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Blue Jeep build

Cutting the angle out of the back lower section shouldn't be a big deal. I didn't have that closed off yet anyway, I was till going to have to do it. This just changes the size of the close off piece.

I "HOPE" that my little finger things will actually let me determine the exact shape/size of the front piece I'll need to make. If that works "fingers crossed" as planed, I should be able to pull the radiator and actually have some access to my hands in there, or at least my eyes.
 
Cutting in angled section out of the back of the lower section was the ticket. Now I have wiggle room instead of going straight to being two blocked.

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Even the damn welds on the piece that closes it off came out ok. I'm figuring out just I need to run the machine hotter and travel faster.

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With that rear piece out of the way I could put it on and take it off multiple times without fucking up my little finger tester things.
Plus, they stay about 3" away from the radiator, so I pulled the radiator..................now I can actually see what I have.

I know I've said a few times that I had to lean the top of the radiator back 33* to get the correct sized rad to fit. So right before I pulled it I took a pic to show just how much room that actually eats up. Front to rear it's about a foot of unusable space. At least I was smart enough to have C&R weld the an fittings at the 33* angle so they'd be horizontal


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Can actually see what I'm doing now. What a change.

Thank God LS water pumps spin backwards or I'd be fucked.


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Plus the Meziere pump has a slightly smaller than stock pulley size.......or I think I'd have been fucked there too.

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Clears the water pump outlet by a smidge. But in the pic it's pointed in the direction it needs to go. Blue tape is covering where the crimp fitting sits and I have full access to the part the gets the wrench.

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So this is what I need to build now, I need to make this solid..............or hollow so it works. But this is the shape.

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So while I was walking around the Jeep freezing my ass off I noticed a couple thing worthy of pictures.

First, the fuel cell. For being 32gals and only sticking up in the tub 3.5", it's still nice and tucked up on the bottom too. It hangs down less than the Genright 20gal rear tank for the JK's by a few inches. granted theirs doesn't come through the floor either.

Bumper covers from the bottom of the tail gate to about a third of the way down all those 1" struts.....which happen to be 1/4" wall. Then there's the skid plate and the white 1/2" UHMW

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The other thing I noticed was that since there's no shocks on it it was sitting on the bump stops that I had let all the gas out of so they'd collapse...............................well, it's sitting on three.

The DRV front is about 1/8" (maybe less) from touching. Shitty pic but you can clearly see it's not touching.

Found that a little odd so I went looking for why.

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Found it.


Way back at the other end of that corners lower link, it seems to be kissing the trans pan.

You can even see where I had marked it to be trimmed in......or hit with a hammer.

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The thing is, the front lower links are 53" true length. 1/8" at one end is about half a fuck all at the other.

If this thing was running and driving, I'd let it self clearance. But I do still need to pull everything back out to clean, blast and paint.................and I need to pull the trans pan to send out the TCU for programing. So I'll probably see what's right behind that corner, Then hit the corner a few times with a hammer.

Guess I could always hoist the front end up 4' with the chain fall and some 1/2" rope and then cut the rope. I bet it will sit on the bump after that:flipoff2:
 
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Soooo, today started out interesting.

Got up, made coffee, looked at my phone and had a message from my bank. It said I had changed my password, I hadn't, that's getting sorted tomorrow.
Then I checked my email, I had 5236 new emails in my inbox. They were written in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and shitty Indian English. Took me hours to delete all that shit.

Almost forgot, when I went to the bank I threw on a hoody. As I was sitting there talking to the nice grey haired lady, my neck was all scratchy. Looked down and apparently the cats had been sleeping on it..........for days. Fucking thing looked like a fur coat. I asked her if she was allergic to cats because it seems that I have a cat and a half of fur on me. She laughed and probably figured I was just a piece of shit.


But, I was able to get this piece tacked on today.

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I made it longer on purpose ( it sticks out farther) cause I need to trim the top of it to meet up with the side pieces. I'm supposed to trim at the top of the ruler and then take 1/4" off around the rest of it for it to match the little fingers I had clamped to it the other day.


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Problem is, I don't want to trim that 1/4" off. Because there's a reason I need a 1/4" less. It all comes down to the DBW TB and one of the pulleys for the ac. The TB just kisses the pulley so I had to get a ICT clocking ring so I could rotate the TB up and away from the pulley.

The clocking ring is 5/15" thick, the pulley is 69.85mm OD. I found a 63mm pulley on rock auto and I think if I drill a new hole for the pulley a little higher I may not need the clocking ring and that'd s big maybe. I'm going to get the pulley then see if I can move the hole.

