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

[aw12345]

Thank you Sir, may I have another? When life gives you lemons...

Drill some holes in it, or get the crazyglue gun out

[inVERt'D]

dang, that's alot of welding! And drilling! So you're out of argon, and drill bits now?

I was amazed that the last bit of that bottle lasted as long as it did. I kept expecting it to run out, but it got me to a point of completion on the crossmember. God provides . I was out of argon for a couple of weeks or so. Currently have a full bottle that I haven't cracked open. Been busy with other stuff. Most of those cowbell holes were drilled with el cheapo TiN coated step drill bits. My dear ol' dad turned me onto those. I keep them lubed and cool, and they drill lots of holes for me.

Scrappy will hang together from welds and Swiss cheese holes.

Held together by the holes, actually. The welds are mostly for looks.

Must be nice to have unlimited time on your hands

Thank you Sir, may I have another? When life gives you lemons...

[aw12345]

Scrappy will hang together from welds and Swiss cheese holes. Must be nice to have unlimited time on your hands

[daniel_buck]

dang, that's alot of welding! And drilling! So you're out of argon, and drill bits now?

[inVERt'D]

Where were we? Oh yeah--cowbell. Got those outer gussets mostly welded on here. MIG seemed convenient for these, but had feed problems with the .023 I had in there for thin sheet. After this I finally quit being lazy and swapped in some .030. The LCA bracket gussets posing here are more of that ancient 4x4” tubing scrap--because my jeep is all about recycling. Liberal chicks dig that! Or so I'm told...


Put some extra special cowbell into the LCA gussets, because it's all about saving weight! :homer:


A lot more welding on the bottom. Same old story--6011 root and 7018 cover passes. Except the LCA bracket gussets--just 7018 on those. Welded the crap out of this thing, but a couple of stitches at a time


Finally I couldn't take it anymore--some TIG! Once I got started, that argon bottle was doomed. Speaking of which, that MIG weld on the far left gusset is busting my eye. Guess I couldn't see what I was doing. I can only sleep because it got some TIG loving that made it all good.


Besides the TIG, a view of the front major laminate welded on with 6011. 7018 passes would be coming. Lots of plug welds there. I made it a little extra tall so I could shape it with the grinder later.


Rear laminate-gusset-thingies being welded on.


Got more, but I don't want to overwhelm your senses.

[inVERt'D]

Yeah I don't like adding weight, and the crossmember is a pig. I could have made the thing lighter if I had had the 1/4" plate to do it (the fork lift floor board has too many holes in the wrong places). I do hope to add some lightness eventually. All I lack to do that is money. Hopefully the axles will handle it until then--they will be getting some weight added too. The front HP30 will be sleeved and trussed. I have Superior alloys for the rear. One thing I've wanted to do since I built the rear truss is to make a rear bridge that ties into it. Again, just didn't have the material I wanted.

The springs I have in front now are a good bit stiffer (if not taller) than the TeraFlex springs I had on there. Got them new/cheap on eBay, knowing they'd fit, but not what they were intended for. I first put 'em on in '09 and I liked the way the way the Scrappy drove down the the ruts and whoopdie roads a lot better: solid, nose-up, and no diving or lurching. That was with no front sway bar. A little more like a trophy truck than before, I guess. Didn't seem to hurt it crawling or climbing from what I could tell, either.

[aw12345]

Well I guess you are reminiscing about that erector set lol. Plenty of holes in all that you are gluing together.
Cool welds and all, but have you looked for taller springs yet? That's a lot of thick steel you are gluing under there.
This Scrappy gurl is gonna have a phat @ss. When building strength and weight are an issue and a trade off

[inVERt'D]

Glad you're enjoying it, Ted. Metal erector set? By the time I got mine in the '70s they were already plastic--bolts and all. I remember my dad telling me about the old school metal ones when my brother and I unwrapped it. I wouldn't mind having a metal set now, come to think of it. Hmmmm...:geek:

[6spdYJ]

This thread is like opening an erector set, lots of metal pieces, lots of holes. Can't see what it is yet, but when the kid's done playing with it I'm sure it will be cool

[inVERt'D]

Scrappy the Jeep gets some more cowbell

Lots more scraps to weld together. I've never been into naming automobiles, but I think around this time I decided to name my rig Scrappy.

