2X4 frame for my CJ2A

Made a flange out of some scrap to hold the bottom of the column to the floor. Welded it on.

Its painted and temporally/permanently installed. Seat is bolted in. Pedals, steering wheel and shifter seem to be in the correct position. No accelerator pedal yet.

 

Hooked up the steering linkage today. Getting real lazy and didn't want to push the jeep out of the tent, so I drove it out. Going to make accelerator linkage. I would like to do a preliminary spin around the block. No brake lights, turn signals or headlights will be installed. Might be premature....

 

Finished the accelerator linkage, put the other fender on and drove it out of my yard. Yeah, I drove it around the block about 6 times. Its a dog. It goes fine but its low on power. I haven't tuned it, no vacuum gauge, preliminary timing setting just to run, so that might be it.

Cooling is right where it needs to be. 180 driving around ,200 sitting then dropping to 195 when the fan kicks on.

The power brakes are amazing. Worth every single second I put into it. Its very much modern in the braking characteristics. This part of the project has obliterated all the issues I had before. The hydraulic clutch is set to far up to the top for me, but is probably perfect for most hydraulic setups. Steering is as good as I can expect out of a jeep on 4" lift springs.

Shifting and transmission seem to function as they should. I did get one grind going from 2nd to third and out of habit double clutch 3rd to 4th. Funny how muscle memory just over rides everything.

For regular road driving the suspension is much much better than the old setup, but there is a significant problem.....


this is drivers side rear

There was not this much angle before I inverted (i don't know if inversion is the correct term as the spring did not ben in on itself but out and flipped the shackle upward) this spring backing up over a curb. Yeah, I inverted(?) the spring. There is now also much less rebound. I don't see any bent leaves, but I have a real problem I will need to fix. It probably involves dropping the tank. You guys tell me.

The lift block is in there it allow the differential housing and the gas tank clearance. The front spring mount in the rear cannot move forward or back due to these clearance issues.

You guys told m that I could remedy some of this issue with longer shackles and or stops. I am thinking that I will need to cut off this mount and place it further back. Its fully welded....

 

As it sits this evening.

Windshield is a shade different front the body.

 

Awesome stuff. It must feel great to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Longer shackles would definitely help, but would also lift your rear end half of the height of the added shackle length, and would be just a partial band-aid to the real issue. You might have to bite the bullet and move the rear mounts rearward ~1".

 

Just a thought, to enable you to keep your spacers where they are...
What if you bought another set of front shackle mounts (teardrop shaped) and used them in place of the rear shackle mounts (pyramid shaped)? That might give you the needed offset without having to drop the tank to move your spacer blocks?

Edit:I just saw how low your tank hangs, it looks like it may have to come out regardless.

 

Thank you for your advice.

Yes it does feel good to get towards the end of this project. Its a bit of an obsession and I will be glad to move on to driving it. Really all that left is detail work, aside from my obvious suspension issue.

The tank is going to need to come out. I am going to need to cut off and re weld the rear shackle mount at least 1" back and get longer shackles both front and rear. I do need to figure out why the drivers side rear spring sags 1.5 inches more than the passenger side. I may need to buy a new spring or 2. They aren't too terribly expensive if you only buy the spring itself.

Whats strange is that I put like 600lbs of weight on the rear of this frame in setup and me in addition to that to make this happen. All i did to make it happen now was back over a curb.

Is pretty amazing how much better the same springs ride and over all ride quality has improved with the new frame. Just need to dial it all in.

 

I'm looking at that and wondering what is wrong with that set-up..........shackle angle looks fine.........you say it inverted up in the rear collapsing the end of the shackle up towards the rear frame? Is that correct?............and you did that backing up into a curb?............and How much arc was in those springs to start? Is that a stock length spring?

What did it look like before this happened?

 

Terry, Thanks for posting.

These springs are regular 4" lift springs from a wrangler. Not longer or anything special. When I put it all together I made sure I put several hundred pounds of sand to make sure I got the angle in the ballpark. With 600lbs and my 200lbs literally jumping on the frame i got the shackle to collapse outward like it happened today just backing up on a curb pulling the front wheels over it. (its how i get into my yard, no curb cut).

I think I may need more articulation in the shackle and to attain that, I think, the shackles will need to be longer. Before I cut anything off I will get rid of these stock 4" wrangler shackles and install new 6" ones on all 4 corners. If that doesnt solve it I will cut off shackle mounts and reweld i guess. Bought ones from Chassis Unlimited.

Gotta tell you that the springs really settled a lot after driving the jeep around. They aren't new. I probably have 10 degrees more shackle angle. They shouldn't have had this much settling and surely one should not rebound less than another.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to have awesome brakes.

 

Do you know the history of the springs? Since you said they aren't new settling with different loads is not uncommon.

