Build "CJ3BL" 53 Willys

Thanks for the feedback Fo'OnDaFlo' and 1Sinner!

Don't sell yourself short 1Sinner. I just caught up on your Big Booty hardtop fab updates. Fantastic! It is looking so cool! Your posts on the details are very thorough and inspiring! Keep up the great work and the great post info! Yours is one of my favorite builds here. What a great rig!

Thanks bud. Working on the rear hatch tonight. Going to see how far I get. Its still 95 degrees out and time for a beer.

Body Tub / Rear Wheelwell

With the rock sliders and the rear bumper corners in place, the next step was to connect them together with an arched slider / bumper continuation that looks essentially like a wheel well fender flare. The side rock sliders and the bumper corner are 2" x 3" tube. They will protrude 5/8" beyond the body panel, and the 2 3/8" depth inside of the body profile provides room to tie in cage tubes plus space to attach the floor and body side panels.

The planned wheel well arched tube section is also 3" deep, aligned with the slider and bumper corner. However it's 1.5" tall, which is comparable to the front fender section height - so visually the wheel wells tie together front and rear. While it would be easier to miter some rectangular tube and make a rectilinear angled opening like a Wrangler, I want the wheel well to be a circular section for a more traditional Willys look.

The decision to change to 35" tires discussed in prior posts was important, because if I was ever going to move up the 35's I needed to do it before making these arches!

I think a commercial tube rolling outfit could roll a 0.125' wall 1.5" x 3" tube to the radius needed, but I wanted to try to come up with something I could do myself using a small shop tube roller. I figured for the cost of two commercially procured custom tube bends, I could likely spring a similar level of cash for a tube roller - and I also want to do some rolling of other parts on this build. So I decided to fab a welded assembly with rolled sub parts.

I purchased a Swag Hulk tube roller and did some experimenting. I cut a section from a 2" x 3" x 0.125" tube, preserving the edge radius, to use for the upper part of the wheel well tube. The preserved tube radius matches the radius edges of the slider and bumper tubes to visually tie them together. I was able to roll this to the needed wheel well radius on a test scrap. For the sides of the tube, 1.25" x 0.125" flat stock was rolled the "hard direction". For the bottom side facing the tire. I used 3" x 0.125" flat stock rolled the easy way. I thought the flat stock looked good on the bottom side, and was easier to do than the tube section used on top. This concept check for the wheel arch fab went well, so time to proceed!

Another consideration is that body panels of the tub will have a hammer formed flange to attach to the top side the wheel well tube structure. In planning how to build both, I needed to figure out how to achieve a good fit of the body panel flange to the wheel well tube structure.

Since this thread is recapping earlier build work as part of porting it over to Irate, I've got the benefit of hindsight and where appropriate will take advantage of that to make for easier reading. I'll describe what worked well, what didn't, and why - but save you some grief by leaving out useless step by step details of stuff that didn't work, while covering details on the aspects that did work.

So here goes...

This first part of the arch build includes ideas that worked and an idea that didn't. My initial concept for assuring the fit of the wheel well tube and body panel flange was to build a dual purpose forming buck that would serve as the wheel arch tube weld fixture, plus serve as a hammer form for the body flange, or whole body side panel.

The dual purpose idea of this buck did not work out. The buck worked great for making the wheel well arch tubes and was worth making solely for that. The arch tubes turned out nice. However, even with careful clamping and efforts to control weld shrinkage, the welded arch radius pulled in slightly so the part didn't closely match the buck profile when cooled and unclamped. They looked great, but it was clear that using the same buck as the hammer form for the mating body panel flange would not create an acceptable panel fit.

Weld shrinkage distortion nixed the dual purpose buck idea for hammer forming the body panel flange, so now the plan is to make a separate hammer form. It will be fit to the finished arch tubes. In retrospect, I think this has other advantages too, but will confirm that when I make it!


The wheel arch buck worked well for that purpose though, so here's how it went together:

-I had a piece of an old bench top to use for the buck. The wheel well opening diameter at the body panel will be 40". Wiith a 1.5" high wheel well bumper tube this results in an inside wheel well opening diameter of 37". I'm running 35's and think this will be enough clearance at full stuff. I cycled the suspension and measured the tire height relative to the frame and sliders to confirm how high on the panel to place the wheel well. Then I laid it out on the wood panel using big dividers with a pencil taped on the end. The marked radius is 20.125" as there will be a 0.125" thick piece of flat steel screwed to the edge of the buck.

-Cut out the opening with a hand held jig saw

-Smoothed the wheel well radius using an old Stanley radius plane. It's nice- you just dial the top knob to adjust the radius of the lower shoe.

-Rolled a 1.25" x 0.125" flat steel strip to reinforce the wheel opening. Drilled and countersunk mounting holes, and screwed the steel reinforcement strip on to the buck. The pic shows the buck with the steel strip mounted in the wheel well opening - sitting on the bumper and slider. The wheels are still mounted on a dummy tube axle I made for mock up. One handy aspect is that it allows me to push the wheels outward to clear the untrimmed sliders. The sliders and bumper will be trimmed to fit the wheel well arch tubes when they're done.




With the buck together, I started cutting and forming the steel:

-Cut sections from 2" x 3" x 0.125" tube for the top section of the wheel well tube structure. A 40" diameter wheel opening needs a long piece! Look at the bow from the stress relief when the tube was cut open! I'll be rolling it in the opposite direction.

-Rolled the top sections of the wheel well tube structure. Used 3" wide flat "easy" direction dies for the outer/lower two rollers, but the center die needed to fit within the radiused edges of the cut 3" wide rectangular tube section. I used a die for rolling 1.75" dia. tube, as the outer edges are flat/cylindrical and just the right width to fit within the radiused tube section edges, as shown in the pic. (The bottom 3" flat stock sections used the 3" flat rollers top and bottom, and were easy to form)

-The top section rolled easily although it initially had some minor local variations in the radius. Got those smoothed out by rolling in short local sections where needed to improve the fit. The pic shows the final fit to the buck.

-Also made the the first side piece, rolled the "hard direction". I was impressed at how well the roller handled the hard direction forming. The key was doing it with gradual passes. Dialing in the hydraulic jack setting (pushing on the roller) that was needed to hit the final radius for good fit up was very sensitive, so sneaking up on it was the way to go. The pic shows one in progress, part of the way through the rolling. Final fit of the rolling of each side piece is discussed below.




At this point, one thing that stood out is that I needed to come up with a good way to clamp the full length of the formed top tube section to the buck in such a way that I'll be able to closely check the fit of the side plates and then ultimately tack them in place while clamped to the buck. I decided the best way to do this would be to make a clamping caul from the piece of wood that I cut out for the wheel well opening in the buck. The radius needed to be dialed in carefully with a plane, but if set right then it would make it easy to clamp the full perimeter while leaving access to attach and tack the side plates.

I adjusted the radius of the clamping caul using another old Stanley wood plane. (both planes used on the woodwork belonged to my Grandpa- who bought the Willys new in '53). This one has a handy guide attachment that keeps the cut perpendicular to the face of the clamping caul, as shown in the photo:



The next pic shows a wheel well arch top plate clamped in place on the buck using the final fitted clamping caul. The point of this was to get the top tube section clamped to the buck so that I could carefully fit the first side plate. All of the long clamps are to clamp the lower clamping caul to the buck- to sandwich the upper rolled tube section tightly to the buck. The small clamp in the upper right is just to lightly hold the side plate to the top piece for a photo, since the curvature makes it want to slide around. In the lower right you can see a magnet sticking out from under the side plate. The top tube section is clamped in the buck at a height that allows the magnets to be used as height spacers to set the side plate adjacent to the edge of the tube section. This helped with the fit checking, and will also be how I fixture it for welding with more clamps added around the perimeter of the joint.

After rolling the side plate to get it close to the final radius, I then mounted it on the buck and tube section top piece using supporting magnets as described, and worked from one end to the other, making very small local tweaks to the rolled radius using short, very light passes in the tube roller. This took a long time for the first one as I was still developing a feel for using the roller. After a lot of effort, I was happy with the fit of the first side plate.

Sucker for punishment continued...

Finished the two side plates for the first wheel well tube structure, and decided to tack them to the top section before unclamping it from the buck. Pretty happy with it:



Then formed the to side plates for the other wheel well tube. Tweaked the side plate fit to the top section, then chamfered and tack welded, as on the first assembly.

