Round 2 of my XJ

asp387 said:
i'm sure others will chime in, but i can't think of one. i'd probably want to do the same too.

i'm watching this thread rather closely as i'll be making a new crossmember and such soon too. been planning on it for a while but only now is the jeep (and me) ready for it.-glad to hear I'm not the only one on this thread. :D

where did you get that poly mount? i poked around online and didn't see much......-I don't remember exactly where I got it from. Somewhere onine, I'll take a minute or and try and find it for you.
edit: that poly mount might not do me any good. what kind of tranny are you running?-If I remember correctly they offer it for a bunch of different XJ trannys
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Here's the website for the tranny mount. This isn't where I bought it from, but this should get you in the right direction:
http://www.daystarweb.com/productdetail.php?productID=279
 
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cool. thanks. i just remember my tranny mount being bolted to another formed plate that bolted to the tranny, not the mount directly bolted to the tranny...
 
not a whole lot of pics tonight, wife took the camera in the separation so I'm stuck with one that isn't capable of taking a picture that isn't all fuzzy. . . I'll have to figure something out with that.
I ended up filling all the gaps on the crossmember and smoothing them out. It turned out quite a bit better than last night. This is about the best pic I have of that

I finished welding in all but 1 anti-crush sleeve. I would have gotten the last hole burned through tonight but apparently I'm out of gas, someone must have bumped a valve and I lost all the actelyne. . . Either way I got the crossmember up and the tranny bolted to it.

Yup, I've got a flat belly

The crossmember is actually 1" above the bottom of the rails as there's an angle on the inside of the rail I didn't feel like drilling through. That should be fine as it'll give the bellypan more support on the side since I'll be using recessed allen bolts in those corners.
And just one shot of it bolted in supporting everything
\
I started taking measurements for the 3 link front. I'll be putting the upper link on the p/s and incorporating it into the truss. With the 99 D50 housing the differential is set to far off to the outside for me to really be able to get an upper link in there, at least in a way I feel comfortable with. That and after reading everyone's write-ups on the nightmare of trying to fit that in there, I figured I'd make a compromise here. I'll be finishing the 3 link numbers tomorrow, hopefully, and starting to build the brackets. I had plans on finishing the tcase adapter, but there's a group run going out in late February and I think I'm going to end up buying the adapter to save time. I'm hoping to have the front done and functional in 1 month and just throw the leaves back in the rear until after the trip.
 
whitneyj said:
I'm full time college, working full time, and trying save a boogered up marriage...
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whitneyj said:
wife took the camera in the separation so I'm stuck with one that isn't capable of taking a picture that isn't all fuzzy. . .
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Sorry to hear about that stuff man:(


I like all the pics, I love seeing all the little details people do when they are fabricating.
 
Just rethink your tierod this time :D

CRW_8219.jpg
 
Been a while, sorry, had to knock out a long list of things around the house to do. Yeah, the wife and I thing are back onto a good start, we've been separated for going on 5 months now, so here's hoping!
School thing. . . man. . . wish I would've just gone to college (I was enrolled in) 10 or so years ago, kinda hard juggling everything.

Cnickgo-the tie rod will be considerably beefier. :D Thanks for pulling up that pic. The tie rod will be made out of 2x2 .25" tube, so I don't think I'll be bending that anytime soon.

On to the little progress I made: I haven't finalized my 3 link numbers yet as I still need to get the tcase adapter finished to get it mounted, but so far everything is looking about as good as it'll get. Because I'm using a D50, the differential is offset so far to the D/S that I have to place the lower link mount right at the knuckle, which because of the rails in the way makes me inboard my frame side mount to about 8-9" horizontal separation. So I won't be able to get my Roll Axis quite where I wanted it, but it'll have to do.
Here's a couple pics of the templates I made:
Axle side lower:


Frame side lower:


Axle side upper:

Frame side upper:

And all the brackets cut and ground smooth:

