Build "CJ3BL" 53 Willys

Horn Button Crazy Stuff

Also got a little diverted onto a minor cosmetic item for the steering system since I was working in that area.


I didn't think that the standard Volante S9 horn button I was using fit that well with the aesthetic I'm going for. They make a couple metal ones that are nice, but I also have admired the Willys truck/wagon horn button with the W-O logo. I had been mulling around whether I could adapt a black Willys button to fit, and had found a used one for half the price of a new repro. Since I was messing around with the steering, I decided to give a try to adapting it.

Before and after pics:

Before:


After:


I think the gloss black, domed shape, and logo work better with the wheel and overall look.
Here's some details:

The Volante assembly has a base (right) that fits into a recess in the wheel hub with a spring that applies a sideways force to keep it in place, and has electrical contacts riveted in place. The button part has a spring and cup shaped electrical contact, and has three legs that snap into the base.



The Willys button looks like this:



The OD is too small to cover the screws attaching the wheel, but larger than the outer dimensions of the Volante button assembly. The back side has an attachment structure that's close to the size of the Volante contact button cup, which looked promising for merging the parts.

I modified the Willys button to merge it with the Volante assembly. First, the button was chucked in my lathe using the center hub, and the OD was turned down to match the outer diameter of the wheel mounting hub and Volante horn assembly. This lost the outer chrome band of the button, but the stainless wheel provides a similar visual surround. The plastic is brittle and so I went real slow on cutting it down. The face and edges were polished with some rubbing compound while spinning it on the lathe. The hub height was then cut down so that it would fit in the Volante contact cup at a height to position it above the wheel hub with clearance for pushing the button to make electrical contact to engage the horn. I made the cut with a hack saw with the hub held in the lathe chuck. Would have liked to make this cut by turning it on the lathe with the outer edges of the horn button held in the chuck, but it was too large to fit the dinky lathe chuck. After cutting the plastic hub to rough height, the three original "bumps" on the hub were removed and the hub OD was reduced to fit inside the Volante contact cup. This was done using sandpaper inside a piece of tubing as a sanding block. Checked the diameter with calipers as it progressed.



The hub hack saw cut needed to be fine tuned for height and finished off and painted. The finish of the cut is visible from the front through the clear plastic. I couldn't do it on the lathe, so used a sanding pad chucked in a drill press, and held the part by hand. Quick little touches worked best, since the plastic likes to gum up and smear if you sand very long. After this, the modified areas were touched up with some black paint on the back side.



To fit the pieces together, a hole was cut in the Volante horn button that allowed the Willys button hub to pass through it into the contact cup. This would allow all the pieces to be assembled together with epoxy at the cup and outer perimeter. The assembly then snap fits into the base.

Here's the parts ready to be glued:



While the original Volante button fit inside the base, the new assembly fits with the Willys button extending over the base. To get the whole button and base to sit close to the wheel, the outer rim of the base needed to be reduced in OD and height to fit under the Willys button. To do this, the pop rivets were removed, and a screw and big fender washers were used to chuck the base in the lathe to trim the rim:



The electrical contacts were reinstalled in the base with pop rivets, and the whole thing was then assembled together and installed in the wheel hub:



I think it's a nice improvement aesthetically. It works pretty well, but could be improved. I'm not quite happy with the actuation, as it isn't uniformly crisp and positive when pressed at all positions. It actuates, but some areas actuate easier than others. Puzzling this out, it appears to be due to variation in the mounted OD of the rim of the base plastic piece. The lateral springs that hold the assembly in place in the wheel hub tend to distort the plastic base shape including the rim OD, especially now that the rim is shaved down and not as strong. With the Willys button overlapping the plastic base rim, the distortion of the rim can interfere a little. Making it even smaller for more clearance would make it even weaker. It would be better made of metal rather than plastic so the rim could be smaller and not distort from the springs. I may make a new one, or buy and modify the more deluxe version of the Volante S9 button that's made from Aluminum. Overall I'm happy with the aesthetics, and it works fine, but I think I can make it a little better at some point.

Transfer case tunnel:

I got started on the back section of the tunnel, which covers the transfer case. This was started while version 1 of the “center section” was in place (cross member, battery box, center floor panels). As described previously, much later in the build this version 1 center section was replaced with version 2. That rework then required rework of the back part of the tunnel. In these next few posts on the transfer case tunnel, the posts will do a little time jumping again- to show the initial work and subsequent rework all together so it’s easier to follow the tunnel topic through to its current configuration.

The whole tunnel is removable, and is divided into two sections to make it easier to handle during removal and installation. The front half over the transmission was covered in prior posts.

First up on the back half of the tunnel was bending the main panel. I was a little nervous about whether I could get a good fit to the mating step on the front tunnel section, but it worked out well. The hole at the top of the back tunnel half where it meets the front tunnel will get covered by a separately formed and welded panel.



The broad , flat top of this rear tunnel panel will have an electrical switch panel attached on top that I'll make when I get positions for the electrical controls nailed down. I want the main control switches in this console area panel so they are within reach when I'm strapped in. Having some switches at the center console/tunnel will also make for an uncluttered dash panel.

The front edge of the back tunnel panel sits on top of a step recess around the rear edge of the transmission tunnel. At the floor flange, that overlap continues with a flange step over the front tunnel flange. I did it this way as I want this panel to be removable while leaving the front tunnel section in place. This makes it easy to access the t-case and overdrive by themselves. It also makes removal of the front tunnel section easier by removing this one first - since the front one needs to be tilted a bunch to get clear of the shifters and dash - and it's easier with the back tunnel section out of the way. To make the step in the flange, I rolled the step on the bead roller first and then formed the flange with the brake. The step survived the making of the flange bend well.

One other little detail is that I didn't like the look and snaggy feel of a flat edge of the overlapped flange sitting on the flange below it. I wanted the overlapping flange to be rounded down at the outside edge. So, when the new flange was trimmed to final width, I cut the step area a little wider so I could roll its outside edge down over the underlying front tunnel flange. Rolling this edge was done by clamping the part to my table saw with a strip of metal under it, and just tapping the edge down with a body hammer. Once formed down, I trimmed the underside of the rolled edge to be flush at the floor surface. Here's a pic of the step after bending the flange, and trimmed to final width. You can see the step area is a little wider than the rest of the flange, to support rolling the edge down.



The edge was then tapped down with a body hammer so it would wrap down over the flange below it, making a smoother edge:



The top of the tunnel panel was a bit floppy, so I added a couple of beads to stiffen it up. The length of the beads was chosen so that they will be covered up by the planned electrical control panel that will sit on top. This top console electrical control panel will be 8.5” wide - which will allow it to continue back into the area between the seats. (The slight offset position of the beads on the panel was set so that the beads and planned top console panel are centered in the body and between the seats - whereas the rest of the tunnel shape is shifted towards the driver side about 1 inch because of the drivetrain offset from center, and from the shallower angle over the t-case slope).



This was my first effort at bead rolling, and I worked out a couple of techniques to solve some issues. Before running the beads I did some practice on scrap, and experienced how much warp can occur from pulling the panel metal into the bead by the rolling dies. It got pretty warpy, whether I added the bead in several passes or in one shot. Several passes was better, but still a warp problem. I saw that pros like Lazze and Covell stretch the panel a bit at the bead area in the opposite direction of the bead using an english wheel before running the bead. The pre-stretch compensates for the pull of material into the bead that happens when the bead is rolled. I don't have an english wheel though, so pondered how to reduce the warping another way, and came up with an approach that worked out OK. I had purchased "flat top" 45 degree bead dies as I like the look of the flat top beads on the original Willys floor and wheel well tops. A big part of the warp issue was that the bead itself would bow along it's length - the length along the crown is a tiny bit shorter than the length of the bead at it's base after forming it. So I figured I might be able to correct the bow if I could stretch the flat crown area after the bead was formed. I was able to do that by using the same top die that formed the bead, but substituted a flat roller on the bottom- so running several somewhat lighter pressure passes would gently smash to crown thickness to stretch it. The flat one I used on the bottom is from a "tipping" roller set. The idea worked! As the beads leveled along their length from this stretch rolling, the overall panel oil can warping also improved. Here's a pic of the dies used. The lower flat die that's mounted is the one used for stretching the crown. The other lower die is the lower die of the flat top bead die set used for the bead forming. I think this technique probably works best on a flat top bead rather than a round top bead, as stretching the wider flat top surface of the bead has more influence on the overall bead and panel shape - compared to stretching a narrow round crown. Later on when rolling some round crown beads on the tailgate, I came up with a way to pre-stretch the panel that’s similar to the English wheel approach, but using the bead roller. More on that later on.



The other little technique is something I stole. I don’t remember where I first saw it, but Lazze covers the concept in one of his You Tube videos.

This is a little tool for forming the end of the bead. It's just a piece of tube. The ID matches the bead width. I cut a taper on the OD to make a narrower edge, and polished it a bit with sandpaper. Then cut half of the end off to leave a semi-circle punch surface. A couple of hits with a hammer rounds the bead end nicely. It also helps bring the panel back to being a little flatter overall. Here's a pic of the tool, and a before (left) and after bead (right):



The next thing was to make a panel to close off that big gap at the top of the tunnel.

Closing the gap

To finish off the joint between the front and rear halves of the tunnel, another panel was formed.

This part was made with an MDF hammer form and T-dolly. The corners of the flat blank were pie cut with a curved taper at the radius corners so that the edges would meet when formed over the hammer form. The corners were then welded, finished, and the shape tuned up on the T dolly to refine the fit on the stepped ares of the front tunnel. Here’s the formed part, and the part placed on the front tunnel:



The trickiest part was trimming the bottom of this part to get a good fit to the back tunnel panel. Having the main panel held solidly in place with cleco clamps sure helped. I just trimmed a little at a time until I got the edge to fit well against the back tunnel panel, and with the underside fitting tight to the stepped flange on the front tunnel. Slow going! Once fit, it was tacked in place while clamped with magnets and clamps to the front tunnel to fix its position:



With the tacks in place, the back tunnel was pulled off, clamped by the flanges to the trusty table saw/welding table, and final welded.
Here's the finished part, positioned with Cleco clamps to the front tunnel and floor panels.



I'm relieved that the fit to the floor and front tunnel is reasonably tight so it should seal well. The top panel is about 1/8” higher on the passenger side, but not too noticeable. The tunnel stayed in this partially completed configuration while other stuff was worked on… eventually including the center section / battery box behind it being reworked to version 2 - described previously. Work on finishing the tunnel resumed after the dust settled on the other center section changes.

The next post jumps ahead in time to wrap up this back half tunnel section….

Transfer case tunnel revision

As shown in the last post, the partially completed tunnel section extended straight back at full height. Originally was going to attach to a bulkhead panel on the version 1 center section cross member. For version 2, the tunnel needed to extend a few inches further back, and have a back panel that attached on the new cross member. In addition, I wanted to slope the back of the tunnel to provide more clearance for wiring that will be in a center console electrical panel that will attach on top of the tunnel, and extend back to the rear battery switch/air system panel.

