Norcal69's Common Sense Build.

Cowl and laying toward the hood. It's the factory location for the M38A1.
I think you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

 

the shape threw me for a second, I see the bracket now carry on...

 

The Shocks that came with Steve's 71's Rocky Road Kit are Doetsch DT3265. Same shock on all 4 corners. They have 10" of travel.
When I finally get mine on the forklift I will measure for shocks and call Doetsch for their recommendation.
Scott, do you know the shock part numbers that came with your kit? Above you mentioned that you had different shocks front and rear.

Steves's 71 that we installed the RR 3.5" OME kit on.

 

My shocks are defiantly different. (Brand unknown.) The front shocks are 2 3/8" in diameter, part #650408. The rear are 1 3/4" in diameter, part #630944.

 

Too late to go back now..... everything is burned on.
Frame reinforcements for the main eyes. Wire wheeled off just enough paint and grease to get a clean weld. I wouldn't want to remove too much of that protective layer....

 

Looks great.

 

Did you have a chance to do the forklift test yet?

 

Hopefully by this weekend I'll be able to get the forklift under it. My personal project bay is my private bay because its inaccessible by most of our equipment. It is located on the end of our millwright building. The natural land slope dropped off about 3', and the building pad was built up. Literally right outside my door the gravel drops off 3' at a 45 degree angle. Non drive able objects gain allot of speed as they exit my bay.......

 

Just in case greasable bolts aren't enough, I added grease fittings to the front and rear shackle hangers.

 

The more I work on this frame, the more I realize that I am simply spending hours and hours lying on my back, polishing a turd with two hands over my head........
My frame was bent when I got the jeep, I had it straightened as best possible, but these frames are so flexible it's hard to get them to take a set.
Someday, as this build progresses, I see a TDK Hybrid frame (TJ suspension up front/ yj suspension in the rear built to fit a early 5) in my future.

The Yj springs are longer, which moved the main eye hanger back past the factory frame boxing. I extended the boxing back to prevent the new spring mount from collapsing the c channel. At a glance it looks like cake to weld the spring hangers and frame boxing in. After the third time you raise your head up into the starter/ oil pan ect..... using big wooden blocks a moving blankets to prop yourself up, you realize that you just cant get a really good look at things while welding them.

I went back and fourth on whether or not to post this pic.
It is strong, It will preform the tended task, it looks like . Once it gets a little mud and road grime on it I'll be none the wiser...... and neither will you, except that I told on myself. The drivers side came out better, but I already reinstalled the master cylinder so there isn't much to see..... Tonight I get to work on final assembly.

 

Ahh......no big deal......your doing the best you can with what you have to work with......another frame may solve your desires but then again it all depends on the use and goals you have for the vehicle going forward that may change as your family grows.........at this point it doesn't seem like you busting brush or doing allot of winching to get in or out of the areas that you hunt. Good Job! Carry on!

 

Thank you,
Your correct. This is functional and for 95% of its intended use it is over built. It is an evolving build that changes as experiences/ life happens. If I knew in the beginning that I would be making all of these modifications to this jeep I would have just started with a pile of parts rather than a complete running jeep.
I am building this to be a do all rig. My wife likes to drive it to work Monday- Thursday and leave it home on Friday so I can load it up to go camping for the weekend. We hop on the freeway for a couple hours before hitting the dirt roads and then the rougher stuff. Most of the areas that we camp could be accessed by my Chevy Tahoe.... after the mirrors were knocked off, rockers dented and tailpipe smashed.... They are rough enough to get into that most folks stay away. Much like I imagine the upcoming rubicon trip will be except the areas we frequent are only about 1 mile long and not the 22 miles or so of wheeling that is the rubicon. When It comes to hunting, most of what we do is on ranches with ranch/ forest service type roads. Most of our hunting involves far more hiking than driving.
My wife does payroll/ benefits for 500 or so people, I have my own 28 employees. Getting away from most folks is the main purpose of this build. The front and rear air lockers, winch, jack, shovel are all there so we can get in and back out without assistance from others.
Tonight I am hoping to get the rear tank reinstalled and the suspension. One step closer to opening my tent door here:

 

Paint the ugly spots with flat back. It hides a lot.

 

I'm holding out to see the areas you paint flat black first!

 

You mean the ones I don't post?

 

I appreciate you sharing your adventures on this build. Your willingness to show real life welds makes me feel better about my goober welds .

 

Been flollowing the built for a long time. You may have put more money and time that you have planned, but a the end this extra money and time will be worth. When i did my custom frame i wasnt very motivated since i did the year prior the coil spring set-up and i didnt want to lose another summer on it. But i find a way to take my time doing it and not cutting the edge off and since the last 6 years i've done that i'm really happy to have done thing the right way.

 

Thank you for the compliments guys. I don't have any real new updates. I've been picking away at reassembly. In order to do all this cutting, grinding and welding I had to remove both gas tanks and fuel lines. I decided that I wasn't reinstalling the rear tank until the fuel gauge worked 100% correctly.
Two evenings later the gauge reads 7/8 full with the sender in the full position. 1/2 tank at half position and empty in the empty position. Sender reads the correct 10-73 ohm range. I almost wore out the slots in the back of the fuel gauge trying to get the sweep just right, which I realized will never happen. It will be nice to jump in and not have to try to remember how much fuel was in it when I parked it last followed by a gas station stop just in case..... During all my testing I discovered that the sending unit for the front tank is not putting out any ohm reading, a new one is on the way.

I thought I would snap a pic of my U bolt retainer plates compared to the rocky road U bolt skid plates. My plates are 5-1/4" long. The RR U bolt skids are a little over 8" long. I realize that tons of people are running similar U bolt skids. The longer the plate under the spring the more restrictive it is going to be. The difference in clearance can also be seen.
I am not trying to knock the RR kit, just showing the difference in a bolt on kit vs a custom build for maximum effectiveness. If a person doesn't have the space or equipment to do a custom job there is nothing wrong with the RR kit.

 

Rocky Road plates need the holes larger for the nuts. I found if the plate shifts a little then you can't get a socket on to retorque the U bolts.
Oh. I also didn't use that shim between the spring and axle.

 

We found this also with the rr kit that we installed on steves jeep. ( the plates shown in the pic above)