Bad Zuki? More Like Bad Influence :fangers:

Sluggy said:
For the front support idea, run a old trailer hitch. It's square heavy wall with a receiver in the middle. I always reuse them for the front and rear of vehicles I'm building.
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Like just cut out what I need and weld it in between the frame rails like what I was planning on doing with square tube anyway?
 

Ended up just buying one of those. Was my original plan, but kinda pricey for what it is once you factor in tax and shipping from Low Range, but randomly ended up seeing it on Jegs for $35 less, found a coupon code for another 10% off, and free shipping. Couldn't buy the steel for any of my other plans for what I ended up paying. Didn't realize it was a direct ship from Low Range, but whatever, I'm not in any major hurry for it.

Forgot to take pics, but used the cheap Arccaptain mig welder I bought a while ago and hadn't used yet to fill the couple cuts in the frame/plate. Got the drivers side totally cleaned up. Passenger side is still ugly, but holding off on that til I swap the shackles out, it'll be easier to clean up without them in the way.

That machine is a lot nicer for the money than I thought it would be. I was expecting the electronic interface to be laggy but it's super fast. Recommended settings out the box worked great. Wire speed was a little high imo but easy enough to dial in once I need to weld more than a couple inches. Did manage to immediately flash myself in with my helmet on grind mode on accident. :laughing:

 
Everything came in yesterday. Stayed after work last night and redrilled it for the winch and painted everything. Off early today, probably throw everything on after work. Gonna order replacement mounting hardware for the winch itself though, not wild about trusting the HF hardware and the much thicker plate removes ~1/8" of thread engagement as it is.

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bad zuki said:
Right on!!
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I wish. :laughing:

Went to put the shackles on Friday, realized my boss had taken the shop floor jack home. Ran to HF and grabbed another one and didn't realize they don't come with fluid in them.

**** it, I'll do the winch plate first.
Nope.
Crossmember is too bent, can't get it bolted up. Tried ratchet strapping it tight enough to get the bolts in, couldn't get it close enough by close to an inch. Hammered pipe through it to try to straighten it, too short. Put it back on on one side, ratchet strapped the other and put the shackle block in the hitch and took a sledge to that, wouldn't budge. Don't have a torch here to soften it.

After several hours of that not panning out I just cleaned up and went home. Had a couple small rum and cokes when I got home which gave me a two day hangover and nothing else got done. Getting older sucks. :laughing:

Gonna pick up a longer piece of pipe and try driving that in from the other side, see if that straightens it out enough. It's not that bent overall, just enough and in the right spot to make it so I can't just bolt the damn thing in.

If not, I may just make some brackets for the frame and weld those to the Ballistic winch plate and just make my own version of the Low Range one and throw the LR one in storage.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Just cut the stupid tube out?
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Considered doing that and just sliding smaller replacement tube through the holes in the frame rails. The steering stabilizer bolts to it though, y'all just delete those? Relocate? I've looked a little online but haven't really found an answer.
 
Motorcharge said:
iTs jUsT a CoUpLe BoLtS hOw lOnG cAn iT tAkE?

q=tbn:ANd9GcSGige9H8FWImzB8Vllw0UbbZoKNOplZch91g&s.jpg
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We don't do this because it was easy, but because we thought it was going to be easy.


I feel like most y'alls problems could be fixed by a welder. :flipoff2:
The garbage freight mount was wide as sin. I normally french it into the frame mounts where it fits then add supports where they fit. You need to watch out for the PS box location though.

KIMG2398.webp
KIMG2400.webp
 
****, I've got the welder, it's weldable material that's the problem. I don't have a shop with years worth of **** laying around anymore and the steel suppliers around here are expensive as **** and a pain to deal with as a retail customer. Whole reason I bought that winch plate was because it was cheaper than buying material and doing it myself. Or at least in theory at the time. :laughing:
 
Motorcharge said:
****, I've got the welder, it's weldable material that's the problem. I don't have a shop with years worth of **** laying around anymore and the steel suppliers around here are expensive as **** and a pain to deal with as a retail customer. Whole reason I bought that winch plate was because it was cheaper than buying material and doing it myself. Or at least in theory at the time. :laughing:
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My folks love yard sales and I've told them to buy every bed frame they find. :laughing:
 
Someone explain to me like I'm a ****** because I'm not sure where else they would go, is that not the factory hanger location?