I then trimmed the inside radius edge of the side plates so that when the bottom plate is added the curved tube will end up 1.5" tall. This was tedious. The original flat stock that I rolled was 1.25" wide. I trimmed nominally 0.125" off the inside edge. Doing this after they were tacked was kind of a pain, but it actually worked out nicely to provide a uniform height to the section, compensating any slight variation in weld seam fit between the side plates and top plate. I scribed the cut line using an old Stanley scribe, with the reference foot held on the top/outer tube section. This set a uniform height for the side plate trim. Then I cut it with a jig saw, and ground and filed to finish to the scribe line.




The bottom plates were trimmed slightly to 2 7/8" wide for weld prep of the joints. Then all the pieces were clamped together on the buck

-The first pic shows the clamping arrangement, which was reset with each pair of tack welds. The C clamp that's clamped to the buck at the lower left serves as a stop for the long woodworking clamp (orange handle). It keeps the long clamp from sliding along the flat side of the buck- so that the orange clamp can be positioned at any radial position along the inside curve of the structure. The 2 7/8" width of the plate being tacked to the side plates leaves a 1/16" chamfer at the mating edges. I checked the 3" target width across the side plates using calipers, and any wide spots were tweaked in using a c clamp before tacking (as shown at the far left). These width adjustments were only needed in a couple of places and the biggest needed to be pulled in about 0.015".

- Started tacking in the middle then worked out towards the ends, re-clamping, tacking, etc....the pic shows the first assembly fully tacked

- The last pic shows the tacked part sitting over the rear tire just for fun. The dummy axle is stuffed at both sides here, but not articulated. The arch needs to be set higher than shown here as articulation droop on one side kicks the stuff side upward.) This gives a sense of the wheel well fit though. The front edge clearance is about 1", but appears too close due to the angle of the shot.)




More tacking, then final welds...

Your attention to detail is impressive to say the least.

Well done

Thanks gt1guy! Hope that your work trip is going better than it started, and that you're feeling better from the bug you picked up. I've really enjoyed seeing your build. It's a complex build, and your work is really superb! Very cool! Mine is simple in comparison, but still lots of stuff to figure out along the way. I think I hover between "attention to detail" and "burrowing down rabbit holes" - mostly the latter!

Lots O' Argon...

Next up was finish welding the first wheel well tube structure. Weld shrinkage was a challenge and my approach evolved to try to manage it more effectively as it went together. In the end, the cooled, unclamped wheel well arch radius pulled in by about 3/16"-1/4" versus the buck shape. So instead of the planned 1" tire clearance the resulting clearance was about 3/4" all around. Here's how the first one went:

- First Pic: I started making the welds starting at one end (upper right) and at the center, working the same direction. Made welds about 1.5- 2 " at a time, cooling fully after welding at each pair of locations (i.e. right and center). First made the outside radius 1.5" weld, flipped over and made the same outside radius 1.5" weld on other side. Cooled, then made the inside radius 1.5" weld, flipped over and made the same inside radius 1.5" weld on other side, then cooled. After cooling each pair of welds, I pulled the clamps to assess any free standing radius change of the assembly relative to the buck due to weld shrinkage.

The assembly started pulling inward after about the first 6" of weld length accumulated on each of the 8 beads. The inside edge welds were creating most of the pull, and I tried peening these a bit to see if that would expand the bead a little to ease off the shrink. No significant effect, so I gave up on that idea.

Concerned that the assembly would keep pulling inward as I progressed, I then decided to try welding a few rounds of the 1.5" beads on the outside radius welds first, (still cooling between each) before doing more inside radius welds. I thought the outside radius beads would pull the assembly back towards the forming buck profile (so spring back would enlarge the assembly radius), and that locking these in first might reduce the effect of the subsequent shrinkage on the inside radius welds. The outside radius welds did pull the assembly back towards the forming buck enlarging the assembly radius when unclamped. I then started back on the inside radius welds. After making the first few and checking the free standing radius after cooling, the inward shrink was creeping back - the radius was reducing a little with each inside radius weld.

- Second Pic: So then I thought I'd try a little "pre-stress". I clamped the part in the buck using a couple of 3/16" spacers at the center, to create an intentional gap at the buck center and then clamped the assembly ends to the buck without spacers. This stretched the part outward, expanding the clamped radius during the next weld and cooling cycles. The photos shows this set-up. The part ends are tight to the form, while the center has a gap, so the radius is held larger than target during the weld to try to offset shrinkage.

-Third Pic: Continued welding and cooling in the same pattern of welds and cooling cycles, working around the part. This photo shows how the welds turned out.

- Fourth Pic: The pre-stress clamping helped reduce the rate of change, but the arch radius still pulled in a little more by the time all the welds were done. With the spacers removed and the top of the arch clamped to the buck, the ends each were pulled in about 3/16 to 1/4" versus the buck profile - i.e. the radius pulled in by about 1/4". You can see the gap in the photo.

-Fifth pic: Here's the welded assembly sitting on the tire with a 3/4" block. Not the best pic, but it shows that the assembly shape is nice and the clearance is pretty good, even if 3/16'-1/4' less than plan...



This result was disappointing, mostly because it blew up my "dual purpose buck" intent, as described in earlier posts.

It was clear that as is the buck wouldn't work for forming the mating body flange. (I had intended to just swap in a 1/16" thinner steel edge insert to take account of the panel material thickness for hammer form use, with no other changes). But with weld shrink changing the assembled arch radius, to make the body panel fit the tube meant I'd need to modify the buck opening to match. I didn't want to do that as I wanted to keep the buck opening radius as is so I could make replacement arches if needed in the future. I briefly thought about making a tapered insert on the buck for panel forming purposes but that was too crazy! So I converged on the simple idea of making a separate hammer form for the body panel - which I now think is a much better idea anyway! So much for the dual purpose buck nonsense...

Getting past that little mental obstacle, I thought the part actually turned out pretty nice! The final radius is still a good fit to the tire at full stuff, even though it's closer than I originally targeted. Based on that, I decided that I'd forge ahead and see if I could get the second assembly to reasonably match the first...


Finished welding up the second wheel well arch, using the same methodology including the pre-stress clamping applied at a similar stage. Time consuming little beasts. The weld shrinkage effect on the wheel well radius turned out to be comparable to the first assembly, so they match pretty well.

It's a little hard to get a clear radius measurement, but I clamped them together at one end (to align the inside face of the arches side by side) and also at the top of the arch (also aligning the inside face of the arches) so these points of the inside radius tube surface facing the tire were aligned. Then measured the other end and they were within 1/8" of each other - so a wheel well radius difference of 1/16" between the two assemblies. (since the opposing ends are mutually aligned with the clamp). Here's the two assemblies side by side:




Comments on the old forum were really helpful regarding the shrinkage topic. They helped me to realize that with over 16 feet of weld beads on each assembly, it's no surprise that the final radius moved a bit from weld shrinkage, even with good clamping to the buck. Duh! Great reality check!

I'm getting a little better at understanding and managing weld shrink effects, but it's still a challenge. Knowing how these worked out, if I was to make them again, I'd make the buck radius about 1/4" or 1/2' larger to compensate for the weld shrink. But I like them as is and don't want to repeat the fab effort anytime soon!

Forum comments on the arch build also helped me realize that I needed to double check the final vertical positioning of the arches on the frame to make sure I had them high enough to accommodate articulated tire clearance since the axle droop on one side tends to pivot the stuff side on the bump stop, further kicking the angled axle and tire up much further than when reaching bump on both sides.

So, before fitting and welding on the arches, I'm going to re-check the articulation clearance. Also, before that I'm going to pull everything off to flip the frame and finish some welds on the bottom side - especially the bottom outrigger/sliders to frame rail joints. It's an easy time to tackle the bottom side loose ends while the frame is still easy to flip.

Yeah, weld shrinkage is a huge problem, especially when welding long seams on thin material.

You're not kidding 1Sinner! Speaking of thicker easier to weld material...to keep from going nuts while waiting for welds to cool on the wheel well arches, I filled the time making some new spring plates from some heavier material.

Revised Spring Plates

As shown in earlier posts, the original spring mounting plan was to use GM truck plates with square u bolts in a u-bolt flip kit style. This earlier photo shows the GM parts and U bolts crudely mocked up, without the lower plates I planned to make.



I didn't like this set-up for several reasons:

-The GM plates are made for a larger diameter housing tube, and even though the Dana 44 housings I'm now running have 2.75" tubes that are larger than the old stock axles, the fit of the GM plates was pretty poor and would need to be corrected. I could fix them by welding a sleeve to the cap with the right radius, but that just makes the frame clearance worse on top.

-The fit of the GM cap at the front diff housing web was also a problem. I had some ideas to modify the GM plates, but none were real appealing.