All the brackets are made out of 3/8" plate. I made the templates and traced them onto the plate and cut em out with a plasma. The tip on the plasma was a little boogered up, so ended up doing waaaay more grinding that I wanted, but overall they turned out ok. For my next build I will be buying them, I spent to much time cutting and grinding them. Funds are tight though, so saving a penny here or there right now is the only option.
The other night I tried getting the D300 in place and realized I forgot to cut the floor open. . .
ready to get hacked up floor with old coffee spilled on it:

And the floor opened up a little (ignore that very perfect, square cut hole)
 
I didn't get a picture of the tcase in, I'll get one on Fri when I get a chance to work on it again. Here's a pic of the tcase adapter mounted and ready to drill the holes to bolt to the tranny adapter:


That's about all I got done, I spent the rest of the night cleaning up from all the grinding I've been doing. I got all my hardware from Fastenal the other day, so I should be able to start on building the links this weekend when I get the D300 mounted up. That's it! Night all.
 
glad to hear the marriage is getting better. progress looks good too :thumbup:
 
Gravesdiggerxj said:
good luck man. I messed with superduty axles for a while, before I finally got rid of them and the XJ too lol.

It might end up ok because you'll have more clearance for the driveshaft between the exhaust, crank and tranny since they are so far offset.

good luck with everything!
Click to expand...

Yeah I know a lot of guys avoid these axles like they're the plague for that reason, but they're fairly cheap and available. And since I'm a glutton for punishment. . . :D

I'm actually going to run the upper link on the P/S as there's way more room for it. I'll be running a full truss from inner C to inner C, so I won't be worried about spinning a tube. I'm trying to fit 38's with about 5.5-6" of lift with no less than 4" of uptravel and the D/S just seemed too packed to fit everything.

Aren't you running a TJ now?
 
Small update.
I didn't get much done this weekend as all of Saturday was spent running 220V in my garage and getting my new air compressor and welder wired in.

I did manage to get all the holes drilled for the brackets. I took way to long (5 hours), to many drills bits (6), 1 belt for my drill press, and 1 high speed reamer. But then again, I'm not using cold rolled steel :D

Here's the brackets:

After I got the holes drilled I started working on link placement and realized I didn't' leave enough material on the outer link tabs to compensate for the link being angled in. . . so I'll be cutting new axle side lower tabs for that. I was able to salvage the frame side mounts by welding in 1 1/4" more material:

For the rear 4 link I'll be buying all the tabs. I'm not wasting my time building all of em when they're so cheap. I need to get moving on this if I want to get it done by summer.
I got the crossmember mounted and confirmed link placement and clearances and tacked all the mounts on the crossmember:

I went to put the crossmember back up and realized something. . that it wasn't my weekend. I put the mounts on the wrong sides! :gee:15 minutes later it looked like this:

To make room for the upper link I had to cut a hole into the passenger side floor pan:

The hole will be running the length of the floor pan to accommodate the upper link, I just didn't get to that yet.
I spent the rest of the afternoon burning out the hole for the last bolt for the crossmember, welded in the anticrush sleeve, ground off the last of the paint on the front axle, and just cleaned up a little. I had a couple buddies come over to wrist one of his radius arms and had to step inside to do a couple hours of homework. I went out to the garage a couple hours later and saw this:

I couldn't help but laugh. I don't think it's deserving of the name Beast, but I'm working on something :D
I'm hoping to get the links in by the end of the weekend and the truss ready to get burned in. The tcase adapter is going to the machine shop to get tapped for the studs. I couldn't get my tap to catch and instead of screwing it up I decided to just pay to have it done. (again, this isn't cold rolled, not easy to work with).

trying to get this to speed up a bit.
 
Ooook, got my computer back from the grave so I can finally update. I've gotten a whole lot done since the last update, so I'll just hit up a couple things with the pictures that are on my camera, later tonight I'll get where I'm at now. . .
Here's the brackets I cut, ground, and drilled for the front 3 link:

I used 3/8" plate and it wasn't cold rolled/mild steel and I NEVER use it again. For the rear I used 1/4" mild steel and it was world's easier to work with, so I'll keep making brackets with that. Just can't beat hand made brackets that are specifically for what you're building.
When I measured everything for the 3 link, I was pretty meticulous about where everything was going to go, so when I built the brackets I left extra metal where I thought I might need it for proper clearancing when fitting everything up. Example:

And speaking of clearancing. . .

