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.  

 

Engine, Transmission, Transfer case -- Part 1

The engine.  It has mostly been ignored up until now, and sadly, it probably won't get much attention for a few months after this.  Since I had the space with the frame being out for sand blasting I decided to break the engine, transmission, and transfer case apart.

I've had it sitting in the engine hoist since it was pulled off of the frame.  It is long over due to get moved to an engine stand.  First thing was to pull the transfer case off of the transmission. 

  

It was pretty simple to pull it off.  Remove 5 bolts, give it a pull, and it slipped right out of the transmission.  

  

I haven't done a thorough look through of all the gears yet but at first glance they appear to be in good shape.  

Next up was taking the transmission off of the bell housing. Four bolts and it popped right out.  

   

Bell housing off of the engine.  

  

  

Next it taking the clutch plate off the fly wheel

And then take the fly wheel off of the engine

  

I used gray spray paint to mark the crank shaft and fly wheel so I can pull them back together exactly how they were before.  Not sure it'll matter since the hole block is gonna get pulled apart.

Finally I put the engine up on the engine stand.  

  

I think my New Years resolution this year will be to make my blog post right after doing the work.  Right now I almost always put at least a few weeks between working and posting and by that time I forget all of the little details of what  I did.  Since the whole point of this blog it to help me remember how to put this Jeep back together it makes sense to make the posts sooner.  

Framing Up

So its been awhile since I've updated this so I figured now is as good a time as any.  This post is going to focus on the condition of the frame and some of the work I've started to do to it.

So the font half of my frame is in pretty good shape.  It doesn't look like there is much rust, it is sold when I hit it with a hammer.  I'd say its pretty good.  Its the back half of my frame which is cause for concern.  There is a lot of rust.  Too much. I didn't realize it at the time, but when I bought the frame the previous owner had already done a really bad frame repair job.

Font Half of Frame

Back Half of Frame

You can see a few of the holes in the photo of the back half, and there are plenty more.  Where the rear shackle hangers bolt on is especially bad.  You can see the poor welding job that was done to it.    

It needed to go so step one was to remove the rear axel and step two was cut out all the bad parts and rust.  A little work with the grinder and the rear end looked like this:

 

 

 

So as you can see from the above shots the rear is in bad shape. But wait it gets so much worse...

 

 

So after a lot of drinking I did decide to fix it instead of buying a new frame.  That's right, I believe this is salvageable.  So lucky for me this section of the frame rusting out is pretty common in the old CJs.  The rear of the frame didn't have good drainage so mud and water would lay in the frame.  Its lucky because it means that I can order prefabricated pieces off of the internet!  

 

 

 

Dry fitting the prefabbed piece.  It was a tight fit on this side.  Had to use a mallet to pound it in place.

 Starting to get some of the welds down.  Burned through in one place.  I'll come back and reinforce the area later.  

I felt pretty good about these welds.  I'd been practicing a lot of scrap metal and was eager to get the frame welded.  

 

The other side of the frame was in a little bit worse shape.  I had to use clamps to hold the prefabbed piece in place as it just slide on.  On top of that a lot of the frame was rusted on top too and needed to be replaced.  In the following two pictures you can see the new metal that was welded in on top of the frame, along with  the dry fit of the new piece.  

 

I was very happy with how the top of the frame welded in place.  I should have cut out more the frame and used a wider piece of steel.  While I'm not terribly happy with it, I think it'll be plenty strong.  

  

So the rear shackle hangs are back on.  Which means the next step is putting the rear axle back on and taking the frame to get sand blasted.  I'm just hoping it comes back in one piece.