Here’s a photo that shows how the modified t-case tunnel section turned out. The transmission and t-case tunnel sections can each be removed for full access to the drivetrain from the top. The t-case section also has enough room to pull the overdrive and transfer case out from the bottom without tunnel removal- so there’s lots of access options for repairs.



Here are some details on how it went together. The first step of the tunnel rework was to cut off the back of the original tunnel to set the slope at the back:



Then a patch panel was added to extend the passenger side back farther. The driver side was fine as is, since a notch would be created to clear the battery box on that side. The next photo shows the patch panel tacked in place. The upper part was trimmed to match the adjacent sloped cut after the panel was welded. The little clearance notch at the bottom flange was also finished off after welding.


I wanted to continue the rounded joints and corners of the rest of the tunnel, so formed the joint edges and corners using a 1" dia. T dolly, with a plastic hammer to avoid marring along the sides, as well as a body hammer at the corners to shrink them around the spherical end of the T dolly. This photo shows a flat dolly holding the panel to the T-dolly so the panel stays flat behind the area being hammered into a curve at the front of the dolly. Tedious, but kind of fun at the same time learning sheet metal work.



The same approach was used on the mating back panel. In cutting off the earlier back section, I took off one of the bead rolled beads, but with the intention of adding another back with a closer spacing, and that will balance it out visually once I add the switch panel on top behind them. Rolled the new bead on the tunnel while I could still fit it in the bead roller - before welding on the new back panel:



Here's the panel fitted up, and then with lots of little tacks. The fit was adjusted a little with a hammer and dolly to level the joined edges as each of the tacks was placed.



I like to use a copper backing plate for the sheet metal welds where I can, as it reduces the amount of back side scale and helps to get more consistent penetration without blowing through. I formed a little radiused bend in a piece of copper to fit the inside radius of the rounded weld joint. It worked well. It's held in place with a little Strong Arm spring clamp that has a magnetic base.

A further little detail: The copper backer this piece was cut from used to have magnets in the holes to self attach. They all got too hot on some other welds and lost their magnetism (oops), then later fell out...

I've gotten away from using the magnets in the backer itself because you always have to position the backer with the magnets away from your weld - to avoid the arc getting distorted from the magnetic field, and to avoid demagnetizing the magnets from heating. I like the spring clamp better for holding the copper piece in place. Its magnets are inherently far from the weld area, and it works with odd shaped copper pieces to fit areas a flat backer doesn’t work on. It's another piece to fiddle with for placement, but I like it better than the built in magnet backers. Kind of handy.



Once the back panel was welded on, a corner piece was formed for clearance around the corner of the battery box. The large radius was just bent over a 3" dia. tube. The edges were formed with the 1" T-dolly. Here's the corner part:



It was a little tricky to fit at all of the edges. I trimmed and formed a little at a time to creep up on the fit. The radius edge along the top of the curve was troublesome - the edge has to stretch as it is formed. As the edge was worked down on the T-dolly, the 3" dia. curve would flatten out as well...I went back and forth between re-forming the main 3" panel bend to bring it back into shape, then working the edge radius on the T -dolly. In the end, I worked it until it almost fit in that curve area - just a small gap and with the large radius in good shape, then tacked the panel at the sides to constrain it and keep the main curve from flattening out while the final little bit of stretching work was completed to tighten up the fit along the curve. Worked out pretty well. Here it is tacked:



Will continue in the next post…

Transfer case tunnel wrap up:

After forming the corner to clear the battery box, a flange piece was cut and fit for the bottom of the corner, checked for fit to the cross member, and welded on to the tunnel.

This flange seals to the floor and cross member at the corner of the battery box. The back tunnel panel seals to a vertical flange on the cross-member. The transition of sealing surfaces at that corner was a little tricky to fit. Got it dialed in reasonably well. I also thought about having the tunnel corner attach to the side of the battery box instead, but preferred this way as the battery box can be removed without taking off the tunnel, and vice versa.



I plan to grind and finish the rounded corner weld joints so they'll be smooth rounded corners like on the shift towers. Was needing a real from sheet metal work so will do that later. Also need to make the center console switch panel, but will get the wiring plans nailed down before making that panel. I plan kind of a minimalist approach. I hope I can get all the main switches within easy reach at the center console.

Here's the same shot of the updated tunnel in place. The center console switch panel will fill the space between the seats, with its back edge attached to the flange on the battery switch panel, and forward edge attaching to the tunnel - aligned with the front edge of the seats. The center switch panel will attach with button head machine screws - 2 screws in back to the battery switch panel and 2 in front at the tunnel. I’m intending the switch panel wiring to have a service loop so there’s no need to disconnect the wiring to move the switch panel and then remove the tunnel section.

The tunnel sections will attach to each other and to the floor with button head machine screws into PEM nuts, positioned where there are currently cleco clamps.



This tunnel topic jumped ahead in time to include the rework and updates for the version 2 center section change. With the tunnel sheet metal complete, the next posts will go back in time to resume chronological build order. Next up is mounting the seats and air system stuff that’s seen in the above photo.

Seat Mounts:

The seat mounts took a while to sort out - a lot of "stare time" to figure out the approach, and then a lot of effort to fab. Instead of the usual empty space underneath the seats, in my wisdom I chose to jam a lot of stuff into that area, which made the seat mounting more complicated. The combination of high drive train mounting for a fully flat belly, plus placing the battery, battery switches, planned air compressor, air tank, air controls, plus some switch panel stuff under and around the seats makes for a crowded space. The engine compartment will be pretty clean though...

I had thought of using a cross bar (or two) on the cage to mount the seats- but the high drive train, weather sealed tunnel cover / console ideas made me lean against that. The biggest problem being that it would make the tunnel covers too difficult (or impossible) to remove. There were also frame structures right below where cage tubes could be placed. So the seat mounting frames were made to tie directly to the frame structure. I also wanted these to be pretty easy to remove for access to the battery box, other junk under the seats, and for removal of the tunnel covers.

The seat mounts and following air system work happened after making the version 1 frame center section, and before reworking it to version 2 - so most of these seat mount fab pics show the version 1 surroundings. The minor seat mount rework that happened for version 2 is covered at the end of these seat mount posts to reflect their current configuration.

On to some specifics:

Here’s a shot of the seat mounts, with the driver seat mounted and the seat mount only on the passenger side:



The seats are Master Craft Rubicons. They have tubular frames, with flat mounting plates at the base. The seat mounts were made with an upper "tray" that the seat rails are bolted into. The tray shape provides some vertical stiffening the flat seat mounting surface, without protruding downward - because of the battery box and other stuff underneath that I wanted to clear while keeping the seats positioned at the desired height. The tray stiffener sides curve upward around the seat tubing rails.

The sides of the tray needed to be longer than what I could bend in my press, and heavier than my brake could handle. They were made by cutting L shaped sections out of 1/8" wall rectangular tube. Rather than the 90 degree bend of the tube section, I wanted a slight lean outward to fit them more compactly around the seat frame tubing, and to make a better angle for attaching the lap belt mounts I planned on the sides. To tip the angle over, I massaged it with a big crescent wrench a little at a time. Worked great.



The width of the front and back tray pieces fit in my press, so I could form the bend in those. A piece of 3" diameter heavy wall tubing that's set up to mount in the press as a die was used to form a broad curve in 1/8" flat 1018 that follows the curvature of the ends of the seat rails.

These pieces were then fit together at the corners, tacked, and welded. Here's how they look, tacked on the top side facing the seat, and chamfered on the bottom side where the full welds were made.



To tie the seat mounts to the frame structure, and to also mount the harness belt ends, I went with some double shear brackets from A&A Mfg. They are on the right in the pic below. For comparison the ones on the left are from Ruff Stuff. Both are very nice- I went with the A&A because of their compact size.



The Ruff Stuff (and many others) are 1/8" thick, with a 1/2" hole, and are pretty tall. I wanted something more compact if I could find it, because I want to mount the lap belts at the sides of the seat mounts close to the lap belt exits on the seats. This reduces clutter versus mounting them lower down on the frame in the busy area under the center console where there will be some air plumbing and wiring. The smaller A&A parts are 3/16" material with a 3/8" hole, and have a shorter, more compact profile. I opened the holes up to 7/16 for the bolts I'm using for the Schroth 4 point harness. I figured this would be a good choice of bolt size with the smaller, thicker brackets. The 7/16" bolts are the larger of the sizes Schroth recommends (along with their 1/2" OD/ 7/16" ID pivot sleeves for free pivoting movement of the bolt-on belt end), are stronger than 3/8" bolts (which Schroth also recommends for the harness), and going with 7/16" maintains a good amount of material thickness on the brackets vs opening them up to 1/2".

Since I was using these for the harness mounts, I decided to use the same for the seat mounts as well. I went with the 7/16" bolt size for both lap belt mounting and for attaching the seat mounting structure to the frame. The double shear bracket approach keeps the all the fasteners inside the rig for easy access and replacement, vs going into or through the floor/frame.

A word on the Schroth 4 Point harness- It's a "Profi II". It can add a sub as well to become a six point, but their "ASM" shoulder belt provides anti-submarine protection without the sub belt. It's a pretty interesting idea- you can read about it on their site. I figured this would be a good choice given my intent of a general use rig. I'm not a real hard core driver, and the four point is nice to avoid more under seat clutter with sub straps and mounts. The four point is also easier to strap in for daily driving & passengers. If I did add a sub, I'd prefer the six point, rather than five, so that gets pretty crowded. I figured I'd try the four point to keep it simpler and still have anti submarine protection via the ASM feature.

The space in the AA brackets is wider than the 0.144" stock I used for the side supports, so I made some bushings that firmly locate the panel laterally, and support the full length of the bolt to reduce wallowing of the panel hole. They are the same idea as commercially available "weld washers". I thought about buying some of those and then tweaking the dimensions, but figured it was easy enough to just make some since I had some 1 1/4" bar stock.



This is how they mount on the panels that run along the outside of the seat mounts. The weld washer parts are a light press fit and are tacked in place at the outer edge - so they stay put but can be easily ground off and replaced if the holes wear:



The seat mount tabs are welded to the frame structure. The front outer tabs needed little brackets that weld to the frame outrigger tubes to position them. The front inside tabs weld to the top of the main frame rail, the outside rear tabs weld to the top of the rock rail outrigger tube, and the inside rear tabs weld to the version 2 center section cross member. Here’s the welded front outer tab brackets, before welding them to the frame structure.



The next post covers putting all of these bits and pieces together....

Seat Mounts continued

This photo shows the double shear tabs and the frame brackets tacked in place, with the side supports used as a fixture to assure the tab spacing/alignment.



The console & frame center section were then removed to get better welding access, then the tabs were final welded to the frame:



The upper tray section and the outside supports were then welded together on the bench:



With the outer supports welded to the upper tray, it was mounted to the frame to then cut and fit the inside front support. Those supports tie directly to a tb on top of the frame rail. The inside tube frame of the seat is inboard of the frame rail, so the mounting bracket shape takes that cantilevered position into account with a gusset shape towards the inside. I thought about adding brackets to the frame to move the inside seat mounting point farther inboard on the frame side - so the tray wasn't cantilevered inward from the mount tab, but decided against that as an inward facing frame bracket would crowd the open space between the frame rails , which is nice for drivetrain space and drivetrain removal. Dialed in the bracket fit so that the tray was level across, and matched the 4 degree angle front to back of the outer supports. They were then tacked in place and then removed for finish welding on the bench. The seat itself has an angle in the fixed lower cushion and additional back angle. The combined overall position from the 4 degree tilt of the mounting structure plus the built in seat angles felt comfortable to me. The mounting frame has a fixed position like the original 3B seats, rather than having added sliders and height/tilt adjusters. Those would have created clearance issues underneath, and I like the mechanical security of the fixed mount.

