2x4 frame questions

Hey wake up 47V6 !

I make a motion that its time for you to buy a second JEEP jeep toss

 

whaaaa, hey umm ohhhh ok. awake now.

Yes, I have been looking hard. I want another cj2a/3a/m38/mb/gpw/composite body and fenders. Not easy to come by for the price I want to pay. Since i don't want the engine/transmission/differentials or frame its hard to justify paying at a minimum 800 bucks for some rusty garbage when a complete body kit new is under 3500 bucks. Almost all the old jeeps under 8 grand here have no title either. I really like the additional length in the body I put in mine. 12" is a bit too much and 8 would most likely be better, but whatever its done. To cut apart a brand new body would make me cringe, not that i really have that kind of money anyway.

You so know I want another complete flat fendered cj.

 

I second that motion.
Everyone needs a spare jeep. Or two.

 

Making my full float dana 44 with a power lock and swapping in my dana 30 were the 2 best things I did to my jeep so far, that is aside from just making it out of a pile of non associated garbage. I have enough mechanical parts to build a couple jeeps, just not tubs or sheet metal. I can use all that stuff for mock ups and measuring for fabricating the frame. I DO NOT have an extra SM 420. there is one like 60 miles from me but the guy wants like 500 bucks NOT rebuilt. not even close to worth it.

I told my wife I am going to build a frame for my jeep. she didn't even acknowledge that. This present jeep has been going on for 8 plus years and was my wife when I assembled my Fhead in the living room and stored the t90/d18 under the kitchen table 20 years ago.

I guess she can't complain when i change the oil and do a complete front brake job on her 2014 honda odyssey in 2 hours. Jeez its easy to do brakes on modern stuff.

the body I have now is not perfect but there is NOTHING wrong with it and its probably 4 times stronger than original. Instead of hat channels I used 16 gauge 1x3 tube and 1x1 tube to rebuild the whole thing. The sheet metal is all 16 gauge too except for what was left of the original.

 

A long while back I got kinda bored because I was only working on a single Jeep.
Then I decided to build 2 jeeps at a time thinking that would be easier.
Eventually that idea turned into building on as many as 3 or 4 jeeps at a time.
That really slowed the progress down to a near stand still.
It got to the point that I was only swapping parts around from one jeep to another.
I swapped every jeep around every other day in my head.
I got a severe JEEP headache and so I had to sit down and eat ice cream to cure it ! HA !

Although I learned a lot; working on too many jeeps made progress come to a near standstill.
I'm now down to 2 jeeps and perhaps a 3rd.
But I'm only going to be building on one at a time.
Otherwise it's mental CHAOS !!!!

 

I was wondering if you would chime it. I read that you have done this. I called my local steel supplier who is 4 miles away and always cheaper than the guys who are 20 miles away. He doesn't carry 2x4x3/16 wall tube but would be happy to order it for me. at least 100 bucks a 24' stick. I will need 2.....

Everything has so much rust here. I am sick to death of trying to weld stuff and have the weld contaminated or i have to grind the heck out of something. I just want new stuff to work with. I called a guy about buying the body of a 47 2A today. He is in a salvage yard 2.5 hours south from me. Willing to part it out, but since i want the whole body he will only sell it whole. It is pretty rusty from the pics but complete and seems original with a PTO. Even has a title. I don't even care, al i want is the body and do not want to have to deal with disposing of a water filled t-90 and a flathead with the plugs seized in it etc. even comes with a rats nest.. the last time i had all that junk i had to GIVE it away. this time i would just scrap it, but not to drive 2.5 hours to do it.

probably on my way to order steel today..

 

just ordered 2 sticks of 24', 2x4x 3/16 wall tube. 212.00 inc tax. be in by next wednesday.

 

I do believe we sunk the hook fellas. hehehehe

Go get 'em Chris. This will be very cool to watch unfold.

That seems like a reasonable price for the steel. I would have guessed at least 300-350. Apparently, prices have come down a bit.

 

My local guy is always reasonable. I would have liked to get both sticks for 100 but I'm cheap. I will be very happy to work with non rusted new steel. Its a whole lot cheaper than any other option and I have a couple welders and all the stuff I need to fabricate a good frame. I also have a nice semi flat table in my basement for this to be built on. The verdict is still out on how bored I will be to TIG weld the whole thing though. Mig is 60% duty cycle at 200 amps, so i won't be waiting and the Tig is similar at 180 amps. Tig is just slow, but sure does look pretty.

Right now my frame has 12 inches added in the center. I but welded the frame channels in there and fish plated the outside with 3/16 plate 4 inches wide and 3/16 strapped top and bottom. That worked out really well. The problem is the rest is twisted so i don't really have all 4 wheels with equal weight. It feels a bit squirrelly sometimes. Nothing real bad, just a little off. If i was building an oval track dirt car this might be desirable....

