't know what the bottom of the seats look like, but if you could pull it off you could locate the seat rail so it sits directly against (and parallel to) the trans tunnel, nice and easy to mount.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

I'll take fuck me for 200 please....

Just cut a notch in the tunnel. Layed a piece of angle in, stacked a few 2x4s on the other side, placed seat in.....and I climbed in. First time Ive sat in this bitch in 4ever! Annnnnnd fail..... my head is like 1" below the gutter rail for the sunroof. Or about 1 1/2" from the window. No dice. Seat needs to go down at least 3-4".

2 piece shaft it is. Dammit.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Originally Posted by AgitatedPancake

Sounds like you've got the makings of a plan! Random question, is there any way you can do some fab work on the seat rails themselves? Cut that right hand seat rail off and move it inward an inch or two (if that wouldn't be too far to interfere with the suspension seat ability), then you'll be able to drop the seat down to where the seat frame is sitting on the tunnel. Give you a couple inches before you even start notching.

I honestly have no clue if that is even realistic as I don't know what the bottom of the seats look like, but if you could pull it off you could locate the seat rail so it sits directly against (and parallel to) the trans tunnel, nice and easy to mount.

I thought about that and its just too much work to pull off succesfully. Plus it wouldnt net any head room that I desperatly need now. Id have to strip the seat, and partially redesign the bottom frame of the seat. Not just the mounting points.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Spent the whole day bench pressing the doubler. Im beat. This driver seat is getting the best of me for sure.

But the update. Batteries are all dead so Ill be missing quite a few shots, But I do have quite a few loaded already so I'll do a bit then get more pics tommorow.

Start with some parts I suppose.

Wheel spacers for the rear. These to equal out width a bit and to keep the tires from touching the shocks at flex. I could have machined them myself but it just wasnt cost efficient. From Poly Performance.



This on the other hand I did machine. Warn is the only comapny I can find that makes a steel hawse fairlead and I wasnt gonna pay $60 + after shipping for it. So I made one. I realize it'll rust out and ideally I should have made it from stainless but I intend to switch to rope before too long so its fine fore now. Its 5/8 x 2 1/2" material with a 3/4" wire guide and a 5/16 radiused edged. Same dimesions as a standard aluminum hawse.



14 Bolt mini spool.



East Coast Gear Supply 35 spline Drive Flanges. Sitting in the Branik MotorSports UBH. Broached for 35 spline stub, pinned backing nut, and new bolt pattern.



Front shocks. Rancho RS5036. 15" travel. They have some kind of new black shaft technology. Kinda cool. I dont have these mounted yet. Its gonna be interesting tho. I also dont anticipated these to last long. The rears either. I just wanna wheel. I'll package some nice Bilsteins when these dunp out.




Andddd....the only brake componant I really have. Jamar Line lock. Brakes are done on the axles but I still need booster, master, lines, and prov valve.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

This update is gonna be scatered as Im kinda fishing for pics of updates I havent posted. Some are going to be recent. Some are gonna to be a few months old.

This is just a few shots for those who dont know about Dana 300 yokes and what you can swap them for. Keep in mind, thi isnt going to work for me now. Not in the front anyways. But a 300 output is 26 spline. So is the front yoke of a 231. And they are direct swaps. Swapping them allows to to uses a factory 1310 double cardan joint. There is a slight height diffrence tho that you can adress if you want but its not a big deal.

231 on the left, 300 on the right.



You can see the height diffrence. I just took mine to work and took like 3/16 off the overall length. ( Sure your could do it with a grinder as well.) Reason being is the dust cap is slighlty exposing the seal. Kinda of defeating its own purpose. Its not nessicary to do this tho.

Few more shots to compare...





If you ask me, the 231 yoke looks stronger as well.

This is what I essentially was after. Again tho, this isnt going to work now.







Thats how I "had" the case in. And just today discovered its absolutly required to clock it down in order to wheel without ringing my bell on every bump. You can get an idea tho. Imagine the driver side of the case down 3-4 more inches. Thats where it ended today.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

And still on the t-case, that little cast fork for the factory shifters can come off for anyone flipping a 300. It hangs an unnessicary amount and you cant really do anything with it anyways.

Off she goes.



Backing up a little bit.... heres another shot of the panhard mount.



Backing wayyyyyyy up.....these pics are old. Totally forgot aout this.

So stay with me.... I read a post In gen4x4 about a kind of, not really, but works decent, inner bead lock, but more retention bead type mod for your wheels.

Get that? Alright, so the beads on my 42's measure almost an inch thick. And the OEM lip on the wheel to retain the bead is at about .625. So obviously my bead isnt going to sit in that lip like its suppose to. And airing down, its pretty appenrant what would happen.

So to remedy this I did as many others have done. (I Think the guys name is "Sceep" that I got this idea from. And he's running 46 claws.)

