I feel the need to put the crawler on the trailer and bring it down!
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Come on ahead. Now if we can get Pelago to bring a few rifles with him, the county Sheriff's shooting range is across the road. He can school us on precision marksmanship.
So, we will be at Chocco on Jan 11th. Some of our club members will be camping but, I will have my wife and her 92 yr old gpa so we will be staying at the hotel motel. Maybe we can get together for that beer.
Sounds like a plan.
Well, it's been a few weeks, I finally found time to get back in the garage. The old cab support was rusted out beyond repair and I was figuring that since I'm going to mount my seats to the roll cage that I could get by without the support. The more I thought about the more it bugged and so I broke down and rebuilt it. I was able to re-use the center section that goes over the tranny cowl and extended the ends using a 3" C channel. It's a lot more heavy duty than the original piece but, that what I had lol. I still need to finish welding the ends and I will hit a few spots welding it to the floors but, for the most part it's done. I need to sand it down, prime and paint.
Next - getting ready to order the parts required to build my 203/205 doubler.
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I figured your ride was washed out. It came a pretty good storm that Saturday afternoon.
Extra beef doesn't hurt a thing. Looks good! 203/205 doubler should get you up and over nearly any obstacle.
A little more weekend work.
Broke the front windshield
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Installed some seam sealer. Used the tube and gun, should have bought the qt can and used the acid paint brush.
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Put the wife to work ripping out all of the old wiring.
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Found a broken exhaust manifold bolt. Luckily, it came right out with an easy out.
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That's terrible luck on the windshield, but you made up for it on the win column. The real feat was getting the Misses up under the dash to pull wires. I don't see that ever happening at the rust ranch.
Great luck on the busted bolt! When the easy out works it just makes you smile.
gmwillys,you crack me up! "Rust Ranch"! I am going to get a sign made up for the front gate!
We need to introduce you to the way the state treats precious, expensive steel cars in the "Rust Belt". They cover the road with HEAVY concentrations of Sodium Chloride (salt). We have liquid forms that will vaporize in the air so it permeates every aspect of you ride, if you are lucky enough to get trapped behind the salt truck. We have spreaders on semi's that can throw salt across 3 lanes and pelt you from afar. We use mountains of it. In the spring everything has a nice white dust on it. Your blood pressure increases just by breathing the dust. Then we have auto washes that wash all that salt off with recycled salty water. It is an awesome corrosion test.
Well, she actually enjoys rock crawling and she think's I'm taking way to long to build this thing. We were working on it the other day and I said well its time to stop (4:30 in the afternoon), she asked why. I said, well, I need to order some parts to finish this up and she was like, if you knew you needed these why aren't they here? Of course, she still thinks all of these parts only cost $50 from eBay!
You have yourself a keeper! I managed to marry a girlie girl who might break a nail. She likes to ride with on going to town, and doesn't mind the dust being kicked up off the floor of the heep that deposits directly into your eye. I shouldn't complain, I like my garage of solitude the way it is.
It's slow going for the moment. Still trying to figure out my game plan, it keeps changing. I was planning on installing the engine and tranny over the weekend buuuuut, instead I removed the bed and now making plans on shortening the wheelbase from 120" down to 108". Also, I have had several people tell me that the bed is in decent shape and that I should try and sell it instead of cutting it up. Does anyone have any idea what kind of money it could be worth? I listed it on this forum for $500 but I really don't have a clue as to what it might or might not be worth.
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If I were in the market for a bed, I would gladly pay around $500 for a bed that isn't destroyed. The floor looks to be solid and not beat to death, so that is a good starting point. The fenders could use a little love, along with the skirts, but very minor work to bring it up to par. A M416 trailer bed would not be quite wide enough in stock form, but section in a piece in the middle, and you would be golden. The length can be cut down to fit as well. You'll see them for sale all over, for varying prices.
So, has anyone here ever cut the frame in half? I'm wondering about the cut itself. It seems that most people just make a vertical cut but, then you have the ones that say to cut a z pattern, claiming that it provides more welding area.
I have seen it done a few ways. I am betting GM has good experience here. In general it is the plate welded on the inside of the channels side, that makes it strong. Take a peak under a Stretch Limo and you will get a good idea.
I choose to section a frame by cutting an angle for more surface area. I put fish plates on the inside of the frame to disguise a frame repair on my own rigs, but on a heavy duty repair I would put one on the outside as well. Just make one longer then the other to prevent too much heat in one location. Make the outside fish plate 12" and the inside 16" in length, as an example.
On a rock crawler or heavy truck you can go a couple of different ways. You can shorten the frame by moving the axle forward and building your mounts off of the original frame. Then cut the excess off of the rear leaving no weak point in the middle of the frame. Heavy truck frames are simple because your frame rails are straight. Your Jeep frame is a different because it rises at the front leaf mount to clear the rear end housing. This would help to lift the rig by a couple of inches from the front spring hanger being shifted forward, but your pinion angle would then have to be adjusted to prevent vibration in the drive line.
