Homemade crossmember

I ended up building a crossmember for a few reasons.
1. I wanted a strong one to mount my skid plates off of.
2. I wanted more ground clearance.
3. My old one was dented up pretty bad.
4. I will never buy anything I think I can build.
My old crossmember;



First I took out the studs and replaced them with grade 8 bolts



Next, I made some plates for the mounts


Tranny mount

Now for some reason I got it in my head that I wanted to make the center section removable. It has its plusses and it was not hard to do so I am glad I did it. Check out my fancy jig

The old exhaust mount came off the crossmember, so I had to make a new one. I wish I would have plated the frame there, but someday I want to plate the whole inside there and do not want to have to work around it

Starting to take shape

I cut some slots in the box tube for where the mounting plate goes in



Had to cut out the bottom where the nuts thread on the studs

Did some welding at school


Not on the driver’s side though

I stuck it in place

Tacked it where I wanted it

Fitting the little tubes in the 2x4 was a little tight

More coming!

Looks good so far. I need to learn to weld and afford the equipment.

I made a cardboard template for patching the hole



Old and new so far

Now for the first time ever, the new crossmember actually holding up the transmission. At this point, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and know it actually fit and everything made all the little stuff next much more fun

That is, I felt great about it until I realized that I had perfectly located the flange where the center part of the crossmember bolts to the driver’s side piece directly under the front driveshaft

Not one to be easily dissuaded by unimportant things like driveline clearance, I forged on. Next, I made some pieces to add weld and box in the outside pieces

Then it was time to start boxing in the center section



Looking good

Lots of stuff to weld on the 220 machine

Squirting it all together


I had this plate all drawn up for a buddy of mine to punch the holes out for me at the shop he works at.

I waited for a while, so I cleaned up what was already done

Then I got sick of waiting, so I grabbed the plasma at school and boogered me out a plate

Cleaned it up

Fits well

Welderd it all up


Can see my diff cover in there too




Finally done!


Am I happy with it? Yes, kinda. Originally, I wanted it to be flush with the frame rails. As it is I cut the 2x4 down to 1.25” tall in two places to clear stuff, and the transfer case/transmission has 1/8th of an inch of clearance from the floor. If I did it again I would have run the structure of the crossmember around the sides of the mount to get clearance there, but you still would have issued with the driveshaft and exhaust. Now I have a crossmember that is made entirely of .250 wall steel and has ¾ of an inch better clearance.

Whoops I forgot to thank those whom I stole ideas from

Jeepfreak21 http://www.bsfab.net/?cat=16

Jeff 98XJ WI http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=945920

Nice work.

buzzbombxj said:

4. I will never buy anything I think I can build.

Click to expand...

Now there's a dude I can relate to!