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

[inVERt'D]

Thanks, Curtis. That was the first time it broke. Those pics are from about 3 years ago.

[curtis]

thanks, curtis. That was the first time it broke. Those pics are from about 3 years ago.

cool-cool!

[Toolman]

Looks good cousin. I managed to re drill the nv4500 to clock the atlas parallel to the bottom of the frame. It fit with a 1" body lift and the RE skid plate. It's very tight and I had to use the "Overhand Manipulator" on the floor pan to clear the front drive shaft yoke.

I'd keep going if I were you.

[inVERt'D]

Looks good cousin. I managed to re drill the nv4500 to clock the atlas parallel to the bottom of the frame. It fit with a 1" body lift and the RE skid plate. It's very tight and I had to use the "Overhand Manipulator" on the floor pan to clear the front drive shaft yoke.

I'd keep going if I were you.

Thanks, Mike

As I'll post up soon, I did manage to get a flat skid underneath. Except for the nutsert flanges, the skid is flush to the frame rails. The clocking made this more difficult, since it lowered the driver-side edge of the 4500's belly, and also swung the driver-side of the Atlas about an inch lower too. Like you did, I re-drilled the 4500 tailhousing to get the Atlas flatter. The whole thing is very high. I may end up dropping the whole driveline a little and putting a 1/4" or more spacer on the belly pan. If I leave it up, I may de-clock the Atlas some because of the tight fit with the seat mounting (which I want to lower). It works, but it could be better. Good thing the driver is vertically compact

[aw12345]

I had to sacrifice floor where the seat mounted. Throw the seat sliders away and mount the seat where it needs to be and all is good

[inVERt'D]

I did the seat mounting on the rollcage, if you'll recall from my old thread (way back), but I recently cut it off, because I want the whole shebang to be removable for a number of reasons. I'd also like to be able to mount it lower.

[6spdYJ]

Good thing the driver is vertically compact

I believe the PC term is unheightly... Keep it up. I'm already wondering if you'll be done before I get the 3 link done.

[daniel_buck]

I actually bought that piece of angle iron at the local hardware store. Good way to get broke.

Yea, haha! I'll never do that again! Home depot angle iron is literally about 4x expensive as going to a steel shop!

[inVERt'D]

I believe the PC term is unheightly... Keep it up. I'm already wondering if you'll be done before I get the 3 link done.

Are you sure? That seems to rhyme with with unsightly, though I've been called that too. How about notoverlytall?

I hope you do beat me on the 3-link. I didn't take the easy road with that one either. Right now I'm obsessing over which scrap metal to use for what. Would hate to run out and actually have to buy something, you know?

Yea, haha! I'll never do that again! Home depot angle iron is literally about 4x expensive as going to a steel shop!

That's about right! Funny, I don't even recall what I needed that angle iron for, but when you're in the sticks, time and fuel are bigger parts of the equation.

Awhile back I did a job for a lady that involved about 60' of 1" square tubing. She'd agreed to provide the material, and came back with some pricing from Home Depot and Lowe's. I had gotten quotes from a couple of places (IMS was one), and told her I could buy it at retail, double my money, and still beat their prices by half. We did a little more shopping around and actually found some nice P&O tubing for half what I'd already been quoted. So normal retail was 1/4th the price, and the best deal was 1/8th.

[inVERt'D]

Yesterday it was about 112* in the shade here, and a lot hotter than that if shade happened to be in a tin-roof “garage.” Today peaked at about 114* in the shade. I can take it, but I gave my power tools the weekend off. For some reason I really like the looks of this pic right now. Looks as pretty as a cold beer. This snow storm kinda took me by surprise. Nothing to bring a good night's sleep like a long commute home in the snow at night in an open Jeep (wearing a flannel, if I was lucky).



Gonna try to get this ancient history part of the build over with. At the time it wasn't really what I wanted to be doing, and it's almost like having to deal with it all over again . A lot of the stuff that follows in this post was just to get me by until such time as I could do things better.

Got this spiffy fuel aluminum fuel tank from someone here on MJR who abandoned their build about the time I should have . Was a great deal--thanks again! It was made to go underneath, but I wanted to do a real stretch eventually, and my ridiculous rear drive-line angle meant that was non-optional. Relocated some two (?) of the little tie-down thingies so I could strap in the tank with a single ratchet strap (in red, of course )



Made this here stealth fuel tank cover out of some 16 GA or so sheet steel.


Mounts to the rear seat bracket mounting mounts. Or something like that. I've since cut out a good part of that area, so like a lot of the stuff I was doing at this time, it no longer applies



Here's the front exhaust mount. It's a recycled/ reconfigured version of the one that was on the original transmission/ t-case mount. Actually, all three of the exhaust hanger mounts used parts from the OEM exhaust.



Muffler about to go up. Got that nice Magnaflow off another MJR member. Thanks again!


