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

[inVERt'D]

ARSS - Adjustable Redneck Suspension System (cont.)

Time to install the crossmember, already.

Made some new end plates out of 3/8, because I could.


Here's one thing I would recommend for this sort of thing: using internal stubs. They do a good job of keeping the crossmember from falling on your head while you're fine-tuning it for length and keeping the center in the center where it belongs. The Jeep frame, she is not perfect.


You'll notice the stubs are in the center. I chose to put them there and trim the bottom about an inch.



Cleaned up that rusty old 2x2 and gave it a paint job. A really ugly paint job.


Welding the ends on, three passes of TIG. After the third pass had cooled, the ends of the 3/8” plate had moved inwards 1/8”. Took an acetylene torch and a sledge hammer, but I got 'em straight again. I hate cold welds .



Those sliders aren't going anywhere now. Glad I didn't put them on backwards or anything.


Measured, re-measured every way I could think of, and when I was finally satisfied it was as close to perfect as I could get it, I welded 'er on, inch by inch, going side to side. I guess my camera batteries must have died, because this is all the pics I have of this phase. Felt great to finally git'r done.



Doing some mockups. The frame-side UCA brackets are held on with big 'C' clamps here. The lowest UCA position is used here because it has the potential to put the frame in the way of the nut. Decided to do some other things before I tackled these brackets.



Heeyyyy...how'd my frame get all droopy???


Welding the adjuster threads on. The outers are 1/2” fine threaded bungs. The inners 3/4” fine threaded nuts welded inside pieces of tubing. Notice that the bottom rounded part is a little angled? They're both like that--an artistic touch.


The inner adjusters holes and threads are at an angle, so I needed a flat surface for the lock nuts. Did this pretty recently.


Somehow drilled this hole closer to the bracket than it should have been, but it does the job.


Coming up next, the back-half and other stuff.

[aw12345]

To many damned pieces, it's getting me all confused. Keep at it, I am thoroughly entertained with this highly technical redneck engineering.
Love the Flinstone brakes also:
Might as well tube buggy the thing, not much tub/ sheetmetal left

[inVERt'D]

Good to hear I'm not the only one who's confused! Glad you're enjoying it, because there's more where that came from.

Flintstones brakes don't work, because my legs are too short to reach the ground from the driver's seat. Fortunately the front hydraulics still work okay. I haven't bothered to hook up the rear brakes to this day, although that is becoming a priority. It's part of the reason I haven't had it over 15mph since reworking the rear suspension.

You'll see a lot more sheetmetal fall off. I would scrap the rear sheetmetal, but I need it to be an all-season vehicle that stays dry inside by closing the doors and soft top.

[aw12345]

Good to hear I'm not the only one who's confused! Glad you're enjoying it, because there's more where that came from.

Flintstones brakes don't work, because my legs are too short to reach the ground from the driver's seat. Fortunately the front hydraulics still work okay. I haven't bothered to hook up the rear brakes to this day, although that is becoming a priority. It's part of the reason I haven't had it over 15mph since reworking the rear suspension.

You'll see a lot more sheetmetal fall off. I would scrap the rear sheetmetal, but I need it to be an all-season vehicle that stays dry inside by closing the doors and soft top.

It took me a bit but I figured out what the threaded holes were for.
If you want it enclosed you better find more shelving to use to patch all the holes
You seem to like holes, got a thing for Swiss cheese do ya?

[inVERt'D]

Sorry, I guess I should have 'splained the adjusters. I took for granted that their purpose would be apparent. On the other hand, your noodle 'splained it to you for me, and no one else has asked.

I like holes as a whole but not in a hull.

[aw12345]

Sorry, I guess I should have 'splained the adjusters. I took for granted that their purpose would be apparent. On the other hand, your noodle 'splained it to you for me, and no one else has asked.

I like holes as a whole but not in a hull.

Hate to say it, but the hull of the redneck Jeep has more holes than a chunk of Swiss cheese

[inVERt'D]

That's okay there are two things I'm not designing the Jeep to do, and floating is the second one.

[aw12345]

What's the first? Leaving the garage it's in?

[inVERt'D]

What's the first? Leaving the garage it's in?

Okay, make that three things

[curtis]

The fab work is great and the welds are perfect!!

[inVERt'D]

Thank you, Curtis! When I look at my own work the flaws really jump out at me. Makes me want to keep getting better, though.

[inVERt'D]

The ARSS End / Back-Half

By the time I got to the back-half, I didn't really feel like doing it, but I'd already trimmed the body above it and sold my bumper. Besides, there was no way the truss was going to get along with the stock crossmember, so I had to bite the bullet, git'r done. Yeah right.

With the fuel tank in the tub, there really is no reason to have the bumper hanging way down there.



Oops-a-daisy! You know, some people say that crossmember isn't necessary, but it sure does stiffen it up a lot. With no bumper or crossmember, the back of the TJ frame is about as rigid as a wet noodle.


