buggy frame buildup

[Kraqa]

uhh wide ass buggy batman. why do you need those sliders?

[paulkeith]

whole thing is 50" wide.

i finally ponied up the $130 and got myself a 90cu.ft. 25%co2/75%ar mix tank. yay for mig!

tube notcher was a $30 internet piece, and it works awesome.





sorry for the quality. i typically work until its dark, and then my camera doesn't work well.

still have over 100' of tube left, probably 80 more to go into the cage putting me around 130ish feet total.

peace
Paul

[paulkeith]

no love.

2 more...progress is slowing down now that fitment for each piece takes 30-45 minutes...




a little feedback?

[Kraqa]

haha i don't knwo why people arnt posting. i thinkits great.

i'd cleam the tube before you weld those. the cage looks much better now.

make and inverted V from the windsheils spreader to the bottom of the A pillar's (where they weld to the sliders)

What motor? what are he specs? Oh and show me that damn tube notcher for 30$

[ILikeMud]

Looks good man.
What kinda motor?

[Kraqa]

where's the updates???

[OverkillZJ]

This thing is so much sweeter than that "cage" you built years ago

[TrojanMan]

bump. more progress!

[paulkeith]

holy hell, i'm not sure how i stumbled over here. kraqa had a post on pbb that linked me to mallcrawlin, then i found this.

a little bit of update action:




apparently I have an issue with taking pictures at night.

anyway, the status:
got the hydraulic steering working on the 10 bolt just for proof of concept and to get it manueverable around the back yard. 305 was running OK on the megasquirt, still needed a lot of tuning on the laptop to get it running good. So it sat with an engine that needed massive tuning, a shitty 10bolt, blown front output bearing on the 205, trashed 3rd gear in the sm465..... from august of 06 until now, basically untouched. I went from full time student with no time to work on the buggy to a diploma-toting cubicle jockey with no time to work on the buggy.

I had a little cash, so this past weekend I got ambitious, drove to connecticut, and picked up this beauty:

and these beauties:


She's not much to look at, but she's pretty on the inside . TBI 350, sm 465, np205, 14bolt 4.10 gov locked (YESSS!!!) and a (...drum roll....fucking finally)... dana 60 w/ 4.10s. The tires are 39.5 16.50 boggers on allied 15x10 beadies.

I'm going to use pretty much everything, down to the wiring harness, as a direct transplant to the buggy.

So anyway, to be done on the buggy:

1) raise rocker "bars" up 4" and boatside, trash existing seat mounts.
2) recline b pillar for more comfortable seatback angle and legroom. remove windshield center bar and replace with /\.
3) finish up suspension mounts (shackle mounts, bushings up front, JJ's rear), relocate leaf mounts to extend wheelbase 5-6" and lower ride height 2-3"
4) build floor/firewall,
5) rework nose, narrow/lower to match radiator, stinger, front skid/winch mount
6) drop some more cash (when i have it..) on GLO diff covers and some other bling odds and ends. rear disc swap, etc etc.
7) full length flat belly from oilpan to back of seats

so now, the new stats should be:
109" WB on 39.5s, 23" clearance to belly skid (still kinda tall) and about 83" to the top.

Its a little to tall for two reasons.
-the leafs just make it that way. I could pony up for some alcan leaves that are flatter, but i'm not throwing money at it. when i link it, this will fix itself.
-i built the cage a little short and a little tall, but its too hard to change now. Affect on CG caused by a few extra inches of tube up top should be negligible.


hopeful super ambitious plan is to have it basically done around jan 5-6.

later
Paul

edit: man, i haven't been here in forever. I even get to change my sig line. I dont even own the m3 anymore..

[OverkillZJ]

Looks great!

[TrojanMan]

over a year later I still hate you.


all your truck are belong to us!

[paulkeith]

over a year later I still hate you.

muahahaha

[Duncanstives]

I need a raise

Oh wait... I JUST got one.

I need a bigger raise

LOL... Looks fucking sweet... Good job man... You do any sort of 3d modeling when designing this thing? Whats sort of drawings/documentation did you make?

[paulkeith]

I need a raise

dude, between taxes, rent, and bills i can't afford this either. loans man I'm about $4500 in including metal ($600) since may of 2005, and should be done around $5500 around march, realistically...that boils down to about $250 a month. I spend that on cable TV and beer...just to put it in perspective. Then some point down the road, triangulated 4 links, evo heims, and coilovers around, another 2.5-3k?? I need a raise too.

