Build Thread The '80 FrankenJeep frame off reassembly

[shum8]

Ah hah - this is what I was looking for.........



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[gert]

Wow I'm going to have to remember that when I put my mounts on


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[shum8]

I saved the pic in like 20 places so I might remember at least one - and I only have a week or two to go [emoji16]


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[Peanut Butter]

So, I'm :booze: dumb. Why would the rubber puck that goes under the body mount that is attached to the frame have to be thicker on the front than all of the other?

 

[CJ]

If you mean the core support (front) it's the way Jeep designed it. Probably because the core support is only attached to the frame in the center, the fenders and the two support rods. As the frame and body twist the support can rotate about the center easily. Thicker rubber helps minimize stress on the support while allowing more articulation.

 

[shum8]

I had no idea either - but I remembered seeing somewhere that two of the cores were longer than the rest. I never questioned the why, just the how long LOL


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[shum8]

Just about have the tub ready to go - gotta decide what to do about the firewall..... I need to either paint it or bedline it. I'm leaning toward color matched roll on bedliner. My fenders are fiberglass, and a roll on bed liner would cut the prep time to next to nill. I would like to get that done before placing the tub - it would be doable afterwards, but I'm all about the easy...

Had two last metal working item to take care of, got one of em done today, and the other maybe later this week. The one for later is a broken body mount bolt....... Yep, I kept sayin I hadn't broken the first bolt. Actually, this one I didn't break - it was already there. It was an original body mount bolt at the rear driver side corner, and since whoever swapped the tub set it on a CJ cross member and just ran the bolt into the sheet metal. So luckily I get to deal with that.....

The one I got done today was the hole thru which the clutch rod passes. I'm assuming the tub was originally an auto and didn't have the necessary hole. here's what it looked like this morning:



Got out the trusty grinder, a Sharppie, step drill, and some sheet steel.......



got the cutout done, cleaned the edges up with a die grinder,



Wire brushed the snot out of the surrounding area where the ragged holed was going to be removed



Cut out the messy hole (That didn't sound quite right...)



Got it welded in, cleaned the welds up a bit (I know, I'm not a welder, so squint when you look at the welds)





And threw some primer on it till I decide on a final coating...



Once I got that done, I started mulling over in my head what to do with the rubber clutch rod boot - it's trashed. Large crack, steel insert showing and very rusty..... I am actually wondering about making one since Crown and Omix neither one have a very good track record of producing quality rubber parts. I wonder if the "liquid rubber in a can" would work? It's almost worth buying a can to see......

Here's what I have - I haven't looked to see if new ones are available or not....



Oh - I noticed the body mount kit I ordered also has the parts for the grille support..... Crappy chines rubber parts, but if it'll last a couple years I'm good - I just wanna drive the dang thing...


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[95yjman]

Man putting some work into it, looking good!


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[shum8]

Got to prepping the firewall for bedlining, and decided to take a short cut. bought a can of Duplicolor spray on bedliner, and once I get the firewall scrubbed down, I'll spray it down with the bedliner, and once it dries, I'll hit it with a couple coats of red that's really close to final body color. I got half scrubbed with a wire wheel in the drill, and then wiped with MEK, and then a good coat of rustoleum red primer. I have found that stuff to be very tough so I figure it should be fine under the bedliner. In taking the battery tray off the firewall, I foung a ground connection.... or what looked like it was supposed to be a ground connection - nothing a common ground circuit wont fix....





About the time I got halfway or so wire brushed, I got a dinner invite from my wife, who had been out shopping all day - time to get the brushed area under primer.



With any luck, I'll get the other side done and all primered up...
up...

 

[shum8]

Well, I got the rest of the firewall primed and bedlined. Being from an aerosol can, it has little texture, but that's cool with me - I wasn't necessarily looking for much texture anyway. Now that I've gotten it to this point, I have a problem..... The original plan was to bedline to hide dings and such, provide a little texture, then throw a little primer over it and paint it as close to body color as easily possible. But - I kinda like it done in black. I know the engine bay should be body color, and that's where I was heading, but now that it's black, I like it. I did make up a test piece to check adhesion - took one of the stainless exhaust tips (that I will not be using), hit about a foot of it with the bedliner, let it dry a couple days, primed half of that, let that dry, then painted all the bedliner with a Duplicolor red that's close to the body color. after a couple more days I'm gonna test it for adhesion. If the red holds up, then I will have to decide which way to go. If it doesn't, then black it will stay.

