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Lightning Mcjeep

Got out there again this morning to start playing with the back end of this turd. Got the combo brackets fitted and tacked up.

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Ended up cutting an old drive shaft loop out that we aren’t required to run anymore. We used to do the pre-show for monster jam in the Tacoma dome and they required it. I was lucky enough to be old enough to race in front of the crowd once and that was wild!

Then started to fit the truss for the 60, had to notch it a bit for it to sit all the way down.

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This should get me some roughly 36 inch lower bars. You can see how much further forward these are than the leaf spring mounts. They are roughly at the front of the seat haha.

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Tomorrows worm hole is knock off the old leaf spring pads off the axle and then see how far into the floor the upper bars will be.

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Went out and froze my fingers off this morning, got some brackets cleaned off the rear axles, we have all seen that so no pictures.

Cut the old floor extension out, it was in the way of the rear links. We have to have the floors extend to the back of the seats so I will need to make a new piece before we race again.

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Then I marker the fiberglass floor where roughly the upper bars will need to go though.

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Cut some holes with the hole saw so they don’t crack out and cut the rest with a saws-all. Made a huge fucking mess all over me and the floor but they seem to be about where I am gonna need em.

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Fingers frozen, nose running, and covered in grinding dust and fiberglass I called it a morning.
 
I did something very similar to an LJ I built for a guy. He wanted it low with plenty of uptravel on 42's so I notched the floor out like you did and then boxed them in. I was working with steel so it was much easier and alot less messy! I also ended up cutting a hole in the tub where the upper link mounts on the axle tucked up and hit the floor before full bump.
 
Yeah I will essentially leave the floor open where the glass floor is but I will make a sheet metal “floor” that goes under the seats. We have a rule that the floor has to cover to the back of the seats I heard that someone didn’t have a flor that far back and a stick punched a hole in the passenger seat when no one was in it.

As for the upper link mounts, there is no floor there but I will have my radiator back there this year as the front end are up all the room for it so I’ll just have to mount it where ever the link mounts aren’t. Most of the rigs we race with are rear radiator and with enough fan it works well.
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This is my dads that I did coil overs and full hydro on last winter and he’s rear rad and always runs cool.
 
Sweet build. Got any video of a race, or a link to this type of race? Very unique rig.
 
If you search PNW4WDA racing on YouTube there are a handful of videos, the yellow wagon is one of my childhood friends, good go pro footage. I’ll try and share some videos. Not sure how to embed them but if you click on the attachment they should play.
 

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So we have short medium and long, short class is broke down into 4 cyl, 6 cyl, and 8 cyl. I don’t have the rule book but I think the brake between short and medium is 90 inches and medium and long is 100. I’ll end up around 106-108 I think. Other than the wheel base it is truly unlimited, we have everything from old cj5s with leafs to a legit Lucas oil pro 4 truck, stock truck motors in some, and aftermarket blocks and super chargers in others. Medium and long are the bigger more competitive classes so making the jump to long is the matter of me placing 9th with one group and 9th in another, no trophies here haha. And our schedule is floating around Facebook I believe. I can post it when I see it.

The best part about what we do is the kids race these big Jeeps too, both of my kids race at 2 and 4 and have been racing since they were able to hold their heads up with a helmet on.

I started racing in a short 4 when I was in the 5th grade running a clutch and everything. My grandparents raced in the 60s and 70s but my dad was heavier on the trail wheeling side until my brother and I were a little older.

I’m lucky that my wife loves this and wants to raise my kids in this like I grew up, she always says her race jeep is her favorite car and it would be the last vehicle we sold if we ever got into major financial trouble haha.

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This morning I went out and made this.
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Fit here.
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The top tabs are welded to the cage and I made a cradle to hold the bottom up out of the way of the links.

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The plan is this afternoon I’ll go get some steel for the links so I reworked the track bar bracket I had laying around to for the bushings I’m gonna use. Also for our barrel racing we like to run our track bars from the passenger side down to the axle, they ride better making the left turns. The plan is to run the track bar out front of the axle and mount it off of the ram mount, I did this in my dads and it worked good.

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This is my dads I did.

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Welp after a long day of cutting and grinding and fitting it’s four linked in the back.

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Upper links were getting into the seat mount so I ended up cutting and bending them and welding them back together, when I pull everything to weld out I will do some overlays to help keep them from bending more.