Made a laminate for the back and a fish plate for the top. Later made copies of these for the other side.

Made gussets to go between the LCA brackets. Used a bender board techique for the curves. This is easier if your clamps have the same size foot (for lack of a better word).


Both of the gussets mocked up. I decided to open up the rear gusset a bit more, because, you know, it's all about ground clearance. :homer: Those two little 3/8" wedges on the deck there will be gussets in the rear.


Although it was too small for the front gusset, this Olympic plate turned out to be the perfect size for the rear. Checking it here--fit like a glove!


Decided the front gusset needed some cowbell. It's not welded yet there, just posing.


Stitch welded on the front stiffener and the rear stiffener, along with those wedge-shaped gussets.


Another shot of the rear stiffener. The front of the belly of the 4500 tranny has a pretty decent bevel in it, otherwise there wouldn't be room for that rear stiffener. Yup, it's tight up in there.


At this point I was mostly stick welding, but I did some selective MIG'ing too. I would have loved to TIG the whole shebang, but I was really low on argon and I was thinking I'd save it for welding the bracketry to the frame. The other issue was the rustiness of some of the material. There will be TIG, though.

A view of some cowbell. I did a little welding here and a little there, because although I figured some distortion was inevitable and acceptable, wonking out was not. This was a tricky design on account of the distortion issue.


If you'll recall the drawings, these 1/4" thick flat pieces on the ends will be bolted up to the bottoms of the brackets at the bottoms of the frame rails. They're welded all 4 sides, and even plug welded. Looks kinda neked though, don't it? Like a cow without a bell, if you ask me.


Got some cowbell coming right up...

[inVERt'D]

Of the things I've made for the Jeep, this crossmember easily has the most individual pieces. I'd had the basic design already worked out before I started cutting, and once I'd settled on the tab configuration, the particulars kind of came in a rush. A big part of the fun has been watching the vision come together like a snowball. As of now, the crossmember has been basically complete for for over a month. Over the past few days I've been making some additional gussets and pieces, bringing the talley of individual, hand-fabricated parts to 50 and climbing. Some parts of the design are required, some are optional, and all have a priority level of sorts. Depending upon how many optional mini-gussets I add, there could easily be 70 or more individual parts welded to the crossmember before it's finished. :geek:

One of these days I'd like to get my hands on some good 3D CAD software, but until then, I'll have to settle with staring off into space slack-jawed. Not that I mind that.

Welded the two main tubes together. At this point I'd like to share a little story about distortion. You'll notice the bolt sleeves. Those were welded in-place after the two tubes were at least tacked together and perhaps had one pass of hot 6011 between them (I don't remember for sure). Those tubes didn't have much wiggle room, but just to be sure I welded them in-place (from the inside) with bolts going through them and the tight holes of the 3/8" thick brackets. Everything lined up. You'll notice from the earlier pics that this tubing has large radii on the corners. I figured I'd more or less fill it up. After doing the first passes with 1/8" 6011 at probably 160+ amps (don't recall exactly), I went back with two more passes of 3/32" 7018. Now here's the kicker: when it had cooled, the bolt holes were about 1/16" closer together . So there's a lesson in distortion for me :homer:

So, not the prettiest welds, but the joint is stupid strong and deep, and will be covered up anyway.


Locating the tabs. I'd already had them tacked on, but as I alluded to before, the vertical parts were getting in the way. I reconfigured them so the inners had no verticals, but rather flat shelves on the fronts, and the outers had verticals in the rear.