So I'm about to go through a lot more work for 1/4".

Top one id the offending pulley. Belt runs on top of it unfortunately.

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Clocking ring


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I wish I knew what was inside that round tit thing.........or if it can be shortened without fucking it up.


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To be continued.......
 
Too close?

This is with the tensioner fully slack. So it shouldn't ever really get to this point.

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I mean it's being held tight by a damn ziptie. So we can probably call that stupid sloppy loose.


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Here's when the tensioner gets put into play.
I may need a second ziptie:flipoff2:


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This is midpoint of tensioner travel.

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I'm not seeing any problem running that.
 
Can't give up now, it's almost done.

I did some pondering on why I'm able to get away without using that upper idler pulley on the ac compressor......the water pump......it runs a smaller pulley than a stock pump. Without that smaller water pump pulley, there is no way not to use the extra idler for the ac. The belt would hit itself at the tensioner. Plus that ac bracket kit never mentioned DBW....I guess for good reason. Might have something to do with it being F-Body belt spacing and not truck or Vette......who knows.

But, with that sorted, the clocking ring out of the picture and the TB bolted directly to the manifold, the air box slips right on and off. I also don't need to trim down the side piece going around the bell mouth the 1/4" I thought I was going to have to do.

So now it can actually be taller than those little finger pieces I had been experimenting with. Mo better.

Here's where it's at now.

I marked it at the red line, which is even with the 90* on the bottom. Cut the yellow extra material away from the piece that wraps around the bell mouth. That's where I test fit it and it went perfect. I believe I can add the little green triangle pieces and it will still go on and off just fine. Even if I can only make that green triangle with 1/2" legs, I'm back over the volume of a 5" tube. For perspective, the yellow I cut out is 1" wide.

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If that works, I clean it up, make the front cover and weld it out.
 
This is a hell of a lot of time and work for absolutely no gain.

I have to disagree a bit here.

Do you believe there will be no gain over this?

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Because in the end it only come down to this. Same air filter in the same spot. We'll call the above picture "A" and what I'm doing now "B".

Forget all the other BS that's been thrown around, it's 100% irrelevant now. Right, wrong, smart or stupid. It doesn't matter anymore. I took path "B"

1. Will "A" or "B" perform better overall?

2. Will "A"or "B" add more heat into the intake air flow?

3. Will "A" or "B" flow better?

4. Will "A" or "B" be more restrictive?

5. Will "A" or "B" make more power, even if it's 1hp?

I'm absolutely not trying to be a dick and am very interested in answers from anyone to those 5 questions.
 
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I would agree that "B" would be better, but my opinion is only an opinion. The real proof would be dyno time with both options, but since that's money that can be used for something else, I'd be trying to do something different than option "A" also. To what degree is unknown, cuz it's not my rig and you are right sometimes you need to stick to the plan no matter what.
 
Ya, I'm happy with "B", I was never wild about "A". It was always a how do I get from here to here using these 4" round Lego blocks. Then when Bebop and mobil1syn both said it's not a good setup, that just confirmed it.

Honestly, I don't think I would have ever came up with the idea of "B" on my own. I guess never say never but, it sure as fuck didn't happen in the 10 minutes or so it took mobil1syn to draw up and post the idea. I truly thank him for that.

I liked his design, I thought it would be much better/cleaner/functional than what "A" was, so I ran with it.

As of right now I'm into it for $75 for the 3 bell mouths which I used 1 and trashed 2, some filler rod and about 500psi of argon.
 
Honestly, I don't think I would have ever came up with the idea of "B" on my own. I guess never say never but, it sure as fuck didn't happen in the 10 minutes or so it took @mobil1syn to draw up and post the idea. I truly thank him for that.

no problem sir. we all get lost in our own projects and cant see other options sometimes. tip of the hat to be willing to detach and consider other options even if it meant abandoning something youve spent a ton of time on.
 
no problem sir. we all get lost in our own projects and cant see other options sometimes. tip of the hat to be willing to detach and consider other options even if it meant abandoning something youve spent a ton of time on.

Thank you again and I appreciate you being willing to take the time to come up with the idea.
 
Will still need to have a couple mounting tabs added when I know where they go, but it's all done and welded out now.


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In the end, the lowest volume area is directly under the filter where the alt cutout is.


