The Jeep "things"... One and two.

[jeepdreamer]

Bump

Something hopefully a lil more fun.

Here is where I apply almost full blame towards Reece01 and his magnificent bumper design/build on his grand cherk project "S.H.T.F". His super clean and well executed bumper build gave my creative juices a jump start. If your reading this and haven't seen his build, Do so! Amazing!
And while both his and my Jeeps share the "no frame" design...and the general designs and construction share similarities...His is what I can only hope to come close to. With that in mind...Here is where mine has gotten to as of yesterday. My build is much slower and I'm partly working with less desirable tools. I should have followed his tactic and made the design and taken the rough shapes to be cut for me. But getting that done here in Germany would be somewhat difficult and would probably drive my cost beyond budget. So in a hard headed effort to move forward I broke out my poor little 4 1/2" angle grinder and a few PACKS of cut off wheels! This is going to be painful but its what I got. If my plasma cutter would magically start working...now would be a good time. But since its not wanting to play... this will be slow.
I started by opening the rear "frame" area up to expose the inside. I was a little surprised that they were fairly rust free, especially considering the condition of much of the rest of the Jeep! I then took the 2x4x 3/16s rectangle tubing I bought by mistake for the rockers and started laying them out for stringers (not sure what else to call them?) to fit inside the frame. The drivers side has the gas filler tube running right in the way and the passengers side has some odd bumps and plates of its own. That makes it not really a simple to slide in project but more a pure custom, cut to fit kinda deal.
As you may notice in the pictures I actually have two sets of these made up. The idea was to build duplicates of the major parts so one could go on each Jeep. This only works to a point as the two XJs are different years with a mild body change between the years. I will still end up building both bumpers but I think the one pictured here will stay on the 91. It will be a learning curve and hopefully the second will be a little less...rough? There is a lot of work in just those 4 brackets that you have to look at to realize. I got a little lucky and my factory nut strips were still intact. These are a little notorious for disintegrating over time and since they do basically the same thing as the tubing, though FAR less stout, I was able to use them for references. The left one was to mark the right side and vice-versa. All cut outs made and holes drilled correctly in the maximum spots, nuts welded inside the tubing, and all ready to pull a house! Next step is the design and fleshing out of the bumper itself.

 

[jeepdreamer]

Intent...

Scrounging for swag.

And here is the lynch pin of the swing out tire carrier. I found this being thrown away in the recycle center dumpster and salvaged it. Its far to heavy as is so I will be cutting a lot of the fat and using only the parts I truly need. Stay tuned... Tomorrow is more fun time.

 

[SquareLJ]

Haha, I know where that carrier came from. I've thought the same thing when I was playing with one of ours. Btw, you have far more patience for this thing then I do. I would have written that thing off as scrap or a parts car. Good luck on all of it though.

 

[jeepdreamer]

Haha, I know where that carrier came from. I've thought the same thing when I was playing with one of ours. Btw, you have far more patience for this thing then I do. I would have written that thing off as scrap or a parts car. Good luck on all of it though.

I remember the first time I saw these mounted on the HMMWV and thought "what a great idea". The funny thing is almost every person I have ever seen with one of these on their vehicles has either not known or had huge issues figuring out how to work it. Haha! I was doing my weekly recon of the recycle center here on post looking for stuff and actually found this in the dumpster! I'm guessing that some unit either removed them from their vehicles or they had "extra" on their books and just tossed it. Our tax dollars at waste. So I crawled in the dumpster and rescued it..
Its FAR to heavy and complicated for a daily use Jeep IMHO. Maybe if you had a dedicated trail rig with 40+" tires it would be a good choice. But for me, I'm just going to use parts off of it and put it on a diet. Stay tuned... you'll see. heehee!
As for it being fixed versus scrapped...Had I really known the extent of the rust I would have probably walked away as well. Well, maybe. LOL! Sometimes the Jeep sickness gets ya and there is no escaping it. I won't be doing anythig close to a restoration quality repair on this thing but I will make it much better. Plus I need to work on my metal working skills anyway. Just wish I was back in the states and had my own garage to do it in. Sure saves time and hassle not having to "finish" and put everything away at the end of the day and then hope to get back in the next time you go to work on it.

 

[jeepdreamer]

Starting out well...

So I stopped by Burger King to get some breakfast before heading to Jeep duty and what do I see pulling in the parking lot? ARGH! I need THESE guys job! They work for the museum doing restoration work. Guess they get to make sure whatever it is actually works!?! haha!