With the third support welded on for each mounting frame, then rear inboard seat mount brackets were made to fit mounting tabs at the frame center section. These were initially made to fit the version 1 center section, and then new ones were made to fit the version 2 center section. The version 2 mounting brackets and frame side tabs have better positioning, and the cross member structure they weld to is all part of the welded frame assembly.

Here is a shot of the version 2 rear inside brackets (ignore the big ol' clamp in the center of the pic..) The seat mount brackets have a formed bend to create the vertical face that attaches to the the double shear frame tab and a welded stiffener that extends the formed vertical support up to the tray along the front side of the bracket - essentially a big gusset up to the seat mounting tray.



After that, the lap belt positioning was confirmed with the seats in place, and the same double shear brackets were welded to the sides of the tray. The bend angle of the tray sides worked out really well - the bolt on belt ends have a 15 degree bend, and when mounted in the tabs the belts are pointed straight at the seat openings.



Here are pics of the seat mounts bolted in place (these photos have the prior version 1 center section)



Under the seat on the driver side is the battery box. An on board air system will mount on the passenger side…

Air System:

The on board air set up supports front and rear ARB lockers, and will have some ports for tire inflation. There are mechanical air switches for the ARB’s located in the rear center console. A Viair compressor and 1 gal. tank are located under the passenger seat. May end up being too noisy, but I’m going to give it a try. I tried a few ideas on positioning the compressor and tank , and liked this the best:



Putting the compressor along the front under the passenger seat maximizes exposure to airflow for cooling and clearance to the underside of the seat to avoid cooking it. It will get airflow from both front and side. I may add a 12v Viair fan on a bracket at the front of the seat support frame if needed.

I originally was thinking of using a spun aluminum tank that's smaller diameter and longer in length and a little less than 1 gallon, because the Viair tank was a bit too tall. But the longer length aluminum tank doesn't fit very nicely either, and the type I was looking at lacks a water drain port on the bottom, which the Viair has. I like to have a drain port on the tank in addition to the line water traps I'll plumb in. I also had the Viair tank already from a past rig. To get it to fit better the mounting legs were cut and a new mount welded on to lower the height. The welds are away from the tank chamber itself so no worries about degrading pressure rating / integrity of the tank.

Here's the mounting leg height change: Cut the bracket on both sides at the marked height, and welded on a new baseplate that connects to both and has outward facing tabs. It dropped the height a little over an inch.



The tank top port will be plugged. Input and output will use the end ports. The bottom port will have a draincock. There are also two little water traps from AVS. They sell air bag suspension stuff.

The next photo shows how the mounting turned out - (shown with the front floor panel removed). There's a water trap on the way in, and on the way out of the tank. The tank and both traps have drain petcocks that exit under the floor, protected next to the frame rail and rock slider braces. Everything is mounted on plates attached to the frame structure, and these get covered by the front floor panel.



Here's some details of how it went together.

The compressor was mounted first. It's mounted near the front of the under seat space to provide air flow for cooling. It has rubber noise reduction mounts at all four corners. The rubber mounts attach to brackets welded to the frame rail and outrigger/ brace frame structure. The brackets have 10-32 stainless rivnuts.



Then a plate was made to mount the tank and water traps. The tank mounts have 1/4-20 rivnuts.

I wanted the traps to mount so that the drain goes through the floor and is reasonably sealed. The traps mount in clamps made from 1.5" OD/ 1.37" ID SS tube. The trap body was about 0.025" too big to slip into the tube, and rather than thin down the already thin wall of the tube, I decided to turn down the thicker trap body instead to fit to the tube.

The trap comes apart easily. The lower trap section on the left has been turned down, the original part is on the right.



Here's the funky lathe set-up. I kluged it up by chucking the small diameter base, and running a center on the open end to stabilize it to turn it down:



Here's the stainless tube section clamps. The chunk of 3/8" OD round at the top was filed to fit the curve of the tube, then welded. I had drilled the rod on the lathe ahead of welding it on the tube. One side was drilled for a 10-32 tap, the other half was drilled larger to clearance a 10-32 screw. Once welded on, then I slit the clamp and tube with a hand hacksaw, and then tapped the thread side of the clamp. I tapped it after welding so the threads didn't oxidize during welding. I made these parts in stainless, partly because I could find SS tube with an ID close to the trap size.

I liked the way they turned out...but later had to revise them…



The plate that these mount to has a hole to accept the smaller diameter bottom tip of the water trap, and I wanted the tube clamp to be concentric with that hole. That way the trap will be pretty well sealed to the outside by it's structure and fit. To get the lower plate hole and the tube clamp lined up, I tacked the tube clamp with the trap and clamp in place in the lower mounting plate hole, then removed the trap for final welding. Here's the first one tacked. The hole for the base of the second trap is also visible. The plate is mild steel- a mix in material with the stainless clamps, but the clamps weld up fine and it's a light duty part.



Here the plate with the clamps welded, and the plate welded to the frame structure:



After I got this all welded on the frame, I was happy with it until I realized that it would have been smarter to have the water trap clamp arrangement be a removable collar rather than the welded ears. That would have allowed simple round holes to be cut in the floor panel to slide over the clamp tube, and the removable collar could be slid on the clamp tube after floor attachment.

I decided to fix it - shown next post.

Air System continued

As mentioned in the last post, after I welded the air trap clamps to the frame, I realized that the clamp ears would be in the way when installing the floor panels. Cutting a larger hole in the floor panel to clear the clamp ears would be kind of ugly and the alternative fix was a better design anyway, so they got reworked.

First, the offending clamp ears were cut off. Used a cut off wheel, then did some careful grinder trimming, followed by finishing with a file. Got the ears removed without damage of the original tube wall. You can see a little residual weld outline where the ears were removed, but it's smooth to accept the new clamp.



Made new collar clamps with some 1.75"OD x 1.5" ID SS tube I had left over from making the steering column floor mount. The clamp ears use 1/4-20" screws to match the air tank mounting screws. I drilled and turned a SS rod for the ears on a lathe, filed the rod side to fit the tube, then welded it onto a longer section of tube. Once welded, then I cut them off to the desired length from the tube section. Then faced the ends on a lathe, and slit them with a cut off wheel.

Controlling weld heat was easier on a longer length of tube, followed by cutting the collars off the tube to size afterwards. If the tube collars were cut to size before welding, I think it would have been hard to clamp the ears for welding, and I would have had some heat control / erosion issues at the edges.



Here they are in place on the trimmed original tubes, with the water traps in place.



With that problem solved, I cut holes in the floor panel to allow it to drop over the water trap mount tubes, air accessory mounting rivnuts, and seat mount tabs. I can either run a bunch of rosette spot welds or adhesive bond the floor to the frame structure and brackets. I don't need to final attach yet. These panels have been patched in several places due to the version 2 center section change and other tweaks, so I'll be making some fresh ones for final assembly. I'm currently thinking I'll weld them on, and add seam sealer when it’s paint time. Still giving the adhesive idea some thought in the meantime though. Here's the floors dropped back in after making the clearance holes:



To wrap up, these show the air components and seats installed with the floor and tunnels back in:

Engine Cage + Upper Radiator Mounts

At this point, I wanted to try bending some tube with the bender I had bought - so decided to work on the engine compartment section of the cage.
The intent was to keep it pretty simple while providing:

• framework for the upper front shock mount for long travel shocks
• roll protection for the radiator
• sturdy fender mounting points
• Misc wiring and plumbing mounting points to keep stuff off the fenders- to enable easy fender removal for service access.

I had set up the firewall flanges for the engine compartment cage when working on the cowl supports, and had bought some 1.5" x 0.120" tube for the engine bay cage. I chose 1.5" here because I wanted fairly small radius bends around the headlight buckets, and generally a little less space consumed. It’s primarily for mechanical support roles not bodily protection. The main tub cage will be 1.75" x 0.120" DOM. I don't have tube for that yet, as I think I’ll build the tub first then add the cage. Based on that I’m waiting on tube purchase since my garage is so tight on space!

This was my first time bending tubing, and it's a pretty simple first effort. I was careful to get the bends in the same plane. Fun to use the bender!

Here's what I came up with as the basic structure. I’ll add shock mounts, additional tube support, and a bridge between them, plus add radiator mounts, some fender mounts, and possibly some other bits.



The whole thing removes from the frame and firewall to make it easier to pull the engine. The mounts to the frame rails are TMR "notch ready" couplers. As received, one end is machined to be like a short stub of tube that can be notched or trimmed to length, while the other end is machined to insert in the mating tube for welding. They worked out nice as I could trim the coupler length as a last step in building the assembly to set the final height of the front hoop with the firewall tubes level. The couplers are oriented so the cage pulls straight forward to detach it from the frame and at the firewall flanges.

I debated on whether to make the radiator hoop one piece with 6 bends or three piece with gusseted weld joints - as shown. I opted for the three piece/welded design because I wanted the hoop to follow the grill profile pretty closely in the lower section for inner fender fit, and I could tweak the final hoop fit to the grill profile by trimming the pieces before welding. I also figured I’d be less likely to blow it versus trying to nail it on all the dimensions with six bends on my first try at tube bending…

In the photo, the couplers are tacked at the frame, but everything else is final welded. It fits all the mounting points well after welding - not much movement from weld shrinkage.

With the basic engine cage in place, the next part of the build chronologically was the version 2 center section rework - which has already been described in prior posts. After that, work returned to the engine bay cage to add upper radiator mounts.


Upper Radiator Mounts:

I wanted the mounts to have a little compliance, rather than hard mount the radiator. The bottom cradle shaped mounts use EPDM rubber sheet cut into pads- so I used more of the same material on top. (raw EPDM sheet from McMaster Carr).

I also wanted the upper mounts to have a means to adjust the fit of the rubber pads to the radiator body- ie adjustable height. The bottom mounts are under the tanks at the ends, as the Ron Davis install info recommends. I made the upper mounts so they support the tank ends in a similar position as the lowers.

This photo shows the mount pad plates that face the top of the radiator, and that position the EPDM pads. The two bosses at the center were turned and tapped for 7/16" NF bolts. The plates are formed 1/8" U shaped pieces




These attach to brackets on the front hoop of the engine bay cage. This photo shows the bracket pieces- each has a section of 1.5"x1.5"x 1/8"wall tube for a gusset, and the flat piece is 3/16":



The next photo shows the parts welded together and welded to the front cage tube. The cage is removable, and it was easiest to take it off and weld the brackets on the bench. Much easier to set them at 90 degrees to the plane of the hoop when clamped to the bench!



