Long Jeep.....chasing unicorns

[MotoDave]

Nissan xterra is another option for a fold down front seat
http://www.nissanusa.com/content/da...a/colors-photos/interior-photos/003-large.jpg

 

[jscusmcvet]

Like all of your projects this should be interesting. I have a 2006 Rubicon Unlimited and it is close to the perfect size for a vehicle that can drive the 500 miles to Moab in comfort and then wheel with the best of them if you are so inclined. While I have a cargo/sleeping platform in mine I haven't really ever thought about deploying the sleeper without exiting the Jeep. I can see where this could be an advantage so I went out and tried it out. It's easy to reach over and flip the front passenger seat all the way forward and then climb into the back seat. With the front seat tipped forward there is lots of room to change clothes, cook dinner or just lounge out. When you are ready for bed the stock back seat folds flat, you can flip the deck pieces that store behind the seat forward, climb on the deck and flip the front extension forward. On the passenger side you get a 74 inch long bed that is 30 inch's wide between the factory roll bar and the edge of the drivers seat. Set up this way for a solo camper you can slide over to the drivers seat and drive away if need be. You have full access to the key, heater controls, radio and lights. It makes a very compact and light weight setup for solo travel and can also be used for two if you use a full width front extension. Looking forward to this build.

Great info here. Thanks for posting the measurements.

John

 

[wild1]

Metcalf, it's right at 7 feet to the center module of the dash and another three inch's or so directly in front of the passenger seat. I would think with a flat dash you would have about 90 inches front to back. The width of the rear deck runs 54 inch's and necks down to 48 at the factory roll bars. With a custom build you will have a lot of options on how to use this space but I think your idea of a mini camper is very practical. Because I generally tow my jeep behind my Superduty/Alaskan camper combo I haven't really tried the LJ out for any extended use but I did do a multi day 1000 mile hunting trip and it was very comfortable to sleep in down to 17 above. The photo I have is of how it was set up for that trip. The rear seat is out and these panels are too wide to store behind it but it will give you an idea of the amount of space available.

 

[Metcalf]

Nissan xterra is another option for a fold down front seat
http://www.nissanusa.com/content/da...a/colors-photos/interior-photos/003-large.jpg

Nice, thanks!

If anyone reading this thread has sat in these kinda of seats please let me know which ones are comfortable and which ones are not.

 

[Metcalf]

Metcalf, it's right at 7 feet to the center module of the dash and another three inch's or so directly in front of the passenger seat. I would think with a flat dash you would have about 90 inches front to back. The width of the rear deck runs 54 inch's and necks down to 48 at the factory roll bars. With a custom build you will have a lot of options on how to use this space but I think your idea of a mini camper is very practical. Because I generally tow my jeep behind my Superduty/Alaskan camper combo I haven't really tried the LJ out for any extended use but I did do a multi day 1000 mile hunting trip and it was very comfortable to sleep in down to 17 above. The photo I have is of how it was set up for that trip. The rear seat is out and these panels are too wide to store behind it but it will give you an idea of the amount of space available.

Thank you, it is great to see a picture to get an idea of scale. That sleeping platform makes me want to take a nap!

I taped off an area on the floor that was similar in dimensions. I think that will be plenty of area for me. I am not looking at sleeping on the floor but rather sleeping up on a platform like this. I am tossing around a few different ideas for the platform to make it as light as possible and modular. Still thinking...

 

[shmabs]

I'm a smaller guy at 5'7" and 125, but i loved the seats in my friends 2010 xterra. Seemed to be a nice durable material and sat up pretty high, which i liked, although that was probably more due to floor construction than the seat itself. He was a bigger guy at 6' and 220 and had nothing but good things to say.

Mike

 

[MrBeast]

Someone already posted my Jeep, but let me post it again :sombrero:

I love it for expo type stuff. I love it because it is about the opposite of everything you are considering!

Big v8?

