Case's Build Thread (06 LJ)

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   OK, the noob is back!

The agenda for the last few days: work on the 14 bolt housing and the back of the Jeep.  A snail crawls across a turtles back  faster than I work, yet I press on.  

First up, remove the old bracketry that accompanied some archaic form of suspension.  Egyptian hieroglyphs speak of a method of suspending a vehicle by means of stacked pieces of steel curved in a specific way.  I believe this vehicle utilized just such a suspension.  We should all point and laugh...or put it in a museum.  Here is what I ended up with:

Now I know I'm supposed to button up this differential to protect it from grinding dust.  I mean I know this  now.  I thought this process was gonna take like 15 minutes.  Boy was I wrong.  I ran the grinder for 2 hours, working in my own slow way.  At some point I began to get miffed because despite the frigid weather  outside it was quite warm inside.  I raised my head from my work to open the garage door only to realize that I happened to be on fire.  Apparently the good, thick jacket I was wearing was not actually suitable for withstanding grinding sparks.  It was my favorite jacket too 

Well we all gotta learn somewhere:

Being on fire was interesting, but not fun.  Fortunately, the fire only worked its way through the jacket, the sweatshirt, and the undershirt I was wearing before I realized my condition.  I still had a couple more layers to go.  No serious injuries to report.  

Having survived my first real encounter with grinding, I was ready for more. I needed to clean up the rear end of the Jeep's frame in order to prepare for the installation of the new equipment.  I needed to remove the old brackets from the stock suspension links, the coil buckets, a track bar bracket,  and the remains of the crossmember i cut off in previous episodes.  This took a few hours of sawzalling, cutting disk, and grinding disk to accomplish.  I managed to to do this without setting myself on fire or maiming myself with the grinder!   Here's what we ended up with:

I still have a few minor things to tweak before I am ready to start burning in new brackets.  One such thing is actually ordering the materials I'll need.  Now, I need to save money, but I also am still paying monthly for this vehicle, so every day that I don't drive is a day l lose money for nothing.  While I have wonderful friends who have the talents and equipment to provide me the brackets and trusses I need, I cannot depend upon their goodwill for everything week in and week out....

I still want to keep this a budget build, but in the interest of time vs money, buying premade items won out.  Now, I shopped around for the best deal and I found that Blue Torch Fabworks sold one of the cheapest 14 bolt trusses.  They also have great reviews from major players in the sport.  One of the greatest things is that they are local, being based out of birmingham alabama (formally Dothan).  This is the first time I have given the company money, but I have been following them for at least 5 years.  (The first time I met Doc, was at work, when he noticed my desktop background which was a BTF 1/4 elliptical yj )  I ordered their 14 bolt truss and other bracketry yesterday.  I also ordered a "Do it yourself" 14 bolt diff cover.  I reluctantly paid the taxes since I lived in the same state as the company and chose the slowest shipping possible.  When I got home from work today I found:

This thing is fookin huge.  To say I'm pleased by the quality of the construction and the speed of delivery is a huge understatement.  Support your local off road shops!  I cannot wait to give them more of my meager money!    Here is a preview of what it will (partially) look like when it's welded on:

That's all for tonight.  Once again I must apologize for wasting your time.  While I write these posts I envision a legion of devoted followers, but I'm willing to accept a few bored gear heads who wish to laugh at the crappy efforts of a noob trying to do something worthwhile... 