The bosses on the pad plates are threaded, and the holes in the cage brackets are unthreaded. The bolt length engages most of the boss threads - but is about 1/4" short of bottoming out on the pad plate when it is threaded in to the point that the bolt head contacts the cage bracket. There's a nylock jam nut that is tightened against the underside of the cage plate - so the bolt head and jam nut sandwich the cage plate tightly to prevent the bolt from turning once the position of the pad plate is set. The amount of down pressure on the rubber pad is set by changing the distance between the lower face of the cage bracket and the radiator pad plate. The bolt can be threaded well into the pad plate boss to the point that it lifts the pad plate off the radiator. Backing the bolt out from there and turning the underside jam nut to contact the cage plate increases the distance between pad plate and cage bracket, increasing pad pressure on the radiator. Once adjusted , the jam nut and bolt head are tightened against the cage plate to lock the bolt position so it doesn’t turn. It adjusts well, locks solidly in place, and looks clean. The downside is that the adjustment takes a little thought as it’s a little counter intuitive.

The EPDM pads follow the shape of the pad plate, and have strips cut and glued at the front and back edges. The strips were glued on to the main pad piece with 3M weatherstrip adhesive made for EPDM. This gives the pads the same u shape as the metal brackets, padding front and back as well as the top face. The lower mounts are similar and also have EPDM strips glued at the outside ends of the main EPDM pad to prevent side to side radiator motion.
The upper mounts are set with a very light amount of pressure - just enough to avoid the radiator wiggling around.



With the radiator position set, the grill-to-radiator shroud was addressed next. Back to more sheet metal work…

Radiator shroud & chaff screen

I previously removed the original spot welded shroud on the back of the grill, and the rust in those lap joints convinced me to make the new shroud attach differently. I also wanted to add a chaff screen - similar to the original Willys clip on accessory - but place it between the grill and radiator- since it would be a shame to cover up the iconic slotted grill!

After removing the old shroud, the original slant of the grill bar stamping on the one side was straightened up to match the shape of the others. I decided to weld tabs to the edge of the outer grill bars and attach the chaff screen and shroud to the tabs with stainless 10-32 button head screws with nylock nuts.

Here's the grill with the tabs added:




The chaff screen is made from 304 perforated stainless steel, 0.048" thick. I chose a pattern that has a high open area % to maintain air flow. The sides are bent so the inside width mates to the outside of the grill tabs:



To add strength and stiffness, I made some hem shaped reinforcement strips for the unbent edges of the screen. These started as some strips of 304 SS 18g sheet, which were then bent to a 90+ degree bend with a hand brake. They were then pinched further a little at a time in a vice. To smooth out the thickness of the U shape, they were then rolled on my bead roller using two flat dies with a dummy metal strip in the hem opening and then hand tweaked to get them straight. These were then fitted to the screen edge and crimped with the vice:



Then used the same 18g SS sheet to make some side plates. These have 90 deg bends at the ends to provide some strength where they attach to the hemmed edge strips. The sides hold the edge hem pieces in place in addition to the crimp, make the screen assembly easier to handle, and provide a more positive hole position for the attachment screws to the grill. Here's the finished chaff screen assembly, after TIG welding the side strips to the hemmed edges:



The stainless chaff screen assembly will not be painted. The rest of the shroud will be painted, so I made it from regular steel. Here's the pieces of the shroud, ready to weld together:



The sides attach to the grill tabs using the same screws as the chaff screen. They flare outward to be a little wider than the radiator core opening width. The flat flanges face the radiator and will have 3/8" thick EPDM foam strips attached with 3M adhesive once the parts are painted- to seal against the radiator tanks. The formed piece for the top of the shroud also has flanges that face both the radiator and grill, and will have the same EPDM sealing strips for sealing. The steps on the flange facing the radiator accommodate the upper radiator mounts.

The bottom of the shroud was left open so that water can drain out the bottom. The lower edge of the chaff screen sits just above the front frame cross- member, and the cross member serves as the lower wall of the shroud.

Here's the finished shroud after welding the top and sides together, assembled on the grill with the chaff screen, and mounted on the rig. I’m going to see if the blue paint radiator logo comes off with with a little acetone to simplify the look.



Side view showing flange surfaces for EPDM sealing strips (along top and sides of shroud), and another looking down the grill slots to show how the screen drains. The front of the chaff screen sits just behind the front face of the rectangular tube cross member. The open space between the grill shell and cross member at the bottom allows water and crud to drain.

Engine accessory brackets

Worked next on sorting out the engine accessory mounts. The Chevy 4.3 V-6 engine I bought a long time ago is a Goodwrench service replacement crate engine, and it had no accessory drive stuff on it. I put a "short" standard rotation small block water pump on it for old style V belts rather than serpentine, and that set the direction for the rest of the accessory drive stuff.

Power Steering Pump:

The power steering pump is a GM Type II with a PSC remote reservoir. I want the pump mounted low to help with gravity feed from the remote reservoir, and to keep the plumbing to the reservoir, hydroboost brake master, and the steering box all close together on the drivers side. To fit the Type II pump where I wanted it, I needed a three groove crank pulley to get the pump belt forward enough to fit the pump just ahead of the front face of the block.

Initially I purchased some fancy March aluminum brackets for the alternator and power steering pump mounts, along with their pulleys. The pump mount puts the type II pump where I generally wanted it and the belt alignment adjustment feature worked well to align the pump pulley to the forward most crank pulley groove.

The brackets are pretty and work OK, but the power steering bracket put the pump too close to where I had the steering shaft. The bracket bolt holes were a little large as well, so the fit at the pump was wiggly. It would work, but it was marginal on the steering shaft clearance. I decided to make my own bracket to move the pump higher for more plumbing clearance over the steering shaft. The March part is adjustable fore and aft for pulley alignment, which at least made it useful to confirml layout dimensions for the one I made. The fabbed part has a fixed position alignment to the crank pulley - no need for adjustment if it’s aligned to begin with - and it will stay that way. Researching the v-belt choice, it turned out that a 1" longer belt (than suggested for the March bracket) is what would have been on the Astro 4.3 engine originally for an A/C belt - and that 1" longer belt let me move the pump up about 1/2" to gain more clearance to the steering shaft - so I went with that.

Here's the March aluminum bracket and the one I made. It's 3/16" steel, which was just the right thickness to position the back of the pump boss to align the pump pulley to the crank pulley.



Here's how it attaches to the pump:



Here is the pump in place, initially with the upper March turnbuckle/heim adjuster. The fitting at the right almost touched the steering shaft with the March bracket and adding the hose wouldn't have worked. The angle of this photo makes it still look pretty close, but there's about an inch of clearance underneath the fitting with the fabbed bracket.



The March heim / turnbuckle adjuster works easily, but is also a little wiggly. I decided a more positive approach would be to make an upper mount plate that attaches to the head rather than the water pump, and that supports the back face of the pump body more fully to provide greater stability.

Here's the revised upper mount. It has a belt tension adjustment slot at the lower right, and the 3/16' plate attached at the front of the head again aligns to the backside of the pump at the upper mounting boss - for a very solid support. (The old top turnbuckle adjuster is still attached in the pic, but was later removed).



Later, a bracket for the power steering reservoir was added to the upper pump mount. The reservoir mounting and plumbing tips from PSC recommend to mount the reservoir high on the engine right above the pump with a short downhill run for the feed line. I had originally been thinking I’d mount the reservoir high up - but on the engine bay cage tube. The PSC info to mount it on the engine itself made more sense - an even more direct path from reservoir to pump, with less movement between them, so the reservoir mounting bracket got added to the upper pump bracket.

Here's the added bracket and mounted reservoir:



As can be seen in the pics, the reservoir bracket work was done after the shock mounts were added to the cage- that will be covered in some up coming posts. Alternator brackets covered in next post...

Alternator bracket:

Having replaced the store bought brackets for the pump, I started thinking about whether to replace the store bought alternator bracket, so the overall system would have a similar and sturdier design... Like the steering pump bracket, the billet alternator bracket was adjustable for pulley alignment, which is nice but adds another couple of bolts than can come loose. It also had a similar turnbuckle upper bracket arrangement that was easy to adjust but was more complicated and wiggly versus the simple steel strap upper mount used on early small block chevy engines. I decided to fab a lower alternator bracket and use a shortened chevy strap style upper bracket. This turned out nice, but in later shock mounting work, the shock reservoir hose routing I wanted put the upper shock hose fitting too close to the alternator.

The clearance issue was addressed by making a new alternator bracket that repositioned the alternator up 2" and inward 1". It uses a 1" shorter belt (Dayco 15540, a very common 50's-70's chevy small block / I-6 belt number). The new bracket design also has a simplified mounting point for the upper adjuster arm- using one of the mounting bolts to the front of the head, rather than a separate bolt. Both are made from 1/4” plate, with a couple of turned spacers.

Here's a comparison photo with old on left, new on right:



Second version on the engine:



There's over 1" clearance from the alternator to the upper shock hose fitting. I think it will be enough. If not, there's enough alternator adjustment room to put on a shorter belt to increase the clearance. As well as clearing the shock, the new higher alternator position puts it farther away from header heat.

Springs, Shocks & Anti-Rocks


This post is an overview of the springs, shocks, and anti-rocks, and following posts will have more info on each topic.
Prior posts cover the initial spring set-up and anti-rock bar mounts. These next posts will cover several changes to bring those topics up to their current status, and also cover shocks.

Here’s a pic of the shocks - Fox 2.5 Factory Series, 12" travel, with DSC adjusters. I've never run tunable high performance shocks before, so am looking forward to seeing how they work. Got them from Accutune- really helpful, great folks!



With the suspension cycling that I’ve done along the way, the total travel at the shock will be about 10 1/2” max. The shocks have a firm rubber bumper on the lower eye housing that consumes some of the spec'd shock travel - so there's 11 1/4" of free shaft to the uncompressed rubber bumper when fully extended. I'm planning on using GM truck bump stops and want to set up the shocks and GM bumps so that there is some clearance at the shock shaft bumper when the GM bump stops at the frame are well compressed - so the shocks don’t bottom out at stuff, and won’t need limiting straps on droop.

The suspension cycling has been done with the single main leafs, and the springs, shock mounting, and anti-rock set up have evolved in little steps as the build progressed. Progress and decisions on these topics was spread out over a long time in the old site build thread. In this reconstructed build thread, posts on these topics will cover details of the current configuration, with brief summary of past iterations.

