The Lab Rat - SFR's R&D Comanche

Back on page 13 I showed a bunch of pictures of installing the SFR Trail Proof Motor mounts and engine brackets. You may have noticed that unlike our normal production engine plates mine are gold zinc plated. Previously we had sold the brackets in bare steel, but now ALL of our production brackets will be plated as well! I'm a big fan of zinc plating on fabricated parts. Not only does it look good, but it's tough and doesn't rust, and unlike powdercoating or paint it doesn't crack or flake off. It also doesn't add thickness to the parts or make bolt holes smaller. In just about every way it's superior to paint or powder for parts that need to function and don't need to be a certain color to match body panels or such. My plater tells me that the zinc is an excellent base coating for paint if you really want that though.

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Bent said:
It may not be a typical thread diameter and pitch since it would basically be an offset of the inside of the coil. Not that it matters, it was just a thought.
:dunno:
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That is exactly right. A Helicoil is made of symmetrical diamond shaped wire, so a 5/16-18 sized helicoil will be 18 pitch on the outside.

A Timesert is a solid insert so it can be used in a smaller diameter hole than a Helicoil, but it also will be 18 pitch.

In either case the tap hole and the actual size and pitch of the tap will not be standard UNC (or metric) sizes, they will be purpose made for the inserts. You can fudge a Helicoil installation without most of the stuff that comes in the kit, but you're dead in the water without the special tap.
 
such an awesome build.

I now need so many of your parts but the jeep is going to be awesome when its done.
 
Ok so now that we have the new rear axle in, and a 4wd transmission with a transfer case on it this thing is getting a lot closer to being a real wheeling rig, but first it needs driveshafts. At a bare minimum I need a rear shaft so I can continue using this thing as a parts runner around town and to break in the gears.

Normally I would just take some measurements and make a phone call to J.E.Reel Drivelines, as Jim is the best in the business in my opinion and I've worked with him for many years with nothing but great results. To be honest though after everything else I've done with this thing recently I'm stretched a little thin. Also I couldn't take measurements until the axle and t-case were in and I wanted to drive this thing. I went digging through a bunch of old parts and found a driveshaft that had all the parts and pieces I'd need to build my own, it was just a bit short.

No biggie, I had some tube sitting around that would make for a really tough rear shaft!
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So I started off by chucking the shaft I had found into the lathe and cutting out the tube
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Once the tube was gone it was time to do a bit of machining to the yokes.
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Then a bit of TIG welding, because why not? Driveshafts need pretty welds too.
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So here it is all welded up and ready to go in.
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And all installed. Time for some burnouts!
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It says no food, not no beer.

I honestly had to paint that on there because it's my primary welding and work table and everyone always shows up and puts boxes of donuts or pizza or whatever on there and I have to spend 10 minutes clearing it off to get any work done. As if there aren't 5 tool carts and several other benches in the shop. lol
 
StinkyFab said:
It says no food, not no beer.

I honestly had to paint that on there because it's my primary welding and work table and everyone always shows up and puts boxes of donuts or pizza or whatever on there and I have to spend 10 minutes clearing it off to get any work done. As if there aren't 5 tool carts and several other benches in the shop. lol
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I am jealous.

I want folks to come and clutter my workspace with boxes of donuts and pizza.

Life is so unfair.

:rattle:
 
Goatman was kind enough to let me pillage a couple of his parts XJs and grab a shifter and a front driveshaft, so now this thing is finally officially 4 wheel drive!:guitar::guitar::guitar:party1:

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I also picked up some bits and pieces to make a new shifter linkage.

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Got the new front shaft installed
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Then I got to work on changing the oil in the diffs now that the gear break in should be complete. One of the tasks I wanted to take care of as well was an axle seal leak in the rear axle. I had a feeling I knew what was going on, and it looks like I was right. When I got this axle it was missing the drivers side shaft and there was evidence of breakage. I wasn't thinking about it when I installed the shafts, but the end of the housing where the seal sits was all chewed up. I added a bunch of RTV, and hopefully it'll be leak free now.

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I also finally got a shiny new set of Bilsteins for the rear.
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With SoCal fest coming this weekend I had just a couple more things to finish up. Most importantly getting some rocker protection on there. I wanted to stay with the tube theme, and also keep it simple and light weight. These may end up getting cut off in the future to make room for future parts so I didn't wanna get too fancy with things. As it turns out though the MJ has a couple of body reinforcement gussets the XJ doesn't have, and they are in just the right spots to help brace the sliders. Made the job pretty easy.

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Also finally got around to making a GPS mount so I don't get lost, as well as bolting one of our SFR Baofeng Radio brackets to the dash for a simple communications solution.

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StinkyFab said:
Goatman was kind enough to let me pillage a couple of his parts XJs and grab a shifter and a front driveshaft, so now this thing is finally officially 4 wheel drive!:guitar::guitar::guitar:party1:

108_5417-R.jpg
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Holy hell did you cut the carpet out with the help of a blind squirrel? :firedevil
 
GSequoia said:
Holy hell did you cut the carpet out with the help of a blind squirrel? :firedevil
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LOL, the carpet in this thing is nasty and I have a brand new carpet kit ready to go in so I wasn't exactly focusing on making it pretty. Just gonna end up throwing it away anyways.
 
Lowrance is the GPS of choice for basically every desert race team.

That said the transducer this one came with is mounted on the bottom of my boat. :)
 
GSequoia said:
FYI another point about the Heli-Coils is they are not made for through-holes, there is a different, far more expensive product for that. You can use Heli-Coils on through holes, though, if it's a deep enough hole. To do this when you drill it you stop short, only drilling to the depth of the coil itself. Then you tap it the same and all will be good.

If you drill and tap all the way through you end up running the likely risk of the whole coil spinning out the backside of the hole. Found that one out the hard way years back. :-/
Click to expand...

Not if you use red loctite to hold the helicoil in place and give it time to set before reassembling.
 
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