It's An OCD Thing, You Wouldn't Understand

[inVERt'D]

Body Lift

At one point before I committed to installing the 4500, I'd told myself that I was just going to keep it simple and use the OEM t-case skidplate. There were two problems with this. First, I'd always hated that old skidplate, and had been hung up on it a few too many times. A flat skid was something I'd long wanted to do. Second, as soon as I'd unbolted the skidplate, it became apparent that it wasn't going back on without a serious fight, so that settled it.

Now getting a flat skidplate flush to the framerails with a stock TJ drive-train is a fair amount of work. Trying to do it with an NV4500 and Atlas is just ridiculous.



Not that ridiculous would keep me from trying. So I played with it for awhile, and made a body mount bracket lift, mostly out of some 3”x4” rect tubing I had thought to make a bumper out of at one time.






Also made some 1” spacers for the two rubber supports at the corners of the grille, but I don't seem to have pics of those. I bought a spare set of stock rubber body pucks on eBay. I stacked two additional at the back corners. Cheesy, but I figured it was just until I got around to doing a back-half. The pucks also came in handy for the tranny mount. About this time, my plasma cutter stopped working.

[inVERt'D]

Motor Mount Lift

With that out of the way and a big hole in the floor, I did a motor mount lift. Made some 1” spacers out of that same 3”x4” rect tubing. I never was in love with these things, but they work. One day maybe I'll make some righteous motor mounts.

[RAT]

Lookin good! Gotta a love a good deal that is like Mana from Heaven. Congrats!

[inVERt'D]

Thanks, Kurt! Yeah, it may look like a diamond in a goat's a--, but I'm not complaining!

[RAT]

Thanks, Kurt! Yeah, it may look like a diamond in a goat's a--, but I'm not complaining!

I give credit where credit is due... The term "Diamond in a Goat's ass" was stolen from my buddy Andrew (DoubleAA). But it fits so many things I do so well

[curtis]

Nice work, and that trans is huge.

[GP4Play]

Cool deal, nice setup David. Did you get some new pallets for you garage floor? :beer:

[inVERt'D]

I give credit where credit is due... The term "Diamond in a Goat's ass" was stolen from my buddy Andrew (DoubleAA). But it fits so many things I do so well

I like it, it's a funny one. Now that you mention it, I think I recall him posting that on here a few years back. That's probably where I picked it up, but I have noticed you use it fairly regularly. Those sorts of expressions have always appealed to me. "Polishing a turd" has long been one of my favorites. Ridiculous analogies have been a useful way of illustrating a point across for thousands of years. "Like a jewel of gold in a pig's snout, so is a beautiful woman who is without discretion." (Prov. 11:22)

Nice work, and that trans is huge.

Thanks Curtis. Any bigger, and it wouldn't have any business in a Jeep, IMO.

Cool deal, nice setup David. Did you get some new pallets for you garage floor? :beer:

Thanks, Dennis. I've got a new garage floor now, a small but adequate portion of which is actually concrete and that's where my Jeep lives on most of the time now. Since the rest is dirt, I do put things on pallets and such quite a bit so they don't rust/ rot from ground moisture.

[aw12345]

Pretty crafty David, so when are we taking this Jewel away from the goat's ass and down a trail?

[inVERt'D]

Pretty crafty David, so when are we taking this Jewel away from the goat's ass and down a trail?

Thanks, Art. As soon as I find my needle nose pliers . God knows. I'm working on the front 3 link now. Tack welded the frame-side LCA mounts on earlier today, but I'm not happy with it, so I'm already taking them off again. Today was a wash.

[inVERt'D]

Ding-dang horny toads!!!


More trimming of the tunnel and floor, and I was able to get that plus-size junk up higher than the bottoms of the frame rails.

With my plasma cutter broken, this is what I ended up with for a tranny mount crossmember. Started out as 2”, .250 wall square tubing. I've never been in love with this thing, either, but it works. Remember, the tranny is clocked ~7* counter-clockwise. The frame brackets are more of that same 3”x4” tubing. The bushings are body pucks. One thing I like about them is that they can be shaved to lower the driveline. I wanted some bushing flex built into the mounting, otherwise with the motor mounts flexing, the bellhousing could experience enough strain to break it. I've heard of it happening. The black thing I originally made to mount a stock NV4500 mount, but I decided I couldn't make that work with a flat skid. I chose to compromise the strength for some extra ability to adjust the drive-line angle by removing the black thing. I figured I could reinforce it later or use it as a prototype for something better.



If you've ever wondered what $25/ qt tranny fluid looks like, but were afraid to ask. Here you go.



One of my little buddies. Got to know some of these little guys so well they'd actually climb up on my hand to get a tasty bug. Then sometimes I'd have to physically push them out of the way to do something like plasma cut without roasting one. Yeah you're seeing right: I actually bought that piece of angle iron at the local hardware store. Good way to get broke.

[aw12345]

I used the body pucks for the transmount, works very well

[inVERt'D]

That's good to hear. On which rig?

[aw12345]

Big un, took a somewhat different approach, but has worked very well for me

[curtis]

Sweet looking tranny mount. Bummer the plasma broke again.