I then spent wheat seemed like DAYS grinding all the brackets just right, running string, and mocking everything up so it's right where I planned for it to go, then tack welded it on


I don't have any pictures of when I was making the links, but I basically just cut 2x2 1/4" tube to the measured length, BUILT tube adapters, drilled 7/8" holes on 2 sides and tack welded the adapters in.

That 2x2 makes the 7/8" heims look tiny. . . might be upgrading those sooner than I thought. . .
When I planned for the front 3 link I placed the upper link on the passenger side for fitment reasons: I'm trying to run 38's with only 5" of lift. Couple that with the very offset differential, and odd placement for the tcase front output/driveshaft the driver's side just wasn't going to work. That being said the p/s wasn't going to be a cake walk either. I used a piece of 1 1/4" tube I had lying around to use as a mock up as I wasn't sure how the 2x2 would fit up there.




 
I did what I could as kind of a flex it out for the uptravel without a track bar, just to see where my potential limiting would be. The lower control arms look like they'll be taking this one, this is with almost 6" of uptravel

When I get the track bar built I'll do a real mock up and see what happens. My goal is for no less than 5" of up travel, if I have to clearance the frame I will, but I don't want to. If I have to go that route I'll pull the complete drivetrain and plate the entire inside from the front bumper to my tranny crossmember . . . . not feeling that. . .
Next, I had original hacked together some extended front bumpstops to keep my coils in and to "properly" limit my uptravel. Basically I butt welded exhaust tube in the middle of the original bumpstop. those came apart, then off completely

Because of the D50's offset diff I had to relocate the upper coil buckets, or rebuild them all together. . . relocating it was!

I moved them 3/4" out and 1/2" back. (I'll get to why in a bit)
And if anyone ever wants to help show me how to use this darn camera so it doesn't take moldy pics (fuzzy) I have a homebrewed beer for ya. . .
Here's the beginning of my front coil buckets:

Welded together and mocked up-ish




For the d/s bucket, there'll be 2 gusset of both sides welded to the cast to help spread load the forces around a bit. I'm hoping to pick up some dimple dies and a whole lotta 16 gauge sheet and I'll plate over everything so it's not open like it is here.
This is where the next part gets fun, no pictures however, I started cruising along and forgot to take a whole lot of em. I mocked a tire up to the front and started playing with going from lock to lock and wasn't really excited with what I saw. . . I pulled the axle back to make sure I wasn't getting into the grill (that was a big problem with my last build, pushed the front to far forward), what I hadn't planned on was the rear of the tire hitting the d/s floor pan. . . . crap. . . I can't just cut the off (which I have to anyhow, but more on that later. . . . ) So I turned the lower control arms out to where only a couple threads were holding, about 1 1/2", and played some more. Long story short, I extended the front control arms 2". I had to order 2 36" pieces of 1.5 x1.5 1/4" tube to sleeve the inner, and I thought while I'm ordering it I might as well use it for the upper link. . . (onlinemetals.com btw, great shipping, just pricey) So I have them extended now and the upper link made, but I'll get to that tonight when I have pics of it.

So I started on the rear suspension. I made up some coil buckets:



After I finished building the uppers I looked at em and realized I should have rounded the corners off. . . to late, not rebuilding. That'll be for the next project.
 
