Downsides to building a frame for an XJ?

[AJsArmor]

Staring up at the underside of my XJ I see a lot of the results of the good ol' Iowa highways in the winter, salt...water=rust. Floorboards suprisingly not that bad but the frame rails...eek. There's no way to fix it by plating over, only way would be to cut from the top or bottom and explore to find what is good and what is gone to replace. This got me thinking, why not just cut away the frame rails completely and build a traditional frame for the XJ?

What I'm thinking is, gut the XJ, interior, drivetrain, glass...cut the framerails off of it completely so it's flat underneath and repair any rust in the floors. Build an interior/exo cage, tube fenders in front, tube enters through the firewall and right into cage...that type of thing. Attach the cage to the XJ's body in several points, roof, pillars... adding a lot of rigidity to the body itself. The floorplates for the cage would be extra large footprint and this would become the bodymounts underneath, isolated by poly/rubber bushings of course. The frame could be constructed out of a variety of materials, possibly 2x4 or 3x4 tubing. This might help with a lot of the stress cracking typical of heavily abused unibodys, make future mods a lot easier and be a challenge that's for sure.

Just throwing out an idea, what do you think some of the bad points might be?

 

[Eagle]

Just throwing out an idea, what do you think some of the bad points might be?

Weight. But it would be low, so it wouldn't kill the center of gravity. Just wondering, though -- wouldn't it be possible (and easier) to find a suitable frame with a wheelbase that's about right and just drop the XJ body onto it?

 

[woody]

Weight was the first thing I thought of too, but the advantages (of being able to start with a blank canvas under there) would offset that.

 

[2offroad]

tube buggy with XJ sheet metal, would be cool suspention points and type where you want them, cage like you want, strong no body flex.

 

[REDXJ4FUN]

Just a thought , if you going that far in striping it completely why noy find a nice xj that isn't rusted and build a whole new one then you wount have to worry about fighting rust. I find XJs all the time with drivetrain problems but nice bodys

 

[AJsArmor]

Just a thought , if you going that far in striping it completely why noy find a nice xj that isn't rusted and build a whole new one then you wount have to worry about fighting rust. I find XJs all the time with drivetrain problems but nice bodys

Hook me up! Seriously if I could find one within reason I'd go that route. Around here though they may look good on the topside but underneath...nasty. Either that or they just want too much $$$ for it.

 

[ChuckD]

Hook me up! Seriously if I could find one within reason I'd go that route. Around here though they may look good on the topside but underneath...nasty. Either that or they just want too much $$$ for it.

Come to Cali, plenty of good cheap chasis. Some even still run, so you could possibly drive it back home.

 

[azxjman]

I have never seen a rusted out body here and older xjs go for about a 1500

 

[2offroad]

instead of tube fenders try and keep the body stock as possable. but tube buggy underneth. i was thinking about building a CJ8, now i think i will go this route. stock on the outside full tube inside, the sleeper concept.

 

[Jay3XJ+]

Ive looked at doing this same thing. The biggest challange appears, at least the way I look at it, to be from the LCA mounts forward. I have not sat down and thought, um consummed, enought to figure out how build the engine bay area/ spring/shock tower area with out it becoming way more trouble than it appears to be worth. I havent given up yet.....