Summary of changes / refinements along the way:

• The springs were changed from 2.5” lift Rubicon Express to 2” lift BDS springs that have a slightly longer leaf and less free arch. Initial Currie 4.25” shackles were replaced with fabbed 3.75” shackles. Axle perches were modified to reduce height.
• The Currie / Rock Jock anti-rock arms were changed from single shear, to bolt-on double shear, to welded double shear, and reshaped to provide better alignment to the axle mounting points. Axle tube tabs were changed from single shear to double shear. JKS Flex Connects added at the front.
• Shock reservoir plumbing was changed to mount the reservoirs piggy back with clamps on the shock body. The front reservoirs were initially mounted on the cage cross bar - but I didn’t like the clutter. At the rear, I wanted the reservoirs and plumbing outside the body tub for tub sealing, and decided that mounting to the shock body was the most compact approach. Changed all shocks to piggy back configuration.
• Front shock mounts: Upper mounts and cage additions are completed, and the lower mounts are modified and tacked.
• Rear lower shock mounts: Will position at back of axle tube, but position relative to pinion angle not finalized yet. I’m still deciding on whether to run a conventional driveshaft or a double cardan shaft. The roll cage and body weight are not in place yet, and the final ride height and resting shaft angle will tip the driveshaft decision - so I’m waiting till then to finalize and weld the lower mounts.
• Rear upper shock mounts: Will be built with the cage as they will tie to both the frame rails, side spreader cage bars and wheel well tube arches. The tailpipe position needs to be reworked for better clearance to the shock body. Will rework that along with building the shock mounts.

The following posts will cover details of the springs, anti-rocks, front shock mounts/cage additions, and rear shock mount status.

Springs and shackles

The springs are currently BDS 2" YJ springs, with 3.5” c-c shackles that I made. Initially it had Rubicon Express 2.5" lift YJ springs (older RE1432&RE1433) and Currie 4.25" c-c shackles.

In mocking up shock mounts, I went backwards for a while and decided to tackle some suspension set-up detail issues that were nagging in the back of my mind. This led to changing the springs, shackles, and some other related details. I'm prone to get into the weeds, and this is a case of that. But I like where it ended up.

The primary issues to fine tune were:

• With the frame and hanger set-up, the RE YJ springs, and 4.25" c-c shackles, when cycling with the main leaf there was a lot of up-travel remaining at the point the leaf was compressed to flat. I could push the axle to the frame rail by inverting the spring arch a couple of inches, but that didn't seem very wise for spring fatigue. The RE’s had a lot of free arch, and I thought it might be better to change to a little lower free arch spring to avoid wasted up travel space, and lower the resting CG a little.
• With the fixed and shackle hanger spacing I had set up, the rear shackle was close to inverting at full droop (cycling just the main leaf to test the extreme)

Here's a pic of the droop shackle inversion concern:



At the same time, the set up nicely centered the rear tires in the frame "wheel arch" at full articulated stuff, with the axle mounted to the springs on the center of three center pin holes in the perch. I wanted to retain reasonable centering at stuff when making any changes.

So the springs were changed to BDS 2" YJ springs. The main leaf length is 1/4" longer (45.75" vs 45.5") and the free arch is lower (6.5" F/R vs. RE 7.625" front / 8.25" rear. Both differences improve the shackle angle at droop. The arch height reduction also supports my overall goal of good ground clearance with low center of gravity. Here's the BDS main leaf in droop with the same Currie 4.25" shackles, which shows the improvement in shackle inversion risk from the spring change alone vs the above pic.



Both sets are nice springs, but I liked the balance of design trade offs on the BDS a little better for what I was after on the set-up.

The BDS have slightly thicker leaves than the RE’s (0.290" vs 0.240") , but have tapered ends, sliders, and 4 leaves F/R instead of Front 5/ Rear 6. While more thinner leaves on the RE are nice for flex, the BDS lower free arch, tapered leaves, and sliders improve flex of their thicker leaves. Kind of different approaches to the same end. The BDS also have a double eye wrap at both ends, which is also a plus.

The next step in trying to optimize up travel & CG, while avoiding shackle inversion was to change the shackles from 4.25” c-c to 3.5” c-c (stock YJ is 4”, CJ7 = 3”, CJ3B = 2.75”), while also making new fixed spring hangers to shorten the distance to the shackle hanger by 1/2”. The lower free arch and shorter shackles reduced the amount of spring arch inversion beyond flat to reach the frame rail -essentially wasted up travel space if I set the bumps to avoid letting the springs invert heavily. Both changes lower CG. The increase in risk of shackle inversion with shorter shackles is offset by the shorter hanger distances with the new hanger. I think that the resulting shackle angle operating range is also reasonably optimized for the effective spring rate - ie reducing shackle angle impact on the effective spring rate at the extremes of spring + shackle travel, which should help ride quality.

I made new shackles from 1/4" cold rolled bar, and got rid of the cross bar center bolt/spacer. Here's new vs old:



Here's the new shackles installed. (At droop with full spring pack. Droops a little more with just the main leaf, but doesn’t invert. Neglected to take a pic)



Here's the new hanger installed:



The last pic also shows one other little refinement on the BDS spring installation - I made new liners for the spring clamps. The BDS springs have plastic liners / guides that fit on the inside of the spring clamps to reduce friction on the sides of the leaves so they slide freely while staying in position in the leaf stack.

It's a nice idea, but when I took the spring packs apart to cycle the suspension using just the main leaf, some of the plastic liners were already broken, and others were starting break. I decided to make formed bronze replacements. The pic below shows the new guides, as well as the old black plastic ones in the upper left- including one of the broken ones at the far left. I also replaced the clamp bolts and sleeves. The original sleeves, upper left, were very thin walled/open seamed and some had sharp edges that I didn't care for. The new sleeves are cut from thicker stainless tubing.



The bronze parts were formed into a U profile that locates them on the clamp. They were formed on a SWAG finger brake adjustable base with a hunk of steel bar the same width as the clamp as a forming die:



The spring bushings were also changed from poly bushings to rubber, which is quieter and I think flexes better. Both RE and BDS springs have large 1.5" eyes at both ends, (as opposed to stock YJ springs that have large fixed end / small shackle end bushings). I decided to go with stock YJ fixed end rubber/steel bushings for both spring eyes.

The frame side shackle mounts are Slickrock replacement CJ7 rear hangers at all four corners, which I really like for their low profile and strength. (Currie and JKS used to sell these- really a nice design). They use 1" bushings. I converted to rubber CJ7 bushings for these.

The stock CJ rubber bushings have an outer taper that makes them a little too wide to match the YJ bushings on the springs, so I turned the ends flat on my lathe. Putting a short bolt in the bushing stiffened it up to chuck it in the lathe. a small facing bit worked well to scrub the rubber down. 80 grit sandpaper was used for final finish. I also decided to add some 1/16" thick high load oilite thrust bearing washers to the ends of both the CJ ad YJ bushings to help the shackles run smooth against the bushings.

Here's the before and after modified CJ7 rear bushing:




Lastly, the spring perches were modified to set them closer to the axle tube, which gains a tiny bit of ground clearance at the spring plates. Not much of a change, but every little bit helps. Here’s before and after:



Next up, anti-rock updates

Anti-rock refinements

The Currie Rock-Jock Universal kit I'm using came with single tabs and single shear post-style heims. I changed to a double shear Ruff Stuff mount at the axle, and modified the arms to make a double shear mounting there too. Both ends of the links were changed to regular heims mounted with thru bolts.

Rear axle anti-rock :

Here's the Ruff Stuff double shear 1.5" wide mounts used at the axle. The one on the left has been fitted to the housing tube and cleaned up for welding. The one on the right is the stock part:



I’m keeping the anti-rock arms under the rear floor panel, so the arms can only swing up as high as the top of the frame rail. Because of this, the full stuff distance from the arm to the axle is pretty short, so positioning the link mount lower on the axle housing enables a reasonable length of link for the motion of the arms and axle. The arc of the anti-rock arm travel follows the axle travel pretty well.

Tacked on the anti-rock link mounts on the rear axle. The position along the tube was chosen to be inboard enough to be well away from the e brake body, and outboard enough to keep the links away from the frame. Then sorted out the rear anti-rock arms.

The Currie (now Rock Jock) universal anti-rock kit I had bought had straight arms, and came with single shear post style heims. I changed everything to double shear, but took a couple of steps in getting to the final configuration…

Here’s a pic of the original straight rear arm, with the new heims and spacers attached at axle link mount, and with an initial mock up of the top connection - to think about how to make the double shear top mount:



I initially was thinking I'd weld an L shaped piece to the arm to capture the outer end of the heim & spacers - but 1.5” width of heim and spacers needed a big offset of the L at the end of the arm- createing a twisting force at the tip of the arm. It also would look funky. Better to have the link in-line with the arm.

Rock Jock had introduced a double shear bolt-on attachment that places the link in line with the arm, and has narrower heim spacers - so I sprung for a set of those and also new arms with a 1.75" offset as that would line the arms up nicely above the link. This also moved the head of the link bolt away from the face of the frame rail vs. the straight arm, which I had been concerned could scrape when hard articulated.

Here's the Rock-Jock bolt on double shear part , and the amount trimmed off the new offset arm:



Here's the assembled offset anti-rock arm, double shear upper mount, and link assembled to the tacked axle double shear mount (close to full droop). When stuffed, the arm sits just below the top of the frame rail). Liked it OK, but later changed to welded double shear mounts on the arm, with the wider heim spacers, which was a design I liked better after working it out for the front anti-rock arms….




Front axle anti-rocks:

The front anti-rock bar is positioned between the grill shell and 8274 winch that’s sunk behind the bumper - pretty much the only location possible in the layout. That leads to short anti-rock front arms and no room for rate adjustment by changing arm length. I decided to try JKS FlexConnects to soften and tune the effective anti-rock rate. I ordered 2 of the separate flex connect links (not the install kit) plus one set of the optional springs for tuning. This provides lots of options for tuning the front anti-rock: run a FlexConnect on just one anti-rock arm with a standard link on the other side, or run one per side, plus fine tune springs within each FlexConnect. Given my short front anti-rock arms, I started with a Flex Connect on both sides, and will swap springs as needed to dial in the balance of on road sway control vs off road ease of articulation. Time will tell how well it works.

With the parts in hand I realized that the FlexConnect castings and bushing were too chubby to fit the narrow Rock Jock bolt-on double shear parts I used on the rear anti-rock arms. Just as well, because that lead to a better approach for double shear arms front and back. The revised double shear arm ends are welded ( less fasteners to vibrate loose) and are 1.5” wide - the same as the axle link brackets.

When purchased as a separate component, the Flex Connects don't have a metal bushing inside the joint bore- which was fine since I didn't want to mount them the way the JKS kits do anyway. I turned some stainless bushings to fit the JKS bore that set the outer mounting width to 1.5”. Here's one Flex Connect with its new bushings installed, along with the bushings by themselves:



Continued in next post…

More Anti-rock updates

I formed the original straight front antirock arms in the press to have a 1.75" offset like the ones in the rear, but the bends were made closer to the shaft end since the overall arm length is shorter - but still far enough back to keep them narrow at the front for tire clearance. They line up nicely with the planned link position on the axle.



Here's pics of how the double shear arm ends went together. The new tabs are 1/4" thick, so the bolt holes don't wallow out too fast. The edges were chamfered for the welds, and the 1.5" spacing was set using spacers I made previously. They are about 0.020" over the 1.5" target - to compensate for some weld shrink.



Here they are mounted. The axle link bracket is tacked at the top of the axle tube, and the lower shock mount is tacked at the back, The first pic is at droop, the second pic is with the suspension compressed to bring the arm to the point in the suspension travel that has minimum clearance to the shock body - basically parallel to the frame rail. I wanted to have ample clearance to accommodate bushing, arm, and mount flex and avoid hitting the shock tube.