-The plates combined with tall nuts on 5/8" bolts add a lot of material above the axle tube, restricting upward suspension travel (see above pic) This is the main thing that really bugged me.

-On the bottom side of the spring, the plates I had planned to make would locate the bolts in grooves cut in 1/2" plate as is typical with this set-up. With 5/8" dia bolts and this grooved plate between the bolt and spring, the bottom side clearance gain from the flip was not that much. I decided I'd rather have more up travel in the trade-off...

Going back to conventional u-bolts leaves more clearance against the frame rail for upward axle travel. Conventional u-bolts meant I'd need to notch the web of the front diff housing a bit at the inside passenger u-bolt, but the amount would depend on the lower plate design.

I weighed the "high clearance" lower plate design such as sold by Ruff Stuff and made by Meiser on his Rango build on the old site, but I didn't like the way this design requires the u-bolts to be spaced farther apart laterally along the housing tube due to the material thickness of the upright part of the plate assembly that wraps around the spring pack, and also for clearance of the u bolt nuts and washers against this upright section. With narrow stock Willys springs it works well, but with 2.5" wide YJ springs and the wider Dana 44 front diff housing that overlaps over the spring this approach puts the U-bolt really far inboard on the diff housing, requiring a lot of notching to the housing web. I also was a little nervous about the stress on the welds in the way these are usually built.

A traditional flat lower spring plate positions the u-bolts tight against the spring pack, as narrowly spaced along the housing as possible. This would require the least trimming of the diff housing web. There's also no welds under high stress in this approach. To go this route loses ground clearance at the spring plate though...



After weighing all these thoughts in the back of my mind, I decided to go with traditional u-bolts and lower spring plate design with skid plates to keep the nuts from hanging up. Basically like the old Con-Ferr plates I had on the stock springs in the past, but scaled up for the wider YJ springs and D44.

Most commercially available versions of basic spring plates along these lines have slotted holes to allow different housing tube sizes. This makes them longer than necessary to fit my 2.75" housings, which I didn't care for. I wanted to keep the plates short to minimize the clamped length of the spring - to let the springs flex as much as possible. Some commercial versions are also very wide, and I wanted to keep mine narrow.

For those reasons, I made my own plates - with round u-bolt holes and compact dimensions. Here's how they went together, following the sequence of the photos:


-It worked out that the widest u-bolt for the front diff would just fit within a section cut from a 2"x 6"x 0.250" tube (with some slight tapering of the flat washer to fit the inside tube radius). The other nuts and washers fit with lots of room. The first pic shows the sectioning of the tube to make this part. I could have formed the bends from flat plate, but the tube section has a large smoothly shaped radius, and I liked the shape to reduce the stress riser on the spring pack where it transitions out of the spring plate - so I went this route.

-These spring plates were drilled for the u-bolts, and blanks for the skid plates were cut from 0.250" thick cold rolled

-Formed the ends of the skid plates in the shop press finger brake

- Socket wrench clearance holes were drilled/cut and finish filed on the skid plates. Some commercial plates are much wider so the clearance holes are round and the outer edges of the skid plate are continuous rather than notched as here. That has the benefit of a smooth edge, but I preferred to keep the mount and skid plate narrow, resulting in the notched sides of the skid plates.

- Side support plates were cut and chamfered for welding. The side plates are 7/8" tall. The u- bolt nut will end up recessed about 1/16" to the skid surface and basically fill the socket wrench notches when installed. The pic shows the full assembly before welding. The weld sequence is to tack the side plates to the skid, then make any final fit adjustment of the height of the spring plate ends to get a tight fit, then weld it all up.

- Finished welding up the spring plates. These next three pics are the finished plates. My old Conn-Ferr plates have lower shock mount posts at the corners, as do some other commercial parts, but I'll be welding double shear shock mounts to the axle tubes instead.

- The top and bottom close up shots are of the spring plate that mounts at the front diff. It has the U-bolt nuts with some mock up bolts fitted. I used these to check the socket wrench fit in the recesses at all locations before tacking, then removed them for final welding. I put them back in for the photo to show how the nuts are recessed versus the face of the skid plate. You can also see the socket wrench fit in the skid plate cut-out; it fits easily in all locations but I kept the clearance somewhat small to preserve skid plate surface. This plate also has the wider spaced u-bolt holes on the side next to the front diff casting. In the photo with the nuts in the foreground you can see that the wide u bolt spacing puts the washers slightly into the inside radius area of the 2" x 6" x 0.250" rectangular tube section. I radiused the edge of the thick flat washers to nestle them in the tube radius, and the fit worked out nice. I just pay a little attention when first cinching those u-bolt nuts.

-The last pic shows all four completed spring plates.



This was a nice project keep me from getting impatient while waiting for wheel arch welds to cool!

Frame Rotisserie Kluge

I'm about to disassemble stuff so I can flip the frame / slider assembly to make some bottom side welds more comfortably. Since disassembly is pretty boring, I procrastinated a bit by making gadgets to enable me to flip the frame assembly over more easily. It's getting pretty heavy at this point!

I'd love to have a full blown "rotisserie" like an Auto Twirler, but I don't have much room for such a big piece of gear, and they are big bucks. So at this point, the idea is to make some pivot points at the center of the front and rear bumpers and attach them to something so I can rotate the frame over around the pivots like a heavy BBQ chicken. The pro versions can handle the whole vehicle, and have an adjustment to dial in alignment of the center of gravity of the rig to the pivots of the fixture... but with just the frame to spin, if the pivots are reasonably close to the cg of the frame It should work ok. I'm also making it with stuff I had around the garage. Here's how it went together:

The rear pivot attaches to the pintle hook holes in the bumper, and to my "lathe bed workstation". The workstation provides a height that allows the frame to be rotated with clearance for the rock sliders at the floor and ceiling of my garage. I wanted this rear pivot to also be able to tip downward, so I could lift the back of the frame with my engine hoist, attach the rear pivot to the bumper, then lift the front of the frame with the hoist till it's level and ready to spin. (A U joint would do this but that was more flexibility than I needed or wanted). Here's how the back pivot turned out. It's just some 1.75" tube a section of 2"x5" x0.120" tube, some plate, and a short section of 2" tube at the back that is pinned with a bolt-it's a flange to keep the 1.75" shaft from sliding out of the rectangular tube.




For the front, I figured I'd lift and support the frame with my engine hoist. I decided to make a simple shaft out of 1.75" tube, like the back pivot. I'll wrap and bolt a chain around this tube to hang the frame from the engine hoist. This will allow the tube to spin in the chain wrap. I put a big flange on the end to contain the chain. The pivot tube attaches to a beam made from sections of 2"x3" tubing. This is secured by two bolts through the winch mounting holes in the bumper, and on the ends it attaches to the D-Ring mounts. Here's what it turned out like (I need to pick up some bolts of the right size to finish mounting it- the 3/8 bolts shown are just to check fit):




Kind of weird, but I think it will work better than just manhandling it on the floor with the hoist as I did when the frame was lighter. These fixture pieces are small, so they are easy to stow away.

I plan to make the underside welds on the outriggers next. Then I'll flip the frame back over to fit the rear axle, which I'm hoping to retrieve soon. I plan to tweak the fixed spring hanger pivot position on the hanger to gain a little more margin against shackle inversion as part of this. Then I'll fit and weld the wheel well arch structures on top, and flip back upside down to finish the wheel well arch welds. When all done, I want the tires to nestle well in the wheel well arches at full stuff/articulation.

Frame Flip

Finished removing drivetrain from the frame so I could flip it over to make some bottom side welds. The rotisserie gadgets I made for flipping the frame worked well. Here's some steps:

First I bolted the rear pivot to the bumper pintle hook holes. Then lifted the frame with an engine hoist, and bolted the pivot base to my "lathe bed workstation". This shows why I wanted the pivot base to allow some vertical tipping of the pivot tube:



Then moved the engine hoist to the front, wrapped and bolted a chain around the front pivot, and lifted the front end to be level with the back. It stays pretty level side to side because the drop of the frame center section puts the center of gravity of the assembly a little below the pivot points



Then flipped it over. This took a little effort to overcome the offset center of gravity - but pretty easy with most of the weight supported by the rotisserie gadgets.