Welding on tabs. For awhile, I'd seriously entertained sleeving the lower tube with some 1-1/2", 3/16" wall tubing, but decided that would be unnecessary weight by the time I'd done everything else I planned. Welding 1/2" thick tabs to 1/4" thick tubing with substantial welds is going to distort the tubing some. I paced things to help control the distortion. Again, I beveled out the joints where I thought helpful; first passes with 6011 (burns very deep), and second with 7018.


A couple of observations about the crossmember core. Where it necks down it creates a stress concentrator or "riser." The control arm brackets are where stresses are going to be transferred to the crossmember, and they're right there at "neck". The control arm brackets being low as they are create a lever arm on the crossmember tubing. We can visualize the twisting forces this will put on the link when the weight/ inertia are trying to push the front wheels back. So, this stress riser needs to be dealt with. Material will be added to reinforce the neck as well as the entire crossmember, and distribute the torsional forces more evenly.

Found this rusty old 1/4" still plate laying around. Was a good find, but boy was it rusty and pitted. As you can see from the shape drawn onto it, it will be a laminate for the entire front of the crossmember. There will be complementary gusset-laminates on the rear, but clearance with the transmission won't allow one comparable to the front. Note also the flat tops of the control arm tabs.


Here's the front major laminate cut out and mocked up. Part of the leftover from that will be used as a reinforcing rib in the rear. Keyed between the front major laminate and the tops of the inner tabs is the front reinforcing rib: 3/8" thick and 2" wide. It's one of the few pieces of the crossmember that I bought new. I originally had in mind to use it as stock for custom tabs, but the entire thing went on the crossmember. As you'll see later, the wedges I cut off the front were used to gusset the rear of the LCA brackets. The symmetry was beginning to flow. Note how the neck has been reinforced. The new vertical neck-down (necessary for drivetrain clearance) corresponds to the horizontal widening.


Front 3/8" rib from the top.


For optimal strength, the end caps needed to be welded on before the laminates.


More on its way...

[inVERt'D]

You are a mad scientist! :-)

Yeah, but more mad than scientist

[daniel_buck]

You are a mad scientist! :-)

[inVERt'D]

Back to the progress. This thread is still a few months behind.

Main parts of frame brackets welded and trimmed. The angled parts face inboard. The larger parts sandwich the frame rails. I had intended to trim the one on the left like I had the one on the right, but forgot to scribe the additional lines before I cut. Oh well, it will work. The cut outs are to where the crossmember goes in.

I welded the crap out of them. The joints were V-notched, first pass 6011 for its superb penetration, and a second with 7018 for its weld quality and the strength of is alloy. Can you see the distortion? They're allowed to do that. They're not allowed to break.


Here's a bracket with the 3/8” side plates and bolts mocked up.


Crossmember tubing cleaned up pretty nice. Bo (or should I say “Beauregard”) dropped in for the shoot...


...and to remind me about dinner. He calls this look “Blue Steel.”


Well, that's what I get for naming him Beauregard.

[inVERt'D]

That's more or less what I was saying about the pickup truck pillow blocks. From the factory basically 0* angle from the output. It's not that it's bad tech, it just has its limitations.

If clocking my t-case front output down doesn't work out, I think the fixed yoke carrier is my best bet. One thing that will work in my favor with the front output is that my driveline angle is almost flat--the output yoke will not be pointing up like most do. Also, that sketch is not to scale. Even as it is, the angle of the first shaft would be fine with the fixed yoke setup. If that's the solution that gets me where I want to be, then it will be worth the trouble. My second/ lower shaft will still be longer than the stock TJ rear shaft even with the HP 30. At any rate, there's a solution. At worst, if it doesn't work out, oh well, I got more practice designing and building stuff out of old scrap metal. It's a hobby. Keeps me sane. Sorta. Until I prove myself wrong, the front crossmember is a go.

As for lockouts, that would be a last resort for me. I don't like them.