At full articulation droop, the flex connect and anti-rock arm maintain enough angle between them to avoid inversion.

How much articulation the anti-rock/ flex-connect combo will allow in actual use will be interesting to find out. I bought one spring kit with pairs of alternative springs of three different rates for tuning the FlexConnects. When running a single Flex Connect on one side, the top and bottom spring inside the device need to match each other- which is why they are supplied in pairs. But since I'm running a Flex Connect on both sides, I think I can mix springs top vs bottom within each flex connect as long as I have the same top/bottom spring mix on each side. Because of this, I only bought one kit of alternative rate spring pairs to tune the two flex connects with as I think that range of options will be sufficient. Should be fun to play with.

I liked how the front double shear arm ends turned out, so then changed the rear arms to the same design. The pic shows the new welded ends vs. the prior bolt on parts:



Next post, shock mounts.

Front Shock Mounts:

As described earlier, I decided to mount the shocks at the back of the axle tube. Ruff Stuff shock mounts were used and were shortened to tuck them in closer to the axle tube to improve brake caliper clearance at the steering extremes. The mounts were cut back by 1/2”, similar to the photos below. (These photos show a 5/8” cut that I tried at the back axle, which was a little too much…)



The 1/2" cut nestled them in well. At full steering to the axle stops with the tires just shy of snagging the springs, the brake calipers clear the shock mount and shock with space to spare. The leaf spring U-bolts just fit next to the shock mounts (including room for the axle tube welds) and I can get into the space next to the C's to weld.

The axle build committed the pinion/caster angle relationship already, and it assumed a standard u-joint front driveshaft for final pinion angle set-up and I’m still thinking that’s going to work out. Spring perches will be welded when the full vehicle weight is in place, but the shock mounts were tacked now clocking them relative to the pinion at the planned final pinion angle. Here’s the shock mounts tacked in place (before the anti-rock brackets were tacked). I'm going to final weld later when welding the perches.



Upper Shock Mount:

The 12" shock travel (minus rubber bump protector on the shaft) sure gets used up quick! After cycling the suspension, flat and articulating, to look at full extension/ full compression clearances, I think I got the shock mount position decision balanced out pretty well.

For the mount, I first added a cross bar to the engine cage directly over the shock mount position. This was welded onto the cage bars without disconnects, as the whole engine cage is removable for pulling out the engine.



Then added shock mount tabs that follow the sides of the cross bar. Here they are tacked. The cage cross bar is 1.5" diameter and the shock mount spacer is 1.520".



Once these were tacked on, then fitted an upper plate to bridge the tabs together & fully welded the mounts. After the mounts were welded on, a triangulation brace tube was added to the cage to tie the shock mount area to the base of the front cage hoop. Here's the mount and the added brace tube after welding (sitting sideways on the table):



Here's some views of the engine cage re-installed with the shock mounts and shocks in place:



Despite my efforts to clamp / pre-stress the cage assembly to control weld shrink effects, the mounting points of the cage pulled in a bit at the firewall and frame mounts, but with a little coaxing it all bolts up without much trouble. I might try to tweak the alignment at some point so it assembles more easily.

Reservoir Mounts

I initially mounted the shock reservoirs with clamps on the cross brace:



Didn’t like the clutter and the reduced access of the engine. In thinking about the rear shock mounting, the compact packaging of piggyback mounting of the reservoirs in the shock body was looking appealing as far as sealing of the tub. All of those thoughts converged and so the hose fittings and hose lengths were changed to revise the reservoir hose routing, and got some different clamps to mount the reservoirs like this:



The clamp i.d. needed to be sanded a little to fit well on the shock body. I used a small sanding drum on the drill press to open them up a little while maintaining the cylindrical shape.

I like this mounting approach better.

Rear Shock Mounts:

To support mocking up shock position and cycling, I made some dummy mounts that had the eye spacing I planned, but that could be moved around and clamped in place on the wheel arches to assess different mounting positions:



Ruff Stuff shock mount brackets for the rear axle were shortened by 5/8" as described and shown in the post on front shock mounts. These were were tacked on the rear axle following initial cycling. The main reason for shortening them for the rear axle was to gain clearance of the shocks to the tailpipe.

Here’s what that positioning looked like:



Unfortunately, the shortened mount ended up too short- bringing the shock body too close to the electric brake housing when the shock was fully compressed at articulated stuff. Shucks.

In addition, the lower shock brackets were tacked to support vertical shock mounting- both for shock tuning reasons and also again driven by keeping the shock away from the installed tailpipe. In working on the upper shock mount position, I then realized that vertical placement wouldn’t work if I wanted to keep the top shock eye even with or below the top of the body tub (visually clean). With the top of the eye placed just below the top of the tub, with the tacked lower mount, vertical shock placement limited shock up travel and wasted down travel.

To get the full shock travel and avoid the shock hitting stuff, some constraints need to change.

I’m currently thinking that I’ll use stock length Ruff Stuff brackets of the same type, positioned rotated back on the axle tube to support mounting the shocks with some back slope - ie the top eye positioned a little closer towards the tailgate. This will require the tailpipe to be revised. Not a big deal and I think that the routing is workable. Another alternative is to move the lower shock eye lower on the axle tube and farther back to keep the vertical shock orientation, but I think the lower eye might have to go lower than the axle tube itself, which I'd like to avoid. This scenario also requires revising the tailpipe, so I'm resigned to that revision. I'll assess both ideas more fully.

While sorting this out, I also revisited the rear driveshaft angle. I’ve been planning a conventional u-joint driveshaft based on the wheelbase increase and modest lift springs, but the flat belly drivetrain mounting is a challenge on the driveshaft angle. Measuring again I realized that I may need a double cardan shaft. Still don’t have the body and cage weight on it yet, so decided to wait until that stuff is in place before firming the driveshaft decision, which will then determine clocking of the lower shock mounts on the tube.

Generally the design of the upper mounts is to have tube sections in front and behind the shocks that tie to the frame rail and to the cage side spreaders, with the shock mount tabs welded to those tubes. I have some ideas on how it will seal with the wheel tubs. All of this begs for the cage to come together first...so will wait to finalize.

Tailgate & Tire Carrier:


I decided to shift gears for a bit and start building the tailgate, tire carrier, and supporting structure that will tie in to the roll cage. I wanted a swing down tailgate, and a side swing tire carrier, and to have the tire carrier serve as an extension of the roll cage across the tailgate area.

These are some 2D line drawings for reference. (These were done in an ancient version of Adobe Illustrator that I purchased years ago for other stuff. It works pretty OK for doing line drawings. The drawings are 1:1 scale which is easy on my brain. They can then be reduced in size for working prints. I don’t have a 3D CAD program - sorry, no fancy shaded animated renderings...)

The first drawing shows top and back views of the tailgate frame (without the tire carrier), the second shows the tire carrier (without the tailgate). Dimensions are in another layer that’s turned off so the drawings are easier to visualize.



The tailgate hinges at the bottom with quick pins in bushings. The tire carrier hinges on heims with thru bolts on the passenger side, and latches with heims and quick pins on the driver side. The uprights at each side are 2.5" square 0.125" wall tubes that weld to the bumper and to cage tubes at the top. They also have threaded bosses at the sides for body panel attachment.

The tailgate internal frame shown in the drawing will have outer and inner bead rolled panels. It latches to the upright supports at the top on each side with mini bearclaw latches.

On to building it…

This first photo shows the beginning of the tailgate frame (upside down in photo)



The bottom has a 0.75" OD/ 0.5 ID DOM tube with 0.375" ID bronze bushings inserted at the ends to hinge on 0.375" stainless quick release pins through the side supports. The upper and side pieces are trimmed 1.25" x 0.125" thick angle steel. You can also see the mini bear claw latches and mounting pieces at the bottom of the photo. The side frame pieces provide a flat surface for weatherstrip seals.

Here’s another pic of the latch and mounting pieces:



The latches are a dual action automotive design that's readily available in plated steel, but I found that the mfg. also makes them in stainless. The stainless version was hard to find. I turned some small stainless handles for the latch actuator, and TIG welded them to the actuator tab as shown:



Here's a photo showing how they mount on the tailgate frame. The actuator lever sits underneath the formed curved cover at the upper inside corners of the tailgate (left side of this photo). The curved cover prevents accidental latch release from cargo bumping into the accuator. The actuator releases easily with one finger push upward on the handle tucked under the cover. The mating latch pins mount on the adjacent 2.5" square side supports.



Then added 1" x 0.0625” wall square tube braces to the tailgate frame:



The 2.5" square side supports were up next. Here's the main pieces. The 0.250"1018 plates are brackets for the tire carrier heims. The longer ones inset into the ends of the 2.5" tube to cap it on top and bottom. The short ones weld to the face of the tube. The whole assembly welds to the top of the bumper, and to future cage tubes that will connect to the C pillar at the rear body corners. You can see the 1.75" hole in the square tube to accept the cage tube at the lower right of the pic.



The inset end plates were welded first. I turned a 2.025" spacer and bolted it up to set the heim spacing for welding the other tabs:



Here's the side supports after welding the tire carrier mounting tabs:



These mount vertically on each side of the tailgate. Their height at the top plate is set to be even with the tailgate top and body sides.

The next step on these was to weld in tube inserts for the tailgate hinge pins, and threaded bosses for the bearclaw latch pins and planned body panel mounting screws - as shown in the next post.

Tailgate & tire carrier continued

Additional info on the tailgate latches:

The latches are smaller than the ones typically sold by hot rod shops for use on doors. I like the in-line actuator direction. It works out nice for simple direct actuation placed at the top corners of the tailgate- rather than the sideways actuator that many latches have for door handle/connecting rod arrangements. Here's a link to where I first found the plated steel version: Mini In-Line Bear Claw Door Latch 75mm. The guy that runs that company has a youtube video that shows installation of one of the latch types that he carries. I did some other looking around, and I think these latches are used on some Honda side by side vehicles or something - I've seen them at some auto parts suppliers listed for some type of Honda.

The ones I used are by the same manufacturer - Eberhard, but are made in stainless steel. The part numbers are Eberhard 8-240-SS-LH and 8-240-SS-RH for the left and right hand latches, and 240-52U-SS for the striker pins. I got them from Moore Industrial Hardware: 3 in Right Hand Stainless Steel Two Stage Mini Rotary Lock. They also list the zinc plated versions on their site. At the time, I bought the last pair of stainless ones that they had in stock, and they said they didn't plan to re-stock because the mfg. requires a minimum order of 500 each. However, I looked recently and they have them in stock again.

Back to fab.

