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another build thread. . .

That's actually the exact same thing I did, while I was working half heartedly on the rebearing of the hpd44 I also ran some 3x3x3/16 from the front spring hanger to the bumper. Funny. . . I won't be running leaf springs up front, kind of wish I had for simplicity's sake. Did a couple things tonight, nothing to special, I only had an hour or so to use. But I burned in a couple welds for the relocation brackets. I already primed them when I took the pictures.


I ended up not taking them to work for my buddy to weld, I just preheated the radius arm with a small soldering torch and burned them in with the old 110V Clarke.
After they were cool I blasted them and the coil buckets with some primer after running a wire wheel over em.




That's about all I have tonight. Tomorrow I'll be putting everything together and getting ready to build the trackbar and mounts and the drag link. Not to sure yet how I'll be going about the trackbar. I may build the draglink first, then I'll have a length and angle to go off of. Once I get those built then it'll just be plugging away at the long list of little things.

P.S. sorry for the crappy pictures, I'm camera illiterate. ;)
 
well, with the leafs i have to do chevy knuckles, and high steer, or spring under, so hi-steer is what it is.

if i had gone with the stock radius's, i wouldn't have to worry about that, and i think that would have made things a bit easier.
 
After everything I've done, my opinion is that leaves would still have been easier. They also involve alot less maintenance and you don't have to worry about death wobble, just wheel hop up front. Either way it's alot of work. I got everything together tonight so I can start to measure for the trackbar.

Learned a VERY VERY valuable lesson tonight. Actually it's one of those,"what was I thinking?!" I got everything together and decided to set the jeep down on the axle unassisted. The whole jeep shifted sideways, as there isn't a trackbar yet, and had it not been for the pretty serious coil retainers Ford made, I would have lost the body off the axle. Bad bad news. You can still see that I haven't gotten the body straight yet. Not sure how I'm going to do that yet.

Here's a good shot to see how far forward I pushed the front axle. I really hadn't planned on the tire hitting the bumper and probably the grill, so now I've got more bodywork to do once the front's done.

This is just a shot to show how wide of a stance I now have. What do you all think?
 
great progress, you can use a comealong to pull the body from left to right, makes it pretty easy, just park your other truck next to your jeep, and come along to the on the other truck to your front x-member, or whatever wont move on the body.

death wobble is why i'm doing an axle swap in the first place. and the number one reason i'm going leaves.

down here in florida, and the area's i'll be going south carolina, georgia, i wont be seeing any crazy mountains, so my flexy leafs should be fine.
 
yeah, not a whole lot besides swamp and flat in florida huh? I heard Georgia has some land, not sure about the trails and I know south carolina has some.
I got a little done tonight. Just cut some tabs out of 3/16" plate and drilled a 3/4" hole, bolted it together with the rod end and burned it in.



I started to get the measurements for the drap link, but the body didn't want to stay still on top of the axle. The passenger side tire is flat so I just need to air it up. Easier said then done without an air compressor. . . Need to get another one.
Probably won't be getting to much done for the next week or so, buddy's just got back from Iraq and Afghanistan, so I'll be seeing them.
 
Finally got it off of jackstands today! I started on the trackbar fri and finished it all today. On fri I cut about 1" from a stock bronco trackbar to get rid of a wierd bend that Ford put in it. I don't have pictures of how we did it, we just cut the bend out, beveld both sides and layed bead after bead of weld until it was flush with the stock. Sat. I spent a rainy day mocking up where the trackbar would go and built the axle end mount.

you can kind of see it in this picture, but I bent the steel to wrap around the front and rear of the axle.


It took me a while to burn it in yesterday, I ran 3 beads on both sides for peace of mind's sake.
Today I took care of the frame side mount. I took a stock bronco trackbar bracket, frame side, and cut it to fit the 3x3x3/16 angle I ran up to the front bumper. (It gave me a good place to fully weld to, 3 beads)

ignore all the splatter, I use flux core. nasty stuff.

After all was said and done, I screwed up the measureing somewhere and the trackbar is off. I'm not to worried about it, once I wrap up all the little things I'll be drilling the axle side of the trackbar and fitting it with a rod end, so I'll shorten up the trackbar then too. Thing that bugs me, is I'm not sure what I did wrong when I mocked everything up. Jeep was at ride height, and within 1/2 a degree of the draglink, with the tires even on both sides. I tacked it up, jacked the jeep up to get the coil out of the way and burned it in. Oh well. I also got the brakes done today. I used 92 C1500 front brake hoses. They're as long as I'll ever need them and can use the stock brake hose mounting holes if so wished. I'll be tackling the shocks, and the rest of the bellypan's mounting holes tomorrow.
 
yeah, florida is mostly flat, only hills and climbs here are manmade, but you can make the 63 chevy leafs pretty flexy, alot of taco guys are using them, and i'll be inboarding my leafs by 6 inches under stock, so it'll be alot more leverage on the leafs than the standard setup to allow the droop.
 