When I built the lower buckets I ground the excess material at all sorts of angles. . . Not sure why, thought maybe it'd look cool

Here's something I didn't show with the front lower buckets, I capturing the coil with a plate that bolts to the lower mount. In the rear the coil will be captured top AND bottom. That'll help prevent unloading on steep declines. I had toyed with the idea of doing the same for the front, but I'm not sure on that one yet. With the front coil captured, I can't droop the front all the way out, which in some situations I want that. So I'm up in the air right now with that. The deciding factor will be the front output of my tcase. Right now it's pointed at my gas pedal with how I have it clocked flat and the whole drivetrain up so high. I'll have to spend some coin on a JE Reel driveshaft I think to prevent it from binding before I want it to.
Anyway, tangents, here's the nut welded into the lower buckets. I welded the nut top and bottom

Actually I didn't realize I had a pic of this. . .here's the front


I have to find some tube to weld on the lower bucket to locate the coil, otherwise the coil buckets are done.
Here's a teaser of the rear suspension


I did end up getting the tcase up and installed, but haven't started on the shifter yet. I'll wait until I get all the major things done first before I start tying up the little ends.
 
I really like what you did with the 300 and clocking ring. What 300 did you use, what tranny do you have? Any more information you have on the 300 swap I'd be real interested in.

Thanks
 
I used a "short" D300 and mated it to an AW4. I don't really have a whole lot more info. So far, besides the adapter, it was pretty much just redrilling the AW4 adapter and bolting it in. I haven't started on the shifter yet, which i think will be the trickiest part.
 
the short ones were only found in '80 and IIRC, some '81's. the "long" one is only about an inch longer and has a lot more aftermarket options without changing the rear output shaft.

the clocking plate thickness thing seems to stem from 2 things: what material you have laying around and how much spline engagement you want to have. ideally, you'd have full spline engagement, but losing 1/8" won't hurt anyone (much). if you lose 1/8" over about 1.5" spline engagement, it's only 8.3% loss in strength. if you want to do it right, stick your D300 onto your transmission and see how close you can get it while all parts still clear, then make your plate that thickness. a lot of this stuff just comes from measuring exactly what will work for your own setup, if you plan to make all or even most of your own parts.
 
Well it's about time for an update, I've gotten quite a bit done since my last post, but for a number of reasons (excuses) I wasn't able to take alot of pictures and post em up. Here we go:

Now this is only my second ever build and my first time doing a lot of detail oriented fabrication, so a lot of what I'm doing is fairly simple and not ground breaking. Good for me as I like to keep things simple looking. :D
Here's the rear truss, like I said, simple

It's 2x4x3/16" rect tube set back to follow the flat spot on top of the 10.50. To notch the bottom of the truss to follow the tubes I used a cardboard template from the brackets, a bunch of simple geometry, and a level to get everything square. It came out fairly well, everything fits tight. What I do need to modify is how the bolt goes in the upper link mounts. I'll need to notch out a section of the truss to allow the bolt to go in and out of the link tabs and use some small diameter tube to plate it. Should turn out well.

Well at that point I had everything tacked in with my little 135 amp 110V Clarke. So the only thing holding me back from getting everything fully welded and on the ground was the lack of doing just that. Trip to National Welders produced this


Miller 252, 60% duty cycle at it's max 250 amps. Pretty excited about it. Figured if I'm going to buy a tool that I use regularly why not go big right away?
Anyhow. I got all 4 tired mounted and the beads set.

and started rolling the front axle around to get fully welded, or so I thought. I forgot to get a new bottle of Act. so the D/S which has me welding to a bunch of cast steel is going to have to wait. Here's the P/S side:

As you can see I used a flap disk :D



I still have 1 piece to add, it'll tie the back of the trackbar mount into the middle of the coil bucket. It's not really for anything but to keep the look as clean as possible.
I then kicked off welding all the control arms, front crossmember, tie rod, trackbar and trackbar bracket.


Then painted it all flat black, as that's the only paint I seem to have a surplus of. . .
 
Here's a couple shots of the rear double triangulated setup



And this is my favorite part about the whole build right here. Look where the front output is pointing

I knew that I'd be having a fair amount of sheet metal to do, but it looks like I'll be using at least a 4'x8' sheet of 16 gauge on this. I'll be building a whole new tranny tunnel and covers for the links. I'll be making sure they're all removable for ease of maintenance of whatever reason I feel I need to go from the top down.

And I have no clue why my post is linking this to my webshots. . . odd.
 
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