Then got to the underside welds. The floor side of the rock sliders were clamped to some 2 x 5 tubes to align them level/coplanar with the frame rails, while welding the bottom edge of the outriggers to the frame rail. The pic below shows the clamping set up. While clamped in a similar manner for the top and side welds of the outriggers to the rails, weld shrinkage resulted in the rockslides setting about 1/8" higher than the rails, ie it created a 1/8" slope upward between the frame rail and slider rail (viewed with frame right side up) - even though they were clamped in a similar manner when I did the top and side welds on the outriggers. I was crossing my fingers that clamping them to pull the sliders level with the frame rails and then welding the bottom joint might level them out a bit- both by locking the free lower edge of the outriggers with the weld, but also because the bottom side joint weld shrinkage would tend to pull in the opposite direction of the slope that was introduced from the top side weld. Remarkably, it did improve- pretty flat at this point. Happy about that!



After this brief victory, I decided to remove the transmission cross member to check the rail spacing along the section with all of these outrigger welds. The cross member had been in place ever since I made the engine mount welds and outrigger welds. So I was bummed to find that it was locked tight between the frame rails, as the rails had pulled inward from the weld shrink effects of the engine mount and outrigger welds. Bummer. The worse area was towards the front of the center rail, peaking at about the front outrigger - about 1/8' max. inward bow on each side- i.e. 24.25" space between the rails rather than 25.5". Had to ponder this one for a while!

I decided to try using a body / frame jack to spread / cold set the rails back. Thought about buying an HF jack set for cheap, but it seemed like junk. OTC makes a nicer 10 ton jack set that's US made, but big bucks for the amount of time I would use it, and I'm short on space to store it. Plus at that point I was saving for a tube bender for the roll cage work. I found a tool rental place nearby that had the OTC model I had been checking out - and pretty cheap for a 24 hour rental! Great! Back in business!

Here it is in action, just behind the engine mount cross member area:



I took it slow, working on the inside of the frame rails and also across the sliders, edging it out with smaller applications of force, moving locations, measuring, then repeating. It worked great. It's back to 25.5" inside rail spacing width the whole way along except for at the very front of the center rail and just behind the engine cross member where it's about 25.375" i.e. bowed in 1/16" per side. I'm happy with that. Transmission crossmember fits great again too. Phew! Weld shrink / distortion is my nemesis!

While I had the rental jack available I also tweaked the rear bumper side sliders a little. You can see in the first picture of this post that they had pulled inward slightly from their welds to the main bumper (look at the space between the side bumper and frame rail - you can see they are not quite parallel -which is from this slight pull in of the side bumper. The jack made short work of getting them right on the mark. Cool tool- glad I could find one to rent out!

Fitting Wheel Well Structure

With the the rock slider outrigger bottom welds done, I was almost ready to mount the rear wheel well arch tubes - just had one adjustment to make first...

Cycling the rear axle with the single main leaf earlier in the build, I had some concern that the shackle position was close to inversion at full droop. Before welding in the wheel well arches, I moved the fixed spring hanger pivot hole by 0.250" to reduce inversion risk by shortening the span between the fixed and shackle hangers. Having this in place made sense before fitting the wheel arch position relative to the tire at full stuff. For now, I just filled the initial hole in the brackets, and redrilled new holes 0.250 offset from the originals.

• Cut and welded filler pieces:
• Redrilled pivot hole offset by 0.250". The second pic shows the modified hanger on the frame:
• The next shows the rear shackle position at droop with the modified fixed hanger. This photo also shows the "dummy axle". It's a 1.75" tube, but has a 1" square tube attached on top at the u-bolts so that the top surface of the "axle" is where the final 2.75" axle tubes will be- so I can easily check the axle stuff clearance relative to the frame rail bottom, and take into consideration bump stop type and compressed position. I was waiting on my axle build from R&P at this point, but wanted to make some progress. For the droop position shown, the dummy axle was forced downward from the frame with a spreader clamp to simulate full axle weight and a dynamic axle drop.

With that little change done, it was time to fit the wheel well arches. I spent a lot of time cycling the suspension and thinking through how the positioning would work relative to the overall body design.

Here's some body design considerations:
The planned body has a lot of little changes vs. stock, and some relate to how the wheel arches are positioned.
- The body tub sheetmetal will be 60" wide, and the slider/wheel arches add another 5/8" per side, for a total slider/arch width of 61.25". The stock body width is 57.5". Combined with the stock width 27.5" c-c frame and stock style bump stop positioning, the wider outer edge of the wheel arch has to be set higher to clear the tire vs. a wheel well cut in a stock width body - because of the upward angle of an articulated tire.

• The planned body tub height will be 1.625" taller than stock, referenced to the grill. ( 16.625" above the rear frame rail top.)
• The front fenders will be highlined, ie raised up on the grill shell for more tire clearance, and the hood height shortened.
• Shocks lengths and mounting scenarios were also being estimated, and I wanted to get as much travel as I could out of the leafs while keeping the top shock mounts below the tub top.

Here's a brief summary of how the fitting of the arches changed around a bit, then settled to the final location:
As I worked through balancing suspension cycling results with the overall body design, I received great questions and experienced feedback from forum members at the old site. Meiser especially got me to review the articulated tire height more carefully - which I'm sure grateful for!

I first realized that when I made the wheel arch buck, I estimated the height of the arch position on the body a little too low. That was OK though, as I had left extra material in place for final fitting. Lucked out there!

Further articulation cycling to make sure I had enough wheel arch clearance lead to my overestimating, and I went too high. I had made too aggressive an assumption as to the fully compressed bump stop height. I assumed compressing the bump stop to within 1/2" of the frame rail, which was inverting the stuffed single main leaf pretty heavily. Placed that high, the arches looked kind of dumb too...

Thinking about why it looked dumb, and how the rear arch position would relate to the highlined front fenders, lead to being more realistic about the spring compression and bump stop scenario and deciding the final positioning - which has continued to work well as the build has proceeded.

This final arch position is 14" from the top of the rear frame rail to the top of the wheel well arch, and I planned to set the front fender highline to about the same height or slightly taller, for both tire clearance and visual alignment. As it has turned out, the final front fender highline is now set with the top of the fender set at 14.5" from the top of the frame rail to the top of the fender. I'll cover that in a later post.

More than enough said... here's some pics of how it went together:

- This first pic shows the wheel well arches clamped to the outsides of the rock sliders and bumper ends. After deciding the height based on suspensions cycling articulation work, I also wanted to make sure that each side was accurately positioned to each other in height and centering to the frame and tires. This shot shows flat stock clamped to the frame - used as a stop along the back edge of the arch to set the arch-to-bumper distance consistently from side to side. I set this stop and the clamps and cycled the suspension again to measure tire to arch distance to check tire centering, and tweaked the clamped positions until both were well centered on the tire, ballancing clearances with both sides stuffed and also articulating with one side stuffed & the other side drooped. The pic also shows a level across the arch tops for consistent height. This was also set by direct measurement of height from the level to the frame rail tops , and also by matching the two arch trim points to each other side by side, off the rig. Once the positions were fully set and clamped, then the arches, bumper ends, and rock sliders were all scribed for trimming.

- One other consideration was whether I would be able to remove the rear anti-rock torsion bar from its tube on the frame- as it is adjacent to the wheel well arch and could be "trapped". I was thinking I might have to make a service access notch of something, but I lucked out. With one bushing removed, the taper of the bar and the larger 2" diameter mounting tube/crossmember I used allow the bar to slide out at an angle, just inside the wheel arch. If I ever break the bar, I'll be able to replace it with no trouble. The second pic shows the bar removal clearance.



- Once positioned, I took the plunge and made the cuts to fit the arch, bumper, and slider together. These were cut with a little excess material, checked for fit again, and gradually trimmed to get a nice fit. The first pic shows the fitted parts.

- As mentioned, I then had second thoughts about the initial fitted arch position - it was set a little too high at 14.5". Decided to move them down a bit to 14" height above the frame rails at the top of the arch. The arch tubes were easily trimmed to set them lower- but lowering caused a gap between the rock slider ends, bumper ends, and the inside radius piece of the arch that caps them off. The next couple pics show the filler plates and revised fit up. The added beef at the corners is kind of a nice addition, even though it was a fix for a goof.

- The last pic shows the arches tacked, ready for final TIG welds. (It’s on stands with the axle hanging lower than ride height).



One last note on the body design and the arches: The planned top of the tub is raised vs stock to 16.625" above the frame rail / floor and the top of the arches ended up at 14", so there's a little over 2.5" of body panel above the rear wheel arch peak. This will conceal a 1.75" cage spreader behind it between the B and C pillars.

Glad these are done!

Fuel Tank

I had a Trailquest stainless fuel tank built several years ago, for the earlier build effort that stalled (see first post). I'm using this tank - but it needed a few modifications. It holds about 18 gallons.