 

[jeepdreamer]

Settin' up for the day

Did a little idea scrubbing with this as I was still getting set up this morning. The idea wasn't bad but I just wasn't up to adding that much more weight on the back end. I know there is arguments for front vs rear vs movable but I've always made it a habit to wheel with others that also have a winch. Sure, there may be the odd time it takes some vehicle shuffling to make a proper extraction, but I'd say those times are a very small percentage. Hardly worth adding an extra..60-75lbs on the back? At least that's my opinoin and how I'm gonna go. Winch up front, tire and fuel in the rear.
I then got out what I had hoped would be a new "toy/tool" in the arsenal of metal cutting. I stopped by the store off post for more cut off wheels and to look for an air fitting for the plasma cutter (no joy on that) and found this little red guy. It "seemed" like it would work....uh, no! Complete wast of money! The little picture on the package shows it cutting through like 1/2" steel... well, what a load of BS! I could hardly get it to make much progress on the stuff I have! So after a few frustrating moments I gave up and switched to the old reliable (slow) cut off wheels. Yes, it sucks cutting plate steel this way. But it works and gives a pretty good edge when I'm patient.

Side bar note:
I can't figure out how to load pictures and add text between them, sorry. The best I can do is keep each "post" pertinent to the pics. Anyone know how to do it different?

 

[jeepdreamer]

Swinging and fuddling...

So after I got the new, longer (oops) top piece cut and trimmed to fit I started taking the salvaged carrier into more useful parts. In order to eliminate the Vertical lift aspect of the old design I had to get the pivot pin out. Whoever said that an elephant is just a mouse built to government specifications sure must have had a hand in building this thing. Now, I'm no stranger to overbuilding stuff my own self... but this thing is just silly stout! Not only is the hardened 5/8s pin set on a bronze bushing and held in via a drive pin on each end... they went so far as to weld in the bungs that hold the drive pins! So first thing was to zip through the welds followed by a little hammer and punch work to break the bungs loose.
Once I had them apart I got to see that this was not going to be simple to make work. Why? Well... as you can see in the picture the thing is LARGE! Both the male and female portions of the spindle assembly are quite long and that means either the horizontal portion of the swing out sits way high off the bumper or... I have a huge "tooth" hanging down to gnaw on any rock that passes its general direction. So why don't you just cut it all shorter? Well... that is what I'm going to have to do but of course its not quite that easy. You see, the male part is solid steel. The bottom...1 1/2 is drilled and threaded so the retaining bolt and washer can keep it from "jumping" out?? "So" you may ask? Well... in order to cut it down to a usable length I need to keep the hole centered and then be able to come back and cut threads in it. Not easy with the tools at hand here. And then there is the other, female part. Its lined with two grooved bronze sleeves. These are to allow the male part to swivel with minimal friction. The grooves in the bronze are to allow on to attach a grease gun to one of the TWO fittings on that part alone to fill it with goo! Go figure. If one is good, two MUST be twice as...expensive? Right? Haha! But While this is the easier of the two parts to cut down... its still going to take more head scratching to figure it all out. I need to look at the over all height of the assembly installed in the bumper and how I can make it work. I'll get it done but not yet.

 

[jeepdreamer]

Oh...Poo!

So about this time things kind of went south. My welder was out of flux core wire and my back up spool, for whatever reason, is not cored. And since I don't have a bottle here to run with it I was left trying to use the shops titanic sized welder. Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing as it will weld 3/4 plate and not even think about it. Plus its their wire and bottle so all I do is pay for my time and let them worry about sourcing the expendables. Well... somehow between the time I started in the morning and then it seems like every leaky exhaust on post must have shown up to fix their junk. So I was put "in line" waiting to use it which essentially means its not gonna happen. Crap! I really need to find a welding shop somewhere near here and go get a bottle of my own. Welding with cored wire is nasty but at least I'm not waiting for others. Or worse, trying to do something hand having others breathing down my neck waiting to use it themselves.
Well... Not to wast what time I had left today I started cutting and drilling and head scratching some other parts. I knew I wanted a trailer hitch on this one. Do I "need" a class 3 or 4 hitch to drag a skid steer on a dovetail trailer around? Nah. Honestly the only thing I see this bumper ever pulling is my little '46 Bantam 1/4 ton civilian/military trailer with camping stuff in it. So while my design may appear "light duty"... give me time. By the time I'm finished I'm more than sure it will still be over kill somehow! haha! There are two holes at the bottom lip of the body and about center mass of the Jeep. I made a plate to fit against those on both sides of the "cross member(?)" to both give me something to weld the receiver tube to as well as sandwiching the thin body work. Those two holes let me run a couple 5/8s bolts in them and i then drilled two more above those to squeeze in a couple 3/8 Grade 8 extras. The receiver tube will likely be welded to the bolted plates as well as the top, rear and bottom "skin" of the bumper as well as perhaps having some extra gussets added if I determine its just not overkill enough. LOL! Guess I will see as I keep marching on this.
I also was playing with tying in the outer ends of the bumper into the portion of the "rear cross member" that is outside of the so called frame rails. This is hard because I'm still not sure how far my cut and fold of the rear most rocker area will extend. But I did notice a chunk of 2x4 tubing fits in pretty dang well.... :Wow1: This is the part I keep visualizing Reece01s elegant design that is both sound and a reasonable balance of weight and engineering. I think I missed that gene. I honestly have to keep telling myself, no kidding, "NO!, MORE metal is heavy, not necessarily stronger!" Sucks being me a little. haha! By the time this thing is done I will either have to add a LOT of speed holes to shave it down or find some F350 rear leaves!
So that's it for this week. Not a lot to look at design related but there is some progress. No Jeep work during the week so maybe I can do something next Saturday. Stay tuned. Same Jeep time, Same Jeep chanel! :elkgrin:

