What's new

Project Iron III Oxide: A Snowball Effect

Man, it has been so stupid hot here for the past week I haven't really done anything. It is supposed to cool down this week so maybe I will get some stuff done.:homer::emb:
 
Well, I was able to make some progress on the jeep this past weekend.
Starting off with lots of mockup and testing to check for clearances.
241178341_10113153957605992_1558178460491855794_n.jpg

241280277_10113153957890422_4498203223090809051_n.jpg

241232382_10113153958114972_3866384410107207226_n.jpg



I had a sneaking suspicion that I might collide the longer pitman arm into the tie rod on full driver stuff while steering straight. Clears by about an inch! :eek::smokin:
241211664_10113153958439322_8826553125804935382_n.jpg

241216249_10113153957745712_4807670509861962825_n.jpg


(also, you can see my missing frame mount for the track bar)
240985469_10113151532061802_1137094161401268400_n.jpg


241531222_10113151531927072_3726533222543379105_n.jpg


That was a fun one.
 

Attachments

  • 241199085_10113153958723752_7298337151547128296_n.jpg
    241199085_10113153958723752_7298337151547128296_n.jpg
    303.9 KB · Views: 31
Yesterday I built a redneck rotisserie and got to work on the tie rod. Super scary building steering components yourself when you over-analyze everything and under-rate the strength of everything :laughing:
I have visions of bungs popping out at highway speeds and sending me off a cliff or something
241459896_10113156755588812_6563535221673854868_n.jpg

241430179_10113156755848292_462338010106341364_n.jpg

241389132_10113156755733522_7563696377907734170_n.jpg



A little burny burn action....
241359658_10113156756047892_8520985454987741366_n.jpg




And installed.
241390189_10113156756127732_8804050813786614018_n.jpg


Another thing I found out is that the PVC pipe I was using for mockup is 1.66" whereas the DOM is 1.5" so that actually gives me more clearance than expected! :lmao:
 
I like plug welds any time I'm using inserts.

Nice progress.
I debated on doing that, but was a little worried about burning into the thread space through the bung and preventing the TRE from going past that part. Could have been fixed with a tap I reckon... but I dont have one of those :laughing:

I suppose I could drill a 0.25" deep hole and fill it with weld... but I would probably mess it up:homer:
 
I debated on doing that, but was a little worried about burning into the thread space through the bung and preventing the TRE from going past that part. Could have been fixed with a tap I reckon... but I dont have one of those :laughing:

I suppose I could drill a 0.25" deep hole and fill it with weld... but I would probably mess it up:homer:
Tapping post-weld is critical. And I agree- don't drill/ weld it now.
 
Tapping post-weld is critical. And I agree- don't drill/ weld it now.
I actually didnt need to do any tapping after, luckily. I filled the threads with antiseize before welding, then let it COMPLETELY cool off before trying to thread in the TRE. I had no issues.

I also welded in 1/2s one each side at a time to keep the surrounding temperatures down to try to mitigate the warpage. This was another big fear going through my head haha
 
I am almost embarrassed to say that I never thought of making a redneck rotisserie like that before, but glad I found this when I did. Will come in handy for sure!
 
The redneck rotisserie is genius! I've got a bunch of links that will need full welding in my immediate future and plan to copy this. Awesome work!
 
Well damn... I'm contributing. :lmao::beer:

Cool thing was you can apply one of the caster brakes for drag and then use the grinder at whatever angle you need to make a consistent chamfer at a controlled speed. It also helps true up the ends.
 

Attachments

  • video-1630956646.mp4
    1.4 MB
Well this week is boring for the most part. The wife sprained her ankle/knee and my time has been consumed with tending to her gimpy self and making runs to the ER/Ortho/etc :emb::laughing:. She is in good spirits and healing slowly.

HOWEVER! I was working with a cool dude up in Pa who was collecting parts to start a built in the same direction that I was going in, but had to back out and put family responsibilities first for a while (:beer: to him for making proper priorities). We worked out a deal, where we both walked away happy, and I picked up a Genright Comp tank, Stretch corner guards and Rock Rails (They fill in the rocker gap when moving the wheel well back). He has a few other things I might look at, but this was a bunch of bigger ticker items I was looking for (aside from ARBs and gears and such).
 