I did get the other issue taken care of today - the broken body mount "nut plate"... To get to it, I took the grinder and cut a relief cut, drilled out the spot welds, and then pried the back of the "compartment" up and removed the plate. Looks like someone beat the snot outta the back of the "box" with a hammer.... Who knows......







Here's the offender:



Rather than try to remove the broken stub, I just cut a new one out of 1/4" plate, drilled a 1/2" hole in it, welded a nut to it, painted it, threw it back in there and rewelded the mess I made, shot a bunch of inner fender rust preventer in it, so now it's ready to go. Didn't take any pics of this - I was making good time and the camera was in the garage - yeah, I was lazy.

As soon as I decide whether to go with red or black for the engine compartment, I'll post it up and proceed with tub reinstallation. I'll take a few pics of the firewall tomorrow and throw on here - I thought I already took some, but if I did I have no idea where they are...

I also noticed that the original fuel filler hole has been covered from behind and bondo'd from the outside..... gonna knock all that out and weld in a patch....

 

[gert]

something to consider. I sprayed aerosol rubberized sound deadner on my old tub firewall and it left a million pin holes in its surface. I painted over it with gloss black and the pin holes filled with mud that would not come out at all. So I had this nice shiny black paint that had a million brown specks in it. I think on my new tub the inside will get a good thick coat of Line X to help dampen the sound

 

[shum8]

In my case, the only place the aerosol is gonna get used is on the firewall. Everything else bedlined will most likely be Monstaliner or Raptor........ The stuff I just used went on well. I applied a light coat first, followed by a fairly heavy wet coat, finishing up with two light coats for texture......

 

[Peanut Butter]

When I get to that point I plan to use Lizard Skin (Spray-On Insulation - Automotive Insulation Coatings | LizardSkin) on my interior. I want heat and sound protection.

 

[shum8]

Never heard of that...... Gotta read up on it.


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[shum8]

Had a fairly productive day today. After looking online to get dimensions for the body mounts on CJ's and YJ's, crunching numbers, drawing drawings, I gave up and measured the frame and tub I have. I already fixed the spacing issue on the rear crossmember so I marked that one off the list. Turns out I only needed to "fix" the frame mount locations just ahead of the fuel tank and just ahead of the rear ones ahead of the fuel tank will be an easy fix - they only need to shift outward maybe a quarter inch each. The others had me worried a bit - they didn't line up at all. Turns out the mount locations on the tub had two threaded locations on a side, and they were about an inch and a half apart. One set was too wide, the other to narrow. Plus, they were almost 5" forward of the frame mounts. Wasn't real excited about moving the mount locations so I got to snoopin around under the tub...... Turns out, there is a hole punched in the same support rail as the body mount holes, only almost exactly the same distance back that the frame supports are. If I elongate the holes rearward about 3/8", I'm golden. Made new nut plates (or whatever you call em) that just fit in the support channels. I'll get em cleaned up and painted this week.

So tomorrow I'm gonna grab a handful of 5" bolts, cut the heads off (might even play some Ozzie while I'm at it LOL) and thread em into the mount nut plates in the tub....... Figure that would make good alignment pins when dropping it on the frame. I'm starting to actually believe I'll get this thing back together before I grow old and senile.....

Edit: Here's the firewall after spraying...

 

[shum8]

Got the "locator pins" in place - used threaded rod instead of bolts....... Had to make 4 new "nut plates", two for the front body mount bolts, and two for the rear tub floor bolts. Also got the bracket made from which I plan on hanging the tub from. Had some 3/16" steel plate so I cut a couple gussets and a square plate from it, and welded those to a larger chunk, then drilled a hole for an eye bolt and welded that in.



And I keep saying I'm not a welder - but I pulled one off today.... These don't look too bad...LOL





And just to keep things interesting, I was able to bust up a cutting wheel. I just love it when you bind it just enough to grab so you can freeze so as to listen to the pieces fall all around LOL. When this one went, I stopped, took a quick inventory of fingers and such, then waited for it to quit bouncing around. nothing like a good adrenalin rush...

 

[Hedgehog]

Had a few thin cutting wheels explode like that. You are right, it's an adrenalin rush, sometimes it even hurts some.

