Post by mostheman on Nov 4, 2008 19:03:01 GMT -4
Due to Public demand here is the much anticipated build thread for what was originally a 1990 2.5 YJ. As I started this on November 18, 2006 it will read mostly like a story untill we reach present time. At which point the build will fall on its face for short periods of time when surplus time/cash arnt there. Feel free to point out our mistakes, or oversights. Any questions or details I will elaborate on where requested. otherwise I'll only hit the high points.
Rallyroach got his 4runner in the fall of '06 so I had to get something similar. Looked around on the board and asked a few questions. Consensus was buy something built, its cheaper, faster and a lot less headache. Thats not fun and I'm too picky and like things a particular way (Ask Mike/ Rallyroach, I drive him nuts)
We are fairly mechanically inclined (93 ford ranger DD= lots of tie wire and duct tape) but hadn't welded alot and fabrication was new to me.
Mike said have a look at pirate4x4 to see what you after. Pirate polluted my mind quickly. I always wanted a Short wheel base Jeep and always wanted to do a frame off on a vehicle too.
Which leads us to this bueaty. Friend of the ex girlfriends parents had it. One owner ~180 000 older dude not abused...hadn't been driven in a while. Lower mileage and not being abused really didn't factor into the sale anyways... as you'll see
Borrowed a trailer from work, buddies pickup. Mike followed behind to pick up flying parts. Drug it home from North Mountain to Truro no trailer brakes. Fun times...went the back roads the whole way no lights either on trailer.
Found the typical problems. Frame gone on drivers side from E brake back, passengers side from fuel filter back. Rear Shackle Mounts roasted, No floor, yada yada yada... Pics.
So the frame was shot, as was the floor of the tub. I have never liked 4 bangers in anything except ricers so I want too enthused about the 2.5. Ax-5 are notorious for failing same with the 30/35 as we all know.
Simple answer...heres the frame off I always wanted. Mike is the Toyota guy so we decided on the Toy axles pretty quickly. Since we were going to pass drop with the toyota axles the rest of the drovetrain was tossed too. Chev is Pass drop and 4.3's fall from the sky, are lighter than a V8, and make good useable power. Plus they're cheap. I'm cheap as well so this was going to be a budget build. Spending coin on the parts which would reduce breakage and simplfy life. Otherwise its junkyard and scrounged parts.
So the recipie became
90 YJ
Toy Axles
4.3 of some sort
4 speed
Passengers Drop x-fercase,
35" Tires
Spring Over
Build it as to minimize breakages... I like building stuff but hate fixing it.
Jeep goes from this;
To this (think lots of cursing, followed by penetrating oil, followed by torches);
and was finally cast outside;
Leaving with what we'll loosly call a "useable tub".
Here it was sometime in February, cold as hell with no heat in the garage.
Welders went onsale in March at Cdn Tire so I picked up this baby and set out to my first welding project after a quick lesson from burkee. (a cart for the welder that started out as a weight bench from the 80's)
The long process of welding the floor back up begins (having never mig welded before and starting out on sheetmetal with fluxcore brought out some swear words but didn't take too long to get mediocre at it)
I'm bad for having a bunch of side projects started so before I was too far along on the floor I picked up a good but not perfect frame from Les.
As you can tell by the next pic its into late spring/early summer the frame sat in the other side of my garage for a couple months before Mike and I spent a saturday sand blasting it ourselves.
The sandblaster was a converted fire extinguisher my body man had. Neat little rig. It was good for my small compressor but still overwhelmed it. Picked sand out of my hair for the next 2 weeks.
Fixed up the dented front crossmember with some pipe.
Plated any thin spots and other potential problem areas on the donor frame
Weld Critique?
Rebuilt the crossmember the front of the gas tank skid bolts to " to spec" incase I deciced to buy a gas tank skid.
Since the hood was dented and after many heated debates over round or square headlights on the jeep Randy (Truro offroad) supplied me with this gem.
Flopping back to the tub, the post that the seat belts bolt to near the floor (has the door strike connected to the top of it) was not in good shape. It was like this on both sides.
Here was the fix
Added a nice big "washer" with a nut welded to it for the seat belt bolt to spin into
By now the floor looks like this,
And we move onto getting some axles under the frame. Body goes on and comes off a couple times to locate the axle, we push it back a little extra hoping that the pimpkin won't hit the gas tank skid.
The rear axle is from a ifs truck which is a little wider than the front axle will end up being. Standard practice is to make up the difference in wheel spacers.
Heres mike with the "new axle" and some of the junk hanging around the farm behind him. 5 ton ford trucks stuffed in the weeds.....we got lots...
Would have been cheaper to buy spring perches but we decide to make low profile ones to try to keep spring wrap to a minimum naturally, made them a little longer in the front as well.
No Barker Girl but he can Weld pretty good....(thats Mike)
Tacked in place
Toyota main leaves with some jeep leaves as well. Seperated the packs wire wheeled everything and painted. By now I think I am about 10 wire wheels into the job.
After some mucking about we have this.
Got disinterested in fab and decided to fix the bottom bearing on the steering column. Parts sourced from APJ
One less thing to fix later.
I get a CJ grille from Les and in an attempt to make myself feel better we do a "rough assembly" and sweep around the junk. Was really trying to make myself feel good note the front passenger tire just there for effect.