Hmmm, here's some nice stuff. 2”x4” .120” wall tubing. Yes, it does appear to be rusty enough, this will keep me busy cleaning for long time--perfect!


I fab'd the legs first. Notice how smooth and un-holey it is? I had thought, Now wouldn't it be handy if there were holes in the frame rails. It could be sort of like a Picatinny or Weaver rail. But I'd have to mark and drill the holes so carefully, then I'd have to sleeve them, and I don't have the sleeve material. Nah, I just want to get this done. So I'll just weld it all up, then it would be too much of a PITA to even consider drilling. Yeah, git'r done, haha! Yeah, that's the ticket!


Do you have any idea of the havoc that could be unleashed if this isn't perfectly square!?


Fillet o' fish plates. The pieces on the left are from the same piece of 1/4” steel as the NV4500 adapter. Stuff on right is 3/16”. It was all rusty as heck. I was proud of how shiny I'd gotten it.


With the basic frame welded up, I started welding on the fish plates.


TIG was working great, but my little bottle was emptying too quickly, so I switched to stick. Unfortunately the only 7018 I had was in 1/8” and 5/32” (3/32” would have been ideal). The 5/32” was just way too big, so I used the 1/8”. I'd gotten it free from a friend who'd gotten it free from a friend who I suspect had let it get wet at one time. If you're not knowin', 7018 is a low-hydrogen electrode, so it's not supposed to be wet (water has hydrogen). I had already baked it in the oven for a couple of hours, but the stuff had seen better days. You can see the start of my weld here is more full of holes than Obama's life story. Well, maybe not that bad, but I had to grind the porous part out. Besides the rod being marginal, I hadn't used 7108 in awhile, and sorta forgot to keep the electrode close enough to the puddle at the start of the bead. If you don't keep the 7018 rod up in there tight, this is more likely to happen. After the first couple of inches, I got my act together and the weld bead looks as it should.


6013 is known for having a glassy slag that starts falling off by itself if you do it right. I find I can get 7018 to do almost the same thing most of the time. That's one of my favorite aspects of stick welding. Removing the slag is like opening a Christmas present.



As I welded I went back and forth mirroring what I'd done on the other side. I'd let it cool from time to time as well. This was to balance the distortional forces and keep the frame as square as possible. Welding with that rod on the 1/8” wall 2”x4” material made me a bit nervous. I overcompensated a bit on the bumper section by focusing the arc more on the thick fish plate. As a result, the bead got a little narrower and piled up a bit. Still better than blowing a giant hole through the work.


Here's the real reason I went with 2”x4” instead of something smaller. I wanted a full-size, Class 3ish receiver hitch. A smaller hitch may have been just fine, but who the heck uses those things?


It also worked out well for the 5/8” x 3” clevis tabs I had laying around. Well, sorta laying around. Like my cut-offs? You haven't lived until you've plasma cut in shorts and holey boots.


Another shot of the clevis tabs. Looky at them holes in the frame rails. By the time I decided I just had to do it, I was kicking myself for not doing it when it would have been much easier. I did an excellent job marking the holes, but the drilling was very, very awkward and not nearly so perfect.


Receiver hitch and clevis tabs welded up, playing with hitch receiver laminate.


Pretty much all welded up. Plan to gusset across the top corners, but I wanted to wait until I knew exactly what I was going to do with the tub and whether there could be interference.

[inVERt'D]

ARSS End (cont.)

Back-half welded in place. Holes are sleeved. I had only left myself a measured 1/64” clearance between the inner sides of the new framerails and the inner inside of the old frame rails. I was relieved that it still fit after all that welding. Originally, I had thought to put the 2”x3” at the top of the inside of the old frame rail, but I figured the fish plate design could be flipped to put it on the bottom. That's what I ended up doing. Instead of going straight out from the top, the back-half goes up at an angle from the bottom.


If you haven't noticed by now, I didn't follow the standard procedure of really narrowing the back-half. That's a great way to go, and probably what you'll want to do, but I wanted to go a different direction.


First pass on outboard side frame to back-half fishplates.


Identical fishplates on the inboard side. They're partly visible here.



Many years ago, someone left an almost 9' length of 4”x4” tubing laying around in what would someday be my yard. I took it with me when I moved. About a foot of it was 1/4” thick and the rest is 3/16”. It has been handy, but the paint on that thing is no joke. Here the version 1 of the frame-side spring buckets are being cut out:


Spring buckets parts for frame and axle. The axle versions are in the foreground and are 1/4”.


Version 1 spring buckets being welded up. After playing with these a bit I decided to modify the design.


Version 2 spring buckets being cut out.


Version 2 spring buckets welded up. I've since trimmed the inboard sides for better clearance. Later you'll see these on the frame rails.

[aw12345]

Nice work David, lil more complicated then need be but very nice work. You don't have German ancestry do ya?

[inVERt'D]

Thanks, Art! I do have a healthy dose of German in the mix. Why do you ask?