The tank is heavy, with an integrated skid plate on the bottom. It's set up with an internal pan to support an in-tank fuel pump for TBI/EFI, but I don't have the pump or outlet plate, as I originally bought the tank with a simple fuel pick up tube, intending to use a mechanical pump on the engine to feed a carb. I'm still planning the carb, but decided to go with an in tank pump regulated down for the carb. (I might change my mind and go EFI, but for now I'm planning to use an 85-86 Astrovan Quadrajet purchased from a forum member. My early 4.3 V-6 has a hole in the block for a mechanical pump, but the pump mounts "upside down" vs a traditional small block pump - and even with the right pump it interfered with the exhaust manifold I had in place. Since the interior of the tank is set up for it, I decided to go with the in-tank pump.

The tank is stainless, but the originally purchased pick up tube / plate is mild steel that is already rusty. The bolt pattern of the plate is an odd size so the pump/plate kits available from places like Tanks Inc don't fit the tank. I decided to make a new stainless plate pick-up / return to fit the tank and mount a Walbro pump. I think I have the details of the plumbing and wiring worked out and am gathering the parts. Will post more on this as it comes together.

In the meantime, the other thing that needs to change are the tank mounting brackets. They are too high on the tank for the new frame mounting points, so the tank hangs down too low, and the filler tubes don't clear the top of the frame rail. (I chose to not have the typical CJ frame "kick down" at the back of the frame). The brackets are also too long for the mounts built in to the bumper. So I ground the old ones off, and made some new ones to move the tank up higher.

Here's some pics of:
- The original tank

- Original tank set in the frame, offset to the left as the filler tubes hit the frame rail. You can also see that the rear mounting tabs protrude beyond the bumper. (I want the tank spaced close to the bumper to assure diff clearance at the front of the tank).

- Tank sits too low



Moving the tank up by a little over 1" puts the top of the tank and the additional plumbing and wiring above the back frame rails. The floor over the tank will need to be elevated above the rails. I was initially thinking I'd fit a rear seat, and this rise in the back floor would just be in the usual dead space under the seat. After thinking through shock mounting scenarios though, the upper mounts will likely crowd a rear seat, so I dropped the seat idea. I'm thinking the rise in the back floor will work out fine, and I'll make that floor section above the tank removable for easy maintenance of the tank plumbing and fuel pump. The new position gets the bottom about even with the springs and shackles at the back, and the filler tubes have clearance to the frame rail for hose attachment. I could go higher for better ground clearance, but I chose this height to balance clearance with conserving interior space.

Here's the new position:


More pics:
- Revised brackets made from 3/16" 304 stainless. The pic shows the new brackets next to an old one. They are 2.5" wide and the tank contact patch is 2.5" tall, whereas the originals were 2" wide and 2" tall. The originals were thinner, and deeply slotted for mount adjustability. The new bumper mount brackets are shorter to fit close to the bumper and use a round hole to fix the location to the rear bumper. The front brackets have some hole elongation for fit variability- but not near as long of a slot as the originals, which were wacky. I thought about gusseting the brackets, but decided against it. With no gusset, the rears can mount pointing "up" so they tuck inside the bumper which is visually clean. The fronts mount pointing down, so could fit a gusset - but I think that gussets would make the mount stiff enough that it could be more likely to punch through the tank in an accident, rather than deforming with the tank.

-Ran a separate argon line to flood the tank interior w argon to avoid "sugar" crystalized stainless at the welds, and welded on the new tank brackets. First welded pic shows the front brackets, the second shows the bumper brackets.

-Last pic is the tank mounted in the frame.




The last pic also shows a blank stainless top plate I made for the new fuel pick-up/ in-tank fuel pump mount- it's in place at the top right. Ordered some fuel line fittings and little bits for the pump wiring feed-thru so I can finish it up.

If you don't heat soak stainless while welding brackets to the outside of a plate, it won't sugar on the underside of the plate. It's only if it gets to the upper transformation temp and is exposed to oxygen then it will sugar. We remove backing gas once it gets to a given thickness because it won't burn through. It's good to back purge though. It never hurts.

1Sinner said:

If you don't heat soak stainless while welding brackets to the outside of a plate, it won't sugar on the underside of the plate. It's only if it gets to the upper transformation temp and is exposed to oxygen then it will sugar. We remove backing gas once it gets to a given thickness because it won't burn through. It's good to back purge though. It never hurts.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the great info 1Sinner! Really nice to know for something like the tank that has a big interior volume and that's hard to make a shielding gas dam at the weld areas only. Understanding the oxidation reaction better to be able to put more thought into the backing gas question- rather than just always doing it as a "rule". Opens up options when faced with it again. Thanks!

In Tank Fuel Pump

Got the little bits and pieces together to make the in-tank fuel pump assembly. Took a little thinking to figure out the fuel pick-up & return line plumbing and the electrical feedthrough approach. Finished it and I think it will work. I suppose it would have been easier to make a new mounting ring on the tank and to fit a commercial pump assembly, but it was kind of fun to put this together.

Here's some photos and comments on the plumbing:

-One area that took me a while to sort out is the fuel pick up and return plumbing through the plate that mounts to the top of the tank. I found a -6 AN bulkhead fitting made by Earls that is available in 304 stainless, part number SS983306. These, and similar aluminum fittings from many sources, are made to go through a bulkhead, but I didn't think that the sealing feature at the bulkhead hole was sufficient to seal at the fuel tank plate. Earl's had them in stainless, so I decided to weld these to the 304 SS top plate, and also to the fuel pick-up / return tubes. This will assure no leaks, and provides a compact footprint. For the tubes I used 0.375" OD / 0.277" ID T-304 SS seamless tubing. I also drilled the interior AN end of the fitting about 1/2' deep to accept and mechanically support the tubes. The first pic shows the drilling of one end of the bulkhead fitting.

- The second photo shows the drilled fitting after dressing the edge with a file, and the cut and cleaned up tube that will be welded into the fitting.

- Welded the tube to the fitting on both pick up and return tubes. Ran an argon purge through the tube to keep the interior from oxidizing from the weld heat - a lot smaller volume than the fuel tank in the last post! Pic shows a finished tube weld

-Then welded the fitting / tube assemblies to the underside of the tank mounting plate, which is also T-304 SS



The next area that took some thinking was the electrical feedthrough for the pump wiring in the tank. Doing a little looking at what other folks have done, some just run wire through a hole and pot it with goop. I wanted something cleaner that I'd feel more confident in. I saw some commercial fuel pump assemblies that looked nice, but couldn't find just a feedthrough part by itself. So I put together something with bits and pieces from Mcmaster-Carr that I think will work well.

Photos and comments:

This photo below shows the parts in their sequence of assembly. Moving from left to right (inside of tank to outside) the key parts are:
- 8-32 SS cap screw (and associated SS nuts and washers). The screw was 1 1/4" long as purchased, which I cut down to 1". I ordered the longer length in order to get a section of smooth unthreaded shaft near the head that the O-ring can seal against.

- The large nylon washer is a countersink washer- it is assembled so the countersink traps the outer edges of the o-ring- so the o-ring bears firmly against both the smooth part of the screw and to the inside face of the tank top plate - sealing both leak paths.

- The O ring is Viton and is sized so it's a tight fit to the screw and is compressed well by the countersunk nylon washer.

- The nylon sleeve/flange washer inserts from the top side of the tank plate to provide electrical isolation and is only used for the fuel pump hot lead. The pump ground connection uses all the same parts but omits this insulating sleeve so it grounds to the tank as well as to the ground lead. The first nut on top clamps the assembly to compress the o-ring seal. The second nut and split lock washer attach the outside wiring ring connector.

A little detail here is that the insulating sleeve length was trimmed to be just proud of the inside surface of the tank top plate- assuring full insulation of the screw. Its OD is also smaller than the o-ring contact diameter- so even with the sleeve protruding above the plate a little to assure insulation at the edge of the plate hole, it doesn't interfere with the o-ring seal to the plate.



Here's a little more info to clarify the way the feedthrough stuff works: The hot lead screw is insulated from the mounting plate on all surfaces through the combination of the nylon washers and o-ring. The head is exposed inside the tank. The ground lead screw has a nylon washer on the inside solely for mechanical support of the viton sealing o-ring, while the shaft of the screw and the top nut bear on the mounting plate so they are tied to the plate electrically. The head of this screw is also exposed inside the tank. The other end of the leads that connects to the pump are also exposed to the fuel. While the leads have a molded connector fitting, they have no sealing features. This is a pretty typical arrangement for in tank pumps I looked at. My understanding is that the fuel and fuel air mix in the tank isn't very electrically conductive. I was surprised at this when I first started researching in tank pumps. I believe that OEM set-ups are comparable. If anyone knows different, or sees any issue with this arrangement pipe up and let me know!