I've tried looking at a bunch of other Samurai pictures to see where else they'd bolt up, but everything I can find with a single shackle up front is too old to see any detail. I've also never had anything else with front leaf springs so no experience to go off of either. 90% of **** I've ever worked on has been XJs.
 
Motorcharge said:
****, I've got the welder, it's weldable material that's the problem. I don't have a shop with years worth of **** laying around anymore and the steel suppliers around here are expensive as **** and a pain to deal with as a retail customer. Whole reason I bought that winch plate was because it was cheaper than buying material and doing it myself. Or at least in theory at the time.
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Why not ask? I know more people in your neck of the woods with scrap bins. :flipoff2:

Motorcharge said:
Someone explain to me like I'm a ****** because I'm not sure where else they would go, is that not the factory hanger location?
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Don't worry about it.
 
Motorcharge said:
Done. :laughing:
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DrZ has been selling those kits for a while. I've had people tell me that it doesn't make much of a difference, and also, this isn't a spec chassis 4800 car or something that's gonna see over 1000 miles a year.

crisbee1 said:
get ya a dif guard, 8" pipe cap cut in half or something.
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I would say yes, but he has the Hybrid rear with the big tracker 3rd, so something custom would be cool.
 
ParadisePWoffrd said:
While. in general, I agree, but those springs are pretty flat. Shackle angle that is too much more vertical could allow the shackles to invert or bend the spring.
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That's what shackle stops are for.

As it sits thst shackles will be banging on the frame every bump, at are likely to get stuck.

Motorcharge said:
Someone explain to me like I'm a ****** because I'm not sure where else they would go, is that not the factory hanger location?

I've tried looking at a bunch of other Samurai pictures to see where else they'd bolt up, but everything I can find with a single shackle up front is too old to see any detail. I've also never had anything else with front leaf springs so no experience to go off of either. 90% of **** I've ever worked on has been XJs.
Click to expand...

They're factory, but the springs are not, so the hack way to fix it was the double shackle. Take that off and you need to move the mount forward.
 
x2 on the pipe cap diff armor. that what i used. i've bashed it 1000 times and its worth it. i went wheeling with a guy last summer who bashed his unprotected diff 10ft into the first trail and his whole weekend was done.

got mine from here:
www.steelsupplylp.com

part# 8.00 STD CAP Import Carbon Steel Buttweld

Steel Supply, L.P. is the leading online supplier for Pipe Fittings including Carbon Steel Buttweld Caps such as 8.00 STD CAP. Your best source for hard to find Pipe Fittings.
www.steelsupplylp.com www.steelsupplylp.com

I used the LRO winch plate too, i like it. i added my towbar mounts and a simple brush guard to it no problemo.
 
I'm not a big far of the pipe caps personally. But they're strong and the stock housing is crazy thin. Way thinner than a dana cover or even a Toyota axle.
 
Yeah I planned on doing that and a truss at some point, it's just low priority right now. This thing probably won't get wheeled for at least a year. Spent all this years fun money on guns trying to get stuff I wanted before the new AWB here goes into effect on July 1. Between that and moving later this year funds for the Samurai are pretty limited for now.

Plus, if I'm gonna get into the axles I'd rather pull them and go through them and I can't do that at the shop at work. With any luck when I move it'll be somewhere with at least a basic garage so I can do more **** like that.
 
Off early, went and cut the tube out. Idk why I was worried about that stabilizer, it was beyond shot. :laughing:

Got the plate installed and ordered a piece of tube to replace what I cut out. Figure I'll just slide that in the frame holes and weld it in.

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Not build related, but sitting here in the office waiting for traffic to die off before I go home. Threw the 2nd pic in Gemini and told it to make it look like it's in Cyberpunk 2077. If VA wasn't so gay about car **** I might actually throw the Vaporwave lighting on there. :laughing:

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