Varg In Jeep's Clothing

Pie cutting pipe for fun? Now I know you have jeepitis bad. Looks awesome

 

The remedy is worse than the disease.

 

Looks awesome!

 

Looks great, your putting the ones I just did on mine to shame!

 

My least favorite thing is cutting out little, insignificant tabs and gussets. My second-least favorite thing is making "the other side" of a set of parts perfectly match "the first side."

I've been dreading the driver's side spring/shock mount because it involves both of those things. After much procrastination, all the pieces were cut and they're both tacked in place.

My nemesis:


And in case you're wondering, the flat pad next to the coil spring under the frame is a landing pad for the bump stop.


Next up are the upper spring mounts. These may take weeks (or months depending on my work schedule), for I'm planning a mount design that is height-adjustable .

 

Yes! replicating parts is a huge pain, when will personal water-jet machines be affordable already!

 

I just spent a few hours laying in the mud at Pull and Save making a pretty good score. I got a flywheel, a fairly new Sachs pressure plate and matching Sachs clutch disc, a clutch cable, and a different distributor (to move my distributor to the 'older' location, so I won't have to mess with my firewall), all for $45.



I was pulling trunk carpet out of every car around me to cover the mud. I still got soaked.



The car next to this one has a transmission I really want, but there is a deep lake under that one.

I have an "out-of-the-box" idea for my steering box location. Stay tuned. Hopefully I'll have time to get back on this soon.

 

So one day last week I made a run to the yard and picked up an Astro van pitman arm. This is the one piece I need to be able to mount my steering box, complete my frame rails, and build my upper spring mounts. It all depends where the pitman arm will put my steering box.

I filed new grooves in the splines to be able to clock it to center, and I reamed the taper to run the TRE on the top side. I set it up on the bench to do a test spin, and...



NOOOOOOOO! It spins the wrong way!! This great deal I got on CL was cursed!! How could I not have checked the direction when I bought it??

But... This got me thinking. Spin the pitman arm around, throw the box in there and see if it fits.

I like it.



Tolerances are going to be extremely tight, but everything should clear with a little wiggle room to spare. Between this and the coil suspension, there will be absolutely zero stress on my frame horns (until I put a winch up there).

That casting I was asking about in that other thread needed to be removed to clear the grill.

Speaking of the grill, I was trying my hardest to avoid chopping up the grill, but it's going under the knife. The "hack-job" way to make this work would be to just notch the grill around the box. Instead, I'm going to cut 1 3/8" out of the grill slats and move the bottom up to make the entire bottom flat. I'll cut the scribed sections and move the center section up while keeping the bottom reveal the same. Hopefully only a trained eye will notice.



This will kill two birds with one stone. Clear the steering box, and... My front frame horns will be getting lifted up around 2" higher to clear suspension components, so with this mod, the grill won't look like it is hanging down in the frame like a buck tooth.

I should have some time to work on this for the next few days.

 

No turning back now.

 

Freaking awesome! The steering gear was from an Astrovan? Good find, from what I understand they're impossible to find, since I was looking for the flat pitman arm and couldn't find any.

 

Thanks!
I have no clue what the box is from. It's freshly remanufactured (in box) and was on CL for $60 I think. I only checked how many rotations... it never occurred to me to check direction. Duh. The Astro van pitman arm was $6 at Pull and Save. It was not fun removing.

 

I got the 1/8" plate fabbed to support the arched frame section last night. I have a bunch of other welding to do before I can make it permenant.



I'm currently working on the sleeves I'm going to use to mount the steering box. Really wishing I had a lathe.


Give me some input on a front bumper. Keep it stock-looking and simple?
Narrow or wide?
A basic single hoop on top?
39 pieces of plate welded to form art like the rear?

 

I'm a huge fan of a simple tube (2x3 or 2x4) in a narrow width. I think it just looks the best. Mines only 36" and I think I could have made it narrower.

 

I've got to be honest, the last few days with this thing has made my brain hurt. Getting everything in the perfect place without interference at full flex or full stuff while going through the entire steering sweep has been a real headache, but I finally got it.

The pivot-to-pivot lengths of the track bar and drag link are within 1/2" of each other, and they are on a nearly identical horizontal plane. Handling should be superb with zero bump-steer.

For the steering box mounts I went with 1" roundstock with the top mounts laying on the frame, and the bottom ones recessed through it. Everything is just tacked in place for now.

Here are the tolerances with the frame resting on the axle.



Normal ride height...

 

Holy amazeballs!!!!!!!

 

Ahah i know what you're talking about with the brain hurt, coil spring is definitly something you have to think twice, way more geometry than a leaf spring set-up.

Did you check the distance between the trac bar and drag link when turning at full lock. With normal pitman arm (on jeep cj) when turning both get away each other, but with you're pitman arm mounted backward the drag link and trac bar will get closer together. I'm just finished to relocalise my ram assist and i was having this issu and i had a hard time to make everything work.

 

Yup. The closest anything comes is the shock mount bolt to the tie rod end at full lock left. If it becomes a problem, I'll grab an offset TRE.

Locked left:



Locked right:

 

Welding is done. Next up is coil spring mounts, and this thing will be sitting on its own... without help! Can't wait!!