Muffler and flush tailpipe from below



Track bar with new ends rotated. Pinion and lower coil bucket angles are ridiculous. I had spent a lot of time under the Jeep trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on a 4-link/ stretch or to try to cobble it together. A major part of the decision was my lack of a suitable place to do it. The pad I'd used before now had a water tank on it. This was a quick-and-dirty little hack to hold me over until I could do it right. I gave it a shot, but after doing so, it didn't take me long to convince myself that the right way was the only way to go.

In the background you can see the stick shift, the bottom part of which I made by bending the 4500 shift stub and sleeving it with some tubing. The top part is (most of) the old 3550 stick, smaller tubing welded on, and turned around backwards. The top sleeves into the bottom, and a 1/4” (?) GR-8 bolt passes through both.



The skidplate blank. Where was this handsome piece of scrap steel when I was fixin' to make the 4500 adapter?




Front Mounts. Never did weld these onto the frame, and I'm glad I didn't , because they would be in the way of what I'm currently doing. More on that later.



A locatin' and a sparkin'. Hey look at that there pretty driveshaft cut out! Before I tackled that I got an unction to try to fix my plasma cutter again. I was very grateful to get it working again.




Was good enough for now (back then). Recent developments mean changes will be coming.






This brings us to sometime in late August 2010.

So a lot of what I just posted was a wash, but at weast I finawy fixed that scwewy wabbit! Huhuhhuhuhuhhuh!

[inVERt'D]

So far everything in this thread so far has been covered in some way in one of two other MJR threads. A lot happened in the next 9 months or so, but most of it wasn't measurable progress on the Jeep. Much of what did get done on the Jeep will be covered later.

Let's get into the rear suspension. Right now I don't feel like documenting the drudgery of cutting brackets off of the frame and rear axle. It's ancient history anyway, so it's not even worthwhile as a progress report. Some of what's going to be covered here is sorta non-conventional, but even so, it generally represents some of my more conventional ideas. If there's one word that sums up what I've attempted to accomplish with the rear suspension, it's adjustability.

About the summer of 2011 I was making the rear truss. Nothin' fancy, just some 3”x4”, 3/16” (1.88”) wall rect. tubing. Just so happens it fits right over the 2.625” Jeep TJ D44 axle tubes. 2.625” is also standard control arm joint width. Except for having good adjustability, I wanted to keep things pretty simple--git'r done, you know? Here's where I started going with it. Your eyes aren't fooling you: the basic triangle of it is asymmetrical; the lengths and angles of the two sides are different. The only other thing non-obvious at this point is that it is reinforced internally at the peak. The positioning of the brackets will of necessity be obviously asymmetrical with relation to the truss.


Then I changed direction, and here's where I ended up. The truss is a bit taller than most you'll see on a Jeep. Higher axle UCA mounts tend to raise the roll center. All else being equal, the further the roll center is from the vehicle's center of gravity, the more body roll it will have. Nevertheless, if you don't want to cut a hole in your tub for clearance, you don't want a truss this tall. There is 4-1/2” of vertical adjustment in the brackets, so I'll have (another) way to adjust anti-squat if needed. The link brackets are a little further apart than some to help eliminate joint bind, while still giving enough triangulation when combined with triangulated lowers. The brackets go all the way through and are welded both sides. So much for keeping it simple. It was a PITA. It's a lot easier to locate the brackets on a horizontally flat surface. The gussets and fish plates were the fun and easy part. I welded it up before welding it to the axle because the design will cause the ends to lift up as the welds cool--particularly on the gussets. The last thing I wanted to do was warp the axle housing.



I then carefully welded the truss to the axle. Again, so as to not warp the axle, I had to be patient and methodical. I left the whole thing out in the hot sun to warm up. After tacking it in place, I welded about an inch on one side, then an inch on the other, let it cool for a bit, then repeated. I chose to TIG weld it, because when making a short weld on a piece of steel with a mass of a couple hundred pounds or so would be a good way to get a lot of cold-lap (lack of fusion) with a 175 Amp MIG welder. Of all the common welding methods, MIG is the only one that is likely to produce a “weld” that doesn't fuse the metal below very well, but that looks okay on the surface. Besides bending the axle, the last thing I wanted to happen was have my truss break off. Things could really go downhill fast if that happened. My second choice would have been stick, but TIG gives better control, and a cleaner result for something like this. Although it's not prone to non-obvious cold-lap like MIG is, the worst parts of a stick weld are at the beginning and ending of the bead (and there would be lots of those). This took the rest of the day and maybe a wee bit more, but being confident in the results was worth the trouble.

[curtis]

Very cool looking truss. Nice work.

[inVERt'D]

Thanks, Curtis!

[aw12345]

Looks good bud. You made a lot of work of it though.

[inVERt'D]

Thanks, Art. I know it, I knew it, and I did it anyway