Attachments

  • 241758923_238817448255510_2815316953158809866_n.jpg
    241758923_238817448255510_2815316953158809866_n.jpg
    69.4 KB · Views: 44
I was able to break away for a couple of hours this weekend and do some work. Wife is still down from her knee/ankle injury so I have been covering most of the chores around the farm/house. No big deal, just takes time away from the heep :D
Well today's episode of Project Iron III Oxode involved track bar mount engineering.
I tested my suspension at full compression and found that my upper control arm on the 3 link suspension was hitting my old upper control arm bracket. So it vas dealt vith.
Next was to figure out a solution for a track bar mount. Unfortunately I have to fit it all within a 3" circle of space haha. I can move my axle bracket forward about an inch and then clearance the gusset on the upper control arm for a smidge more clearance. I may also end up putting a slight bend in the track bar, but I am going to push towards not for now. We will see what happens in the end.
I have a plan for a bracket to do this, just have to get it fabricobbled together using the Barnes4wd frame bracket I purchased as building blocks (but reengineered smaller).
242495516_10113189287863872_5750345408435646018_n.jpg

242447282_10113189287674252_8038213995348482108_n.jpg

242359619_10113189287509582_3307491808844924646_n.jpg

242387413_10113189287404792_9008778093970168069_n.jpg
 
Well today I was able to break away for a couple hours and fabricate a track bar mount for the frame side of things. I used a slot and tab method to tie it together. I have a very small amount of room for which to work in.
I need to move my axle bracket forward about an inch or so and then it will be ready to weld to the truss. I will then weld the frame bracket onto the frame and adjust clearances from there. I can foresee the upper control arm mount being an issue, but that would just take some grinder work to resolve. I am definitely shoehorning a lot of stuff in not a lot of space lol.

I will get a pitman arm in today that should work for my application and it is already drilled out for GM "1 ton" Drag link ends.

242905052_10113206872249622_6813994739560356024_n.jpg

243263828_10113206871905312_6531737874840482603_n.jpg

243239520_10113206872678762_278492041941508447_n.jpg

242945279_10113206872923272_3367199777918918573_n.jpg

242872102_10113206873192732_5290462603633741729_n.jpg


I am going to have to move the axle bracket forward about 1.5" or so, tack it in place, and then do some more fitting/tweaking. I will end up needing to clearance the upper control arm mount on the truss a little bit too.
 
This is actually, full flat bump, hard driver (pulls the tie rod closest to the bracket on that side)
 
I thought I had already posted this on Thursday... strange.

Well I made some more progress in the 1.5 hours I had out in the garage over the past month. I cleaned up the frame for the track bar bracket, figured out where to weld it on and made some marks.
Then I beat off (
1f60f.png
) the axle side track bar bracket and beat on it for a while until it had about 1/8" clearance between the bolt head and high steer tie rod. Didn't weld it yet.
Next I took out the axle and had to clearance the upper control arm bracket for the track bar to clear on full bump. I first tried to notch out a wedge and bend back the gusset but didn't like the clearance it gave me so I lipped it off and grabbed some steel to make a new gusset. Instead of coming off parallel to the axle truss, I made it orthogonal to the angle of the bracket. The bracket is pretty beefy as it is and the gusset probably isn't even needed but I want to have it because 'factor of safety'. I still need to clean things up and prep for welding.
I ran out of time and had to bring in horses... but hopefully next update will be building the track bar.

245038245_10113241925816992_117471783433262109_n.jpg

245173959_10113241925986652_2477300951518763282_n.jpg

245254486_10113241926435752_2034222138790277437_n.jpg
 
Got some work done on the heep this evening in between farm chores. Clearanced the upper control arm mount gusset, welding it orthogonal to the bracket, in order to make room for the track bar at full bump. Next I welded the track bar axle bracket. Then had to mock up the frame side bracket and get that welded up. I plug welded the inner side and ran a bead around the radius of the bracket.
Tomorrow I plan to cut and weld up the track bar so the front end can stop flopping around haha.
After this, I will need to build the drag link and the steering should be complete.

247986221_10113274117774052_3571985740703109980_n.jpg


248222466_10113274117564472_5468694761842253530_n.jpg

247880765_10113274117918762_126210190354129386_n.jpg

247966933_10113274118103392_280086761407097429_n.jpg

248412487_10113274118263072_674091000081992381_n.jpg

247678469_10113274118986622_780233942879313127_n.jpg



Another interesting issue I am having is the control arms are hitting the frame on full bump. I plan to notch and recess the affected areas. It might be about 6" that I would cut out and invert into the frame on the bottom inside corner of the frame rail. Should allow for about 2-3" more of up travel. This was because of the high clearance arms being more outboard from where I had to weld the control arm brackets to the axle. I will see what happens when I start doing more flex testing before I commit..
 
Well, today I made some more progress and got the track bar figured out. The steering geometry isn't perfect, but I will have to iron out the dimensions later once I finish the flex testing and stuff. It actually isn't terrible, but I would prefer the track bar and drag link to be parallel. Since the drag link is so long, it changes things, but the rate of change on suspension cycling isn't as fast as a shorter one.
It is nice to not have the front end trying to flop to the side anymore.
I have a little but if clearancing to do at full bump. The track bar contacts the top of the axle truss at one point, but it will clearance down easily. The hard part will be notching the inner lower part of the frame where the control arms are contacting, limiting the travel. That will come later when I am fine tuning everything.