 

Help! So Let me get this straight...............you were backing over a curb with the rear wheels going over first ? and is it the front or rear axle that had the shackle invert?

 

Keep in mind that articulation will have double the pressure on one spring over the same weight being applied to both.

Your plan sounds perfect to me!

 

All I know is that i bought the whole set from a guy with a wrangler and a 4 cylinder. He wanted big tires, but had real high gearing and couldn't turn those ties. I used them on my old frame and they seemed to work ok. This never happened. I have done this same method of being my jeep in my yard 100 times with none of this.

Yes, I was backing over a curb and this happened on the rear spring. All I can think is that when the rear tires were pulling the front over the curb, the rear suspension squatted and over extended the shackles outward.

I have obviously done something in my set up wrong. Shackle mount and spring mount too close together, not long enough shackle or the need for a stop so that the shackle cannot do this funny trick. I am concerned by the springs settling so much, especially the one that rides lower than the other now. I will look more closely for a broken leaf tomorrow.

Thanks guys.

 

So your backing up and you start to climb over the curb.........the torque of the motor and low reverse gear would point the pinion down under load which would attempt to rotate the housing counter-clockwise causing the spring to extend re-ward.......and with no place to go it collapses the shackle up against the frame? So are your springs flexy enough for that to take place?

Did you not offset that hanger from the center bolt? I think at one time we also talked about using a longer axle hanger that would help to keep the springs / axle from rotating?

Hey............... I'm just thinking out loud so help me out?

 

Terry, Thanks for giving this some thought and thanks for helping ME out!

Apparently, my springs are now flexible enough to make something like this happen. When they were in this before, they were very rough riding and had little flex. Now they ride nice and soft, but obviously too soft. I can only surmise that when on my old frame they may have been mounted in a less than perfect manner and the frame was doing all the articulation. The lift kit came with angled spacers to elevate the pinion angle on the spring bolts through the center bolt. In order to put the axle mount one hole forward, it would hang off the front of this angled spacer. I can probably still do this.? maybe.

Thanks

 

Thank you, you're much too kind.

So, I travel for work and vacation and sometimes drive. I was thinking about all the places I have picked up parts. Tub, front axle, transmission, wheels and engine came from all different places in Maryland, Hood and one fender came from upstate New York. Windshield came from Ohio. Rear axle housing came from outside Harrisburg, PA. Flywheel came from Virginia as did the title......

There was no one jeep to rebuild, only parts from others leftover projects.

 

Your probably right about the fact that in your old setup you perhaps never moved the hangers farther apart to accommodate the longer mechanical spring length of the 4" lift springs.........and in your new build did you move the hangers farther apart than before?...........which is what they needed..........that now allows the spring to run flatter and make the ride much better.................in the picture in post #683 with the shackle angle at about 30 degrees +/- was the Jeep fully loaded then weight wise?

That angle in my eyes is OK.............you could extend that spacer back that was added for tank clearance thus acting much as if the frame was there to stop the shackle...........you could also use a boom-o-rang shackle back there also..........that is what most YJ guys had to do in the rear when they added lift springs to there stock frame............just some thoughts.

 

Terry, As always your advice is appreciated. I did move the hangers apart from where I had them before. I have gone out this morning and looked at my jeep, pulled it out of the plastic tent and its obvious that the drivers side rear spring is wrecked. It sags enough to make the right front sit higher. I looked at the spring and didnt see any obvious cracks, but I will be buying 2 new matched rear springs. The 6" shackles from chassis unlimited are on their way too.

I will be making a block to bolt behind the shackle to stop the shackle from over rotating.

on a completely different note I made a battery hold down out of some cherry scrap.


On my first 2A after I rebuilt it, I really wanted to drive it. I was sick of walking. no lie. I got in a hurry, bungee corded the battery down and drove off. Well, it fell over into the generator pulley and sprayed battery acid all over inside my engine. I got to work and fortunately had a hose to wash it out with. I then made the battery hold down out of steel. Well, it got lose and touched the positive terminal. I did catch it in time. The dumb things I have done over the years...

 

Sorry if this is mentioned above ... I read over the text between here and there quickly and I may have missed it.

There is precedent for adding steel to the frame to prevent the shackles from going over-center. I remember this from a CJ-5 Renegade prepared by Brian Chuchua for one of the Baja races (this was ca 1972). The objective was to build a car that a couple of journalists could drive to the finish of the race. To keep the fronts from going over-center when colliding with ledge and bending a spring, they welded something like 1/2'x1" bar extending down from the frame, parallel to the maximally extended shackle, so that the shackle could not go over-center. You could do the same, and I don't see any downside to this other than dropping the tank and that it might not look so nice. You could ramp it to see what your maximum extension should be.