Well, I finally got to work on the Jeep for little while this weekend. I wanted to get the whole thing wrapped up, but I had unexpected family drop in. (He just got back from 1 1/2 years in Japan, so he took priority) I routed the exhaust, which wasn't as hard as I thought it would. I cut just past the collector and turned it up a couple degrees and it shot right where it's new home was in the bellypan!



I didn't get any good shots of it routed with the bellypan on, I'll try and get those this week. I've got to wrap it all in header wrap anyhow to keep my floor pans from burning.
I started getting my front shock mounts ready, but I hadn't planned on the shocks not being long enough fully stretched out. . . time for new shocks.

I just took the rear sway bar mounts and cut about 3/4" off both ends so the shock doesn't come in contact with it.


After that I threw the rear driveshaft in, with about 1 inch of spine contact. . . I'll be taking care of that shortly, used a bucket as a seat and drove it up and down the driveway! It's been a while since that happened. I started on the fenders and bumper later in the afternoon.

I had to cut quite a bit forward, not to much up as I won't have a whole lot of usuable up travel, which showed the world my windshield washer reservoir. Not sure what I'll be doing about that. I'll have to search that one out, and look at options for re-working the inner fenders to get rid of the battery tray thingy on both sides.


I'll be cleaning up the fenders once I get that plastic door molding stuff. Then I got kicking on the bumpers.


I'll be leaving enough metal on the back side of the bumper to fold over the gap and weld up. I didn't take alot of pictures of the bumpers, or of anything in progress today, kind of a last thought type deal. Hoping to the bumpers and fenders done this week, and the side mounts for the bellypan done so I can finally weld up my floor pans and get the seats back in. Until then!. . .
 
Not to much done so far this week. I did get the passenger side mounts done and welded up the floor pan. Actually, I mauled the floor pan so badly when I cut through it, I tack welded what I could together and hammered it down and welded another piece over it all the way around. The driver's side should be pretty easy to weld up. I'd get some pictures, but the welds look horrible. not sure what the deal is, but whenever I'd grab the trigger, it was like the machine was pulsing. I couldn't get a decent tack weld anywhere. Anyone have any insight?
 
Forgot to mention this, but I ordered a slip yoke from Tom Woods, the one Go-Jeep used for a homebrew SYE. He said it'll be here around next wednesday. Now I can look forward to finally having a driveshaft that I don't have to worry about falling off!
 
death wobble can be easily be avoided even running coils. i had it before i did my axle swap, i swaped in a new dana 30 and the bushings in my track bar, Lower control arms and upper control arms were all bad. Just replace these bushings with new ones and you are good to go. You can still have DW in a leafed setup. Plus you open yourself up to other problems. Swap out your bushings and you will be fine.
 
emr1101 said:
death wobble can be easily be avoided even running coils. i had it before i did my axle swap, i swaped in a new dana 30 and the bushings in my track bar, Lower control arms and upper control arms were all bad. Just replace these bushings with new ones and you are good to go. You can still have DW in a leafed setup. Plus you open yourself up to other problems. Swap out your bushings and you will be fine.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where you got the DW thing from Bro. . . The driveshaft was to short from the lift, not enough slip yoke on the splines.
 
I agree it's not the best, but any particular reason why? I'm looking for some good criticism here.
 
It still appears to be a piece of sheet with a few braces added. There is very little bracing running from framerail to framerail. The bracing that you do have running front to rear is placed most inefficiently.
 
I agree 100%, I'm taking 2x3 box steel and running them vertically,one on either side of the tcase, and again up front next to the tranny and DS. I decided this recently and just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll be waiting until I have everything cut out for the front DS, then knock the vertical bracing out.
 
ok, I was thinking of using the 2x3 rectangular tubing as more of keeping the torque from the tcase in check. I see what you're saying as well. However, I'm confused on what you're saying about only 2" wide and 3" tall . . . I've got some 2x3x1/4" thick rect. tubing I'll be cutting at whatever length and bolting it all in.
 
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