The side supports shown in the prior posts needed little bits added. Sleeves were welded in the bottom corners to accept the quick pins that form the hinge points. Then welded in some sections of round steel rod into the sides - these were then drilled and tapped. One pair is for the the latch pins, which thread into the inside face of each support. There are also three pairs of flush threaded bosses on the outside face of the supports with 10-32 threads for rear body quarter panel attachment screws. I welded in the steel rod pieces first, then drilled and tapped the blind threaded holes. I did it this way rather than threading the bosses and then welding them in - so I could position the hole locations more accurately and avoid oxidizing the threads from weld heat. This photo shows the side supports with the welded sleeves and rod pieces for the bosses, prior to drilling and tapping:



With the sleeves and bosses installed, the side supports were then mounted to the tailgate frame with the hinge pins in order to mark the latch pin position on each side support at the welded boss. To mark the position, I cut a bolt and lathe turned the tip into a point to use as a latch pin scribe to mark the side support boss. This scribe bolt is shown installed in the latch - lower right:



Once marked, the latch pin bosses were drilled and blind tapped. Also added to the supports were 1" x 0.125" flat stock strips, stitch welded along the inside edge of the support to accept weather-stripping behind the tailgate. With that stuff done, then the tailgate and side supports were assembled together and clamped to the workbench as a fixture to set the final dimensions for the tire carrier tube structure construction.
This photo shows the tire carrier tube structure with the threaded tube ends welded in, and with TMR "lifetime" rebuildable joints installed, tube pieces fitted and clamped - all with the tailgate / side supports serving as a fixture for tacking the carrier tubes:



The carrier main tubes are 1.75" x 0.125" DOM, while the smaller tubes are 1.5". The smaller tubes are offset outward to be flush with the outside face of the 1.75" main cross bars. This leaves more space between the 1.5" brace tubes and the face of the tailgate. I wanted the carrier to hug tight to the body, but also needed it to clear the raised Willys logo and rolled beads I planned on the face of the tailgate panel. The offset of the 1.5" tubes provides 1/4" more clearance vs the backside of the 1.75" tubes, and the raised portions of the tailgate panel fit within that space (ie between the 1.75" cross bars).

After the tire carrier tubes were fully welded, the whole assembly was fitted and welded to the rear bumper:



I'll be making the spare tire mount itself later on. I'm still deciding whether to have it include a spare spindle / hub assembly or just have it be a simple mounting plate. In either case, I'm thinking I may bolt it in to 4 or 5 sleeved holes in the carrier tubes near the upper center tube junction, rather than welding it on. The bolt on idea is a little heavier, but would enable the carrier to be configured to carry other stuff instead of a spare tire. Still thinking about that at this point.

Here's a couple pics with the tire carrier open to show the tailgate in both up and down position.



I was kind of nervous about whether weld shrinkage would cause the fit of all these pieces to move around and then not function well- potentially turning it into scrap after a lot of work- but it all came together and works well.

The removable quick pins for the tailgate hinges are snug , but are still readily removable. The holes on the carrier mount tabs were drilled for a snug fit so I could use the side supports to fixture the carrier tubing for welding. That worked out well for building the carrier. The fit is currently a little too tight for easy operation when latching the carrier closed with the driver side quick pins. Final hole clearance to improve the ease of quick pin insertion will wait until after the cage is built. I want to maintain the tight carrier to side support positioning during welding of the cage tie in tubes, to minimize movement from weld shrinkage. Will then adjust the hole size a bit to provide easier quick pin fit - after any weld related movement has occurred.

Next up is the bead rolled outer tailgate panel.

Tailgate outer panel

Next up was making the outer tailgate panel. I'm still new to using a bead roller and working with sheet metal in general, and this was a learning experience! In the process of making the panel, I also made a sheet metal brake that was briefly shown in a prior post, made some tweaks to the bead roller set-up, and worked out some general techniques that were helpful. I’ll bundle the tool build and general method topics into posts that follow the tailgate specific stuff to better organize the detours.

After making some warpy sample panel efforts, I finally made a good tailgate panel that I planned to use:



The outer edges are oversize for forming around the tailgate frame. The tailgate is taller and wider than the stock design, so I re-proportioned the bead design to fit the larger tailgate.

I initially wanted to mimic the original CJ design, which has the center logo & bead, plus “L" shaped beads on each side. I figured out how to hammer form "L" corners connecting two rolled beads on my first contribution to the scrap pile. This was done with an MDF hammer form recess in the shape of the corner of the L. The warping of the panel with that design was harder to manage, so I backed off on that idea and went with simple straight beads on this one. On reflection, I think the straight bead design looks cleaner than the stock L pattern anyway. The spacing of the five vertical beads is wide enough to fit the stock stencil painted "4 Wheel Drive" logo, which I plan to include.

When I tried to fit the panel to the tailgate frame, I messed it up. I was not happy.

That panel was made with 18g, and I had a rough time forming it with the tight radius bends I wanted around the tailgate frame. I didn’t sequence the bends around the edges well so they weren’t well aligned with the frame, and attempting to correct them was making a rippled mess at the reworked bends. Time to try again.

After some more experimenting, I decided to use 20g for the outer panel, as I could fit the bends tighter to the tailgate frame the way I wanted. The bend sequencing for fitting to the tailgate frame was revised as well. The 20g is also easier to bead roll, and I found that with more pre-stretch, I could do the final bead shape in two simple passes and have the panel end up pretty flat:



I then formed two bends at the top of the panel to fit over the top of the tailgate frame, using the new brake I had built. It worked much better than what I did on the first panel (which was hand bent on a piece of angle, because the panel was too wide for my old brake), but even with 20g the bend radius was tight at the ends but a little softer through the middle of the bend. That made the top of the panel bow due to the difference in bend radius along the bend. Much better than on the first panel, but needed a little more work. To clean it up, the panel face was clamped with a square tube on the outside and square bar on the inside to keep it flat and then a slapper was used along the top of the panel with the square bar as a dolly underneath. That tightened the radius of the bend in the middle to make it more uniform for the full length, and got rid of the related bow.




To make the bend radius even more uniform and smooth, I then used the bead roller with a combination of dies and with light pressure. The top die is one that's used for setting a wired edge- similar in shape to a tipping die but not as sharp of a radius. The lower die used is a 1/8" step die. The step just constrains the outer side of the bend to keep the upper die positioned as it ran along the bend radius.



After the outer top bend was cleaned up, then the top downward bend to fit to the inside of the tailgate frame was tightened up using a slapper, and the tailgate frame as the form and with a long bar along the top to clamp the top of the panel.



With the top bends fitted and clamped to the top of the tailgate frame, then the lower edge of the panel was clamped and formed with a leather faced slapper around the lower round tube of the tailgate frame, making a large radius bend:



The excess was trimmed so that the lower radius bend wraps around the tailgate frame tube slightly more than 90 degrees. This allows the panel to snap into place over the frame with no clamps - which is handy for handling at this stage. I'll stitch weld the panel along that edge later, along with an inside tailgate panel that will be made once the adjacent floor panel is in place. Still sorting out the rust prevention approach I'll apply inside the tailgate frame and panel assembly, which I'll resolve before welding the panels.

The last part of fitting the panel to the tailgate frame was to clamp and form the sides of the panel around the sides of the tailgate frame, using the leather faced slapper followed with a metal hammer and planishing slapper. The corner intersection of the formed sides and top was mitered and welded. Here's a pic of the fully fitted panel:



Overall, using the 20g worked out well in getting the fit of the panel to the frame the way I wanted it. The tailgate panel is protected by the tire carrier, so 20g is plenty sturdy in that location. The inside panel that has stuff slid and dropped on it will be 18g.

On the previous panel attempt, I added the Willys logo to the rolled panel before fitting it to the tailgate frame. That Willys logo piece had been worked so much that it wasn’t very re-useable when I wrecked the panel fitting it to the frame. On the second panel I fit the panel to the frame first, then added the logo to the panel. It was kind of scary to cut the hole and weld in the logo in the middle of the new, flat, nicely fitted panel. The next post covers that...

Tailgate panel Willys insert

The Willys logo was made using a reclaimed hood side stamping from a junk dented/rusted out hood I picked up. The surround shape was hammer formed to emulate the stock Willys tailgate design, but with a height that matches the 3/16” height of the beads rolled in the tailgate panel.

This photo shows the hammer form and clamping caul I made for forming the raised surround shape. The form is 3/16" thick steel. The bead transition is shaped to match the bead shape rolled in the tailgate panel. The caul was made from a section of rectangular tube, with plates welded to enclose the ends. The contact face surface was filed and sanded smooth. The hollow shape allows it to clamp the panel just outside the stamped WILLYS letters, so they aren't damaged from clamping.



To keep the panel from moving around on the form during hammer forming, the panel was tacked to the form at the bead transitions - at center, top & bottom.



Here's the part with the caul clamped over the WILLYS letters, and with a cardboard gasket to protect the surface:



The form and part were clamped to the top of my table saw, and the edges were worked down to the level of the table saw top. To hammer the panel over the form, I made a fat chisel shaped chaser out of a piece of Delrin rod that I had around. It has a rounded edge that worked nice to work down the edges over the form without marring the panel.



To tighten up the outline edge of the panel, I used a steel chaser that I had made from a brick chisel- with the edge rounded and polished to make an edge in the panel but not gouge it. A narrower chaser would have been better, but I had this one, and it worked OK.



Here’s the hammer formed logo panel:



This logo piece was then trimmed, the outline traced onto the tailgate panel, and the panel cut to fit:



Then made a bunch of tack welds, being careful to assure alignment of the edges at each tack, then final welded the panel, using 0.035" filler rod.



Even backing with a copper plate and keeping the heat down, welding caused some warping from shrinkage. If you look closely at the diagonal reflections across the face of the panel near the logo you can see some of this- relative to the plane of the overall panel, the outer corners of the logo piece moved up, while the center near the bead roll splice dropped down. This created some curvature along the logo panel with the center dipped in, and the outer ends sitting higher.

I did some initial hammer on dolly work on the crown of the weld beads to reverse the shrinkage at the bead, which helped the warping, and also made it easier to grind remaining high spots on the welds down close to the panel surface. Then did some planishing of the weld bead and heat affected area to work out local ripples and to bring the overall surface back closer to flat. Then did some further smoothing with a small sanding disc, followed by some further planishing. Went slow and tried to puzzle out how it was moving as I went along.

The 20g panel is pretty thin stuff to start with and I didn't want to grind or sand into the surrounding panel to fully blend the logo panel weld as it would make the panel even thinner. So, while it's pretty flat now there's still some signs of the weld bead on the surface. I'm thinking a skim coat of filler may address the remaining imperfections, rather than take off more metal to get the splice to disappear. Overall flatness is pretty good, and about as good as this beginner can do at this point in my sheet metal experience. Here it is held on to the tailgate frame by it's formed edges:



Fun to get it worked out!

Tailgate & tire carrier open positions

Also addressed is how the tailgate and tire carrier are held in their open position. I didn't want tailgate chains banging around like a stock 3B, nor inside cables like later CJ's. I also wanted to have a way to create a fixed open position for the tire carrier, rather than have it just swinging around.

The rough idea I had was to have the tailgate and carrier connect to each other when both are open. After pondering it for a while, I came up with a simple solution. The carrier opens by removing the quick release pins on the driver side mounts. I'm going to attach the lower pin with a lanyard to keep from losing it. The upper pin will not have a lanyard. Instead, when it’s pulled it will then be used to pin the tailgate and tire carrier together in their open positions.

Here's how it's set up:

A DOM tube sleeve was welded into the lower carrier tube. It accepts the quick release pin:



With the carrier open and the tailgate down, the carrier sleeve aligns the pin to a hole in a 3/16" thick plate welded on the side of the tailgate frame. The plate thickness and pin length are set so the ball detent of the pin locks behind the tailgate plate, so the pin only comes out by pressing its release button.