First, I went threw all my tires and came up with an average bead thickness of .860. So I made a steel spacer at work a tad wider and put a nice radiused edge on it and bent it to shape the wheel.





Then I used a few clamps to hold the spacer and I used 3/16 roundbar and wrapped the wheel creating a new, taller, bead retention lip. If you look very carefully at the pic with my finger holding the spacer, you can see the OEM lip just to the right of my tacked ring. Keep in mind those looking to do this mod, you absolutly must weld the entire ring. Think about it.... I also layed a fingers pass of silicone over the weld too.




The ring is not really a lock in any form. However with it being slightly taller....actually nearly twice as tall as the OEM lip, it will be more difficult to loose the bead at low PSI. It seems to have worked quite well for others. Plus after massive failure to inflate via redneck starter fluid hahaha...., I installed the tires normally and then broke the outter bead to slip back over for the beadlock. When I did this tho, the lowest tire took 39 PSI and the highest took 58. So Im thinkn itll be pretty hard to blow a bead. And becareful if you dio this. I did as another suggested in that thread and put the tire outside and slowly turned up the regulator until I heard a pop.

Shot of the entire ring and wheel. You can also see the outter beadlock fully welded and ground smooth. I didnt get a shot of the inner ring fully welded. Or I cant find it anyways. But you get the idea.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Uhmm....


Went with a Spartan Front Locker. Yukon makes em and they have yet to report a broken one. Moreless identicle to a lockrite. Come with a new heavy duty crosspin. A few have worn em out but no broken ones. Thats good enough for me.



Probably one of the easiet part installs on the whole rig. Didnt even take me an hour to assemble it. The pull pin, sping design is genious!



Uh....what else.... Boatsides.

Decided to go with 1/8 plate. It'll dent, but Im ok with that. its already a tank so adding the extra weight was not in my benefit. And honestly I dont think it will dent all that bad. I have 7 legs underneath it and when I pulled the rest of the floorbaord I added some crossbracing. Fully welded up top and stiched at the frame to allow water drainage.



Sealed the ends up wit 1/8th as well.



If you notice, theres no where for me to get a hilift anywhere on them. But, no worries, I have a pretty trick little deal in mind that take care of that.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Fast foward to a few weeks ago and then into today....

The floorboard has been some work. I attempted to keep the stock portion where the shifter is alone but it was just to hard to blend into without looking like total shit. Sooo I cut it all out.

Keep in mind, my 300 is now clocked 2 positions lower than in these pics and the 231 is clocked one position down as well.




You can see that I redid pretty much the ENTIRE floorboard. Mostly cuase of rust. But in this shot you can see where I have begun to fill things back in. I have the pieces on the outsides of the frame rail filled in. Underneath those is the boatsides. When I replaced all that, I went in and ran 3/16"x1" flat bar across the inside of the boatside plating. Hopefully that hleps with denting.



Bck shot... You can also see I finally finsihed the rear crossmember as well.



And starting to frame things in. I used whet I had for material. The frameing is 1"x1"x1/8" square tube, 3/16" x 1 1/4" flatbar, 1/4x 1" flatbar, 1/4 x 1/2 flatbar, and some 1/4x1/4. And I used .095 and .065 steel sheet and some .095 alum is planned for the shifter cover.





Thats where I call it for tonight. I'll get better shots of the floorboard tommorw. Hopefully with seats mounted.

[Amadeus3]

Bulldog makes a steel hawse fairlead for $25. 4x4GroupBuy.com has it.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Originally Posted by Amadeus3

Bulldog makes a steel hawse fairlead for $25. 4x4GroupBuy.com has it.

Hmm...guess I didnt look hard enough. Good to know tho so I can tell everyone who asks me where to go. Thanks

[GreatWhiteXJ]

I didnt get crap done today. Nothin worth showing anyways.


But heres a few front shots showing the panhard installed.








And few of the floorboard. Very, very hapy with this. And yes, the open spot in the back is for a window. It'll be lexan. (The 2" wide strip cut outis where Im tinkering with seat mounting.)










Thats all for now.

[xj9140]

Looking real good man!

[Echo4charlie]

Everything really looks great. I did the same thing with my wheels, and I can drive on a flat tire for as far as I need to. I know you are having issues with mounting your seats, but what are you planning on securing them to? I ran tubing across the tunnel and tied it into the cage. It's all part of the chassis at this point, just want to make sure you secure your seats and harness to a solid part of your rig.

[GreatWhiteXJ]

Thanks guys!

Ill be attaching the seats with Gorilla glue, Big League Chew, and self tapping sheetmetal screws. And Ill prolly just zip tie the seat belts around the frame of the seat.

Yes, I have a very secure plan for everything. Just gotta make it fit. Dont get ahead of me.

[dukie564]

jesus christ the front of that looks menacing. Great job on the floors and such.