Mikes 3 linkin

3 Linkin What Was I Thinkin

PART 1 PART 2

Those of you who have seen me drive, seen my Jeep, and seen me do it for a dozen or so years won't be surprised by this little story. I trailered my CJ over to Greg's place to begin putting in the three link setup I've been collecting parts for for so long. It isn't that I couldn't or didn't want to drive it over, but that I wanted to have something to drive home. The first day we just noodled about the project, looking at parts, eyeballing components and alignments, and coming up with a plan of action. First, we took measurements and wrote them down so we could have some hope of getting it all back together kind of like we wanted it to be. Then, we started unbolting stuff that went into the discard pile (front axle, springs, shackle reverse crossmember, shackles, shocks, etc.) as well as stuff to be reused (Redneck Ram, steering box and brace, drag link, shock hoop, etc.). Once we got the stuff off that unbolted, Greg cut the rear shackle mounts off with the plasma cutter (cool tool). We noodled about a bit more, tried to figure out how to mount the top link to the housing casting, and pondered and probed. We also moved the steering box forward with the Ruff Stuff box mount I've had for two years, and took out the old stock steering shaft, which is now too short. I wanted to leave stuff on the frame if I could, but after a while we decided we had to clean the frame up some so we could see what we were working with. The gas-powered Honda (same motor as the Accord you get stuck behind on the freeway, but rope pull-start LOL) pressure washer is another cool tool. We let it dry overnight, and by the time we got back underneath the next afternoon, we didn't have to lay in too much water. I then disassembled the front axle to salvage the parts that I was going to reuse (knuckles, right axle shaft, hubs, rotors, tie rod, etc.) and while I was at it I ground out reliefs in the knuckle so I could get the CTM u-joints past the knuckle to remove the axle without removing the little needle-style zerk fittings. I left the cover on and the gears and Detroit in the housing so they wouldn't get goobered up with welding pits while we worked. When we got under the Jeep to check out the weld mounting spots with no grease covering the frame, we found out what may be the reason the Jeep wandered so much. I knew I had a crack in the frame on the inside of the right frame rail aft of the motor mount that we would have to repair before mounting new stuff. Greg put a tall jack under the front of the frame, and when he jacked it up the Jeep the frame bent at the front tub mount. This prompted further investigation. There were two cracks, top to bottom on the inside of the frame, on the right frame rail. On the left frame rail, there were two cracks on the inside, and the motor mount was cracking off the frame, and, on the outside of the left frame rail at the former shackle mount, there was another vertical crack where the plating met the shackle mount. There was also a huge crack on the outside of the left frame rail aft of the tub mount, and the skid plate vertical mounts were cracking, one clear through. Most of my aftermarket plating was not well welded to the stock frame, either. My Jeep was breaking in half! I'm not sure how many more runs it would have been before some sort of catastrophic failure occurred, but it seems this modification is quite timely. I wonder if the cracked frame helped me get those amazing RTI numbers? The frame is now welded up quite beautifully, the plates that I had tacked on years ago are stitched the entire length of the bottom of the frame, and we are now noodling how to strut the frame so the shock mounts don't move (did I mention that the shock hoop was walking on the frame? It seems the bolt holes that the shock hoop goes through are not sleeved, so if you've done the shock hoop mod, you may want to take it apart and sleeve the holes). I talked to Dave at Poly Performance Friday and I should have the 2" 1/4 wall DOM and eight 1.25" Johnnie Joints Monday. The bottom of the Jeep looks very empty. Mike

Part two

I only worked on the Jeep about four hours today, the first day of work since Friday, what with life going on over the weekend and until noon today. I did take some pics. I drilled six holes in that four hours. Ok, so they were 7/8" holes in 3/16 plate welded to 3/16 frame rails. Drilled sideways. And they had backup holes that had to be drilled 1/2" in the other half of the frame rail as well as in the shock hoop. The 7/8" holes were the killer ones, they took forever. After I drilled all the holes, I put a piece of 7/8 OD 1/2 ID tubing/pipe into the holes and pounded it mercilessly until the inner frame rail was close to its original position. The plan is to plate the inside with 3/16 drilled for the new, larger bolt size (the shock hoops were mounted with 3/8" bolts). The 7/8 holes are for pipe/tubing to sleeve the holes so they don't collapse again. The cradle looks awesome, it goes over the top of the diff, and will weld to the tubes right next to the cast housing. It will also have some stitch welds to the top of the housing, but there will have to be special treatment of the metals to make it strong, by heating the cast center section prior to welding on it. I'll be watching, not doing;-) We also worked on the noodling of the caster (a CJ has 6 degrees of caster from the factory), since we want the bottom of the control arm mounts to be parallel with the bottom of the axle tubes. This is all harder than it seems at first, and you have to draw lots of pictures of what you think is going to happen. As an example, we were concerned that the axle end of the control arms was not going to be at the correct angle. We almost modified the control arm mounts to point them more inboard (they are currently at a 10 degree angle), but then we realized that the static position will most likely be the furthest out the angle of intersect between the control arm and the mount will ever reach, so we decided to use the control arm brackets as manufactured. (If my description is confusing, you aren't alone. Without laying it all out on the table with tubing and straightedges and squares we'd still be scratching our heads.) The arc of travel of the end of the axle should move the end of the axle inboard in relation to the frame rail as the axle end goes up or down, thus, we don't need to "center" the Johnnie Joint when static. I need to pick up materials (3/16 plate) and both sacrificial and assembly bolts. Poly Performance is sending more parts as we go along.