Seabee M38A1 Build

Nevada..........east of Gerlach?

 

Yup... We went north on the lake bed towards Soldier Meadows...

 

That's an interesting place........do you do the Burning Man?

 

Nooooo more like Anti-Burning Man... I have no desire to go hang out with a bunch of hippies...

 

Looks like an awesome trip, it is good to blow the months jeep budget on other things every once in a while.

 

Well I'm done with graveyards... Hopefully for the rest of my career... I picked a used Supertrapp the other day. Not bad for 50 bux. These things are 300 new. I've always wanted to try one...



It's not perfect, but its just gonna be doing under the Jeep and drug through rocks and trails...

 

Today I pushed her outta the shop to sweep the floor and clean up a little... It was nice just to hang out and figger out my next move... Looks like I was in the middle of rebuilding the transmission tunnel cover and mounting the steering column and mounting seats and...

 

Always nice to get it rolling around again...........Looks like your making some headway .........keep up the good work!

 

A buddy surprised me the other day...


He was cruising another wrecking yard and found an old M880. I guess the truck was pretty much toast, except this little nugget. He pulled it out and even supplied some heat shrink tubing...

 

I want one of those switches because they are so cool.

 

I'm gonna have to figger out how to wire in now!

 

I have some of that info...

Military Vehicles: M-Series Light Switch

 

Right on!! Thanks!! I love this forum...

 

I gotta box full of shock mounts this afternoon... Maybe this weekend I will get a chance to work on this...

 

I managed to get one side mocked in place...
I need to cap the tubing ends... The main hoop is welded in because that's pretty much the only place it fits...

There is a little more than 3 inches between the tire and the shock, and 2.5 inches between the tub and the shock.

The lower shock mounts are pretty cool... RuffStuff makes pretty tough parts... I plan to do the other side tomorrow and articulate the suspension with the engine hoist to make sure everything clears. Thanks for checking it out. Laters

 

Well I managed to get the drivers side put together today
One little bracket fell right in the way and needed to be modified.

It was bigger with two rivets on each side. I ground down the lower rivets and cut the bracket at an angle on each side. It supports the front of the rear seat mount and the body, so I figgered it was worth it to keep it around...

Boom! All good!

 

So I jacked up the rear tire to check all the clearances...
Full stuff here ^^^

31 inches under the tire...

At full stuff, the tire is just touching the shock body... I have another set of tabs that I can use to pull the top in...

Sorry this shot is blurry... There is still plenty of room between the shaft and the tub to allow the shock to move in some...
Nothing on the axle is permanently welded on, I still need to set the final pinion angle so I don't want to make a bunch of work later to redo all of that...

 

So now I can fit the bump stops...
Driver's side front at full stuff...


Passenger side front stretching out... Both the left rear and right front never left the ground. Those YJ springs flex pretty good! Thanks for checking it out. Laters.

 

That must feel good.

Any concern with the shock hoops putting too much stress on the frame at the point where they're connected? Do you have and gussets/load distribution planned?

All good stuff. Love this build.

 

Thank you, I'm thinking about putting a couple pieces of tube from the top of the hoop to the bottom side of the roll cage feet...