The idea is to make both rails, then joint at front and back. The rear I want to extend beyond the back of the tub about 2 inches for better spring shackle mounts and an area to fab a nice swing away spare tire mount. I bet there is someone who would like to show theirs off here.

I also want integral welded lugs for clevis front and rear and ability to mount a tow bar. I am not thinking about a wench yet (the night is young) and i am not sure I will have an opportunity to use one anyway. You might tell me why I should at least leave a way to mount one and how that should happen if you have ideas.

I will end up doing significant body work. The rear wheel area needs to be cut back (NO COMP CUT) to allow for clearance. The bed needs to be completely redone, the work is bad. I would be very happy to use a real bed, but used ones are al destroyed and new ones are very expensive. If you have ideas for a substitute please suggest it. I have though about pick up truck bed, but the corrugation seems to wide for a jeep bed.

The rest is fine. I do want to weld up the tailgate to eliminate more squeaks and rattles. At this time I do not have a desire to fabricate a cage and won't be getting a tubing bender. For those of you who have put cages in, what do you wish was something that was already in place for you to just connect to on the frame or does it even matter at that point? My body under the floor pan is already made of 1x3 tube and 16 gauge sheet steel. its somewhat ugly, but strong..

any ideas? not about the wench that is.

 

I used a big'ol chunck of 16ga diamond plate for my bed floor and floor boards. I paid just under $90 for a 4x8 sheet. I used some angle iron, C-clamps and a hammer to fold the edges just like the factory panels. They fit nice and were a whole heck of a lot cheaper than replacement panels

 

The replacement panels are too expensive for me. The diamond plate looks good, but most of my bed is filled with a non fold and tumble seat for the kids. I do have like 6 4x8 sheets of 10 gauge sheet kicking around...

 

So Chuck .............if you don't mount the cage to the Chassis or frame what do you mount it to? ...........The Body?
Also curious on how the body shred the folks up inside and what respect that had to a cage or roll bar being present ?.......Just curious.

 

We have all seen the pics of rolled jeeps with nothing but the body mounted roll bar that seems to hold up. My thinking is that for all but the "extreme" crashes a cage that is body mounted would be sufficient to protect the occupants. The idea is not to hold the jeep together with the cage but protect the occupants. Even if the whole cage somehow detached from the jeep as long as the cage did not fail, it has done its job. Thats not saying that proper anchoring of the cage is not imperative, but rigidity and the transfer of energy in a crash to the occupants is not good. the whole cage shearing off and flying into outer space might be funny to watch, but not personally experience. I am sure there are significant differences in cage design for low speed vs high speed applications though. Some different cage applications would be MRAP design and indy car design. need to protect the occupants, be strong but not allow transfer of energy to the occupants. A slow speed rollover is not the same though.

 

Ok,
I really want a rear mount tank with a 15 or 20 gallon capacity. I also want to get rid of the undersea tank only because I want more fuel capacity and i also want to lower the level of my seat. Right now i have to look over the windshield to see stop lights or look sideways through it to see them.

The numbers i get for the dimensions of a 15 gallon tank are 25-1/4 X 18-1/4 X 10-7/8. My present frame rails are approximately 25 3/4 inside, so I can fit that tank in there without having to make the rails wider at the back. Straight shot front to back. easy.

Anybody got any pics of how they mounted their tank in the frame rails? Terry?

 

Just wondering how you would know when that "extreme" crash may happen? The Idea of a cage "Is" to add rigidity to the chassis and keep the Occupant's compartment safe and together during an accident or event, this would include trying to deflect outside penetrating forces. A cage detached from the structure would be far more catastrophic since the occupants would now be far more exposed notwithstanding the seating and restraint's would also more than likely attached to that same structure.

I have personally been over several time's in a Jeep with just a slow roll that did not generate much crash energy. If the Jeep rolled over several more times and picked up speed the outcome would have been far different , as would be getting hit by another vehicle that would then generate the crash energy.

Not trying to sell anyone on safety, pick your own level........

 

I am not sure that rigidity is the answer for crash survivability. New vehicles use sacrificial crush areas and energy absorbing material to keep the energy generated in a crash away from the occupants. The cage can actually detach in a bad crash and relieve the occupants of kinetic energy of engines and transmissions, differentials etc.. The older cars with more steel and more rigidity have been shown to be significantly less safe than their modern smaller lighter counterparts. We have all seen the catastrophic race car crashes of recent where the care basically explodes AROUND the safety cage and the driver walks away or has light injuries. who really wants to be attached to several hundred pounds of steel?

All that being said, i am not certain that this pertains to the engineering of a 60 plus year old vehicle. there are inherent dangers in the design that aren't going to be overcome. The answer to that question is to drive a volvo or Mercedes or really any modern car. Any cage or safety system will only be as good as the design was, really over 70 years ago.

I actually don't really care about the differences or points of view about frame mounted vs body mounted cages as this is not the scope of my present project. Right now I just want to build a frame to replace my junk one now with a rear mounted gas tank.