Here're some poser shots from last week, as well evidence of me being a hypocrite for hitting the mud after talking about how much I hate mud. Also, a really crappy video of me driving a line that we call "sheet metal." You can hear the fear in my buddy's voice

 

Just went through your thread, you posted in 2017 where you bought the Solid diff covers for $65 and I figured there's no way they are still that price 3 years later. I just ordered my $65 Solid diff covers front and rear.

 

are those cast metal?

 

They really are a great deal! Glad I gave you the spark to look into those further and you ended up pulling the trigger on them.

Yes they are cast from nodular iron. Many of the aftermarket covers are cast. ARB's are cast nodular iron, Riddler's are cast ductile iron, Crane's are cast 8620 chromoly.

Cast nodular iron might not be the best choice for material and manufacturing method, but they are definitely beefy and would take a hell of a hit to fracture. Plus they look killer IMO. Can't go wrong for the price. With that said, I'll likely be buying a Ruffstuff cover for my next one.

 

Good thing you did the cut n fold or you probably wouldn't have had any quarters left after your video in post 330

 

It's been one of those upgrades I've been meaning to do just haven't pulled the trigger on getting some.

 

I have a relatively substantial update to report, contrary to my usual all-talk/no-action build.

Last December my Jeep was parked in my driveway for a few weeks. We had some snow and some freeze/thaw cycles. I had noticed that there was a significant amount of condensation on the inside of the windows of the jeep, which had been freezing/thawing with the weather. When I finally had the time to get the Jeep in the garage to investigate, I found a pretty nasty sight.

Everything was saturated. Seats, headliner, carpet, even my toolbox was full of water and had frozen solid into a block of ice filled with tools. It appeared as if the water had condensed inside the toolbox because there were frozen drops on the underside of the lid.





It was a friggen mess.








It was evident that this was caused by my sunroof leaking. If you're ever considering a vehicle with a non-OEM sunroof, be prepared to deal with the consequences. Look at how hacked in this thing is...






I found significant rust in the floors, inner rockers, and rear wheel wells. Add onto that my rockers were completely shot and the bottom of all 4 of my doors had holes in them, I knew it was time to get busy with some body mods.

The goal: dry feet, and the 2x6 rockers I've been dreaming of for years.

First step was to remove the doors. This didn't go well at all, because why would it? T-40 drivers are not beefy enough to deal with these door bolts that have been rusting into place for over 20 years. I managed to remove the first door with just a small pile of broken driver bits as a result.







Took this opportunity to replace my door hinge pins. The little bronze bushings were mangled and definitely needed replacement.






I'm pretty disappointed in the Dorman door hinge pins. They don't fit nearly as well as they should and still leave a pretty substantial amount of slop in the door. I had investigated making my own pins using shoulder bolts and Oilite bushings, but lost interested after not immediately finding off the shelf parts that would work. I may revisit this someday.

Got myself some new tools to attack the doors with. Had some more success, but even more failures.







Got the second door off.





Then came the fun part. I marked my line, and made the cut...






It was pretty bad behind there.





and everywhere else for that matter...









Then I got busy putting metal in the holes.



Apparently I was still feeling pretty good about it at this point because I had the energy to do this:












Seems as if my patience was wearing thin by this point:





I really should've just bought replacement floor pans and done the whole thing properly








After finishing the floors on the driver's side, I moved over to the passenger side.

First I had to dick around with the doors again. This time I learned that using the welder right from get get-go is the easier solution. I don't know if these bolts have thread locker from the factory, but heat is definitely required to remove them. The issue is you really cannot get a torch on them without toasting the plastic sleeve that goes over the door hinge pin.

I fought them for awhile. Eventually I came out victorious, but not without some casualties.








Then the hacking recommenced




This side was equally as bad at the driver's








I was able to rebuild my seat mounts on both sides, and rebuilt the rear wheel wells/rear seat storage area. There are still some small holes in the rear hatch area over the gas tank that I did not touch. I decided to leave those for another time as I already was sick of looking like tihs:



Around this time I decided to rename my build...




From here I moved on to building my 2x6 rockers and trimming the doors to fit. I made a dedicated thread for the rockers build, linked here:

Mitch's 2x6 Rockers with Door Trimming

Here are some teaser pictures to encourage you to go check out that thread















The rockers build and floor patch was a huge project for me. I dedicated a ton of time this year to this project.

