Project Unicorn - a light duty trail rig

[cal]

So unbolt some things and drop the old axle off of the jeep

Pile it all up right in Dallas's way so he'll stop doing real work and help me.

Lots of grinding. OH SO MUCH GRINDING

SFR used to make front frame stiffeners + frame sleeves + inside frame plate with steering box spacer. He doesn't make them anymore (saturated market + no profit) but I had one set aside.

2 of the sleeves pounded right in, one of them I had to drill the frame hole out to 5/8 to get it in.

And then put the plate up, bolt the steering box back i place, and c-clamp things tight and burn it home.

 

[cal]

When I did the other side i found an easier way to align and hold things while I clamp it down.

On the first side I used the more traditional "juggle and swear at it" method which did not allow for photography.


And completed; you can see by the quality of my welds that I do more welder cosplay than actual welding, but it's good enough for here.

 

[cal]

Now we take some plates and start building gussets and mounts.

Marking where to bend. Way better than the precisionish guesswork I'd have probably done if my shit wasn't all piled up in front of Dallas's day job, freeing him up to play with my jeep.

 

[cal]

On the second side we punched a hole in the gussets for a trackbar mount.

And then tacked in place until a fresh roll of .035 wire shows up to weld it.

 

[cal]

Tossed one of SFR's spiffy new UCA towers on.

 

[cal]

Chucked the 1.25x.250 trackbar mount up in the lathe and machined the ID to .753, so that the trackbar bolt doesn't get seized in there like 4643's did.

This giant lathe is kind of a fun tool at times.

 

[cal]

Grabbed a set of JK UCA bushings (which use a 7/16 bolt) and drilled them out to 1/2" for my UCA's.

 

[cal]

Machined up some 2" 7075 lower control arms. I'm pushing my axle forward ~2", 1.5" from the different lower mounts and .5" longer control arms.

For the lowers I'll be running 1.25" shank Johnny Joints. Not that they are any better than the 1" shank ones SFR uses on his 4 link kit, but because I already had them.

Move over to the mill to cut in some wrench flats

Back to the lathe to make them pretty.

And wrap them in plastic to keep them pretty

 

[cal]

My fancy F911 fine thread bolts don't work with Dallas's flag nut's that he provides as they are a course thread, so had to make some new ones using fancy F911 9/16-18 stover nuts.

Ran out of time for the weekend, so bolted the axle to the car and strapped it up out of the way, and piled my stuff back where Dallas can get around it to work.

More next week.

 

[RCP Phx]

All of that is some good looking work!

 

[SlowXj]

I know you did some coverage on the track bar set up on the race Jeep but some more detail would be appreciated on it this time as well. Imo that's the single best track bar setup I've seen!

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[ShoeterMcgav]

Loving the update! Man your thread pushed the needle on which way to go for SRBs.. TheSFR srbs are the business!! Great parts, superior attention to detail, and top notch customer service... now i need some front stiffeners! I know I can check the site, but are those still being produced? Just not the sleeves?

 

[4x4JeePmaNthINg]

are SFR frame stiffeners going to be a thing and do they wrap under?

Nice work on the rig

 

[IslanderOffRoad]

are SFR frame stiffeners going to be a thing and do they wrap under?

Nice work on the rig

Doesn't sound like it, per his post:

SFR used to make front frame stiffeners + frame sleeves + inside frame plate with steering box spacer. He doesn't make them anymore (saturated market + no profit)

 

[Evan03]

There will be a green jeep sitting in your red jeeps place come Saturday.

Man to work in such a well equipped shop with people around who know there shit.

Thanks for the updates.



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[cal]

I know you did some coverage on the track bar set up on the race Jeep but some more detail would be appreciated on it this time as well. Imo that's the single best track bar setup I've seen!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Yeah we'll cover it in more detail.

 

[cal]

are SFR frame stiffeners going to be a thing and do they wrap under?

Nice work on the rig

They used to be and are no longer a thing.

They do have a separate plate to go under the frame and weld in, but I'm opting not to install them at this time because of other upcoming things we want to put there.

 

[cal]

I know you did some coverage on the track bar set up on the race Jeep but some more detail would be appreciated on it this time as well. Imo that's the single best track bar setup I've seen!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I'm just going to gloss over this today and cover it in detail (repeating past posts a bit) when i get the front end done.

 

[cal]

Sometime during the week Dallas did something that required .035 wire so he welded up my C gussets for me. Started the weekend out figuring out spacing for the trackbar to clear the coil. Trackbar will be 1.5" 7075, this is just some scrap tube and a bung i found sitting around to fit with - its not even tacked together.

Once we got our length figured out, back to the lathe to part it off and face the ends.

Just enough room on the backside for a bead of weld.

It's interesting that this sticks out so much further than the one on 4643. Must have had the coils further back on that axle?

And burning it home

Final product

 

[cal]

Grabbed a set of bearing spacers off the shelf to get the knuckles going.

Bolted on some junk unit bearings to keep things tight

..and welded it all up without taking any more pictures, apparently.