This arrangement holds the tailgate flat, keeps it from banging down on the pintle hook below it, and keeps the carrier open at 90 degrees. It's pretty simple. There are two downsides though. One is that it doesn’t provide for locking the tire carrier open with the tailgate up. Another is that while the passenger side tailgate support is really sturdy, the outer end of the driver side of the tailgate is not directly supported. The tailgate frame is strong and stable even with the driver corner cantilevered out from the support points, but I wouldn’t want to load something really heavy on that side of the tailgate. I’m OK with those limitations though, since the primary use is to swing the carrier out of the way to open the tailgate, and it does that well without the clutter of cables or chains.

Here's the final tailgate and carrier assembly:



As mentioned, there were some detours on tools and methods during this effort, and the next posts cover some of detours that might be of interest.

Excellent work as always

Thanks! Much appreciated!

Bead roller stuff
Working on the tailgate panel, there were some tool and method things to sort out, as sheet metal work is still pretty new to me. The next few posts cover some little things I figured out that might be of interest, plus some tool refinements, starting with the bead roller.

I purchased a Mittler roller to use on this project, and it's a superb machine. I did make one minor change that was helpful to address a small issue I was having. The pic below is my earliest panel attempt, which had the stock style L beads that were initially tried. If you look closely, you can see scratch stripes running parallel to the bead across the face of the panel. These were caused by the panel dragging (face down) across the corners of the steel support table of the bead roller.




I really like having the table to support the panel weight, but the panel tends to droop off the end of the table, and the table corners scratch it as it passes over them. I ran several passes on each bead (including pre-stretching discussed later), so the scratches accumulated and were pretty noticeable. Lifting the panel over the corners to avoid it works, but creates a distraction when trying to focus on the bead path.

Instead, the scratch concern was resolved by adding a 1/4" thick slippery UMHW plastic pad to the table top. Here’s a pic with the black UMHW pad installed:



Here is how the pad was added. The stock table pivots up out of the way when not in use. The pivot is at the back, and there is a stop pin that it rests on when down. The pivot and stop contact surfaces needed to be changed to compensate for the 1/4' thickness addition of the UMHW pad, in order for the top surface of the pad to align correctly with the roller dies.

The original pivot bosses were cut off:



New ones were made and welded on, 1/4" offset from the original position (shown with spacers and bolt for welding alignment):




The UMHW plastic is easy to cut with a saw, but the edge tends to shred and a file doesn't work well for clean up as it tends to just slide over the surface and not cut... A wood plane worked nicely to clean up saw cuts and add a smooth bevel to the edge. (Posed photo- I'm not in the bad habit of setting planes down on their blade-it's retracted here for the glamour shot)



The pad is mounted with countersunk flathead screws. It solved the corner scratch issue, and as a bonus it reduces drag of the panel - making it even easier to guide.

Some other bead roller related stuff:

18 gauge 0.048" steel was initially used for the outside tailgate panel. While I switched to 20g for the outer tailgate as described earlier, I still plan to use 18g for the floors and other body panels. It’s pretty sturdy - but harder to roll.

In trying to improve the rolling results, I ran a bunch of beads on scraps trying to improve the results. I’m sure more experienced folks here already know the stuff I tried, and likely have even better methods - which would be great to hear! Here’s a few things that I found to be helpful:

Panel warping & pre-stretch:

Rolling the bead pulls material from the flat panel into the profile of the bead, and that ends up warping the panel. There's a great You Tube video by Lazze, and others as well that discuss this. These describe using an English Wheel to pre-stretch the panel in the area of the planned bead. The pre-stretched area stretches the bead area, which warps the panel, but then forming the bead along the pre-stretched area consumes the stretched material and returns the panel back towards flat. Pretty cool!

Unfortunately, I don't have an English Wheel, and also don't have room for one. So I made a set of dies for the bead roller that emulate English wheel dies to pre-stretch the bead area before rolling. Mittler sells die blanks that fit their bead roller shafts, so I started with a set of their blanks. I couldn't chuck the blank directly in my little lathe, so I turned an adapter that simulates the bead roller shaft to mount the die blanks on.

Here's a photo of the adapter. The bolt on the end tightens the die in place, and the head of the bolt has a center bore drilled in it to fit the tailstock center.



Here’s the top die after turning and polishing to create a mild radius crown. I chose a mild crown to provide some pre-stretch without much surface grooving. It seems to work OK.



Die set mounted on the bead roller. The upper die has the radius crown while the lower is flat.



Here’s a panel after some pre-stretch using the fake english wheel dies. It's slower than an english wheel, but the motor driven roller with a reverse direction switch works pretty well for making multiple passes to gradually pre-stretch the bead area. Slow, but it works pretty well.



More in next post…

Rolling beads

I had the best bead rolling results on 18g by making several passes to build the height of the bead, rather than trying to make one pass with a lot of pressure. On the 20g outer tailgate panel, pre-stretch plus two bead passes worked out pretty well. I want to use 18g elsewhere though, and with multiple passes with hard dies on the 18g, the bead definition can result in messy looking bead edges unless each pass is very accurately in alignment to the initial pass. I also had a related issue with the standard Mittler dies. They have a wide shoulder on the groove die, and panel warpage can cause the panel to rub on the outer edge of the die shoulder, forming scratched on each pass.With multiple passes it gets pretty noticeable. To avoid the shoulder marking issue, I tried the Lazze version of round bead die that Mittler also sells. It groove die is much narrower overall with little shoulder, so there's not enough shoulder to rub against the surrounding area if the panel warps a bit.

These Lazze dies are made to fit a roller machine with adjustable upper and lower shafts, whereas mine only has the upper adjustable shaft. This placed the upper Lazze die too far outward. To align the upper die, I took off the outer adjuster, and used spacer washers to set the alignment. (spacer washers from McMaster Carr in 0.125" , 0.025", and 0.005" thicknesses to mix and match). Here’s the Lazze dies with the washer alignment set up:



Mittler also makes Nylatron dies that don't mark the surface of the panel the way steel dies do. But they also don't create a crisp bead edge...Hmmm.... Combining these options, I came up with an approach to make multiple passes to build up the bead height on an 18g panel without causing surface damage:


The first pass was made with the Lazze steel die set, as shown above, guiding the center of the upper convex die along the bead layout center lines.
The lower steel concave die makes crisp crease lines at the sides of the bead on the first pass, and is narrow enough it doesn't run the risk of creasing or scratching the panel on the shoulder of the die.

For the next passes, I used the Lazze convex bead steel die with a Nylatron die, and flipped their positions so I could guide the Nylatron groove edges to align with the bead edge created on the first pass. The dies were aligned using spacer washers, as described above. This enabled several passes to increase the bead height, with no damage of the initial pass bead edges, as the Nylatron supports the panel but doesn't create any sharp crease- so it's forgiving of slight misalignment with the initial pass bead when making the subsequent passes. It also doesn’t scratch the panel despite its wide shoulders.



This worked well, however, even with the "fake english wheel" pre-stretch, there was still some panel warpage including along the length of the bead crown as shown in the next photo. I suppose more pre-stretch might have solved it, but too late now on this panel!



To flatten the bead warp along its length, the same Lazze convcave roller was used, but this time with a Mittler soft urethane skateboard wheel die opposing it.



This provided some stretch along the crown of the bead that flattened it out along its length:



The above describes a lot of manipulation to increase bead height while keeping the panel reasonably flat and unscratched on the 18g sheet. I think with more experience on the amount of pre-stretch it could reduce the need for the subsequent corrective approaches - but at least they help provide ways to coax the panel into better shape.

Lastly, the ends of the beads were coined with a little tool I made from a section of tube. (This was shown in more detail in a past post on the tunnel work). This creates a defined round end to the bead, and also helps flatten the face of the panel in that area.



I'm sure experienced folks here have some better techniques figured out, but thought I'd share what I muddled together. If you have any pointers on beadwork, I'd love to hear them!

Sheet Metal Brake

I had a small inexpensive brake when I started the tailgate panel work. It wasn't wide enough to fit the panel, so I initially tried to form the top bends bends by hand over a piece of angle. That didn't go very well. The bend radius was too big and the bend surface was pretty wavy. Since I'd have more sheet metal bends coming up for other parts, I figured it was time to change to a more capable brake.

I seriously drooled over the Eastwood magnetic brake, but it's big bucks. The other "big" problem with that idea, or any larger commercial straight brake or pan brake is that I don't have any room for it in my little garage! After a lot of pondering, I decided to make a 48" wide straight brake myself that would mount on my lathe bed based "workstation", and that could be disassembled for storage when not in use. Kind of a pain to set up and tear down, but that's easier than finding another house and moving!

Here’s a pic of the “workstation” which is made from an old Delta wood lathe bed. (Same model as my working wood lathe which has cross slide and pulley conversion parts for simple metal turning) My main vice, as well as bead roller, tube bender, axle stands, can be attached and slid around along the lathe bed ways. It works well for the small garage space.



Here's a pic of the new brake.



The new brake is mounted on the workstation, the old one is on the floor. Old was 36" panel width, new is 48". Old was 1/4" material, new is 1/2 and 5/8" thick material, with all other parts beefed up. Similar in concept, but I think an improved design. It makes better bends than the old one, and can handle wider material. It’s not as good as a big commercial machine, but it’s a step forward. On long bends like the tailgate it still has some variability in the bend radius along it’s length - tends to be a softer bend in the middle vs tighter at the ends. But they touch up OK with some additional manual finishing.

The new set-up can break down into three main sections for storage and the sections can be lifted readily.

Brake details:

The top clamp bar is a piece of 1/2" thick angle. It has some fore and aft adjustment- which the prior brake lacked. I used some slotted machinist clamps welded at the ends to enable the adjustment. The clamp material is hard so will wear well. The underside at the clamps has clearance to fit springs that lift the bar when unclamped. Here’s pics of how that went together:




The top clamp bar also has some internal gussets to keep it from spreading under load (pic is posted sideways to fit page)



The raw hot rolled edge of the top clamp material was very rounded, so it was cut and then filed flat to get a sharper edge:



The front bar is 5/8" thick. The narrow edge is what forces the bend, and like the top clamp it needed to be filed to be straight and flat. The front bar also has an attached angle piece to help guide the sheet. It's removable to allow for double bends with narrow spacing over the 5/8" edge of the bar.

This next photo shows the filing edge of front bar. The attached angle guide was initially mounted a little below the raw rolled edge of 5/8" thick front bar plate, and then the bar edge was filed smooth, flat, and flush with the angle surface. The upper clamp part is also rough filed at this point.



The top clamp edge was then filed to final fit, checking that the surface was planar with a good fit to the base plate. I used the thinnest feeler gauge I had along the length to check the fit. The baseplate is a flat 5/8" thick plate. By itself, it would flex too much- but it attaches for its full length to the top of the "workstation" which is cast iron with level top ways and lots of support ribs in the casting- so the brake baseplate assembly is very rigid when bolted to the workstation ways.



More in next post...