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another build thread. . .

whitneyj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Mayville, WI
Well, I've been slowly putting everything together and I think I'm finally ready to post it up.
First some history:
I started with the common rusty's cold air intake and throttle body. After coming back from Iraq and buying a house with a GARAGE, I started getting into it more. I bored the TB and the spacer out to about 61mm, and swapped a high flow cat in with a turndown afterward. I ended up putting a Thrush turbo muffler on it for inspection reasons and it seemed to pull better so I left it, until the exhaust had to be cut off after the collector, more on that later.I Herculined the interior and swapped in a Fan Taurus fan, http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=953768. I ran some 31's on the stock suspension for a while and threw a 3" lift to see what the difference would be and that's when I decided it was time for more.
Present day:
I swapped a 9" in the rear with a 92 dakota brake line. The brake line ended up being 22" long which was needed becuase the block on the axle tube was on the opposite side the d35 was. I cut the shock mounts off the d35 and cut and ground them to fit the shock up on the axle tube.

It was a run of the mill easy swap. While I had the axle out I also added a couple leaves from another XJ pack to get around 4"-4.5" of lift.
I ended up have to re-bearing my hpd44 for the front, while I was waiting on parts for that I welded 3x3x3/16 angle from the front leaf spring hanger to my front bumper mounts.



After I got the front axle back together I started getting my parts for the radius arm setup I was building, http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=964377. I ran into a problem when I was mocking up the skid under the tcase. I knew that I'd have to notch the skid under the tcase to clear where the front output ended up being, but after I got everything together I decided I didn't wamt to weld up a bunch of little pieces to make a little "cup" for the tcase. I searched a little and found Jeff98XJ's thread on how he clocked his tcase and found Jeepfreak's thread where he did things a little different, that's a big thanks to BS Fabrication for the AL dowels and to the great write up! http://www.bsfab.net/?p=23. I don't have any pictures of when I did it, the wife had the camera at work. But I have one or two of the aftermath.

sorry it's so close, but it ended up being flush with the bottom of the rails. It wasn't hard at all, but I must have checked everything 10 times before I drilled the new holes. I clocked it the same amount that Jeepfreak21 did. I didn't need the tcase to go up that much higher necessarily, but I wanted as much clearance from the front DS to the header as possible. The DS would've made steel wool of the collector the way it was mocked up. Looks good now.
Today's project will be filling in the skid where I notched it for the tcase, welding the link mount that will go over the part I'm filling, and welding a couple more pieces of steel to the front and rear of the skid to keep the flexyness of it to a min.
 
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gotta love it when a plan comes together.

lookin good so far.
 
A little update, I got the bellypan notch filled and the link mounts fully welded and boxed, but didn't get the front and rear plate welded to it. I forgot I still need to run my exhaust through it, so I'll wait until then to finish.







I cleaned it up and checked for any cracked welds, which I found 3 little ones, from all the twisting the metal's done from welding the angle on the upperside, then the links on the bottom. I tried to weld only a little at a time to keep it from warping, but it did anyhow. I guess I'll have to weld less and wait more in between welds next time. Plan for tomorrow is mount it and drill the rest of the holes and maybe make the nut strips for the sides. Got family coming in tomorrow, so it's going to be a short time in the garage.
 
after searching thru your thread, i dont see any mention of those bumpstops that are no longer in the living world... gonna replace those right?
 
also, are those triag-4-link mounts for the front or the rear?(or are they even 4link mounts??) they dont look soo strong to me, but what do i know...
 
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bumpstops are on the list, just not for a while, I still have hydro assist steering, trackbar and mounts, front driveshaft, rear driveshaft, relocating front coil buckets, exhaust, brakes, ect. Bumpstops will happen, I don't like my fenders and whatnot to chew on expensive tires. . . Those mounts are for my extended radius arms. I notched and bent them inward and plated them with 1/4". I've got some pictures of it somewhere. The mounts are made of 3x3x3/16 angle and fully welded to and gusseted with 1/4 plate. You don't think that's strong enough? What do you recommend? I was thinking about some plate on the sides to the belly pan for more side to side bracing.



I'll take all the critisizm I can get for this project so don't be shy. . . which I'm pretty sure isn't an issue . . . :)
 
I hope you didn't go about blasting on those 18" welds all in one shot. Otherwise you could potentially have some extremely bowed metal. What kind of welder btw?
 
no, those beads took all day to burn in. 2" at a time, let it cool for 20 min give or take, then burn some more. I'll have to check what model the welder is, but it's a miller that'll do literally everything: MIG, TIG, and arc. It's hooked up to 480V, not sure if that's important. Really nice machine.
 
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nope, honestly, those welds were done by a buddy. I'm not to shabby with MIG, but I don't have the time at work to be able to weld those. He does. . . I've just done MIG and arc. He's a certified welder, which is his job, and he is top notch.
 
It's been pretty busy here, so I haven't been able to get a whole lot done. But I did get the arms mounted.



Next step is to relocate the coil buckets. As you can see the axle isn't quite where it used to be. . . :)

I plan on using some more 1/4" plate and utilizing the holes on the radius arms, for the stock coil buckets, to bolt the plate down up front. I'll have to bring the plate about 3-4" back on the radius arms, which means I'll have to make some pretty fun cuts out of some more 1/4" plate to gusset the sides so the relocation plate doesn't shift side to side. I'm hoping to be able to kick that off this weekend.
 
Well it's been a couple weekends, but I finally got some time to knock a couple things off the long list of things to do. I've been thinking about how I was going to get a measurement for relocating my coil buckets. But the whole thinking process was taking to long, the whole over thinking things like what I was doing with the radius arms. . . so I just cut some 1/4" plate, drilled a couple holes and bolted it where the stock buckets used to on the radius arms. I used some string with a washer on the end to get a quick estimate to locate the coil buckets. Just so happens I got it right the very first try!

After I got everything drilled and bolted on I thought I'd make it a little cleaner.



I originally was going to box the underside of the relocating plate to the arm, but didn't think it was necessary. I think these two pieces will be sufficient and won't add to the arms being so heavy. (these things are hauses!)



I'll be taking the arms into work again on Mon. to have my buddy burn the mount onto the radius arms. My little 110V doesn't stand a chase.
While I was waiting for the welds to cool in between running beads I got started on my steering. I'm using a 1" OD with an 11/16" ID DOM that I tapped to thread my 3/4" chromo rod ends right into. In hindsight I should've just gotten 1.5"OD x 1/4" DOM and used adapters. When I get my hydro assist started I'll be sleeving the 1"OD DOM with 1.5" OD x 1/4" DOM so I don't turn my steering into a pretzel.
This is what I've got.



Not to much else. I still need to shim the coil buckets so the coils don't bow all over the place. I'll probably wait to do that till the relocating plates are burned into the arms so I don't have to put them on and take them off again. But I did have the jeep resting on the axle off the jackstands! That's a first since July! Still a big list. . .
 
I'll definitely check that, the stock Ford coil buckets are angled all sorts of ways, I think that has to do with the radius arms not being stationary and the buckets on top of it all. I know there were a couple writeups involving the ford radius arm swap and that was one of the final complaints. I don't remember his name, but he took 3/8" flat stock and cut it diagonally to make a set of shims. Worked well for him, I'll probably be trying the same.
 
I ended up have to re-bearing my hpd44 for the front, while I was waiting on parts for that I welded 3x3x3/16 angle from the front leaf spring hanger to my front bumper mounts.


pics of the front leaf setup?

doing leafs in the front on mine, with a hp44.
 
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