Varg In Jeep's Clothing

Thanks tripilio. My MIG is a Thermal Arc 210. Thermal Arc was the welding division of Thermal Dynamics, the makers of Tweco MIG guns and Victor cutting torches. The whole company was absorbed by Esab a few years ago, so my machine has become a bit obsolete, but it has never given me one ounce of trouble.

I was sold when I saw this unit came with a 15' 400 amp tweco gun, which is sorta the industry standard on the high-amp machines.

 

When I grow up, I want to get me one like that!

 

Behind the scenes...

I knew the rear bars were going to be really hard to visually follow the same plane as the top bars, match the angle of the short supports in the middle, then fall dead center on the small rear mounting plates.

I cut a few 1 3/4" wide strips of plywood I hot-glued one strip vertically to the rear plate, then I cut a funky piece I could clamp to the top bar to follow that plane. After those two were in place, I just clamped another strip of wood at the angle I wanted.



I screwed the pieces together, removed the clamps, then took it over to the bench and traced the outline. Using my cheater section of tubing, I could establish the length of material I needed and my bend points.

And another trick I use when I can... when I need to duplicate a cope, I'll wrap the first cope in cereal box cardboard, tape it, use a hammer to tap around the edge to cut it at the edge, then slide it off and slide it on the new piece to trace it.

 

I have a stack of cereal boxes I save for pattern making. Comforting to know I'm not the only packrat! Cardboard and wood scraps are cheap, A guy can hack away for a long time if needed to get the shape we want.

 

THE most dreaded part of every jeep build (IMO) is behind me! Three solid days of making tiny pieces, fitting, guessing, holding levels in odd positions... and the seat mounts are tacked together!


Using seats from a car is always a pain, because every mounting tab is in a different spot and in a different angle; there is no consistency. I had to relocate two of the mounts to get these seats to fit.

I started with the last two sections of 1 3/4" tubing I had left to make these final cage pieces that should make it nearly impossible to compress the cage enough to remove it. In hindsight, I'm thinking I should have made them removable. Still might. At least removable sections in the middle.



Then I spent forever making these little pucks. The mounts on these seats have little locator rings that seat inside a recess; I had to make that recess, X8. It's a 1" long section of tubing with a washer on top and a 'coin' of 1/8" plate under it with a bolt welded in it.



Then cut them at an angle.



After much struggle and installing/removing the seats 10,000 times, I got all the cups tacked in place and could move onto the gussets.



I have a ton of shaping to do on these with a grinder before I can weld them up, but there's enough there to work with.

The camera optics made the main hoop look really weird in this shot. I promise it doesn't look that wonky.



If I move the seat forward a few clicks, there is a fair amount of recline.

 

Impressive and inspiring as usual! I feel better about the ridiculous amount of time I spend fabbing stuff for my rig. I told my wife "If I didn't enjoy this, it would be torture!"

 

From which car did you get the seats?

 

Nice! We have plenty of those around here. Good info!

 

It’s Binky 2.0

 

Your skills continue to amaze and impress me.

 

X2

 

ITLKSEZ,
I am glad that you live on one end of the USA and me on the other, because hopefully, maybe, you will never see my Jeeps and laugh at my fab skills. Compared to your ability, I am still in kindergarten. Great job

 

Thanks guys. If I keep plugging away at this, maybe someday I'll get to drive it.

I've started on the rear shock mounts as I get time. Much more work to do on them.



And I got a grinder bite. I've done this so many times, there are no nerves left in this area. It's just scar in scar on scar.

 

Your rear shocks will mount vertically with a stud on top right? My wheels are turning for the future of my project.......

 

Yup. I'm a big fan of the (top) stud-mount style shocks. The tops see very little movement, so flexibility/rotation isn't as critical as the lower mounts, and you can dial in the stiffness of the bushing by how tight you crank the nut.

 

Rear shock mounts are done, but I think I'm going to wait to weld them on until I get the other axle in place.

 

Not sure how I feel about you giving us the finger in the second photo, but I went ahead a liked it anyway...high likelihood I deserve it for something I have done...recently

 

If I recall reading correctly this was to get some ice cream with the kids....
I live in Maine and we have wicked frost heaves during the winter so the roads...suck. You must either have some crazy speed bumps out there OR this is a now a “ line mtn Jeep” in “ street Jeep” clothes...

As always... looking awesome. Too bad we didn’t take a picture of you welding a tin foil fuel tank with a stick welder 20 years ago...