Mike is well underway in his build of the roach. I sneek down to halifax one weekend and liberate him of his stock front axle. Check out the rear crossmember 2x4x3/16 with the ends tapered.
We will now pause for station identification and while I upload more pics.
Rallyroach got his 4runner in the fall of '06 so I had to get something similar. Looked around on the board and asked a few questions. Consensus was buy something built, its cheaper, faster and a lot less headache. Thats not fun and I'm too picky and like things a particular way (Ask Mike/ Rallyroach, I drive him nuts)
We are fairly mechanically inclined (93 ford ranger DD= lots of tie wire and duct tape) but hadn't welded alot and fabrication was new to me.
Mike said have a look at pirate4x4 to see what you after. Pirate polluted my mind quickly. I always wanted a Short wheel base Jeep and always wanted to do a frame off on a vehicle too.
Which leads us to this bueaty. Friend of the ex girlfriends parents had it. One owner ~180 000 older dude not abused...hadn't been driven in a while. Lower mileage and not being abused really didn't factor into the sale anyways... as you'll see
Borrowed a trailer from work, buddies pickup. Mike followed behind to pick up flying parts. Drug it home from North Mountain to Truro no trailer brakes. Fun times...went the back roads the whole way no lights either on trailer.
Found the typical problems. Frame gone on drivers side from E brake back, passengers side from fuel filter back. Rear Shackle Mounts roasted, No floor, yada yada yada... Pics.
So the frame was shot, as was the floor of the tub. I have never liked 4 bangers in anything except ricers so I want too enthused about the 2.5. Ax-5 are notorious for failing same with the 30/35 as we all know.
Simple answer...heres the frame off I always wanted. Mike is the Toyota guy so we decided on the Toy axles pretty quickly. Since we were going to pass drop with the toyota axles the rest of the drovetrain was tossed too. Chev is Pass drop and 4.3's fall from the sky, are lighter than a V8, and make good useable power. Plus they're cheap. I'm cheap as well so this was going to be a budget build. Spending coin on the parts which would reduce breakage and simplfy life. Otherwise its junkyard and scrounged parts.
So the recipie became
90 YJ
Toy Axles
4.3 of some sort
4 speed
Passengers Drop x-fercase,
35" Tires
Spring Over
Build it as to minimize breakages... I like building stuff but hate fixing it.
Jeep goes from this;
To this (think lots of cursing, followed by penetrating oil, followed by torches);
and was finally cast outside;
Leaving with what we'll loosly call a "useable tub".
Here it was sometime in February, cold as hell with no heat in the garage.
Welders went onsale in March at Cdn Tire so I picked up this baby and set out to my first welding project after a quick lesson from burkee. (a cart for the welder that started out as a weight bench from the 80's)
The long process of welding the floor back up begins (having never mig welded before and starting out on sheetmetal with fluxcore brought out some swear words but didn't take too long to get mediocre at it)
I'm bad for having a bunch of side projects started so before I was too far along on the floor I picked up a good but not perfect frame from Les.
As you can tell by the next pic its into late spring/early summer the frame sat in the other side of my garage for a couple months before Mike and I spent a saturday sand blasting it ourselves.
The sandblaster was a converted fire extinguisher my body man had. Neat little rig. It was good for my small compressor but still overwhelmed it. Picked sand out of my hair for the next 2 weeks.
Fixed up the dented front crossmember with some pipe.
Plated any thin spots and other potential problem areas on the donor frame
Weld Critique?
Rebuilt the crossmember the front of the gas tank skid bolts to " to spec" incase I deciced to buy a gas tank skid.
Since the hood was dented and after many heated debates over round or square headlights on the jeep Randy (Truro offroad) supplied me with this gem.
Flopping back to the tub, the post that the seat belts bolt to near the floor (has the door strike connected to the top of it) was not in good shape. It was like this on both sides.
Here was the fix
Added a nice big "washer" with a nut welded to it for the seat belt bolt to spin into
By now the floor looks like this,
And we move onto getting some axles under the frame. Body goes on and comes off a couple times to locate the axle, we push it back a little extra hoping that the pimpkin won't hit the gas tank skid.
The rear axle is from a ifs truck which is a little wider than the front axle will end up being. Standard practice is to make up the difference in wheel spacers.
Heres mike with the "new axle" and some of the junk hanging around the farm behind him. 5 ton ford trucks stuffed in the weeds.....we got lots...
Would have been cheaper to buy spring perches but we decide to make low profile ones to try to keep spring wrap to a minimum naturally, made them a little longer in the front as well.
No Barker Girl but he can Weld pretty good....(thats Mike)
Tacked in place
Toyota main leaves with some jeep leaves as well. Seperated the packs wire wheeled everything and painted. By now I think I am about 10 wire wheels into the job.
After some mucking about we have this.
Got disinterested in fab and decided to fix the bottom bearing on the steering column. Parts sourced from APJ
One less thing to fix later.
I get a CJ grille from Les and in an attempt to make myself feel better we do a "rough assembly" and sweep around the junk. Was really trying to make myself feel good note the front passenger tire just there for effect.
Mike is well underway in his build of the roach. I sneek down to halifax one weekend and liberate him of his stock front axle. Check out the rear crossmember 2x4x3/16 with the ends tapered.
We will now pause for station identification and while I upload more pics.