I'm a bit disappointed about the paint selection. I used Rustoleum brush on primer and paint on the doors and rockers. I put probably 8 hours of prep time in and did everything to my knowledge to get it to come out good, but the paint just didn't harden up. There are already some significant chips where the rockers are down to bare metal and need to be touched up. I did clear coat the doors, and the paint seems to be doing better there.

Continued into next post...

 

...Continued from last post.

I seam sealed everything, and added in a bit of New Hampshire flare.













I had a tough time getting the doors aligned, but ended up getting them pretty good after a couple of days.






Before I put the carpet back in, I sound deadened from the passenger foot wells back to the rear seat storage area.





I was also a bit disappointed in this. I wasn't expecting a huge gain, but I measured 83 dB average interior noise on a 9 mile highway stint with no interior, then again 83 dB over the same stretch with sound deadened interior installed (minus headliner). I found that to be strange.

Also during this time I picked up some new wheels and tires. I trade my worn Coopers plus cash for some MT/R Kevlars. These things are awesome.






Although, I picked up a nail on my first wheelin trip...





I was able to plug it with no issues,

Had a great shake down run for not driving the Jeep for almost 9 months









While wheeling, I had run my air conditioning pretty much all day. I had noticed a burning plastic smell that would come and go, and spent several days trying to identify the source. Eventually, I found my electric fan override relay had melted inside my PDC





I replaced the micro relay block in the PDC with a mini relay, and reverted the circuit back to 40 A. I also rewired the override circuit to tie the switch directly into the OEM electric fan relay, such that the relay now has 2 triggers on it, rather than using a separate relay for the override like I had before. This is how many people say not to set this up, however I feel it will be fine because both the PCM and my override switch are switching ground, not hot. I haven't had a chance to test this setup yet other than quickly in the garage to ensure it worked. I'll report back if I get a check engine light from this as other people have encountered.





If you recall from earlier in the thread, I had reconfigured this circuit to use a 30 A micro relay fused at 30 A rather than the 40 (or 50?) A mini relay fused at 40 A from the factory. I did this to more efficiently use the space in the PDC, and I experimented with using the 30 A fuse and found it to work. The difference being I never used to run my air conditioning, so the fan would rarely run constantly. Furthermore, I reviewed the relay spec sheet and found they're only rated for 30 A at 73°F. No Good.

One week from today I am taking the Jeep on an overland trip to northern Maine. North western Maine has an area of 3.5 million acres (1.5x the size of Rhode Island) which is private property owned mostly by logging companies and shared parcels. It is completely undeveloped. No paved roads, no towns, no gas stations, no stores, no people. Just wilderness. It is regulated by a group called "North Maine Woods" who govern an agreement where the public can pay a day use/overnight fee to use the area for recreational purposes. It is one of the most remote places in the United States, and I'm about to take my 22 year old Jeep that I haven't driven much this year into the heart of it. Stupid? Maybe. But it will sure be an adventure.

Good to give you an update. I'll let you know how the trip goes.

 

sweet update!

 

thought about putting a sheet of UHMW plastic across those rocker braces? make a skid for rocks etc.

 

Nice work.

 

Whew, finally made it to the end of this long build thread. Congrats on your rust salvage. How much does it weigh now?

 

Yes, that was the original intent with the rocker braces. The main build took much longer than I anticipated and I decided the boat side skins can wait for now. I'm not entirely sure how I want to do it, but I'm thinking a sheet of aluminum (maybe 1/2"?) with UHMW sheet (also maybe 1/2") over it. I think I could get away with tapping directly into the braces, but I could also put rivnuts in them.

Didn't anyone ever tell you its rude to talk about a woman's weight?

I have no idea what the weight is, but if I keep going the direction I'm headed, she will start turning into a big girl. Those rockers just added ~200 lb.

The rust is so hard for me to see. When I bought this Jeep it was in great shape. I watched this rust creep in over the last few years. The GD sunroof has caused so many problems with moisture on the inside that I have not been on top of. Also nobody really told me about undercoating until it was too late. I'm hoping to get on that this year.

I'm glad you took the time to go through it! I hope you found it interesting. I know there is quite a bit of open-ended discussion that hasn't been put into action. I'm hoping to keep current updates more concise and exciting.

 

 

Can confirm that grounding the electric fan relay trigger circuit in parallel with the PCM to act as an override switch will trip a check engine light. It does work, just throws the code. Guess I'll have to go back to a 2 relay setup.