Nope. "little" 4BT cummins. 90% of parts are a direct cross from the bigger 6BT cousin, has plenty of power, but still gets mid-low 20s on 37s. ALL mechanical, even a mechanical cutoff valve. I have already bump started it a couple times on dead batteries (finally found the short). Point it down hill, pop the clutch on a completely dead battery, let the alternator top off the batteries. I also feed it up to 20% WMO to keep the mosquitoes away and save on fuel costs.

Automagic?

Nope. Old school NV4500. Found it for cheaper than rebuilding the TH400, its got a granny gear and an overdrive.

Crawler gears?

Nope. Just a stock Jeep D300. With 4BT low end, NV4600 first and D300 low, I have not found too many situations I needed more gear. Might to 32 spl outputs, but without the 4.0to1 gears, I have not hurt a stock one yet.

Custom Axles?

Nope. Stone stock CUCV D60/14b. Open front/detroit rear. I might go with a big upgrade and swap in some 35 spline front outers, but with an open front I am not too worried. Detroit locked 14b is stout and pushes the truck through most everything.

Custom Suspension?

Nope. 44044s up front and chevy 62s in the rear with some Bilstien 5150s. I can replace suspension parts at any junkyard in the nation and it rides surprisingly well, and flexes surprisingly well too. Spending some decent money on shocks helped a lot. I have ORIs on a custom suspension under my play Jeep, so I know how good it could be, but for reliability and ease I really like my crappy stock leaf springs.

Custom Body?

Nope. Stock CJ-10 tub and just a slightly modified M101a1 trailer bed. Trailer bed was $100, I can afford to mash up a couple.

Besides the motor, which was an expensive money pit due to some APO issues, the Jeep was made of cheap castoff parts and thrown together easily. That also means most everything is cheaply and easily fixed. Like wheels and tires. Mounted H1 wheels and tires are cheap!!!

Here is the big reason I would not do a CJ/YJ/TJ body for any expo stuff. It is NARROW. if it is just you, that might be fine, but the M101 is much wider and you can easily sleep two and have some room for gear.

Plus with the true one ton running gear it tows like, well, a 1 ton truck. I even kept the stock 1 ton brakes and master cyl.

The cab is really not all that cramped for me. I was pleasantly surprised.

And want passengers not to feel left out in the pickup bed? Take the top off :flipoff2:

You know I have loved that thing for a long time, one thing I think would be super cool is a four wheel pop up camper to go in the back of it. I bet a toyota model would fit in that M105 bed just fine and dandy, and it would make camping out that much more comfortable.

Oh and before I move out of Houston I still need to get my butt over and see that thing in person, it is way too cool not to see before I get out of here.

 

[Metcalf]

Thinking for the day....

Rear Floor. One of the bonuses about going with an Aqualu tub is that I can change some things in the tub that would be a TOTAL pain in the rear to change on an OEM tub. One of the things that I have been thinking about changing is the width of the rear floor. The stock floor is right around 35-36" give or take. The TJ tubs being a little bit more of a molded/pressed shape than the older cj/yj tubs.

The basic idea is to make the floor about 40" wide ( adding about 4-5" ) so that I have the ability to lay a spare tire directly on the floor. Personally, I really don't like having the spare tire hanging off the back of the vehicle. In my opinion it has a pretty bad effect on weight distribution, rear visibility, etc. I know that having a spare tire, especially a 37-40" one laying on the floor takes up a lot of space BUT.......

What if you just carried the space tire, or perhaps carried the spare tire and wheel separately? If it wasn't a complete unit you could use the volume of the tire ( a lot in this case ) for storage. Everything that goes in the tire would have to fit through the wheel sized (17" ) opening but I don't think that should be THAT big of a hindrance. You could use soft storage bags easy enough.

I know this is an unconventional idea but it opens up a LOT of storage space while having great weight distribution.

For me swapping a tire onto a rim isn't a big deal in the field.

I question needing a spare rim. Personally in 20+ years of wheeling now I have never damaged a rim beyond using. I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but if it did you might have much bigger issues. Trying to carry every spare part for every situation ever is just not practical in my opinion. There may be a situation where you just need to do something creative and inventive to get yourself out of a bind....