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The volume at the 90* leading to the bell mouth ended up being 25.375sq/in. Was able to get the green triangles from a few posts up to be 3/4" legs.
 
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I have to disagree a bit here.

Do you believe there will be no gain over this?

Because in the end it only come down to this. Same air filter in the same spot. We'll call the above picture "A" and what I'm doing now "B".

Forget all the other BS that's been thrown around, it's 100% irrelevant now. Right, wrong, smart or stupid. It doesn't matter anymore. I took path "B"

1. Will "A" or "B" perform better overall?

2. Will "A"or "B" add more heat into the intake air flow?

3. Will "A" or "B" flow better?

4. Will "A" or "B" be more restrictive?

5. Will "A" or "B" make more power, even if it's 1hp?

I'm absolutely not trying to be a dick and am very interested in answers from anyone to those 5 questions.

C would have been better :flipoff2:
 
Do those CherryMax rivets need a fancy tool to pop them or can they be used in your standard hand popper?

Sorry for late answer. Didn’t come up in my alerts. You’ve got a lot of updates since I was here.

Anyways, yes Cherrymax is a brand, but everybody calls this kind of rivet Cherrymax. It is basicly a “first class” pop rivet. There is no through hole. The stem pulls and breaks off, but the little end is trapped inside a solid chunk of metal. It’s too big to go out the stem end and there is no hole on the other side. They get pooped with a standard puller.

Solid rivets can be set with a squeezer or a air rivet gun and a chunk of steel. (Backing bar) They are so easy if you are already working with clecos. With just a little care, they are water tight.

You weld aluminum way better than me, but it’s pretty hard to weld without some warping. Solid rivets keep stuff nice and straight.

Love the fuel tank guard.
 
Sorry for late answer. Didn’t come up in my alerts. You’ve got a lot of updates since I was here.

Anyways, yes Cherrymax is a brand, but everybody calls this kind of rivet Cherrymax. It is basicly a “first class” pop rivet. There is no through hole. The stem pulls and breaks off, but the little end is trapped inside a solid chunk of metal. It’s too big to go out the stem end and there is no hole on the other side. They get pooped with a standard puller.

Solid rivets can be set with a squeezer or a air rivet gun and a chunk of steel. (Backing bar) They are so easy if you are already working with clecos. With just a little care, they are water tight.

You weld aluminum way better than me, but it’s pretty hard to weld without some warping. Solid rivets keep stuff nice and straight.

Love the fuel tank guard.


Thank you Sir.

The last welds I did were certainly better than the first ones. Funny how it works that way. My biggest problem is that I can't feed the filler through my fingers as I weld. So I can only dab what I'm holding, then stop, readjust the filler in my hand, then continue. When I try to feed the filler through my fingers, the damn thing ends up flying all over the place and generally ends up zeroing in on the tungsten.

Side note: I take meds for anxiety and the last few weeks have been a living hell for me. It's almost like the meds stopped working. Had to force myself to go see the doc about it yesterday. Made some changes to the meds and I feel 75% better today. Actually got some good sleep last night.
But, when I welded that last final closing piece to the front, I was a mess. On a 1-10 scale, 10 being the feeling of I'm about to die..........I was a 7, hadn't got any real sleep in days.......................and most of the welds came out pretty good. Looking back I find that odd.


I did make it back out to the shop last night to make sure the air box still fit after all the welding on it. It does and it goes on and off really easy.

Finished product:


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On the wire feed issue. I kind of have the same problem. I’ve always wanted to try a thumb wheel wire feeder.

something like this. Although this might be powered.

I have one of those. It's not powered. I sort of had some luck with it..........as long as you remember which way to roll the wheel.:flipoff2: I probably didn't give myself enough time with it, but I found I was having to stop just as much with it as without it.

In reality, the only way to get good at feeding the filler is by doing it. Taking a piece of filler into the house and practice while watching tv. I'm too lazy to do that, so I just keep stopping every few inches.




Remember, when the hood drops, the bullshit stops. Including anxiety.

I'm sure that would help.
 
Getting medication to do what the shit is supposed to can be a real bear. Good on you for powering through. I stopped smoking the green stuff (legal here, started for pain, stopped because of marital complaint department/lazy). After cessation of that helper, I find out it was masking a bad drug interaction (both prescription). It took two weeks straight of being fixated on equalizing my intracranial pressure with the atmospheric before I realized what the hell was wrong.

Derail aside, I really dig that you pushed through the bullshit and got that air box done. Built is always cooler than bought.
 
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