247555521_10113275933365592_9075141860278442165_n.jpg

248359657_10113275933664992_411536229728909025_n.jpg

247554572_10113275933924472_9042135401237696070_n.jpg

248435283_10113275934588142_8382879140564241728_n.jpg
 
I was just thinking about it... I have a 1" spacer on top of the isolater up front... it would help to drop the front down an inch or so and I think the rear of the jeep will drop down a bit once I put the bumper, gas tank and spare tire back on. I will do some tweaks to everything once it is mostly back together. I think it will be pretty close when it is all said and done.
 
Well, today finished up the steering saga. What a serious effort to do all of this but the many hours of crunching geometry and calculus calculations will pay off in the end.
Finally got the drag link built. The pitman angle might get a press-induced angle adjustment at a later date but for now I will move on. Ideally the track bar and drag link are exactly parallel and the same length. Unfortunately with the spatial constraints I was dealing with, this is about as close as I can get.
Since they are fairly flat to begin with (6 degrees and 13 degrees), the horizontal reaction with respect to vertical action will be minimal, so bump steer (the reason to have them parallel) really should not be an issue.
Also, with the pitman arm length, I had to accommodate the length of the high steer arms. You want to be around .90 to 1.0 ratio for the size ratio between the pitman arm and steer arms or you lose steering. But if I went too long, the tie rod would hit the drag link end on the pitman. It now clears by about 1/4" at the closest haha. Long story short, My steering will go bump to bump.
257366800_10113337260430662_460953125237113941_n.jpg

257353183_10113337261034452_5342444607024332032_n.jpg

256899507_10113337261882752_7214058559028277455_n.jpg

257132332_10113337262311892_5483538716546491219_n.jpg

257382165_10113337262890732_987557027324303890_n.jpg
 
Nice work so far. I love seeing how different people tackle problems. Nice looking welds too. Wish mine were looking that good lately. I cant seem to get a nice clean weld in thicker material recently.
 
Nice work so far. I love seeing how different people tackle problems. Nice looking welds too. Wish mine were looking that good lately. I cant seem to get a nice clean weld in thicker material recently.
Honestly, this is my biggest source of concern. They look good, and I get, what I think, is good HAZ signature on both sides.... but I have no way to inspect them to make sure. It is just me being overly-cautious and paranoid. I have visions of the bungs popping out or something stupid like that :shaking:

I will be honest, I am not happy with the front welds on the track bar bracket. They are good, but I think I will be grinding those down and re-welding that for aesthetics. I did not check my setting before I started that one and didn't realize it until I was done. Luckily there are really good welds on top to where I am not terribly concerned. The front is redundant bracing.... but it still bugs me :homer:

Do not be afraid to crank the heat up, but with that comes wire speed. I try to tune the welder to my welding speed, requiring me little adjustment in my weld pattern (not considering metal thickness differences and such).


Also, I am kind of frustrated that, in something I was working on and engineering, I could not get the track bar and drag link to be parallel. Sure, they are close, but I do not do things to be "close" :emb:
 
So this weekend was a couple days of body modification to the old heep.
I worked primarily on fitting the stretch corner guards on the jeep, moving the wheel well back 5" to accommodate my wheelbase stretch with the long arm.
I ended up cutting off my first trail carnage that I got from Paragon, so that was kind of bitter sweet haha.
I have new rockers that will fill the gap for the new wheel well opening.
Next step, I am going to order some Poison Spyder Defenders for the front and rear. Maybe I will find a good Black Friday deal.

259686647_10113358685858932_7927850555826609127_n.jpg

260091436_10113358685958732_299735900139419906_n.jpg

259693214_10113358686073502_3359696270008117688_n.jpg

259730287_10113358686318012_6201026447004882656_n.jpg

260019336_10113358686442762_4428968613765926514_n.jpg



This little guy, on both sides, decided it needed some thermal encouragement...
259949562_10113358686577492_6343181778172368146_n.jpg

260053147_10113358686747152_6661001466517235207_n.jpg




I will be selling my old rockers. I actually bought these direct from Trail Gear as the prototype TJ rockers before my trip to Paragon back in like... 2004?
 
Right now I am kind of held up. I need to pick up the Poison Spyder Defender fenders for the front and rear in order to get the body lines right when I drill the holes and bolt everything up.

Shopping through those Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. :emb:
 
Well, finally, after a month or so of no progress, I was able to do some body damage and install my new fenders (mostly). I still have some fine fitting work to do in order to get things to line up better, but the fender cutting is done, anyways.
270269657_10113448154498062_5562750020305524340_n.jpg
271026283_10113448154343372_5065660367980440434_n.jpg
270898373_10113448155266522_7352727900451981340_n.jpg


Now, I need to figure out what paint color I want to go with. The rear corner guards and fenders are going to be the same "theme" as the front. Playing around in Photoshop today while drinking my coffee, I came up with Black....Red....and Red top/sides/Black inside. I am leaning towards the Red top/sides with black wheel well. I was thinking about doing some undercoat in there anyways.

red_Fenders.JPG

black_Fenders.JPG

redblack_Fenders.JPG



I still have lots of work to do before I get to that stage so I am just throwing out ideas for me to roll around in my skull :idea::homer::laughing:
 
Top Back Refresh