XJ Custom Lift/Build thread

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original date of post: June-7-08

To read the original post, where some comments will begin to make more sense, check here: http://www.rockfrogs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2442&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Wohooo, the big day has come and gone. Actually in terms of making progress on the Jeep; is was a decidedly miserable day.

I got back from NE to get the loaner vehicle at 3:30, but my wifes friend went into labor so I was watching the kids all evening until about 6:30.

So without further delay. Here's the progress pics (I know that's all everyone wants to see anyway) from 6:30pm to 9pm today:

Getting a late start on a huge project sucks :evil:

Hey this is a good sign

I was so nervous that the brake lines would strip or bend like I've always experienced. Not this time PB Blaster rocks!!

Here's a new vs old spring perch comparison

I noticed what appears to be a height difference between the two......
Sure enough, about 3/8 - 1/2 difference

I noticed what apprears to be a slight bend in the main leaf. Surely due to the towing I may find myself upgrading to a RE (or OME) rear leaf pack in the future :idea:

I simply cut the ends off of the S-10 main leaf, which is to be bolted under the stock XJ main leaf. Can't tell in this pic, but I also smoothed the edges of the S-10 main leaf so they don't cut into the XJ main leaf.

Here's one completed Hybrid XJ/S-10 spring pack. I'm not cutting the center pin until I know my ride height is good.

Hybrid spring pack side bar:
For the Hybrid pack, most tend to use the Xj main, the S-10 Main, the S-10 second, the XJ third, and the S-10 overlaod.

I used the Xj main, the S-10 main, the S10 second, the S-10 third and the S-10 overload so I'm anticpating being a litter taller in the rear. I did it this way to compensate for a loaded rig while wheeling and camping. We'll see if it works.


So there it is. Axle is out and one spring pack is done (assuming I've picked the right combo of springs for the ride height I want).

My drill press could not get through the springs to open up the center pin hole :smt017 so once again I had to pull out the trusty Ryobi and once again it got the job done

I was planning on burning the midnight oil, but I think after today, I'd be better off getting a good nights sleep and cranking away at it tomorrow.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 8, 2008

I made a bit more progress today. Here's the proof....

Cut off old spring perches and smoothed the stock welds down

Set new perches in place (not welded yet)

Rear rear is all setup (again not welded yet) so that I can compare the height to the front and to make sure things are set once I make the control arms.

It's might be hard to tell in these pics, but the rear is higher for sure.

Moving along to the front now that the rear is mocked up.

These coils were SOOOOOO hard to install.

I'm really having trouble figuring out where to place the axle to measure for the control arms.

This isn't helping either.

A pretty good day so far. This evening will mostly be spent centering the front axle and working on the control arms.


Man am I glad I got a loaner car :smt115

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: May 2o, 2008 - A little out of sequence, sorry

Got some cool stuff today

Regarding this image; The casing of the joint is narrower than the 2"x2" control arm. So the only thing I can think to do is cut a
wedge out of the control arm to make it a bit narrower where it meets the join casing.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 9, 2008

Well I got started on the arms and so far things are looking OK. I did screw up both of my threaded tube inserts by welding them all the way around in one shot instead of doing a little at a time and letting them cool in between.

4 hrs and $40 later I have a new set and you can believe I'll be taking it slow with these ones.

Here are some progress pics:

The lower arms needed to be narrowed at the ends to fit the link ends I'm using.

Then beveled for welding

Then pressed and tack welded

Looking good for the smaller end....

And for the larger end. I will taper the ends a little more with the grinder.

Here are the inserts that I screwed up

Here are the new ones

Big thanks to Terry for letting me use is press and welder to get the ends narrowed.

Hopefully more progress to come soon.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 9, 2008

Well as I've been building these arms, I've been going back and forth on how to set them up. You may recall that my original plan was to recess them into the frame completely. Then I decided to change things up, since I felt that recessing them added a level of complexity that I didn't feel was necessary. So I decided that I would recess them just enough so that I can bolt and unbolt them from a point below the frame (uni-rail)

Well, now that that I have them mocked up, and comparing how low they hang in relation to my skid, and where the fall in relation to the center of the frame; I'm thinking I will just surface mount them. An added benefit to this is that if I land on the arms and skid down, they will transition the terra firma onto the skid plate as opposed to the skid plate becoming something to get hung up on. Like it currently is

Also, in the interest of safety I've decided NOT to mount the upper links to the lower links. At least not right away. For now I will mount the upper links as they are from the factory with my HD upper arms and high misallignment rod ends. I figure since this is a DD I'd like to not trust my life (and others on the road) just one mount (lower frame side) until I'm confident, after a bunch driving and wheeling, that it's going to be strong and last. We don't need another Roll Frog.

Anyway, here's progress pics from this afternoon....

So the first thing was to finish welding the seam from pressing the ends of the square tube down

Here's the small end (axle side) being test fitted

Now the large end (frame side)

Notice the bevel at the end and arm joint. Also, notice that my clearances came out pretty well for grinder coping.

Here's the arms tackwelded so I could test fit and see if I needed to shorten them

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 9, 2008

So after I test fitted the arms I did the finish welding. This took me hours since I was afraid to screw up the threads.

They still thread good

I love that these are greasable

Never thought I'd get this far after the way things were going last night....

