El Jai

[tobyw]

After knocking out 165’ of 3-rail vinyl fencing this morning, it was time to start on some rocker protection. A quick inventory of the steel pile yielded some 2x6x0.125 wall box tubing; perfect. I’m not a fan of angle iron rockers, as the sharp outside edge of the angle looks, well, not the best in my opinion. Box tube on other hand, has a nice rolled edge that gives things a little more aesthetic value. So, after some quick measurements, the plan was laid out on the tube:



Then, it was time for some love with the plasma cutter to make the box tube into (2) separate slider bases with that all important rolled bottom edge:







With that taken care of, it was time to whip out the tube bender and some 1.5â€

[Jafo]

Subscribed

[Yrjan]

Subscribed

Yep... What he said

[Livin4Today]

What happened to the windshield? Didn't notice that star in earlier pics...

[Wrench]

This is the first pic I see that it's broken. All previous pics show the windshield in good shape.

[Rottwheeler]

Your LJ is certainly coming along nicely... I like!!!

[tobyw]

Windshield was a byproduct of me being in a hurry for no good reason

[Danny]

Nice, where's the rock rails? You make it look so easy.

[tobyw]

Got the rock sliders bolted on, put an initial set on the alignment (this will change as the springs settle over the next few hundred miles), and took it out for the inaugural flex test to look at bump stops and clearance issues. What I learned was that the alignment was great, the ride/flex was superb with no clearance problems or binding anywhere, and that my photography skills are simply terrible

[iaccocca]

Nice! Of course I'm biased towards LJs.

[tobyw]

So this weekend was bumper time. I stole a few hours Saturday afternoon, and a couple more today and got it finished up. I didn’t get too many pictures of the initial buildout, but it went similar to the rock sliders, starting with rectangular tubing and some love with the plasma cutter to create an ‘L’ shaped cover for the factory rear crossmember. To that I added some tabs to the bottom to take advantage of the factory threaded hole under the frame, and then I added a receiver hitch and some more 1.5â€

[Rottwheeler]

Continued high level of coolness!!!

[bobracing]

Looks good.

Are you running frame tie ins?

[TJDave]

Awesome. I've said it before, I wish I has the skillz to fab stuff like that.

But now that you are creating TJ stuff, go ahead and make a couple extras so me and maybe one other guy can bolt them to ours!

[OldGreen]

Looks good.

Are you running frame tie ins?

Whyfor? Bumper is super light with no tire carrier and TDub isn't likely to back into anything at Mach 1.

[SPR]

The "Tie In" bracket might useful if new rear bumper was used to tow a trailer or connected to a tugging strap.

[OldGreen]

HEY> > >yours is like Genright's. . .only cooler cuz it was made in the 99353:

[OldGreen]

The "Tie In" bracket might useful if new rear bumper was used to tow a trailer or connected to a tugging strap.

Sure sure. . .but for the intended use, even with using it as a recovery point, that threaded hole off of the bottom of the frame and the factory bumper bolts in/out are at least as strong as the frame itself. I'd be IN on the tie ins if it was:

A: Me driving
B: Having a heavy bumper/tire carrier constantly stressing that whole area.

[tobyw]

Slowly picking away at some of the punchlist items… With the Rubicon Round 2 trip not far off on the horizon, I’m way behind schedule . At any rate, I spent the last couple of evenings finally finishing up the A-pillar cage tie-ins to the frame. First up was a base plate with welded nuts and two tabs to capture the bushing:



Once that was fabricated and mocked into place, the plasma cutter was commissioned to burn out a couple of doubler plates for the frame, and those were glued into place:



I then relieved a couple of old YJ leaves of their eye bushings, and slid them into a section of 1.75â€

[OldGreen]

Well.. .gosh. . .

[bobracing]

Need a like button.

Did you sleeve/going to the bolts going thru the channel?

[Lurch]

Looking good

[tobyw]

Did you sleeve/going to the bolts going thru the channel?

Yep, it's in one of the posts on the first page. Basically a 1.75"x0.120" tube slug from the upper floor plate down to the lower, inside the sheetmetal channel.

[bobracing]

Maybe I've work with to many engineers or what but, your bolts are still clamping on a hollow tube. With the spacer and thick plates this maybe OK? And much better than factory.

[tobyw]

Technically you are correct, but the clamping pressure of the bolts has nothing to do with what's going on here... It's all about the transfer of impact force from the cage to the frame, through that hollow channel which uses the tube slug to "connect" the upper plate to the lower plate. The bolts merely hold things in alignment about the 'Z' axis.