Rear wheel well stretch - progress and suggestions?

[blistovmhz]

Stretching out the rear wells in my 98xj. I had the shocks through the floor to a tube mounted behind the back seat, but the wells were just too small for 35's, and I'm sure I'll end up on 37's and coilovers eventually, so I started chopping.

I'm about 3/4 the way done now, and realizing that straight bends are an absolute whore to weld to the curved wells, and seriously considering saying **** it, cut out the entire well front to back, and rebuild it in straight cuts like everything else on my Jeep (I dig the crappy stealth bomber look anyway).

So this is where I'm at. Actually, I've got the passenger side well burned into the tube and the floor, and it's ready for my shock towers to tie the whole thing together.
But, now that I'm at this point, and knowing that I'll be hacking away at this for the rest of the week any way, I'm wondering if it'd just make more sense to throw out the whole curved well and build a new one. Building from scratch, I choose my lines and don't have to try to mate curves to flat. I'm a bit hesitant though to chop out the front of the well as I've never seen what's behind it, and this is my daily driver.

Has anyone ever chopped out the front of the rear wells and got pictures of it somewhere? The well ties into the outer panel, floor, but I suspect it'll be tied in somewhere else near the center pinch seam. Would really like to know if I should just change gears tomorrow, rip out the old stuff, and build anew. Would it just be easier to rip it all out since I'm already in there?

 

[clean4drxj]

My buddy who has a crawler just separated the rear tube (like in your picture) and filled in the missing piece with sheet metal, he runs 38's to 40's with 60/14

 

[blistovmhz]

My buddy who has a crawler just separated the rear tube (like in your picture) and filled in the missing piece with sheet metal, he runs 38's to 40's with 60/14

Yea. I've got the room I wanted, but its a huge pain in the ass to weld, which is why I'd like to just rip it all out and start clean. But... Don't know what the front of the tub connects to.

 

[clean4drxj]

I would imagine just the floor and inner skeleton

 

[blistovmhz]

I would imagine just the floor and inner skeleton

As would I, but I'd like to be sure before cutting it out.

 

[clean4drxj]

If your interior is removed in that corner you should be able to see..

 

[blistovmhz]

omg. dur. You're totally right. Just remove the forward panel, which I haven't removed yet.

Brain hasn't been working right since Sunday. Was welding something, and it smelled like Apples. I suspect we were all poisoned.

Last night I cut out the steel for my towers, but when I went to triple check my measurements on the tower height, I got all confused and spent almost an hour trying to figure out why I'd cut out the tower to be 16" above the floor, but my math kept telling me that it should only be 11" above, which is right where my old tower was, which I was bottoming out on constantly until I bump stopped for 3" compression. I couldn't figure it out so enlisted my roomies to help, but one was too high, and the other came up with two sets of numbers for heights. After an hour of arguing amongst ourselves about it, we figured out that my original measurements were correct and that my tower pieces were actually the correct height. Brain compartments just not working good yesterday.

I really hate to cut out the probably 20 hours of work I've done already, but there's just no way I'm going to get a complete seam weld in from the tube to the tub, and I really don't like seam sealant. May very well be scrapping it and starting over . I should really have a spare jeep just for testing body modifications.

 

[Boostwerks.com]

Why don't you like seam sealant?

Every sheetmetal overlap on a unibody should be sealed. Unless you like the typical "4-Runner gaping rust hole" look.

 

[blistovmhz]

Well here's where I'm at today thus far . got one shock tower built and fitted.

I'm going ahead with the stock tubs for now. Not much work to remove them later if needed.

 

[clean4drxj]

The shock towers look good, probably what I should've gone with instead of tube but oh well.

 

[blistovmhz]

Update.
I got it all burned in and seam sealed yesterday. Moved the axle back 2", and stuck everything back together.
I don't think I mentioned this, but the tower shock mount is removable. It's just a 4.75" plate with 4 nuts welded in, and a couple shock tabs. The idea was that I didn't want to be fighting to install a shock when the tower gets squeezed together the first time a shock is installed, plus with my setup, I can switch from 12" all the way up to 18" shocks, or coilovers/air shocks, depending on the spacer from the mount to the shock. The system worked perfectly. I mathed everything out so that my 12" shocks (11.5 travel) would give me 7" compression and 4.5" droop so I'm not bottoming out on the big woops. That meant putting my shock towers themselves 17" above the floor, and I'd use a 4" spacer mount for my 12" shocks. Once it was all together, with the axle fully extended in it's new location, I stuck the shock into the tower to the top, and measured exactly 4" to my lower tabs, which is bang on my original math! How often does that happen?

So anyhow, the seam sealer is taking way longer to set than I'd anticipated, I haven't got to drive my Jeep in almost a week, and I wanted to get out of the garage so I can get to work on the 6.0L swap (on the k1500) this weekend. The sealer on the exterior looks like shit but isn't set up enough to sand, so I said **** it, and just painted over it for now. Once it sets up, I'll take it all back down and do it right. At least for now I've got wheels, and it's all fully sealed.

Moar pictures!

Here's the fuel filler area. Just cut the end off, hammered it over and burned it in.

All burned in.

Bolted everything in and cleaned it all up a little.

So as it stands now, I'm ready to drive.

I haven't decided what I want to do yet with the amp/cap, battery, and sub. The sub used to be mounted in the passenger wall, which was a pretty good spot for it, but I'm worried that the pressure may blow out my sealant. I've come up with a few possible ideas, but ultimately none of them move the battery out of the way, and I'd like to have the ability to fold the seat down again for cargo.
I was thinking about putting the amp/cap between the wall and the driver tower, and sub back in the passenger wall, but that doesn't move the battery anywhere. I may just cut out a small chunk of floor under the rear seats for a battery box, depending on clearance. I may also be able to stuff the battery in the passenger wall instead, and just put the sub in a box between the towers (and have a steel bar at the top of the box to act as a strut bar).

Realistically though, I probably have enough room under the hood for the battery now anyway. Maybe just move it back up there.

*edit* oh crap, I just had a thought. Now that I've got some good thick steel back there, I could realistically just weld in a battery tray just below window height to the passenger tower (right against the wall). That keeps the terminals out of the way of flying tools, can still mount the amp/cap/sub in the walls, and then I open up a huge amount of cargo space, all while cleaning things up dramatically. Then I can also move my breaker to the inside (between tower and wall) instead of under the seat. huzah!