Blog Moved to FB Group

Hello,

I doubt many people read this blog, but if you do you should know I moved to facebook.  Writing blog posts was time consuming and I always put it off until I eventually stopped completely.  Facebook is nice as I can just upload a couple of photos and write a blurb or two.

Anyways, if you're interested in the FB group here is the link.

https://www.facebook.com/RestoringFrancesca/

A Finished Frame

So the rest of the frame repair took a bit longer than expected.  I only over shot my completion data by 4 months.  No big deal.  I'm still on track to get this project finished before I turn 60.

The frame!

As you know it was a freaking nightmare when I started.  Honestly, I may not have ever bought this jeep had I known back then what I know now.  I still would have bought some jeep, but definitely not this particular CJ7.....and I might have even bought a YJ.  Please don't judge me.

So here is a picture to remind you what this frame used to look like.  Actually, it kinda looks okay in the picture.  You can't really see the terrible body mount fixes that last owner made, or the rotten rear frame rails.  You can't see the thinned out wall above the rear spring hanger, or the holes under the bump stops.  Come'on... this frame would have tricked you too.

 

In one of my previous posts I went through how I properly fixed the body mounts and the rear frame rails.  So lets get started on how I fixed the rest of it!

Hole under the driver side bump stop:

In hind site I should have just lap welded this hole.  But it turned out decent so I'm not worried.

   

Hole Under Passenger Side Bump Stop:

Pretty simple.  Just removed the old bolts and lap welded a piece of steel down.

  

Hole Above the Passenger Side Bump Stop:

When I bought this jeep I thought this was the worst rust hole.  I am not a smart man.

  

  

Random Hole:

Another hole.  Patched it with a piece of angle that I lap welded.  Someone forgot to take an after photo but you can see it in the photo of frame reinforcement outlined in red.

   

Drive Side Shock Mount:

The factory weld broke on the front driver side shock mount.  This was a pretty common occurrence from what I've read.  I used a pipe clamp to bend it back into place and then welded it down.

  

Reinforcing Frame Rails:

I made a template out of cardboard and had a shop plasma cut it out for me.  Then I just welded it onto the frame rail.  The metal was pretty pitted on the passenger side here.

  


Rear Passenger Side Spring Hanger:

This was the worst.  I almost threw the frame out.  I had the frame sandblasted and the frame walls were so thin in this area that holes blew in them.  This part of the frame especially needs to be strong since the leaf spring mounts here.  I was lucky that Auto Rust makes product that can be welded on.

  

  

  

Rear Driver Side Spring Hanger:

Since the spring hanger on the passenger side was so thin I decided to reinforce the driver side too,  I wish I hadn't drilled that hole in the reinforcement.  I thought it'd be nice to keep the hole there so I could use it to clean the frame.  The metal around the hole was so thin that I just blew holes in it welding.  And since there was rust inside the frame I ended up with some porosity in the weld.  Luckily that weld isn't really structural.  Plus I didn't have much choice but to leave it, I don't have a grinding tool small enough to get in there.

  

In short, it was a lot of welding.  I had a friend who used to be a professional welder help me out a couple times.  Inspect welds, show me ropes, etc.  I very much appreciate the help.  

POR15:

So the next step of course is to paint it!  I decided to paint it with POR15.  POR15 is a rust encapsulater, and the POR in it stands for Paint Over Rust.  This stuff gets crazy hard, and is almost impossible to get off your frame.  BUT!  You have to follow the instructions to the letter.  Otherwise it'll peal and flake right off.  It will actually stick to rusted metal better than clean metal so some preparation has to be done.  

Before of the frame:

   

Step 1 - Soak the frame with POR15's cleaner/degreaser.

I walked around the frame with a spray bottle for 20 minutes making sure this thing stayed covered in the cleaner.  Never letting it dry. Then I rinsed it off with my garden hose.

Step 2 - Soak the frame in POR15's metal prep.  

I once again had a spray bottle and spent 30 minutes keeping the frame soaked with the metal prep.  Then I rinsed it off with my garden hose.  The metal prep etches the metal and leaves behind a white zinc coating.  This really helps the POR15 grab clean metal.  

  

Step 3 - Brush on 2 coats of POR15.  

POR15 is self leveling (mostly) so you can brush it on.  A lot of people shoot it on but apparently it'll ruin your paint gun so I decided not to go that route.  

So there it is all coating in POR15.  The stuff does needs to be top coated so make sure you do that since it is UV sensitive.  You can either top coat is while the POR15 is still tacky, or you can run out of time like me.  Let the POR15 dry and then lightly sand it with some 320 grind stand paper. Then apply POR15's special brand of top coat.  I'd show you a picture of it top coated, but it looks exactly the same.  If I were to do this again I'd use POR15's sliver color for my rust encapsulater layer.  Simply because it's hard to see where you still need to paint when painting black paint over black paint.  

Thanks for reading!

Frame: Body Mount Repair

So the frame came back from the sand blaster ! I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

This is the best I could come up with for a before and after picture.

  

So it  is rust free but there is still a lot of work to do on the frame.  This post details how I went about fixing the 6 body mounts.  Starting with the front passenger side mount.

This is the state of the body mount, and I'd say this one is in the best shape.  If you look at the picture of the frame above (the one with the engine and transmission still on it) and take a really close look at the body mounts, you can see they all have sheet metal welded to them.  That is the previous owners half assed attempt at fixing the mounts.  The only one that didn't have sheet metal on it was the front passenger side mount.  I guess it wasn't rotted away enough when he try to fix the other ones.

So, like I said this one is in the best shape out of all of them.  And its not really in great shape.

So cut away all the thinned metal around the hole.

Its pretty easy to see in this photo that the metal around the hole is thinned out from where the rust used to be.  I cut away enough that all the metal left was the correct thickness.

Then I made a cardboard template.  I made it first so I was sure that I had all the dimensions correct before cutting out the metal patch.  The patches were made out of 3/16 hot rolled steel.  Both the patch and the metal from the mount were cut out using an angle grinder.

  

And there it is all welded up.  When I eventually take the axles off the frame and weld the holes in the bottom of it I'll come back the body mounts and weld the bottom sides of them as well.  The only thing left to do on this one it cut a hole out.  I'll need to buy a hole saw for the drill so I haven't done that step yet.  

All of the other body mounts follow this same process.  The photos for them are below.

Passenger Side Center Mount

  

Passenger Side Rear Mount

  

I was concerned that I wasn't getting good enough penetration on a couple of these so I ground the welds down on three of them.  It look like I actually had plenty of penetration/fusion.

  

Drive Side front Mount

  

  

Driver Side Center Mount

  

  

Drive Side Rear Mount

 

  

The drive side rear mount was actually the first mount I fixed.  I had a hard time with my welding puddle getting pulled down by gravity.  So what I ended up doing for the rest of the of the mounts was making the patch just a hair smaller than the area I cut out.  That way there would be a little lip that would help keep the puddle from running down the side of the mount.

Also I managed to burn a hole in this one too.  It was also the fist one that I ground the welds down on to check the fusion.  I mean, look at how ugly those welds are; they were begging me to get ground down.  When I go through and weld the undersides of the patches I think I'm going to try and fill the hole with mig wire.  We'll see how it goes.