Building on a Budget

[jdoom]

New here so say what you want. My name is Jordan by the way. I'm in the process of putting together LA's and thought it would be great to have input and opinions on the buildup so I thought I would start up a new thread. Right now my jeep has the basics, a BB, 31's and all the basic engine stuff, aka bolt ons. I just purchased a subframe from RUYellow over on NAGCA. It's just the pieces so I'll be putting everything together. I have a friend here in town who has clayton's so we are going off of his set up.

This is the subframe i picked up.



I have two welders, a little lincoln fluxcore 100, and just got a lincoln pro mig 175. I don't have the 175 running yet because I haven't had time to run out the power. I'll be using the 175 for all my LA and 8.8. Although the 100 isn't that strong, i've still loved using the thing. I did my exhaust, made an intake, and just finished up a roof rack. Intake was made out of some exhaust tubing for semi-trucks. Made the heat shield out of some scrap metal lying around and used a plumbing adapter i picked up at home depot to connect the factory air hat to the new tubing. The roof rack is made out of 3/4" sq tubing with some 2"x1/8" flat stock bent around the edges and finally some expanded steel flooring.

Here's a pic of my intake.


Here are some pics of my rack and mounting system.
These are the tabs which slide into the factory rails.


These are new rails i made so that if i don't want the rack on, I still have some nice strong crossrails.



And finally, here's my rack.






Well I think thats it for now. This will be a slow buildup("building on a budget") but hopefully not too slow. I just wanted to introduce myself and show you all what i have done so far. Hopefully the buildup will be coming along soon. I don't have the subframe in yet, but it should be ariving shortly. I'm up for any comments or suggestions as I will probably be coming here when i get stuck during the buildup and will hopefully receive all the info i need.

Thanks

Jordan

[Nordic1]

Sorry dude... almost all red Xs. You might want to ditch image station for like fototime.com or something.

[jdoom]

Yeah, just switched all of my pics over to photobucket. Hopefully they work now.

[MaineZJ]

Sweet rack

[jdoom]

Thanks, I think i should have made it a little bit longer, but i was still happy w/ the outcome. The main reason I made it was to be able to carry all my crap for when i go camping and out to the lake. I have a jet ski and i'll prolly be putting a bunch of gas cans up there as well as a cooler, tent, etc so everything will fit just fine. I just think appearance wise it would look a little bit better if it was longer. Oh well.

[jdoom]

Just a little update: got my springs in yesterday and cleaned them up and painted them. Just got my subframe in today and I have one word, BEEF. The package weighed 90 lbs. It's all 1/4" lasercut. I can't wait to start putting this all together. I feel like a little kid at christmas time

Here are some pics

Springs


Subframe Pieces



To be continued.......

[phillyzj]

looks good!

how much that subframe run ya?

[jdoom]

Subframe cost me $250. It has everything except the rear upper mounts, i'll be fabbing those myself. I was going to just cut some 4"x6" in half like many others have but then came across this. Since I don't have a plasma cutter, i figured i would save a ton of time and a couple of headaches picking this up. Now I only have one set of CA mounts to fab rather than three sets and crossmember support, however I will have to make a new crossmember.

[jdoom]

So my plan has changed. I was all set for building my LA's, i picked up a 231, 8.8, and an HP30. I'm still lifting it and i'm still gonna use those axels and TC but i decided not to do the LA's. I realized that i'm rather new to this sport/hobby/life and i'm not sure i want to invest in putting LA's on my ZJ. I decided that i'm gonna go w/ the RE 4.5" and start off there. If i really get serious w/ 4x4's then i would much rather build up an old cj or something similar, not my zj.

I decided to do this because of money and because i'm trying to be at least a LITTLE logical. I was on ebay and there was a RE 4.5" kit that has shocks, a driveshaft and some spacers, all pretty cheap so i jumped on it. So now i need to sell my subframe and my springs which i already purchased so if anyone needs those, let me know. This is what i bought, $976 w/ shipping and all these extras. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Rubic...QQcmdZViewItem

[norton]

sweet job on the purchase. looks like you got it for cheaper than you originally thought

whens that shit supposed to get here?

goddam i cant wait for the 10th.

[jdoom]

Yeah, i was happy w/ the price. he's just waiting for my e-check through paypal to clear, so it should be shipped out before the week is over, and then its all up to ups, or whoever he is shipping it through.

Yeah the 10th will be tight, i just need to get my shit running

[norton]

ive got today, tommorow and thrusday off so anytime you want to expiriment with how to fix it i can be over. lemme know, cause we HAVE TO get that beast running by the 10th.

[jdoom]

I just got off work and go to work again at around 4:30-5:00 so no chance tonight since i won't be off till about 11:00. I don't have class till 12:30 tomorrow so i'm prolly gonna mess around w/ it then. I think it's just a fuse or some short somewhere so it's just a matter of tracking it down.