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Cycles good for hard mounted bushing on both ends, I did that to get it linked in a budget and I’ll be able to add joints down the road without having to totally make new links. Next week I’ll get the front tuned up 🤘🏻
 
Started making progress on the front and my idiot ADHD brain has been stuck on this idea of rover/Land Cruiser style radius arms.

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So I laid out and made what I have been calling a dog bone.

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Copy pasted that.

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Lincoln electric metal glue gunned them into solid pieces. Stacking nickles (definitely not dimes).

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They bolt into the Barnes radius arm brackets like this.

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Which sit under the axle something like this. I will make the longer side of the link to go to frame side mount either when the daughter naps or tomorrow AM. Off to the feed store, I was voluntold yesterday we are getting chicks and a duckling today, wife and kids are physically floating off the floor they are so excited.

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Both mounts heavy tacked on at the same angle of the dangle, then connect the dots.

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I went this route because in my mind it’s super simple and leaves loads of room on the top of the axle for the other go fast bits like this.

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And this.

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Short morning out there today. May sneak out for nap time and wrap up pass control arm.
 
In your sport that doesn't require ground clearance as much, it's an interesting solution for sure.

You might consider wrapping some flat bar around the bushing sleeve and connecting both pieces of square tube - I've had bushing sleeves peel open, which would be catastrophic in this application.

Otherwise looks cool!

And good luck with the owl and eagle food :lmao:
 
You might consider wrapping some flat bar around the bushing sleeve and connecting both pieces of square tube - I've had bushing sleeves peel open, which would be catastrophic in this application.

This, That's a lot of torque on the 1/2 moon weld on the rear bushing
 
The plan is to wrap it all with 1/4x1 and maybe even a gusset on the top to help keep it from bending, there is plenty of room between the arm and the axle tube to make it stronger.
 
Alright mcjeep has all its control arms. Started on track bar.
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Tacked the frame side bracket to the frame, this is a left over Barnes bracket from my dads I did last winter. I cut it up and widened it to fit the bushings I’m using.

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True to form for the rest of this thing things are a bit different, for starters it runs from the passenger side down to the axle, this is because one of the tracks we do is barrels and it’s all left turns and the axle “floats” that direction instead of acting like a pogo stick.

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It is also about ten inches forward of the axle center line to pick up the steering ram “bridge”. I had to lengthen that from when it was on leafs to get as long of a bar as possible. This has been done in a bunch of the rigs we race with and helps a ton with packaging.

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Track bar continued. Finished the bridge gussets, whipped up a bar using a bushing and an old Johnny joint.
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Super long and a little uphill at bump, should handle good for what we are gonna use it for.

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Played arts and crafts with the kitchen scissors and a pistachio box and then made it metal.

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Should land in here and get welded to the bridged and plated to the tube with about 5-6 more little pieces.

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More to be done tomorrow morning, later nerds.
 
More. Started the morning off with a rarely used but glad you have it when you need it, big cat grinder with a nine inch grinding stone on it.

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To reach down in here and make clearance for the joint.

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Then made all the finicky little tie in pieces for the axle side track bar bracket and got that all finish welded as well as the chassis side.

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Tube bending party at my buddies tonight for the shock hoops and grill hoop.
 
Made some good visual progress this morning. Went to a buddies and bent up some hoops last week and got to fiddle with them this morning.

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Floor doodles turned into bent metal.

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Bent metal and some tie in tubes for stremff.

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It will be tight in the header but I’ll make it work.

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Coil over mocked up, not the top mount I’ll use I’ll make some.

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Gonna have some hood clearance work to take care of.

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But I’m alright with that, I’ll be able to keep my hood scoop. My grandpa was there when they made the bobcat fiberglass Jeep molds and the scoop is from one of those hoods.

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Rough cut line in the grinding dust. Now to copy paste on the drivers side which doesn’t have a header trying to occupy coil over hoop space.
 
More if the same on the other side. Quite a bit of time making the other hoop the same height and angle.

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Some triangles so the Internet doesn’t eat me alive.

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Then I needed to tie the two shock hoops together but I thought maybe a little flare would look cool I did and X between them.

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Then made some templates for motor mounts I’ll carve out next time.

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Can I race a stock bronco? What kind of safety requirements are there? I’m going to try to come out and at least spectate in june
 
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