 

[alaskantinbender]

Great thread. I enjoy seeing what you are up to now and again. Your CJ8 is a great project. Mine is sitting beside the shop patiently waiting for its turn inside. Yes it is an addiction. I call it truck deficit disorder. You can try going to the meetings but I can tell you from personal experience it doesn't help. Pretty soon you will be back at it. Checking the classifieds, looking at craigs list(even when you are TDY) then "bang" 3 or more projects.......
With you at 15 years already the other 5 will go fast. It seems like yesterday I retired from 20 years in the USAF. But in reality it was way back in 1996, wow time does fly. Keep your ears open for company's hiring for the same or similar jobs you are doing now. Life as a contractor does really mimic being in the military but it pay,s so much better. My break is almost over and I'm off back to the sand box in a couple of weeks.

Thanx for sharing and keep up the good work.

Regards

Jim

 

[jeepdreamer]

Foreward!

Thanks for the compliments Jim! I'd swear I had written a reply but it either got lost or I'm actually getting old? haha!
Mad a little forward progress on the bumper today. Still having personal welder issues but thankfully nobody was wanting the shop welder. For some reason I was just drawing a creative blank most of the morning. I must have stood there looking at the thing a billion different ways and toying with this odd part of metal or that bracket... nothing seemed to want to flow. And then, just about 2 hours before closing time it all kinda rolled in. In the rush of finally being motivated and having some direction I got at it.... and I made a few fixable errors. Got the hitch tacked in and then somehow the top piece got a wee bit crooked. Before I realized it I had already put a number of tack in place. Will it matter? Nah... probably not at the end of the day. Some more work with Mr Grinder and I should be good. Building this "free form" as opposed to laying it all out and pre cutting parts etc allows me a little more fudge factor. But it does make it go slow.
I can't seem to find any paper/cardboard that is a close enough thickness to let me do a little trial and error so most of the parts are look for a while, measure/cut/cut some more/and more...I've cut it off twice and its STILL to short! Hahaha. Just working slowly and its starting to look like something other than a couple big teeth finally.

 

[jscusmcvet]

Bumper is looking good! I agree with your decision about a rear winch also.

John

 

[jeepdreamer]

Thanks John... Its a slow work in progress. I'm trying really hard not to paint...er, weld myself into a corner but I really kinda "needed" to see some visual progress for motivation. I head out to the field tonight for the remainder of the week so maybe Saturday I can get some more done. I need to back track a wee bit and think about the recovery points as well as the additional bracing I plan for at least the passenger side corner where the swing out will pivot. Those may have both become harder since I tacked on the little end triangles. May end up zipping them back off if I can't get enough room to work in there.
There are still two other things that are confounding me. The first is how I will get the spindle assembly in there in a way I am happy with. I really don't want to think have it, cut it down, only to find It won't work... that will take LOTS of cranial massage. The other thing is how I am going to turn the corners towards the rear rocker area. On thing two I could just do a cut and fold and go from there. Thing one doesn't have much rocker left though due to rust. That kinda makes it both easier and harder to visualize how things will go. I was attempting to keep this somewhat low profile so as to gain, not retain or lose ground clearance but I'm just not sure yet. I suppose it will come to me eventually.
My welder is still having fits and I just can't seem to get the bottle to work with it. I'm afraid I may end up just going and buying some flux core wire and using that. Its just to difficult to get time on the shops welder and gets expensive when they charge the welder rate. That's made worse when I'm paying to "use" it but spending most of my time just staring at it thinking. But getting all set up and then having to fight my welder puts me in a grumpy mood which makes the build less than fun. Hate when that happens.
I'm actually getting a little excited about moving back to working on the rockers. I still need to get the 2x6 tubing for it but I scored some 1 1/2 angle (bed frames) at the recycle center for free. Plus I've been seeing a couple well pictured installs of how folks have been doing this and I'm feeling a little more sure.
The other cool thing is also a find at the "dump".... I stopped in on the way home today and just happened to see a red thing poking out of the battery container. On a whim I went over to look and as I got closer I knew it was an Optima red top. My first thought was someone must have killed theirs off or tried to charge it to fast (that kills them for sure!)... But wouldn't you know... the thing was brand new, still had its plastic caps and stuff on it. It also had a bithday sticker of 2010... so maybe it was some old stock that was taking up space on a shelf or something? I'll try and see if it has or can do the juice thing this weekend as well, no time to mess with it at present. If it works.. awesome! If its just KIA... well, at least I almost got a nice battery for free. If it does work though I'll have to look into making a duel tray for the scrambler. There just hardly seems enough room in the XJ for a second one....yet.
So stay tuned folks... more shenanigans to come. Wait till you see my idea for a gas tank skid to replace the one with the gaping hole in it. Haha!

