Narrowed front fascia

My axles are in the same shape as they were last summer! I need to truss, shave etc. the 60 housing. How about sharing some pics of what you did Jon? I'm not sure I should go all the way and get the ring gear shaved. Opinions? I also need to order gears, lockers, axle shafts for the rear HP 60. The front 60/44 needs gears, lockers, truss, inner C's welded on. I've got stock 60 shafts for it with one having been shortened and resplined. Jeff

Goatman said:

That's fuggly!

(we need flip off smiley's)

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Look who's talking! Have you ever looked at the front of your buggy?! Jeff

Jeff 98XJ WI said:

Look who's talking! Have you ever looked at the front of your buggy?! Jeff

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Aw.....c'mon, it's not that bad. It's pretty after it got the skins on.

Jeff 98XJ WI said:

My axles are in the same shape as they were last summer! I need to truss, shave etc. the 60 housing. How about sharing some pics of what you did Jon? I'm not sure I should go all the way and get the ring gear shaved. Opinions? I also need to order gears, lockers, axle shafts for the rear HP 60. The front 60/44 needs gears, lockers, truss, inner C's welded on. I've got stock 60 shafts for it with one having been shortened and resplined. Jeff

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I'll start another thread and get some pics up in a couple days. It was a ton of work to get the extra clearance, but I think it'll be worth it.

Here's a few more hood shots to show the mismatched lines when the wedges are cut out.





I'd like to reuse the stock hinges, but it may be more work than it's worth. More hood pins might be in the future.

-Jon

I borrowed a plasma cutter and went to town the other night. I decided to pretty much gut the horozontal portion of the inner fender as I plan to run coilover shocks and want to build the mounts tied to a front exo bar type thing. I hope to fill in the holes between tube bars after everything is built. I didn't know how to best trim the stock coil mount plate so I decided to cut it along the line of the first inner fender piece of formed sheet metal.















I then cut the vertical inner fender loose up to the firewall



I had to cut the outer brace piece to allow the vertical part of the inner fender to move.



I also had to cut a couple other spots.



I then pushed the vertical section of the inner fender in...notice the gap.



I found that I could simply bend the front portion of the inner fenderwell back in line with the front crossmember.



Here's the fenders pushed in:



Trial fit of the front header. I'm not sure I like it, but I'm committed now!



Jeff

Here's a shot of the passengers side plasma cut.



A shot of the passengers side trim to fire wall (I used a sawsall on this side)



Passengers side from the inside.



As always, more work to follow! Jeff

There is a definite order in which things need to happen. I needed to narrow the fascia first to determine where the inner fenders needed to be, then I had to narrow the inner fenders. After that I needed to rework the upper radiator support to tie the top of the inner fenders together and provide a place for the front fascia to bolt on. After that, I could run a straight edge from the radiator support down to the frame rail so I could mark where the back edge of a new radiator will sit. Finally, I put the WJ steering box against the frame to clear the radiator and pondered this placement. This is covered in the following pics. Jeff

Radiator support with two pieces removed from the center so the raised portion would run from frame rail to frame rail:









The tab that bolts to the upper radiator support and that the front fascia bolts to had to be shortened, trimmed, and a couple holes redrilled:







The front of the inner fenders needed to be clamped in position and then trimmed straight up from the insides of the frame rails:



The ends of the upper radiator support needed to be trimmed and then the support could be placed on the front portion of the inner fenders. I found that I could remove one of the hood latch pin spacer washers and use the radiator support in its place after adjusting an existing hole in the radiator support:







At this point I wanted to see how the outer fender piece would fit. So, I made some random notches and bent the fender in an arc. As you can see, I am only using the upper portion of the fender at this point. I plan to run 1.5" OD tubing along this cut, past the front fascia and to the front tube work:







This fender piece will need some work to mate up well with the fascia, but it isn't too far off. Jeff

After running a straight edge from the radiator support down past the inner portion of the frame, I marked where the rear of the radiator will sit. Then I positioned the WJ steering box against the frame rail so it would clear the radiator.



It sits back pretty far on the frame rail. Notice if you will the mark on the frame rail that shows where the stock sector sits and how far back the WJ box sector is. At this point I plan to have the WJ box reworked by West Texas Offroad to set it up for hydro assist and at the same time have it's rotation reversed so I can re-mount the pitman arm facing FORWARD! This will actually place the drag link to pitman arm joint FORWARD from the stock position quite a bit. This is the orientation that the JK's use and it seems to me that it would work out well for steering geometry. What do you all think?

The pic below shows how the pitman arm will interfere with the bottom of the frame rail, so I plan to trim some off the bottom of the frame rail up to the radiator.



The pics below show how far back on the frame rail the WJ box ends up sitting. I guess I plan on welding in sleeves to accomodate the frame rail shape and provide a flat plane for the steering box to mount against. At least the front two bolts will pass through my 2x6 box rail frame reinforcement. All four will pass through the frame rail plating, so I'm confident the mount will be plenty strong.







More work to come. Jeff

Looks awesome!

Makes my frame mods look amateurish!!
Can't wait to see how the WJ box install plays out.

xjbubba said:

Makes my frame mods look amateurish!!
Can't wait to see how the WJ box install plays out.

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I wouldn't say that! I simply threw a plate against the frame. I do think I installed the 2x6 in the front in a cleaner way than you, but maybe not. YOU, however, cut holes in the stock frame and boxed in those areas to clear what you needed to clear! That take talent. We'll see what problems I run into clearance wise soon enough. Jeff

More progress? I cut a notch out of the front of the frame rail as it sat to clear the pitman arm.



