• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Frame Plating: How I did it.

nosigma

NAXJA Member # 1371
NAXJA Member
Location
McLean Va
The frame rails between the control arm mount and the rear leaves was the easy part. Order it up and weld it on, it took a full weekend but it was relatively easy.

The hard part was the forward frame rails from the control arm mounts to the front of the unibody frame.

Paper template for layout of plates and hole locations. Cut 3/16 plate. Use three sections for the sides and two for the bottom. Drill lots of holes for rosette welds (about 60 per side) and all the bolt holes. The plate that went behind the coil spring was formed to fit the curvature of the unibody. Cutting this plate part way through where the bends needed to be really helped to form it.

The plates:
100_3491.jpg


Setting up to weld:
IMG_1678.jpg


Bolting the lowers in:
IMG_1679.jpg


Bolting in the two rear side plates:
IMG_1683.jpg


Bolting in the front plate:
IMG_1686.jpg


Side Plates ready for welding:
IMG_1689.jpg


Bolting in the lower plates:
IMG_1691.jpg


Some minor adjustments (lots of these):
IMG_1695.jpg


Inspecting again! Its 90% prep and 10% welding.
IMG_1696.jpg


Some final grinding to clean it up:
IMG_1698.jpg


Now it finally ready for welding. Started at 0730 when it pulled into the garage and ready for welding at 1530:
IMG_1700.jpg


Finally welding:
IMG_1702.jpg


Bolting up the track bar bracket. Just one thead exposed on the nuts so I need to add longer bolts. It the RE HD bracket worked with the 3/16ths plate but it took a lot of grinding to oval out the holes to so it would fit but it does, fortunately. I will tack it in after I have longer bolts for the upper part of the mount. The lower bolts were still long enough to show 4 threads.
IMG_1710.jpg


All finished. Primed, painted and later undercoated. Part of the prep work was to prime and paint the unibody prior to welding, mark the rosette welds and then grind those spots clean prior to welding. They use a lot of salt here and I will be doing stream crossings so anything I can do to protect the frame from rust (its California XJ) I tried to do.
IMG_1713.jpg


It probably took 10 hours to strip the suspension make the templates and reassemble it.
Another 8 hours to cut the plates.
6 hours to drill everything and clean the plates of all rust.
15 hours to strip, prep, weld and reassemble the drivers side.
11 hours to strip, prep and weld the passenger side.

Was it worth it?

Heck yes. No more cracks, no more groaning, it drives a lot better, steering is more precise and I now have the foundation for cage work.

John
 
Last edited by a moderator:
your doing mine next right? hahah just messin'. nice job. did you use a plasma to cut them out?
 
I could have ordered up the plates and then drilled extra holes but I like the idea of doing it myself. Mainly because I could control how the lower and upper plates came together. The side plates have tabs that fold under and weld to the lowers along the 45 degree bevel that the frame rail has. Being able to use 3/16 instead of 1/8 was an added plus of doing it myself as well. Nothing wrong with the JKS stuff, I just prefer to do it myself for this part of the reinforcement.

A buddy shot the pics and I copied them from his photobucket album. I will try to increase the size.

John
 
holy crap. awesome work... definitely a good step off point for those of us considering this.
 
looks awsome, no doubt. very nice!! :D
 
I cut the plates using a radial hand saw with a metal cutting blade and a 4-1/2 inch harbor freight grinder and a LOT of discs.

Its a ton of work but there comes a point where you either need to trash the chassis or build it up. Even on 31's if you wheel long enough and hard enough you will get cracks, blown out spot welds and other such problems.

John
 
That is very impressive to say the least.

Subscribed.
 
Its a ton of work but there comes a point where you either need to trash the chassis or build it up. Even on 31's if you wheel long enough and hard enough you will get cracks, blown out spot welds and other such problems.

yep. ask me how i know that.
 
just me, or are none of the pics working (other than first one)

wouldn't mind seeing this thread in full.
 
only the first picture works for me :-(

thats a very impressive first picture however...:cheers:

and the text makes it sound like a very strong re-enforcement, that should hold the XJ together for a while (at least till you can find another daily driver. :D)
 
The links should be working again, I was trying to edit them to increase resolution. I cant edit the original anymore so there they are in a larger size, I hope.

IMG_1678.jpg

IMG_1679.jpg

IMG_1683.jpg

IMG_1683.jpg

IMG_1686.jpg

IMG_1695.jpg

IMG_1700.jpg

IMG_1705.jpg

IMG_1713.jpg


John
 
looks sweet, mine next? :D
 
Opie,

Your rig has been very inspiring. Thanks for sending me all the pics of how you did this and spending time taking me through your build at JV.

Skimmel,

I built a flow bench and used it to build a few high flow 4.0 head. Google Nosigma or check some of the AMC forums and you will find details on the flow bench work. The 66 Rambler American (convertible to boot) you see in the corner of first picture at the top of the thread is wicked fast (3 DCOES, roller rockers, 10:1 a bunch of other stuff.

John
 
i noticed the rambler... looks cool :)
 
Back
Top