Just been doin a couple things. Finished the bumper hoop thing. Cleaned up and painted some parts. Painting stuff takes way too long... godda wirewheel it, clean and paint...but it looks so purrdy.

Here's a quick mock up, realized this cheap ebay fender doesn't fit right and now I godda go back to the junkyard.

 

Both toys

 

Jeeps moving along. I dropped the old crossmember, one bolt broke so now I'm gonna weld the frame brackets on, easier then dealing with broken bolts haha. Also stripped out the interior. Gonna leave it plasticless and carpetless for a while and rhino line it in the future. Also made some new lca brackets for the front axle out of 1/4 steel. Gettin excited....been off the road for 8 monts now and everythings coming together. Still have a list of stuff I need. Zj prop valve, 8.25 u-bolt plates as well as 1 inch blocks, u bolts and centering pins, hard brake lines for the rear axle, need to fab up new shock mounts for the rear axle, new calipers, e-brake shoes. Also need to clean and mount the gas tank skid, finish making and mounting the new upper control arm mount...

 

Rip, grandpa and original owner. Miss you more every day. 10/08/35-03/09/10

 

Welding on the frame brackets

 

finally finished up all the "fab" work on the front axle. The upper mount was kinda tricky, just kinda ran out of ideas so i chopped up a stock upper control arm and taked it in place. measured adjusted and tweaked it so it was in just the right position, then went crazy adding more and more metal.

i wrapped the weak bendable control arms with 14 gague and boxed it in, welding the one side then hammering it into position.




On the back i used the angle of the rear piece to guide the angle of the new mount. i also measured from the eye of the driver side bushing to the upper ball joint zerk. 13-7/16ths. so i used that to make the other side the same distance.



its not pretty, but its strong!





the front i also boxed in with a single piece of 14 gague. It will be plenty strong as i made the side and back pieces out of 3/16ths steel.



all done!!!

ready to clean up some ugly welds and paint her up!

 

 

Nice work, that is exactly what I want to do on my d30.
For your axle lca mounts how did you go about making those?

 

Well basically just bought 4"x12"x1/4" steel, chopped it in half and cut out the holes with a cut off wheel, then ground them on a bench grinder till they fit. I did that 4 times, put them all on the axle and held them in place, welded them together, threw them on a drill press and drilled the holes. Then I took them back apart and traced the old mounts then just cut them out with the cut off wheel and rounded them. Lots of cutting and welding...pretty time consuming but strong

 

it seems like every thing i accomplish on this damn thing just adds another 2 that i need to do. cleaned out the axle tubes, and dumped dirt straight into the carrier bearings on the d30, so now i get to do them, i have to swap hubs with the other axle and do ball joints which moogs will add up to be 250$ in ball joints, i just spend 172$ on stuff i thought i would need to finish it, and the more i look at it, the more disgusted i am that i spent around 2500$ on everything, and now i guess the tires are waiting longer...now i understand why jeep means just empty every pocket. not to mention i found atleast 4 big rust holes i need to fix...not sure how yet

 

Ok. Put tires off a while longer....new ball joints and front carrier bearings and seals goin on the front axle...moogs are expensive....

 

Awesome job

 

thanks...im kinda running out of motivation haha

 

Lol dont run out of motivation i was thinking selling mine about a month ago and decided i couldnt do it lol after you get it all back together and wheel it youll love the thing again

 

yea man. thanks. ill keep it rollin along