Here are photos of the assembly:
-Feedthrus assembled, inside view

- Finished top side view, loosely mounted to the tank. I had an "S" stamp in my tool box, so stamped an indicator for which port is "send".

- The complete pump assembly. The Walbro pump, and inlet filter, 3/8" SAE J30R10 hose, wiring pigtail, and outer pump insulation all are from Auto Performance Engineering. Their site has a lot of good info, and nice selection of quality parts.






I'm going to wait to fully mount the assembly with its gasket until I finish working out other tank related stuff later on in the build - like the filler set-up. The tank needs a thorough cleaning before setting the pump in for good, so I'll wait to clean it until everything can be assembled at once. Having this sub-assembly done now is nice as the floor height will get set to provide clearance of plumbing and electrical routing to this assembly and the vent and fuel gage sender.

One detail I'm going to change at final wiring is to change the style of nut on the feedthroughs. On the above, I used standard non-locking nuts, thinking that the two nuts can be tightened against each other to lock. On the bottom nut especially, I avoided a nylock or metal locking nut with a crowned locking feature on top, as I thought that wouldn't provide a good seat for the terminal. I have since found a flat top stainless nut that has a locking upper thread - so I'll go with that and a flat washer rather than the helical lock washer when I wire it up.

CJ3BL said:

Thanks for the great info 1Sinner! Really nice to know for something like the tank that has a big interior volume and that's hard to make a shielding gas dam at the weld areas only. Understanding the oxidation reaction better to be able to put more thought into the backing gas question- rather than just always doing it as a "rule". Opens up options when faced with it again. Thanks!

Click to expand...

You can also purge with cheaper backing gas if not running open root. We've done experiments with nitrogen and 75/25. They both work well as purges without the higher cost of argon. Nitrogen works well with open root tig but C25 gets much hotter and tends to pull filler deeper into the root.

1Sinner said:

You can also purge with cheaper backing gas if not running open root. We've done experiments with nitrogen and 75/25. They both work well as purges without the higher cost of argon. Nitrogen works well with open root tig but C25 gets much hotter and tends to pull filler deeper into the root.

Click to expand...

Interesting! You’re clearly at a much higher level in your welding skill and knowledge than my minor league work! Really interesting to learn more through your experience. Thanks for sharing the info!. In my small garage space, I just have a basic Lincoln TIG that I love, with two small argon tanks on the cart. When not used for back purge, the second tank is always there to bail me out when the first one goes empty and the gas shop is closed! Barely have room to work, will have to stick with just using argon - but really good stuff to know about - you never know what fab challenges may come along!

The next topic posts are re-ordered a bit versus how they came together originally, to make for easier reading. Some stuff that I built, I later changed. Those original build posts were spread over time making it hard to follow. Since I'm rebuilding this thread on Irate, hindsight enables grouping descriptions of current and earlier variants together. I’ll cover the current configuration in detail, briefly describe earlier configurations, and comment on why the changes were made. No hiding my mistakes and detours, but will try to make them easier to follow!

Here's a summary of what will be covered in the next few posts:

Rear Axle/Disc Brakes/Parking Brake:
The next few posts will go into details of the rear axle and brakes.

Here’s the current configuration of the rear axle:

• Dana 44, housing built by R&P using GM Truck housing.
• 54.5” wms-wms late CJ wide track width, offset center for D-18 xfer case.
• New 2.75" diameter, 3/8" wall tubes.
• Custom R&P full- float end pucks that directly fit GM small bearing spindles with their stock spindle locating OD.
• Dana Spicer Part 706528X, 1971-76 GM K10/K15 1/2 ton 4x4 truck “Small Bearing” spindles, I.D. bored to 1.335” for 30 spline axle clearance.
• RCV full float axles, 300M, 30 spline inner and outer, "waisted" shaft diameter (ie shaft diameter away from splines and seals is less than spline root diameter for torsional resilience to cushion R&P, carrier, and reduce risk of crack initiation at spline end stress riser), fully polished to eliminate machining stress risers.
• 30 spline ARB
• 4:27 Dana-Spicer gears
• Yukon 30 spline drive flanges. (or warn hubs if flat towed)
• Axle oil seals inboard at the diff.
• Hubs and Rotors: 1976-92 Ford 1/2 Ton F-150 Truck, Bronco D44
• Calipers: GM /Chevy K-10 1/2T 4x4 ,1973-1991 (7” pin centers, “D52” pads)
• Wildwood electronic parking brake calipers, modified to fit Ford rotors
• GM calipers & Wildwood parking brake mount on fabbed caliper bracket.

In an earlier post here, I described the decision to go with the R&P built full float D44 approach. They did a great job building the housing, with custom full float pucks for GM spindles. While R&P built the housing and installed the ARB, I sorted out the specifics for the axle order and what I wanted to do for a parking brake.

Axle shaft decision:
Several forum members were a huge help in weighing details of axle alloy choice, outer spline count (19 vs 30) , straight vs. waisted shaft style, polished vs. machined, seal location for full float, etc… Those exchanges were pretty involved, enlightening, and fun - including whether I'd be better off to go for a D60! I really appreciate all the inputs that were received!

I won’t try to recapture all that dialog, but here’s where I ended up:

While a D60 could be built with better strength vs cost, I stayed with the idea of a nicely built full float D44 as I think it’s weight and size provided the best balanced fit to the rest of the rig and my driving style/intended use.

On the axle shaft specs, the RCV shafts that I ordered are remarkably similar to the configuration of my old Summers Brothers full float set-up (which I also really like and will use on another rig).

The forum discussions on pros and cons of different axle design details lead to the same conclusions that convinced me to go with the Summers Brothers axles way back when, and that are embodied in the RCV shafts now. I essentially circled back to the same detail specs: both RCV and the old Summers Brothers are 300M, 30 spline inner and outer, waisted, fully polished, and are beautifully made! The main differences are that the RCV’s are longer for the wide track housing, and have the seal surface at the diff housing.

In following posts, I’ll detail how the axle went together.


Parking brake decision:

As part of the axle build, I pondered alternatives to the stock drive line parking brake. Considered ElDorado combination calipers, various mechanical parking brake calipers, etc. That lead to mounting cable operated mechanical Wilwood parking brake calipers on modified GM caliper mounting plates as the first design approach. I completed fab of this set-up.

Subsequently, while working exhaust routing, anti-rock arm attachment, bump stop and shock mounting, I became concerned with the routing of mechanical parking brake cables through all that stuff…then Wilwood released an electric version of the same parking caliper. Routing wiring would be literally more flexible and compact versus mechanical cables. So I made new caliper mounts for the GM brake calipers and Wildwood electronic parking brake calipers. This version will be detailed in posts following the axle assembly, along with some pics of the prior assembly.

More posts coming soon...

D44 Rear Axle Assembly

Parts arrived for the rear axle and I made one last little refinement before assembly:

I had bought used modified spindles from R&P for the full float set-up initially. I changed these out for new Dana Spicer spindles with slightly different modification:

The used modified R&P GM spindles were in OK shape, but a little rough on the bearing mount surfaces. They were bored to 1.345" for 30 spline axles, and also had an o-ring groove machined in the outer flange that could be used to seal the flange at the housing puck. I had discussed the pros and cons of this O-ring feature with R&P, and decided against putting in an o-ring per their suggestion (some people prefer it, others don't. it assembles fine with or without the O-ring). The reasoning on not using the O-ring is this: I had made the choice to run axle oil seals at the diff housing. If a seal starts to leak at the housing, and the o-ring was in place at the spindle flange, there wouldn't be any outward visible sign of the seal leak, so it could be run with the bad seal and low oil level in the center section for a long time without realizing it. Without the o-ring there would be some outward seepage at the spindle flange as a sign of the seal leak. I preferred that approach. So I didn't need the O-ring groove modification of the spindle .

Working through the axle specs with RCV and other companies I considered, I realized that the RCV spline details were a little more refined on the peaks, so the 30 spline OD wasn't quite as large as some... which got me thinking that I might not need as much material removed from the spindles - which would leave them stronger.

Putting all those points together, I bought new spindles and had a local machine shop bore them to a target of 1.335", which provides a minimum clearance of 0.025" around the shaft. They accomplished the bore with a finer surface finish too. These don't have a flange o-ring groove cut, since I wasn't going to use one. The 0.010" ID difference of the new parts vs the bored used parts is a really tiny difference, but combined with being new parts with no prior use, I thought it was worthwhile insurance to reduce the risk of a broken spindle with associated collateral damage.