Yeah, I did some 3d CAD models. Between the engineering degree and plenty of time in cubicles, it just came naturally....Lots of drawings in margins and sketches and CAD 2d sketches too. My tools and the buggy are in SC, and I live in GA. This gives me basically all day every day to plan, and then a few weekends out of the year to actually weld on shit. As a result, I have a zillion drawings, and ideas pouring out of my eyes, and a lot of unfinished work in SC. What is finished, I want to change.

I tried a project in my younger years and completely fawked it up, so I sat back for about 3 years, read a lot, drew a lot, I stared loosely with some drawings of TJ and CJ frames, figured out what would be simple to make with the 2x4 I had...Some layouts for an easy to build yet fundamental cage...i shot for mostly straight tube, since that's what's the strongest. I measured my body, based the "cab" off of dimensions of me sitting in a seat, and also loosely based off the cab dimensions and windshield angles of a dodge ram. I'm a little unhappy with the lines of my chassis (as i mentioned before...too short/tall), but oh well...at least I didn't fire some check off in the mail and get my buggy shipped back to me. There's always next time. If I could do it again, it'd be lower and "faster" looking, but my design should at least be comfortable and provide excellent visiblity.

later,
Paul

[Duncanstives]

Loans...Nice... LOL.

I am an engineer as well but I am an electronics engineer... A lot of good THAT does me (though if I decide to put any industrial automation type stuff or digital radio modems or shit like that in my Jeep I will be in good shape! ). Sadly I WAS thinking of buying a directlogic 205 programable logic controller and a c-more touch panel and sticking THAT in there but common sense won out... I figured anything with a d35 rear and all that crap in it was nothing more than fluff.

Anyway... All that planning and stuff definitely helps... I am REALLY hoping to be able to model my entire ZJ unibody in Cosmos (part of Solidworks) so I can do different types of stress analysis on the mods I plan to do... But I can't find drawings of it anywhere .... We have Cosmos here at work and I know how to use it pretty well after having taken a 3rd year course in it... Also another guy (our ONE mechanical engineer) here who knows it even better has offered to help me out after work sometimes... Which would be awesome. You seem to know a lot about this stuff... Maybe you could stop by my thread sometime (when it gets a bit further a long perhaps) and see if you could offer some advice... I would be gretaful and hey... If you ever need any help with a 64 QAM radio on a chip you know who to ask

[Cody]

looks good man. Keep going. The most frustrating part is all the bug-working-outing which takes a lot of time and usualliy $$. In the end its a blast.
much better than what you did to that poor ZJ

[paulkeith]

much better than what you did to that poor ZJ

damn you cody! you were responsible for my painful introduction to pirate. oh well, i guess they sent me in the right direction at least...


Just a little update,

The following parts have arrived the da mail:

2x "Garage-Pro" mastercraft knockoffs, $297 to my door

2x RJS 5pt harnesses
a lot of tube tabs for removable tubes, seat belt tabs

2x summit greasable bushings for the front shackle mount

2x summit flex joints for the rear shackle mounts

2x GLO 14b spring perches

Ghetto Grizzly tube notcher...but used a buddy's for teh whole cage before and it worked pretty well. 59 bucks.

2x ballistic fab 3" wide leaf mounts, cuz i'm lazy.

also recently purchased:
4'x8' of .250
harbor freight bandsaw

all comes in $53 bucks over budget (for those parts) not bad. this puts me at about $5400.

Its up to me if I want to spend about another grand on wiring and plumbing this thing, or if I want to reuse most of the donor blazer stuff. TBD and probably won't be until mid to late spring.

The longer I look at what I've got, the more unhappy I get with my tube work. I've got a decent idea of where I want to go with it, but its going to be more rework than I initially expected. Here's what I'm shooting for now (don't mind my 4 minute ms paint sketch)



plus a ~8" extension in wheelbase, a 2-3" drop in ride height...

I took a few days off work and I'm heading to SC where the project lives on the 16th. I'll have until the 25th (minus family BS on thanksgiving..haha) to get as far as possible. I'm debating tearing down the blazer first or just spending the whole time bending and burning tube. The challenge will be to keep from getting burned out or getting lazy with the fab quality. Nov. and Dec. budgets are totally fawked, but that's what credit cards are for, right?

later,
Paul

[Kraqa]

chop down that roof line!!!!

JJ

looks good.

ALl the little BS will get to ya. i just got my ZJ tuned and then i chopped it.

