Rear shock crossmember

[jeepingben]

I'm trying to squeeze one more year out of my rusty XJ so I can spend this winter on my Willys project instead of setting up a fresh XJ.

The rear shock crossmember has rusted free of both framerails and is now tearing itself apart. I started designing some repair panels in sheetmetal, but there are a lot of bends and I would be keeping a lot of marginal metal that way.

I started thinking about replacing that crossmember with something easier to fabricate. My gas-tank skid, tailbone, and trailer hitch stiffen the rear end already, so my crossmember just needs to hold up the shocks and floor.

The closest thing I have been able to find is this: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=959432

I would change it by cutting out the old crossmember so I cound flip it up closer to the floor and have the shocks in as close to their original positions as possible. I would also avoid rotating the top eyes. Here is a rough sketch - nothing was measured but it shows what I am thinking:

The commercial shock relocators seem to attach to the original shock mounts so they don't help me. Has anyone done something similar? Did it work?

Thanks

 

[jbsjunk]

Like you said, it looks like a JKS mount but your design looks better and more solid. I can see a "U" on the ends so it wraps around the frame rail and it would have more of a solid mount instead of tying just to the frame rail where there is no real beef.

Just for reference.
http://jksmfg.com/i-9052792-cherokee-xj-1984-2001-rear-upper-adjustable-shock-mount.html

 

[jeepingben]

I started this today. The demolition is done and with all that junk out of the way I got better measurements to update my drawing. I broke all 4 of the bump stop bolts so I have seen that area inside the frame rail. There is a reinforcement inside so I think this will be strong enough with those 2 bolts, a few self tapping screws through the other part of the angle iron, and some screws through the floor.

The cargo area floor isn;t too bad. I have enough scrap around to fix it.

This is a great way to get access to the captured nuts on the upper shock mounts:

 

[jeepingben]

I got this together today. There are still a few details I need to go back and take care of.

Here is an early test fit:

For that fit, only one side was tack welded. After proving that it could work, I tacked the rest of it together:

After another test fit I made it permanent:

I then slapped on a coat of paint and attached the tailpipe hanger:

The shocks are installed so I won't have to walk to work in the rain and snow tommorow. The floor is patched, but I need to pop the patch off and add some steel to support the floor on the new crossmember.

The only thing I screwed up with the design was that I should have put the shock bolts lower on the tubing. My shocks have fat tops that interfere with the tubing. The sawzall took care of that.