On to assembly pics:

- New bored GM spindle for 30 spline axles

- Housing built by R&P with outer pucks that accept the standard locating land of the GM D44 front spindles

- RCV axles. 300M "waisted" , polished 30 spline D44 shafts. RCV was really great to work with. Excellent communication, detail spec confirmation before launching the build, and really amazing build quality! These things are really beautifully made.

- RCV inner 30 spline and seal area

- RCV axle 30 spline outer

- The RCV splines are very nicely finished including detail finishing of the outer crown of the spline. The shaft spline OD's were right in the middle of their spec range.




Assembled the axles and outers. At this point this has the first version modified disc brake mounting plates with GM brake calipers plus Wildwood mechanical parking brake calipers. (more on that coming up).

- Chevy spindle on housing puck

- RCV and Yukon slug installed

- Assembled outers

- Rear axle assembly





Perches will be welded on later so I can set pinion angle with full vehicle weight + add shock mounts, anti-rock link mounts.

Rear Axle Parking Brakes

The rear axle brake arrangement has gone through two iterations. It’s currently set up with Wildwood electric parking brake calipers and GM brake calipers mounted to a bracket that I fabbed.

The prior version had cable operated Wildwood parking calipers with GM brake calipers on a modified GM caliper bracket. The issue with this first version was that the mechanical cable size and routing limitations made it difficult to optimize shock mounts, anti-rock link mounts, brake line routing. and clearance around the driveshaft. I could have made it work, but ... Wilwood introduced their electric version. I figured routing the wiring would be much easier and that it would enable a cleaner overall layout.

Here's a few pics of the prior mechanical version and the current electric version for comparison.

Version 1: Mechanical parking brake

• The first pic is the Wildwood MC4 mechanical caliper. Note the arm for the cable stop (lower right) and the actuator arm (upper right).
• The next shows the modified GM caliper mounting plate with calipers attached.
• Mounted on the axle. This scenario had in mind shock mounts on top of the axle housing, which I later decided against. The assembly is mounted on the passenger side in the photo, with brake caliper in the rear and parking brake caliper in front. The assemblies could also swap sides to put brake calipers at front, parking calipers at rear with cables pointing directly forward. Both cable routings were awkward.

Version 2: Electric parking brake :

• The first pic is the as purchased Wildwood electric caliper. It has design similarities to the mechanical caliper and uses the same pads. It lacks the protruding mechanical arms, but the motor takes up some space on the back
• The next shows another familiar D44 caliper mount for reference (I think an FSJ) next to the mount I fabbed. The new fabbed bracket put sthe electric parking caliper at the top, enabled by not having the mechanical cable routing constraint. (The prior bracket had the calipers 120 degrees apart, whereas on this one they are pulled in tighter at 90 degrees). The positioning changes fit better with the planned shock mounts on the back of the housing and anti-rock mounts at the front.
• Mounted on the axle, I’m happier with the shock & anti-rock link mounting scenarios, simpler wiring vs. cables, and a push button instead of a mechanical hand brake lever.

Electric Parking Brake Caliper Modification

The Wilwood electric parking brake calipers needed to be modified a bit to work in my application.

Rotor Thickness: The Wildwood calipers are available for 0.81", 1.10", and 1.25" rotor thicknesses. I'm using Ford rotors with GM calipers on both front and rear Dana 44's. The Ford rotors are 1.185" thick. I decided to order the Wildwood caliper made for 1.25” rotors, and shave the outer aluminum casting down 0.065" to make the caliper match the Ford rotor width.

Mounting Plate: The electric caliper comes with a steel mounting plate. It enables it to fit various Wilwood brackets. The mechanical Wilwood calipers come with a similar steel plate with the same caliper body bolt pattern but different outer bolt pattern. The plate from the mechanical was a better fit to how I wanted to build the mounting bracket. Since they have a common pattern at the caliper itself, I swapped the mechanical plate onto the electric caliper. Recently I noticed that you can now order the electric caliper with the same plate that I swapped to. Nice.

Here’s some pics showing the caliper modification:

• The electric caliper sections come apart by removing the two outer screws
• I don't have a milling machine, and figured I could shave off 0.065" with hand tools. To have a visual guide for the rough file work, I scribed a line around the perimeter, parallel to the mounting face at about 1/16 (0.0625"), using an old Stanley wood working scribe. The photo shows the scribe line at the top of the part.
• Chucked the part in a vice with copper jaw inserts, and roughed the removal with a vixen file- which works nice on aluminum, and with care can keep the surface pretty flat As the cut got closer to the scribe line, I checked the height to the outer pad contact surface with calipers and checked for parallelism of the filed surface to the outer pad contact surface in both directions using a little digital level - zero'd on the outer contact pads.
• The next pic shows the lapping set up used next. As it approached the target dimension, I switched to finer files, and then to lapping on sandpaper. The sanding set up is a flat glass plate with adhesive backed sandpaper attached. I could have used the top of my table saw, but I had an old glass plate that I knew was lapped very flat for an optical display, so used that. The photo shows the stock caliper part on the left and the modified part on the right
• The next photo shows the lapped surface. It's height is as good as I can measure with the outside-outside caliper plunger - within a couple thousandths , and parallelism with the outer pad surfaces checked well with the digital level.
• The last photo shows the reassembled caliper, mounted on the modified GM brackets I made for the prior Wilwood manual parking brake caliper set-up. Since I’m using the Wilwood steel plate from those calipers, these mount the same on the bracket. The pad clearances to the rotor looked good after the modification.

With the caliper mods done, on to the Caliper brackets…

Rear Axle Caliper Mounting Bracket:

When I built the first version caliper brackets I was thinking I'd mount the shocks at the top of the axle housing. After finalizing shock selection on 12" travel Fox 2.5 reservoir shocks, and working more carefully on designing the shock mounting it was clear that mounting the shock at the top of the housing would put the upper shock eye up really high - above the top of the body tub. I wanted to get the mounting lower, but not hanging below the bottom of the housing.

For the new brake brackets I decided to mount the shocks lower down on the back of the housing and outward toward the wheel. I put the main brake caliper at the front out of the way of the shocks , located the parking brake e-caliper at the top, and the anti-rock link at the front of the housing , inward on the housing away from the brake caliper and aligned under the anti-rock arm.

Having decided to move stuff around, I needed to make new caliper brackets. I thought about modifying a factory bracket again like I did on the first mechanical parking brake version, but the factory brackets have a formed offset transition at the housing mounting area that's awkward where I wanted the parking brake. So decided to fab the whole bracket, emulating the factory part on the main brake caliper mounting dimensions and features. The new parts were tedious to make, but I think they’ll work out well.

Here are photos and comments on how they went together:

This photo shows the first group of parts fabbed for the initial weld steps. All are 1/4" cold roll steel. This emulates the factory design in a weldment.
The inner curved pieces were rolled in a Swag "Hulk" roller. Note: I waited until the end to cut the center hole in the spindle mount center plate. That let me keep the initial center punched datum point used in laying out the mounting flange and mounting holes for subsequent layout needs as the parts went together.


The next two photos show the sequence of welds and clamping arrangements on the first group of parts.


The outer perimeter of the caliper mount plates was trimmed to final size after welding the plates to the center section. I used trammel points attached to a bar to scribe the outer radius referenced to the center punched layout datum point that was used to lay out the spindle bolt holes and center opening.



Caliper mounting bosses were added next. The factory caliper mounts are 1/4 " thick material , and have weld washers that increase the thickness to 3/8" at the caliper bolts. I did the same, but went just a little thicker on the washers- bringing the total height to .400" to match the full length of the caliper bolt threads. These were turned from bar stock, then welded on. The holes were initially undersize (3/8") in the plate and washers to align them to each other with a bolt during welding, then final drilled to the slightly larger size needed for 7/16"-20 tapping. The bosses were then tapped using my drill press as a guide to keep the tapped holes perpendicular the plates.



Once the outer plates were trimmed, drilled, and tapped, the next step was to add outer ring pieces that stiffen the plates and provide support to the main calipers - using the same design details as the factory mounts. This photo shows the outer ring pieces, which were rolled to shape and trimmed to size.



The outer ring pieces were tacked using magnets for initial positioning as shown in the photo. Once tacked they were clamped firmly to a right angle steel block to minimize movement due to weld shrinkage. After welding the outer rings on, the outer ring ends and plate openings were filed to align with and set clearance to adjacent caliper support flats of the brake calipers. The clearance was set based on examination of the factory parts. The outer ring tab end surfaces have about 1/16" clearance to the machined caliper ends so the caliper can float laterally to align to the rotor, but is supported by the mounting plate structure when under load.