[paulkeith]

chop down that roof line!!!!

yeah, she's a tall bitch, but its too much of an uphill battle to fix it.


i'll get it dead on next time

[Kraqa]

i ended up with a 46" roof line and a 8.5" belly. seams a bit tall but the drivline os down SOOOO low that it shoudl be just as stable with the narrowed axles as before.

[paulkeith]

i ended up with a 46" roof line and a 8.5" belly. seams a bit tall but the drivline os down SOOOO low that it shoudl be just as stable with the narrowed axles as before.

46 from floor to top of roof, and 8.5" from floor to bottom of belly?

[paulkeith]

sup fellers,

a little update.... I put 50-60 hours into the buggy over my thanksgiving break, and made almost no appreciable progress. I wasted a lot of time assembling my band saw, and mounting the bender, grinding, and cutting out old tube. Kind of a two steps backwards for every one step forward situation.

I cleaned up and relocated the rear leaf spring brackets to begin the lowering/wheelbase extension, and finished the johnny joint shackle mounts and build the shackles out of 3/8" flat bar, 7" eye to eye, bout 45* at ride height. Should make for decent droop.







sorry for the dark/shitty pics:







Cut the B pillar X out to prepare to shorten it so i can recline it to match the seatback angle.

Also cut the rear stub-ass off to replace it with a larger ass. Got the one horizontal hoop bent up and two vertical supports, but no pics.



I was pretty frustrated with the week, got burned out from about 15 hours of running a grinder and a few grandparent health issues and didn't take many pics. Kind of bummed with the slow pace, but what can ya do. I'll have more progress around christmas time i guess.

later,
Paul

[paulkeith]

370 days later.....

got a little done over thanksgiving. hadn't even take the tarp off the old girl since last year.

killed a few days buying metal, wiring up the new plasma cutter, cutting/welding a set of end tables for my parents. ended up with really about 3.5 days of time to work.

new ass end, front tube chopped off in the foreground:




the side fell off:



rocker cleaned up, drilled for plug welds:




new front tubework, rocker welded back on 4" higher: (fugly donor lurking in the background....she knows her days are numbered )







The higher rockers will give me more room to clock the case flat and get a flatter belly. It'll also make the floor muuuch easier.

On the to-do list for christmas (roughly 15 days):
-chop off and relocate front leaf mounts 3" forward and 3" higher (basically to match the rear), also 1/2" inboard on each side to match the perch width on the 60. Estimate final wheelbase at 108-112.
-finish off the front of the frame rails, bumper/front shackle mounts, maybe a 6' rock boner
-pull out the mockup 305/465/205/14b/10b
-tear down blazer and swap in tons, 350/465/205
-floor/firewall, put the B pillar X-brace back in (cut out to raise rockers and recline slightly)
-another ~40 feet of tube gussets/tie-ins

Pie in the sky is to have it ready to bring to atlanta in Jan. so I can do piecemeal work on plumbing brakes, fuel, steering / wiring / finishing touches. If time has taught me anything, its that I'll get half that list done and it'll take twice as long....but hey, a guy can dream.

holler.

[paulkeith]

well, i'll just keep talking to myself then.

made some progress over break. ended up kind of relaxing with the family, also came down with a fever and kind of just chilled in the house which killed another 2 days. long story short, i only got items 1 and 2 on the above list. go figure.

anyway, here are some pics of what I got done:

new leaf mounts, pre- lasercut, all i did was weld them together.



reasons south carolina doesn't suck: 70 degrees and sunny on christmas eve



next day, weather hit the fan. 40 and rainy...haha

onward. trimming frame rails to length:



.250" C-Channel front bumper/crossmember tacked in



template of my fish plates:



from cardboard to .250" plate:



used mah bandsaw to cut about 3/4 of the way through, then beat em to 90* with a vice and sledge:



bend relief cuts welded up:



shackle mounts in the making, 3/8" flat bar, summit machine poly pushings:



after a hot date with the plasma, grinder, and flap:



test fit onto the fish plates:



front xmember welded in:



fish plates tacked on:



ain't neer comin off:



shackle mounts welded on:



hammered rusto:



leafs reinstalled, liberal application of grade 8 all around:



holding weight:



poser flex...nothing too spectacular here. the driver's rear ran out of compression room too early because of my crazy spring plates with incorporated shock mounts. also think the real 40s plus beadlocks should weigh a little more and keep the front planted a little longer. also lengthened the front shackles since that picture since (you can see it barely) the passenger shackle was inverting. went from 5" to 7", think i'll settle somewhere around 6.



she's finally starting to take shape, look a little proportional:




true.

[zj95]

gawd thats a tall roofline...