- Joined
- Jun 19, 2020
- Member Number
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A continuation: https://www.jkowners.com/threads/2-d...336186/page-11
Jeep has been down for about 4 months, probably longest single period it's been out of commission. One more interesting little cracked-metal fix.
Found cracks right at the base of each front strut tower:
Ran a simulation on the loading, turns out there is a stress riser right there and failure is predicted. By wrapping the tower around the bottom of the frame, the stress riser is eliminated:
Next up, time for the fuel tank inspection, which I expected to go pretty poorly. I haven't taken the tank out in the roughly 3 years it has existed. The drain holes were plugged up by foam sheet (design flaw), and it was basically sitting in a swamp for 3 years.
Indeed, I found that the POR-15 had failed on the tank, and there was some rust getting into the metal.
No leaks yet, but I always sort of wanted to make an aluminum tank instead, so took it as an opportunity. Figured it'd be a fair bit of work to try to re-coat the tank, so just moved it to the scrap bin.
This time I left some drain channels in the foam sheet, so hopefully it won't be submerged in water for its life. In theory wouldn't much matter, but I think when it's that bad even Aluminum is susceptible to corrosion failure.
Made it out of 5052 sheet with 4043 filler, which Facebook tells me will eventually crack for fuel-tank duty even though it is compatible filler, so we'll see how long it lasts. Maybe I get to do it all again some day with 5356.
Here's the home made bender I used.
Which seemed to stand no chance of bending a 1/8" thick 39" wide sheet of aluminum. Messed around with different ideas for a while then came up with the trick that makes it bend. Throw a little 1/4" chunk of shim between the bender and the sheet, and slide it back and forth as you're pulling on the bender. This makes it only actually locally bend one location at a time, and after a few minutes you can work it all the way up to a 90 degree bend. Plus it cancels out the bowing of the bend from using a crappy home made bender that isn't very rigid, just do a few extra passes with the shim in the middle of the sheet.
As it has been in a perpetual state for the last 2 years, the Jeep is very, very close to just being "done".
Jeep has been down for about 4 months, probably longest single period it's been out of commission. One more interesting little cracked-metal fix.
Found cracks right at the base of each front strut tower:
Ran a simulation on the loading, turns out there is a stress riser right there and failure is predicted. By wrapping the tower around the bottom of the frame, the stress riser is eliminated:
Next up, time for the fuel tank inspection, which I expected to go pretty poorly. I haven't taken the tank out in the roughly 3 years it has existed. The drain holes were plugged up by foam sheet (design flaw), and it was basically sitting in a swamp for 3 years.
Indeed, I found that the POR-15 had failed on the tank, and there was some rust getting into the metal.
No leaks yet, but I always sort of wanted to make an aluminum tank instead, so took it as an opportunity. Figured it'd be a fair bit of work to try to re-coat the tank, so just moved it to the scrap bin.
This time I left some drain channels in the foam sheet, so hopefully it won't be submerged in water for its life. In theory wouldn't much matter, but I think when it's that bad even Aluminum is susceptible to corrosion failure.
Made it out of 5052 sheet with 4043 filler, which Facebook tells me will eventually crack for fuel-tank duty even though it is compatible filler, so we'll see how long it lasts. Maybe I get to do it all again some day with 5356.
Here's the home made bender I used.
Which seemed to stand no chance of bending a 1/8" thick 39" wide sheet of aluminum. Messed around with different ideas for a while then came up with the trick that makes it bend. Throw a little 1/4" chunk of shim between the bender and the sheet, and slide it back and forth as you're pulling on the bender. This makes it only actually locally bend one location at a time, and after a few minutes you can work it all the way up to a 90 degree bend. Plus it cancels out the bowing of the bend from using a crappy home made bender that isn't very rigid, just do a few extra passes with the shim in the middle of the sheet.
As it has been in a perpetual state for the last 2 years, the Jeep is very, very close to just being "done".