Just thinking out loud.

The downside to the wider floor will be rear shock placement. I will probably be running wider rear axles with more room between the tires, but it is still a concern on some of my rough layouts. I could make a pocket for the shock in the wheel tub to the outside width of the frame but that messes up the nice 40" wide rear floor I just designed in. The entire floor doesn't need to be 40" wide. The tailgate will be narrower anyways so it would just be finding a good position for the shock pockets so the tire could still fit on the floor.

 

[Metcalf]

Oh the little things.....

I am going to try and document a lot of the little ideas I see, modify, or have for this build PRIOR to building so that I can paint a more complete picture of the build. I think a lot of builds are totally made on the details. You learn a lot of things when you do complete builds from the frame up. I know I learned a LOT on my latest Willys build!

Some detail stuff.

-Having the rear shocks mount behind the air bags will help with the off-road sandblasting effect you get with chunky tires. I have seen more than one picture of some KOH cars lately on pirate and facebook where the rear shock body/shafts where basically destroyed after just a few hours of running. If I spend good money on shocks I don't want them destroyed! Also, if I run them behind the air bags if I decide to make a pocket in the tub because of the wider floor the obtrusion will be fairly close to the tailgate area where it is going to narrow back down anyways. The downside to mounting the shocks in this position will be that the lower mounting point and shaft could take a hit from backing into a rock. Keeping the shock close to the tire and up out of the way will help with this.

-Engine mounting cradle. On my Willys I welded in the motor mount towers, this was a mistake in the service area. It would be a LOT easier to slide the engine directly forward off the transmission if the motor could go directly forward. The starter and drivers side down pipe basically hit the motor mount towers. In this car I think I will have the entire engine mount be a subframe. It will bolt to the inside of the frame through sleeves in the frame. The bolts can be run from the outside in to make access easier. I could even flush the heads like I did on my steering box mounts on the Willys. This way to drop the cradle out of the chassis if you need to you just hit the mounting bolts from the outside with an impact and drop the cradle out the bottom off or pull it with the engine. The cradle will also extend under the oil pan to tie both sides together and provide a mount for the belly skidplate over the oil pan.

-Transfer case mounting. Basically the same as the above. An easy to remove subframe. Depending on the width of the engine perhaps it would even be possible to unbolt the engine and transmission subframe and drop the entire assembly out the bottom of the chassis?

-The belly skidplate will be separate from any crossmembers. It is really nice to be able to drop the skid and get more room to work on things without having to support the entire transmission and transfer case. The YJ/TJ sucked from the factory in that regard. I hope I can get eveything flat enough that the belly skidplate can be a super simple flat piece of aluminum. I'm not really looking to cover the entire belly, but being able to cover the engine oil pan and transmission oil pan would be good. Maybe kick the ends slightly in a brake to help from jamming the ends of the skidplate, especially the rear back by the transfer case, into something you are trying to slide off backwards.

 

[Bigjerm]

Some really good ideas! I like the cradle idea, the cross members and having the skid separate from the cross member. I have an LJ so I know exactly what you are talking about. As far as giving the upward bend in the belly skid, I suggest it. I have an undercover fab belly skid and they did that front/back and it does help for the times when you have to slide.

Another idea, small detail if you will. Figure out how to route your exhaust to have your muffler protected by the belly skid. I still have the stock exhaust on my LJ and the muffler starts right after the belly skid. It has taken a few good licks and has some holes in it now.

 

[Metcalf]

Some really good ideas! I like the cradle idea, the cross members and having the skid separate from the cross member. I have an LJ so I know exactly what you are talking about. As far as giving the upward bend in the belly skid, I suggest it. I have an undercover fab belly skid and they did that front/back and it does help for the times when you have to slide.

Another idea, small detail if you will. Figure out how to route your exhaust to have your muffler protected by the belly skid. I still have the stock exhaust on my LJ and the muffler starts right after the belly skid. It has taken a few good licks and has some holes in it now.