 

[Peanut Butter]

Good job on making everything fit back together! It's gonna look like a Jeep again!

 

[shum8]

Ok - I have a Jeep again! I was determined to get the body and frame back on speaking terms again this weekend, and after a fairly long day working in a 90+ degree , no shade driveway, we made it happen. Yeah, I know - 90+ weather ain't hot to some of you guys, but dang. it kills me. I hate it. Anyways, minus the hood, here's where I started:



Jacked up each end, and using jack stands and a 4x4 post, got it above the sides of the trailer. took a piece of 3/4 plywood, braced it with a couple pieces of 2x4, and jacked it up at the CG, got my neighbor to come over, and we spun it 180 degrees so it was sitting nose to the rear of the trailer. We took the top off and set it in the yard, then I told him to go do constructive stuff till I needed him to put the trailer just outside the garage door. I tooo everything out of the tub - looked a Jeep puked in the driveway LOL.





Kept removing till I got to here - decided it was as empty as I wanted to get, so decided this was a good stopping point. Besides, Rob the neighbor came back over to help so I called a beer break.



Now, this is where I failed and exemplify how much I suck at documenting a build - once we got to moving the tub around, we never stopped to take pictures....... I started to get anxious about getting the tub in place and was a little too focused I guess. Besides, we didn't tear anything up in the process, so it wasn't near as exciting as it could have been. Once we got the tub empty, Rob backed the trailer as close to the frame as we dared, we hooked two tie downs to the tub, one each side from the lower door hinge to a heavy duty footman loop aft of the rear roll bar base, tied the rear of the tub to the front of the trailer so as to let out slack as we needed as the tub raised off the trailer. This was the setup for the only bit of excitement we had - I made a bad assumption, and it could have been a bad deal. I assumed the loop was bolted thru the tub with a backer plate.......... didn't take the time to really pay attention - or I would have seen sheet metal screws instead of bolts. we got the tub about 6" off the supports, and the screws pulled out of the tub on the passenger side, dropping the tub back on the supports in the trailer, and sending two screws thru the garage at nearly the speed of light. One of the screws landed back in the tub, so I laid it with the loop for a pic:



After stopped flying around, we figured out what we missed, and moved the rear tie down hook to the small cutout for the front seat belt retractor alignment tab - all was well after that. We got the tub cranked up so that it was about 6" higher than the frame, pulled the trailer out of the way, pulled the frame out so it was under the tub, and positioned it so that the alignment pins were close. When we cranked the tub up, it was hanging low in the rear, but that actually helped as we could get each pair of pins lined up a pair at a time - made life much easier. Speaking of the pins - I had to modify three sets of mounts / nut locations, circled in red



The rear cross member I already covered, and the locations just ahead of the fuel tank didn't line up on paper, so I took a die grinder and moved elongated the hole in the cross member maybe 1/8", and that combined with the wiggle room the bolt in the tub had made it work. The most forward set looked to be a bit more troublesome. The frame mount support was around 5" too far rearward as compared to the tub - I really wasn't looking forward to moving the support on the frame. After looking at the tub, there were already holes punched in the channel behind the nut plate, and were only off by 1/2". So being lazy, I just took the ol die grinder again, slotted those holes forward, threw the new nut plates in there, and then inserted all the threaded rod alignment pins. (Actually had the pins in place while it was in the trailer....). I would have bet money some of those mount pins would be way off seeing how I was working off sketches and measurements from the tub and frame. Confidence was low. We lowered the tub to get the first set of pins started, then shifted the frame to where it looked good, the slowly lowered the tub. Would you believe every pin but one hit the mount without us doing anything? And that one just needed to be moved a bit and it was good to go. Couldn't believe it. Still don't....... All I have to do now is pull the threaded rod out and replace with the proper hardware. This way the nuts oughta be in the right spot..... But - here's what we wound up with:



And once it was in place, VIOLA!!







And I'm really liking the black firewall. I've decided that it's gonna stay black whether I do the inner fenders in black or body color - As soon as we got the tub down and I saw the black behind the engine - I was sold.



Now I'm gonna stick the fenders and grill back on so I can get the body shifted to where it needs to be and torqued it down. Then stick enough stuff back on temporarily so I can make sure it will even run........ I wanna here it make noise!!!!!

 

[Peanut Butter]

Nice Job! Gonna look awesome!