The pictures are not real great examples of some frame projects, and I really wish I would have snapped some photos of re-stubbing the 2A frame from the crossmember forward. Just remember angle finders and plumb bobs are your best friends when cutting frames, and gluing them back together.
Nice work there GM!
I don't understand how you end up doing all the frame repair you do. Here in the "Rust Belt" of the USA, we use a tremendous amount of salt on the roads. It rots the cars and frames fairly quick. But I see equally impressive metal corrosion occurring in "Bama at the "GM Ranch". I wonder what is rusting them in your parts of the country? We used to travel down to the Carolina's to pick up rust free cars in the old days. Maybe time has just taken them all!
All of my personal stuff, and the M38A1 came from Illinois, so they were salt victims. The Wrangler was a local item, but a design flaw to the frame is that there are no drains at the bottom. Mud enters the tow hook cuts at the sides of the frame and settles at the bottom. Over time they just get soft and disappear.
If I had a lot of spare time and a semi, I would buy up all the vintage trucks I could muster and sell them up North, but now the prices have gone through the roof.
Ahhh the design flaw!
You find em GM and send em up! You bet the price is getting high everywhere for UN-rusted complete old cars and trucks up here. Early Jeeps and Willys Trucks are making a strong showing. My '77 Chevy Square Body was put on a truck with a few other rust free vehicles from Arizona. I paid $1000 for it in 1998 and $600 to ship it back. It was completely and still is rust free. It ran and was fairly mechanically sound, with a lot of miles on it and a flat cam!
That's what you find here. Run into the ground mechanically, but rust free. What would scare most northern buyers is the fact that there were no titles issued on '80 and newer. Before moving here, I was pretty good buds with some of the guys at French Lake Auto Salvage. They had a driver that would go to Arizona twice a month to bring back clean vehicles for resale.
That didn't take very long. I have a guy coming over to Saturday to pick up the bed. Oh, and I sold my SBC 350 and bought a 6.0 LQ9 to drop in.
I ended up buying a rebuilt 4l65e to go with the 6.0 and got both installed over the weekend. I still need to build/modify a transmission mount bracket but, it is sitting in place. I'm hoping to get 203/205 doubler put together and install it next weekend. Once I get doubler installed I'll be getting it ready to shorten the frame.
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That fit in there nicely. What computer are you using to run the LQ9?
am actually looking for project Number 2........... love a old pickemup, and would love a flathead V8
oh yeah,
and you are a booger
What is the going rate for the re-flash? I like the low end grunt of the 6.0 gasser, and have toyed with the idea of dropping one in the wagon.
If you can find someone to tune it for you using HP Tuners, its the way to go on the Gen 3 Computer system. They can then give you the tune on a flash drive. If you were near I could tune it for you with HPTuners software.
Just for a flash its around $125 to $150 but, you also need to trim down the wiring harness and that's around $300. I'm thinking about trimming the harness myself just so that I can say that I did it lol. If I screw it up I can always buy a new one.
That's not a bad idea.
Been working on the 203/205 doubler. It's been a total blast playing with all of the loose needle bearings.
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More doubler pics
Grinding the the rear 205 shift rail. This will let me put it in front wheel drive only.
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The doubler put together
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Someone installed a bolt that was too long and it hit the gears inside breaking off a piece and bending it. There was 2 like this and both bolt holes stripped out when I removed them. I plan to install a couple of helicoils for the repair.
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After I put everything together I realized the threaded portion of the shifter shaft was broken off.I think I can drill and tap and install a threaded stud for the fix.
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Looking good! Love those loose rollers. They are substantially stronger however. I'll take loose rollers over caged rollers any day. The only advantage to the cage is the speed of assembly.
Looking good!
OK, is a doubler a special designation for an overdrive - maybe a 50% OD?
Go the other direction, or underdrive. The doubler will make a 2:1 to a 4:1, making the vehicle idle straight up and over an obstacle.
This build getting better and better! Learned about a doubler. Sounds like something good. Does it have a lever, using the clutch?
The doubler is built by using two separate transfer cases. An NP205 and the front half of an NP203. The NP205 has the normal 2h/4h to 2lo/4lo, so that uses two shifters, one for the front axle and one for the rear axle and then the NP203 bolts to the front of the NP205 and is only used for an extra hi/lo gear, which is what reduces the gearing from 2:1 to 4:1, and this get's one shifter as well. So, three shifters in all. No clutches involved.
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Awesome. New bucket list item. Drive one of those things in your picture there. Hope you keep posting when that thing is installed. I have always wondered what the picture below did, now I have a better idea. Thanks!
That thing should crawl straight up a wall!