Good idea. I'm thinking the exhaust is going to be a total pain in the rear pretty much no matter what. I will try and tuck the muffler up above the bottom of the frame. It is a fine line since the floor gets really hot if your get it too close, or you smash it with it too low. I will probably have to be working around a slightly narrower rear frame section and a triangulated rear suspension. FUN!

The exhaust on my Willys ended up being a total pain but is also tucked WAY up out of the way where you have a pretty dang hard time hitting it.

I hope with the custom tunnel I can REALLY get things tucked up in the chassis I would love if the belly skid was flush with the bottom of the frame or only 1-2" deeper. That kinda depends on the height of the frame in the belly section also. I am basically going to try and run the LS truck intake up till it just touches the hood with the engine at a 2-3 degree slope and go from there. I don't know how high I will be able to get the larger NP205 transfer case up under the seat before it becomes an issue. The ford np205 also has a weird bulge that I will have to deal with perhaps. I am hopping I can just leave it along and build the tunnel around it. Worst case I can shave it off and weld a plate over the opening.

 

[Metcalf]

Other misc stuff notes...mostly suspension related....

-one of the factors pushing me towards using a custom frame and Aqualu tub is the suspension. While the TJ/LJ suspension is actually pretty good in stock to near stock form in my opinion there are a few areas where I think it can be improved. I think with the heavier axles and large tires I would be pushing the stock suspension brackets WAY more than I would want on the frame side.

-As I mentioned before the rear suspension will likely use air bags for primary rear suspension. I think with the variety of loads on the rear half of the vehicle along with the other fun things you can do with even a simple manual control system it is worth pursuing.

-Get everything on the axle above the bottom of the axle tube. That is one thing that annoys me on the TJ. There is a LOT of stuff below the axle tube to get hung up on both front and rear. All the lower control arm mounts and shock mounts should be above the bottom of the axle tube.

-Conservative control arm lengths. I don't really buy into the super long control arm thing. If the control arm is sitting at a neutral level position at static ride height you do not need a super long control arm in my opinion. Something in the 24-28" range should work pretty dang well with a 12" stroke shock. I think the long control arms cause some interesting snag points on the frame, especially the front lower frame side mounts.

-3-link + panhard in front? I always thought the 4-link + panhard stock was geometrically constrained? The panhard with the D60 and the Dodge steering arm position will be interesting. I think I will have to go to a forward mounted design ahead of the steering. Since the steering box position and type is open this lets me entertain a few other options for panhard rod placement and shape. The lower links will be simple straight links conservative in length with simple mounts. The upper link will probably end up on the passenger side opposite the driveshaft for a little more room. The upper mount will be a small tower on the axle and the frame side mount will probably use a vertical positioned joint with a little adjustability built into the mount. Hopefully this way I can dial in/out some characteristics in the front suspension good of bad.

-4-link with triangulated uppers in the rear? This is fairly conventional these days. I think I will move the lower arm frame side mounts to the outside of the frame up out of the way. This should eliminate the common TJ/LJ snag point on the rear suspension. The uppers are going to be triangulated at the axle. I would like to try a vertical joint position with the truss formed around the diff a little tight to allow the maximum uptravel before the triangulated links start getting into the rear floor. Simple things like not having a floor brace or crossmember directly above the axle should help get another inch or two of compression travel. On the LJ tub, and Aqualu version, the step the floor with the longer rear floor creates a nice little pocket for the frame side upper link mount to sit directly on top of the frame.

-I think I will limit myself to 12" travel shocks. That should be more than enough for a full body vehicle like this. With the rear wheel tubs raised I should be able to run the stocks straight up and down for best performance. I am thinking something kinda middle of the road like a Fox 2.0 shock? I can get a 12" version with the 7/8" shaft in both a coilover for the front and a smoothy for the rear. They are rebuildable and custom valveable also. That will give me something fun to play with that is new. I just don't think I can swing and or justify something like 2.5s or 3.0s on this project.