The center hole for the spindle was then cut out, and finished and chamfered with a half round file to clear the radius on the spindle. The last couple of pics show the calipers in place. This is the passenger side. The main brake caliper is the "left" caliper as marked on the casting. It's normally positioned behind the axle, but here it's now in front of the axle, so L and R calipers swap sides to keep the bleed screws up.



I was glad to be done with these! Shot some paint on them, and swapped them onto the axle.

Frame Bracing

This is another area that went through some revisions. I initially added some triangulated braces to the rock sliders / outriggers, which have worked out well. They provide some strength and also act as floor supports.

At the same time, I added a V brace under the back floor, ahead of the fuel tank for some triangulation to keep the frame square.

Here’s what the bracing looked like at that point:



My thinking at the time on the V was that the center tip of the V would also tie into the upper cage as a node in the cage bracing behind the seats. The planned mechanical parking brake handle would mount ahead of the V point, and I set up a feedthrough in the gusset below the anti-roll bar tube to route the parking brake cable. It would then have a coupler to run the respective cables for each side side along the V braces out to the axle. Not bad ideas.... but then I dropped the mechanical parking brakes, handle, and cables in favor of the electric parking brakes. That part of the reasoning for the V brace went away. Seeing it in place it also kind of bugged me - I didn’t like the idea of essentially a one sided node where both the frame braces and cage tubes would act to bend the anti-rock tube. In addition to those points, figuring out center console / seat mount stuff was also leading towards removing the V tie in at the anti-rock tube...

So eventually I decided it had to go. The V brace, related gusset and cable feedthrough got cut out, along with some frame brackets associated with center console stuff that I also wasn’t happy with. (More on that coming up later)

To replace the V brace, I made an X-brace instead, which is the current configuration. It provides frame triangulation to help keep it square, and provides floor support to the back floor.

Here's some before and after photos:

• The first shows the V Brace area prior to removal.
• The next shows the space after removal of the V brace stuff and other brackets that were on the rails. I was very careful not to mess up the adjoining material when cutting out the stuff that was going to change. Turned out pretty clean.
• The last pic shows the X brace that replaced the V brace.

Next post will show details of the X brace fab.

I remember this from the other site-- great work and glad to see it here.

Thanks csutton7! I remember you from the other site too. Been on Irate for a while now, but it took me forever to decide to put in the effort to port my build thread over. Of course, the build itself is taking forever too, so I suppose there's a pattern there! I've been really enjoying your Willys truck build here on Irate! Very cool! Do you still have the blue jeep you had back then?

X-brace fab

Here’s the finished x-brace photo again, with a couple of comments. The little curve at the back corners is essentially a gusset. I think it kinda looks nice, but the main reason I added it is to make the inside corner welds easier. If the tube went straight into the corner without the gusset shape, the acute angle formed would be too tight to get the TIG torch in and even with a lot of stick out the arc would be jumping around a lot (at least with my meager skills). With the curved gusset shape added, it moves the edge of the tube over to make the joint 90 degrees at the weld to the back cross-member - so there's more space and an easier angle to weld.The gusset shape also makes the joint a little more robust.



The crossing point of the X also has rounded gusset shapes to address the same acute angle weld issue, make it a little more sturdy, and nicer visually. It has a short section of 1.5" x 3" tube, fitted to the 1.5" sq tube sections. The 1.5" tubes are formed and joined to make the curved gusset shape at the sides.

Here's some photos of the fab steps:

- The curved ends of the 1.5" sq tubes that are joined to make the gusset shape at the sides of the center X were formed by bending them around a 1 1/2" die from a bender tool. The tube was cut, then I just put the tube wall with the die in a vice and started the bend by hand with a bar in the tube for leverage. Then it was re-clamped as shown and the tip of the bend was finished a little with a hammer.



- The curved bits were trimmed to length to fit two adjacent tubes together at the desired angle. They were held in place with a magnetic angle clamp then tacked in place:



The 3" x 1.5" tube center section was trimmed to fit in the center of the formed tubes. I wanted the tubes to be in line with each other through the "X" center section - and rigged up a clamping approach that used two long sections of tube over and under the assembly to keep all the pieces aligned in the same plane while tacking the pieces together. This is shown in the next photo. After the tacks were in place, the clamp tubes were removed and the assembly was clamped to the table top to makes the finish welds.




The back corner gussets at the ends of the X were then cut, formed, and chamfered. Filler pieces were fitted and tacked in the curved transition at each corner, then finish welded:



The assembly was then final trimmed to fit the frame, and welded in place as shown in the first photo.

One other little detail is that on the old V brace I had planned to weld an exhaust hanger post to the rear cross member. The new X design made the space where it needs to go too tight to remove the rubber hanger from the welded post- so instead I made a detachable part that uses the existing fuel tank mounting bolt in that area. It's a much better solution, as the bracket can just be unbolted to easily replace the rubber exhaust mount, and it installs with plenty of room. Here's the bracket, made in stainless:



Here it is mounted in place - before the x brace was welded in. Also, in the pic of the finished x brace at the start of this post, you can see how the exhaust hanger mount fits in the rear corner area next to the x brace tube (farthest right corner of the X in the photo).



This x brace change happened later in the build - as you can see I had done some exhaust work by then. The next posts will go back to more chronological order -picking up at the exhaust system work of all things!

CJ3BL--Thanks, and the blue one I sold when I moved to Nebraska, was a sad day when I sold it but it had to be done.

csutton7 said:

CJ3BL--Thanks, and the blue one I sold when I moved to Nebraska, was a sad day when I sold it but it had to be done.

Click to expand...

I bet it was. I know how that is for sure. I really enjoyed the “non-build thread”you had running on it. Lots of good info. Enjoying your current Willys truck build too!

Exhaust and Central Frame Stuff

The last few posts describe early build elements with their later revisions. There’s some time jumping going on to show before & after. This post returns back to chronological order, resuming where it left off figuring out the following:

• Where to put battery / batteries
• Exhaust system design
• Central frame floor supports for transmission tunnel, center console, seat mounting, possibly battery mounting, etc.

Battery Location:
I was entertaining running one or maybe two Odyssey 34/78 PC1500’s. Ideas for where to put them had some trade-offs:

• The stock location at the front of the passenger fender could fit one, but conflicted with running long shocks with the top mount tying to an engine bay cage.
• Passenger side firewall: I was thinking of using an original Harrison heater with the plumbing routed to the firewall similar to stock, I planned a cage tube junction at the corner, and was entertaining mounting an air-cleaner at that location with a fresh air inlet on the cowl side. The latter would definitely prevent mounting a battery.
• Lower down near firewall: The frame kick, floor slope, and exhaust manifold made it tough to fit a big battery, let alone two. I also planned to lower the angled part of the floor for more foot room. Battery won’t fit.
• Farther back, I didn’t want to take up storage space inside the tub mounting batteries on top of the back floor.
• Putting them below the rear floor was appealing except for the V (and later X brace) in the way.
• Placing one or two batteries along the frame under the driver seat area was looking attractive, but had it’s own challenges including rock protection, exhaust routing, heat exposure from the exhaust, plus cable and wiring challenges.

Given the constraints of other locations, I chose the driver side frame battery location, with some ideas on how to make it work.

Exhaust system:
I had unresolved concerns with the original cast iron manifold / dual exhaust plan:

• Even with the improved transfer case mount I had made, exhaust routing along the passenger side frame rail past the t-case was questionable. With the T case sitting high for a flat bottom, I could get an exhaust tube past the T-case but it’s really tight and the side oil fill plug would be blocked enough to make access for oil fill a real nuisance.
• With dual exhaust inside the rails the passenger side muffler would need to be squeezed close to the frame rail for driveshaft clearance. However, I preferred to run fuel lines and electrical along that rail, so having the exhaust tube and muffler really close to the rail wasn’t desirable.

After pondering the options, I weighed a Y-pipe arrangement instead of duals. Routing the combined exhaust down the driver side looked viable. Fitting a Y tube under the bell housing would not work - blocked by the front driveshaft. Routing under the front of the oil pan would work, except the cast iron manifold exits at the back. All the cast manifolds I could find either dump into my motor mounts or exit at the back. Store bought headers I knew of weren’t quite what I needed either.

Decided to go with the Y-pipe approach, and take the plunge to build some headers…

Central frame stuff:
Given the battery location choice, I needed to come up with an appropriate battery box and mounts, as well as thinking through other floor supports, seat mounts, transmission tunnel, center console controls and mounting. Lots of this can come later, but some needs to get figured now out as part of the battery mounting.

Exhaust system posts coming up...