I then welded on the drivers side inner frame plate.



Jeff

As for fiberglassing the front fascia back together, here's my attempt. I used some resin that had been sitting for awhile (2 years?) but I did use new hardner since the old stuff was evaporated? It seemed to mix up well and go on fine, but didn't harden up as fast as the directions said it would. After two days though it seems to be doing fine. I used some aluminum plating in a total of four places for support. I drilled a bunch of holes in the aluminum plate for the resin to ooze around. Here is a shot of the top clamped up:



I applied resin, then a patch of cloth, then the aluminum plates with clamps. Here's the bottom clamped:



Here's the back side. Note that the "center" rib does not match up real well. I ended up cutting it in half, removing a little material and clamping it back together in much better alignment.



As for the grill, I melted it together using a soldering iron and an old tip. Here's the back side:



Here's the front side:



Here's the back of the fascia after removing the clamps:



I then added another aluminum plate with pop rivets to the rib over resin soaked fabric and added two countersunk pop rivets to the top of the front as it began to pull away from the resin when handling the unit. I put another resin soaked piec of fabric over the top of the first three aluminum pieces as well.



Here's the back after the second resin application:



Here's the whole unit with the grill in place:



Jeff

Jeff,

You shoulda taken a little out of each slot to keep all 7 slots. It would have only been 6 times more work!

J/K... it looks great!

Billy

Ok, I got the fiberglassed unit on the front of the Jeep and noticed a couple problems. As it sits with the fascia against the original mounting flange, there is a gap of 3/4" or so between the end of the fender and the fascia.



Also, the inner fender alignment is off a little with the end of the fascia.



I think I'm going to move the whole fascia/upper radiator support/ends of the inner fender forward enough so the hood will fit in it's stock length. I'll rework the edges of the hood, but keep the center section it's stock length which should be easier. Then, I'll have to do something with the fenders. Perhaps I'll use a rear section from one fender and a front section from a second fender and splice them together at the bend. More work to come. Jeff

Jeff 98XJ WI said:

Ok, I got the fiberglassed unit on the front of the Jeep and noticed a couple problems. As it sits with the fascia against the original mounting flange, there is a gap of 3/4" or so between the end of the fender and the fascia.

Also, the inner fender alignment is off a little with the end of the fascia.

I think I'm going to move the whole fascia/upper radiator support/ends of the inner fender forward enough so the hood will fit in it's stock length. I'll rework the edges of the hood, but keep the center section it's stock length which should be easier. Then, I'll have to do something with the fenders. Perhaps I'll use a rear section from one fender and a front section from a second fender and splice them together at the bend. More work to come. Jeff

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Thats looking good.
I was interested in how you are going to deal with the shortened fender length.

I wonder if it would be legal to narrow the nose like this. If the radiator is moved back behind the cab, build a double reese type winch could be mounted in the bed or be moved up front using custom mounts for it there.
Storing the winch in the bed will improve weight distibution and it could be used from behind where it would be mounted or used up front as needed.
This would allow also me to move the core support back a few inches also and run a tight fitting bumper for a better approch angle.

Keep the pictures coming.

My friend should have tha 5.3 engine in the truck within a few days,

I think I've got a plan for the hood. At least for the outer surface of the hood. I decided to leave the hinge area and cut just beyond that. I picked up a second hood to play with and so I could have more parts to combine. I decided to cut the outer scooped areas off one hood and splice them into the other hood.













We'll see how this turns out. Jeff

Since I put some pictures of the WJ steering gear in this thread I guess I'll now show how I combined the WJ and XJ steering shafts. The WJ steering gear input is not splined like the XJ/ZJ/TJ steering gears, so the XJ steering shaft will not work. I ended up purchasing a WJ steering shaft, disassembling it as well as the XJ steering shaft and combining the two.

WJ shaft on top, XJ shaft on bottom:



Steering column end close ups:





Steering box end close ups:





Disassembled shafts. WJ on top, XJ on bottom. I ended up cutting the steering box end off the XJ shaft, welding on a plate and pounding the two apart. I had also cut a little off the end of the XJ steering shaft tube as an exploratory cut. As for the WJ shaft, it easily slid apart other than two dimples that require a bit of force to get past.



This pic shows the small diameter portions of the two shafts swapped.



Close up of the shaft ends:



XJ tube on left and WJ shaft on right:



The solid small diameter part of the WJ shaft has a portion that exactly matches the solid small diameter part of the XJ shaft, so with a bit of force I got the small portion of the WJ shaft to slide into the tubular portion of the XJ shaft. The fit was tight and it turns out there is a plastic bushing piece on the WJ shaft that got hung up a little and ended up partially breaking. In the end, a portion of this bushing is still installed like it should be and the shafts seem tight, so I’m sure it will be fine. If in the future some slop develops, one can always tack weld the two shafts together at the right length.

Combined shaft:



Jeff

Do you need to make a length adjustment with the new steering box location?

Sponge Bob said:

Do you need to make a length adjustment with the new steering box location?

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I'm sure I will as I'm using a completely different style box that actually partially sits on top of the frame rail. Most of the work done above just gets the WJ box to connect to the XJ steering column. The shaft can slip inside itself a certain amount, but I may still have some shortening to do. If I need to shorten it further, I'll probably cut the WJ end off the WJ small diameter solid square shaft, remove the stub, and reweld the WJ end back onto the WJ small diameter solid square shaft after that shaft is shortened. I'll post pics of this procedure if I need to go that route. Jeff