-I would like all the suspension control arms to use the same size joints for common spares. I am thinking something rebuildable and greasable like a Currie johny joint. I don't think I want to run Heims or rod ends on this chassis?

-It would be nice if all the control arms are very similar in length so I can carry one common spare. The front Panhard is going to be different for sure. I don't know if I can get the geometry to work out that nice on everything else....

Fun Fun. Just trying to get some of my ideas down on 'paper' and give people reading the thread something to ponder...

 

[njtacoma]

Concerning the exhaust, you might consider changing the orientation of the muffler. I seem to recall a lot of cars with packaging problems have gone to a perpendicular muffler, perhaps across the back. Some ATV's do this as well.

I do have a question about axles. If you want heavy duty parts available off the shelf aren't you going to need to use full width 3/4 ton axles? Wagoneer or Scout axles are a little wider then standard CJ stuff, but not that much more heavy duty.

and if you go full width axles, aren't you really in the size/width of the CJ-10 regardless of what body you put on it?

If I missed a post that addresses this more in depth let me know.

Thanks

 

[gavan]

For axle width comparisons, the CJ-10 in the picture has a stock D60 Chevy front with a WMS of 69.5, but stock deeeeeep offset H1 wheels. The fenders are about as wide as a regular CJ/YJ/TJ, and the 37x12.5s are about half under them. Very manageable width, they are almost completely covered by the modified TJ rear flares. The CJ-7 has a full retard-custom Toy 8 based axle with a WMS of 68. The fenders are cut down a couple inches, but with zero (about) offset rims the 40x13.5s are almost completely outside the fender.

I have found more luck with a 14 inch shock, not much more work to fit in than a 12, but not as stinking huge as a 16. We have built a couple Jeeps recently with 14 inch coilovers or ORIs and they have turned out nicely.

Lets be realistic. With a 2.0 you will never go fast enough, long enough to sandblast your shocks. Especially with the added weight of a long Jeep. My little 7 weighs less than 4000 pounds, pretty darn good for a full off road Jeep. I have ORIs, which are not quite as efficient as coilovers, but they have huge size and piston size, and actually do pretty well. I would say they are somewhere between a 2.5 and a 3.0 in shock efficiency. I can run it around 40 mph for a long time and not have issues, but if I push it to 60 mph I can only get about 30 mins out of it before the shocks are HOT. Which is about the end of my talent anyways. I have never noticed shock wear from "sandblasting". My shocks are pretty tucked up on purpose, but I do nothing special.

On our 3600 pound rock buggy the 2.0 shocks would get hot and start to rise after 30 mins of just going 40 mph, and my friends 2.0 coilovers get smokin' hot after 30 mins at high speed with a 4600 pound rig. It needed 2.5 coilovers and 2.5 bypasses to get under control.

I guess where I am going is, with a full body long Jeep and a V8 with associated hardware to not break an axle every 20 mins you are going to be looking at 5500 pounds easy, loaded for a trip. 2.0s will fade much quicker than you can damage them with sand blasting! You would need minimum 2.5 coilovers with 2.5 shocks before you could get up any prolonged speed that is going to throw up enough stuff to wear your shocks.

Besides that, mid arm is great, three link is great, I prefer dual triangulated so your axle stays nice and centered. I would run nice cheap heims, same in all joints, and bring a handful of them.

I would also seriously consider full hydro. If you are worried bring a spare junkyard pump and some power steering fluid, but it flat out rocks.

 

[gavan]

Oh, and if you are going to cradle things, I would consider a full powertrain cradle, and design it to be pulled like the powerpack in a tank. A lot of the KOH damage I saw was engines breaking bellhousings, or transmissions ripping off transfercases. The seemed to be the result of a high speed roll. I kind of think if they are one solid unit with some soft(er) bushings mounting them to the frame you would not have the heavy components fighting each other in a wreck, and they would have a little bit of movement with bushings rather than tearing a bell or adapter.