To start things off lets do a little back story. Bought the jeep back when I was 16 when it was more or less stock other than a tired small block Chev. Over the past 7 1/2 years I slowly built it into a more capable PNW style trail jeep. The last year of jeepin it started to become a bit of a hassle with tons of little things breaking/wearing out and I started to worry almost everytime I was gonna be "that guy". Never in its life having a full tear down, it was starting to show its age and I did my best to keep it together by strapping the frame after it broke, tied cage into frame, redid the suspension, etc. Anyways, here's the old girl.
TBI 350
Dana 44's F/R
t18
4.27's w/lunchbox lockers
Dana 20
Spring under rear with yj's
Spring over front front with toyota rears
Chromoly shafts
Redhead steering box
36 tsl's
I can certainly understand working on cars all day and not wanting to come home and do it again. That said you do awesome work so thanks for the fab fix!
Some more little things are getting knocked off the list! Gave the brain a break this weekend and went and had some 2 wheel fun, but was nice to get back and glue some more stuff together
First were tow hooks. One of those parts that would be extremely easy to make, but for the price it was hard to justify the effort. There's about 2" of engagement and a very tight fit. I ended up putting in two plug welds, each about 1/4" deep to make sure the plug wouldn't just be sitting on top.
Capped the dash bar and worked on the rear coilover mounts some more. Mount definitely gonna need to move inwards to help clearance the tire so I plane to notch the mounting tube to allow the nut to clear the tube. Hard to explain, but next update should paint the picture for everyone haha
You are correct. I'd really like a brake, but tooling up and funding the build at the same time is rough. hopefully down the road I'll purchase an Ironworker, but for now this method gets me by.
I really appreciate the amount of obvious planning before execution on this build. It takes a lot of self control to take the time to make sure every detail is a purposeful detail but still blend it to where it looks like "its just how it's done" though few others actually have done it. Functional form is a true challenge and I dig your success at it!
Off topic: Earlier in the thread you said you worked for a high-end chassis manufacturer. Just curious if the folks you work for/with know about this build and what they think about it?
On one hand, I feel like they probably think you're crazy for putting so much work and beautiful fabrication into something you plan to beat the sh!t out of. On the other hand, I feel like they probably think you're awesome for putting so much work and beautiful fabrication into something you plan to beat the sh!t out of. :laughing:
Regardless, keep the updates coming! I can't wait to see some pics of this thing on the trail.
:laughing::laughing: Some of them know of the build, but don't know the extent. Our Tig welder swung by to check it out and reacted about the way you'd expect haha he now refers to it as "GoodGuys2019" :flipoff2: Told him i'm fully aware of the effort and still plan for it to more or less live on the limiter and bounce off trees
Much needed update. Issues with rear sway bar had me cancel the order and go through a different company. Rear bar will be a few more weeks, but front bar was an off the shelf width so they were able to send it right away. Once again jumping all over, but at least there's some progress.
First off, I finally ditched my Hi-Lift tie rod and actually built end links and began working on a double shear set up.
Still plan on doing a tab off tube to double shear end link bolt, just waiting on misalignments to get correct spacing. (End links still need to receive MIG cover pass)
Then shifted my focus towards front sway bar. I'm gonna come out and say it right away that I have no clue what rate I need. The arms I dug out of the dumpster at work were 1" 48 spline so that's what I ordered :flipoff2: Figured run the full length arm and should twist the bar halfway decent.
I couldn't do that with my plasma. I've never played with a cutting torch. Must be more controllable than a plasma. I would have used a hole saw. End result is the same. Actually, yours is better because you weld better than me.
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