 

[jeepdreamer]

Stuff...

So I haven't had time to actually work on the Jeep lately but I have managed to get stuff. Between a couple slow orders showing up (none that I actually NEED to make it pass inspection yet though) and my visits to the recycle center... I've acquired some things.
The ubiquitous snorkel is an Ebay cheapy. Honestly, I can't say I'm disappointed. Quality seems decent and strong without being brittle. No instructions came with it but I think I should be able to finger it out.
Also got the 100 skateboard bearings in so I can actually think about building a slide out drawer/platform for the fridge.
On the "free front", aka recycle center or Dumpster diving... I've had great luck lately. Without going into huge detail of all...it breaks down into enough stereo equipment to outfit all of my Jeeps (all 4!) with good stuff. If it all works that is? Haven't had a chance to hook it all up to a battery yet. Time will tell. Basically I ended up with two amps, a single and double din head units, and a plethora of good speakers.
Also found some huge unknown (to me) brand of lights. They are like 8 1/4 across, black metal housings, and no broken or dented parts! Again, need the battery test but replacement bulbs couldn't be that hard, right? haha!
Hit the other, main post recycle center one day in the rain. Turned up a brand new but 2010 birth year red top Optima battery. Still has its covers in place etc. Maybe it works? I'll test it and if its low I'll try trickle charging it for a bit to see if anything happens. Crossing fingers.
Also found this cool, expo looking aluminum case. Its built like a tank and functions like a rolling pelican or suitcase? Says 3M on it and someone ripped the foam out of it so I have no idea what it was supposed to be for originally. It will be a shoe in for one of the Jeeps if I can decide what to put in it. Neat case though.... lucky find!
Well... Can't think of much else that has appeared to clutter up my life, free or otherwise. Hoping to get back to the bumper this weekend a little. I'll update when I do.
Cheers!

 

[jeepdreamer]

forgot some pics...heehee

oops... think I forgot a couple pics.:elkgrin: The "installed pics" of the drawer slide bearings is how I'm thinking of going. Not my pics or build but my inspiration.

 

[jeepdreamer]

Update time...

As its been over a month since I've updated this I think it about time. Life here has been busy but the big news for me is I am finally on orders to get out of Germany. Like the saying goes.."Its been real, its been fun...but it hasn't been real fun!" :elkgrin:
With that in mind and knowing that my time will be far less than the actual 6 months here I have.... I have to prioritize and get my butt in gear on the projects! So here is where I am sorta at.
The white 91 XJ (thing one) goes into back burner mode due to it being a larger project than I honestly have time for. I may get more time to mess with it later or if I am waiting on a must have part for the others but for now it is not a focus item. Best I can hope for is to sell it for more than I bought it for since I have done most of the hard/basic needs stuff. That money will go towards paying for the boat ride for thing 2 the black 01 2wd XJ. The government will thankfully pick up the tab for shipping my huge CJ8 Scrambler back provided I can finish it up enough to get it to pass inspection and get tagged again! So with the list of "to do" being long, money and time being short...what do I do? Well... collect more cool free junk and add to the projects of course! hahahaha!
Those that have read over this thread may know I am a fairly successful dumpster diver here. The recycle center is a near never ending source of cool discarded objects that are either discards from people not wanting to take it with them or stuff I see potential in to re-purpose for my own diabolical uses.
Case in point... I have begun a simple roof rack for thing 2 (t-2). Why? Because I found an old industrial cart and parts to some tube framed bed thingy and saw it as a roof rack. At this point I have welded the beginnings together and just have it strapped to the factor POS cross bars. Next phase is to design some mounts and hopefully use the free/recycled bed frame angle iron (again, free! haha) to build most of that. While it doesn't look like much yet... My goal is a nice looking rack that sits low on the roof but is strong enough for maybe my RTT to mount.?. Worse case I will have extra space for light stuff and a place to mount my lights. All free... and hopefully not looking all hack. I'll post updates as it gets worked on. But there are a lot of things that need to be done in addition and I'm trying to juggle between the projects and plan to have the least down time while waiting for needed parts...all on a small budget and knowing I still have to scrounge up the $$ to put thing 2 on the boat also... Wish me luck and stay tuned!
Roof rack pics and some other things...