Before I could mock up the lower arms again I had to cut the stock mounts

Nothing fancy here, just cutting enough to make room. Hey, it's not a show car :roll:

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 9, 2008

So here they are so far.

Obviously the angle will be better once the axle can carry the vehicle weight

Grade 8 hardware

I will also need to make a skid for the lower arm bracket. Not the best place for the grease zerk

This shot shows where the arm lands in relation to the "frame" The jack stand is placed directly below the center of the frame.

This was also a deciding factor in how to mount the arms on the frame end.

Well tomorrow it's back to real work, so progress will be much slower I suspect.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 10, 2008

Got the new tube inserts welded and WORKING!! (well that was actually yesterday)

Tonight I started to make the axle end, of the upper control arms. Here's a few shots of that. These will be welded to the ends of the upper arms sort of like the RE arms below

I plan to cap the top of these also, just for a little extra strength :twisted:

I'm going to need to cut my upper control arms down a bit. I knew they would be long, so this comes as no surprise to me. I'm planning on making them 1/2" longer than stock just because Keeping them stock length seems stupid to me :shrug:

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 14, 2008

Sorry for the delay guys. The Grandparents unexpectedly arrived in town last Wednesday and stayed until Friday and today was my daughters first real play at the Arvada Center. It was awsome. Also today was her 7th Birthday, so needless to say I was busy today.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all just itchin' to see the next installment so here it is......8pm -to- 10pm tonight.....

I didn't really like the fact that the control arm mounts were going to need to be halfway inboard on the "frame" so I decided to do something about it....

In the picture below, if it looks to you like the arm on the right has less of a bend...well, it does. I did correct that before final welding. :idea:

I'm REALLY happy with these welds

Now the control arm mounts are completely "on" or "under" the frame instead of halfway off of it. I'm much happier and it makes fabricating the mounts MUCH easier.


In other news:

I do have the frame side, lower control arm mounts cut, drilled, test fitted and mocked up; but I can't take a pic of them until I can reinforce parts of the "frame" and tack weld them into place for test fitting.

I believe that tomorrow I will have the front upper and lower control arms all completed

Then it's on to the SYE.....

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

OK here's an update of the new LCA mounts.

It occured to me that I never did a side -by- side with the old arms.

Cut the old mounts off and cleaned up the "frame" area in preperation for the new setup.

I left some of the uni-rail reinforcement on as well

Then after getting a few numbers crunched I realized that 3/16"x3"x4" square tubing has an approxomate inside dimension of 2-5/8" which comes out to 2.625"

My Ballistic Joints are 2.63" wide...seems like a match made in heaven.

So after a bit of this....

I ended up with this.....

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

A little trimming off the bottom and you end up with this....

Up against the frame it looks like this...

I can already tell this is going to work better.

So today after work I went over to Terry's and did a bit of this....

I wan't able to do both 90* bends like I was afraid of, but at least this setup minimizes the number of welds I will need to do
Original post date: June 20, 2008


So here's the start of the "Frame Strap" as I'm calling it.

It will bolt through the frame at the two "peaks" and then I will get a longer 5/8" (that's .625") LCA bolt to run through this as well as the back side that I will be making to match this.

Since I will be bench welding these "frame straps" and not welding them upside down on the vehicle, I'm very confident that I can make them strong enough to handle my wheeling style.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 22, 2008

Well after measuring for the 100th time, I finally burned in my new LCA mounts.

Not as nice as Ryan's, but again, I'm using flux core wire which is rarely pretty.

Here is the basically what the outter side of the "frame straps" is going to look like. Now that they're tack welded I can finish weld them on the workbench.

I think it's pretty clear to see where the bolt holes will be. There will be a total of 3: Two at the top trough the stiffeners & frame and one through the LCA joint.

Next is to create the inner side of the "frame strap" drill my holes and then creat the mounts for the UCA's to the LCA's and I can get on with the rest of my mods for the lift.

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 23, 2008

All right, I've got the outter straps done.

I added some reinforcement for lateral support below the uni rail.

I didn't get a shot of it on these, but the two pieces to intersect like a 'T' so I have welds on both sides of that area on each.

I also got started on the inner straps.

Here you can see the 'T' intersection that they all have. It's not much, but I figured much more than a weld bead would be uncessesary.

Here's a sample of some of the welds.

So I need to move all of the lines/hoses that run across the driver side of the uni-rail and then get that side done. Then it's time to drill the last holes and get working on mounting the UCA's to the LCA's

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 29, 2008

Here is the shot of the completed frame bracket setup.

You'll notice that they are only grade 5 bolts, the ACE in Brighton didn't have long enough grade 8 bolts, so grade 5 it is; at least for now.

I used the ratchet straps to set the pinion angle with 95% of the vehicles front end weight on the front axle. Here's where it sits:

It became apparent right away that the deisgn on the UCA's the way they were wouldn't work in the y-link configuration

So I made some new axle side brackets. I like the way these turned out much better than the first set also.....BONUS

 

[Backwoods Rambler]

Original post date: June 29, 2008

With the y-link setup I needed to angle the UCA's sharply which required an angled cut on the end of the arms

I simply did this with a grinder so I could "fine tune" the angle. I think it worked out quite well

Here's an early mock-up

Next up was fabbing the LCA end of the UCA mounts. Simple, but effective triangle mounts.

Drilling with PB blaster as a lube and penetrating fluid is fun