That’s what’s twisted and broken on the front of it right now. It may end up getting replaced with a fresh one before it’s all back together. Most of the damage is on the driver side frame rail right in front of the transmission skid. Link mount shoved the rail up, in, and back.
Motobilt Jeep TJ / LJ / YJ Front Half Frame Kit | Rock Crawler Parts
Motobilt’s Front Half Frame Kit for Jeep TJ, LJ, and YJ is a weld-on steel upgrade that replaces your front frame for off-road strength and durability.motobilt.com
Accidentally building an LJ
- Thread starter Rnuovrcj5
- Start date
Shreddinlettuce
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2016
- Location
- Hickory
I know throttle down kustoms will sell you just the rails in thicker tubing or a whole frame for that matter
I looked into them but they’re pretty proud of their stuff and I’d have to ship it from Montana. A buddy of mine found me a good tj frame that’s cut off a little in front of where you cut for the Motobilt stuff. I’m planning on cutting the driver rail out where it’s already spliced into the LJ back half and either cutting the rail out of the Motobilt one or just replacing the Motobilt stuff altogether. I’m pretty happy with how the front stuff all worked out so it’ll likely get copied over to the new front kit if I end up going that route.
Without going into too much detail, there’s some damage on the Motobilt stuff that really shouldn’t have happened with the way the jeep hit. I’ve talked to them about it and they’re going to take care of me so I’m not going to put it out there for the interwebs to run with. It probably saved the passenger rail from getting messed up with what happened and isn’t a major fix to deal with.
gslander
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2021
- Location
- Hickory, NC
I used sschassisworx to bend me up some rear frame rails for my Tacoma to my specs out of a single piece of square tube. Probably wouldn't hurt to reach out and see what they can bend up for you. Sschassisworx
They are local, kind of down by URE in Norwood.
They are local, kind of down by URE in Norwood.
They do good work for sure. A buddy of mine had them do custom rails for his aluminum bodied scrambler project and they turned out great.
I’ve got it just about torn all the way down to fix the frame now. Driver side frame rail was bent about every way it could be. Passenger side seems to be good though. I’m going to strip it to a bare frame and use my trailer deck as a frame machine to get the rear squared up the rest of the way and then start rebuilding. It sprung back pretty close once I cut the driver side in half so it shouldn’t take too much to get right.
There’s a brand new Motobilt front half kit sitting here to go on it. Motobilt went WAY above and beyond on fixing the issue I had. The plan is to pretty much copy the steering/suspension over to the new rails.
The LQ4 is stripped down to a short block and waiting on me to buy heads and a cam. I’m leaning towards 799 heads and a BTR Truck Norris cam.
Maxxecu Mini to control the 8HP70 is here too. I need to rent the flash tool and program the internal tcu for it. 5-series BMW shifter is here for it too. And then figuring out the wiring for it all.
I’m hoping to get it back together by late June for an event in Kentucky.
There’s a brand new Motobilt front half kit sitting here to go on it. Motobilt went WAY above and beyond on fixing the issue I had. The plan is to pretty much copy the steering/suspension over to the new rails.
The LQ4 is stripped down to a short block and waiting on me to buy heads and a cam. I’m leaning towards 799 heads and a BTR Truck Norris cam.
Maxxecu Mini to control the 8HP70 is here too. I need to rent the flash tool and program the internal tcu for it. 5-series BMW shifter is here for it too. And then figuring out the wiring for it all.
I’m hoping to get it back together by late June for an event in Kentucky.
Got it stripped all the way down and on my “frame machine”. I managed to get it pretty well straightened out without too much trouble. There’s still a little bit of a roll in the driver rail that I’m not 100% sure where it’s twisted at. I think it’s right at the upwards bend in the rear. It was bent to the side there too but my old hi-lift took care of that pretty easily.
Grabbing a set of heads for the LQ4 tomorrow. I’ll order the cam and all the gaskets/bolts I need soon.
Grabbing a set of heads for the LQ4 tomorrow. I’ll order the cam and all the gaskets/bolts I need soon.
Stuntman Autoworks
Instigator of things
- Joined
- May 6, 2010
- Location
- Snow Camp NC 27349
I like the commitment but I feel like it would have been easier to just buy some rectangular tube and build a whole new frame.
Shreddinlettuce
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2016
- Location
- Hickory
You might do good reinforcing the area and these would ensure you were back to straight
It probably would have been easier for sure. It was killed a good bit worse than I realized when I decided to repair it rather than replace it. It worked really well as it was too so I really don’t want to change it up too much. It’d end up snowballed into trailing arms and big coilovers/bypasses if I redo the rear and It’ll take me 3 years to pay for all the parts. I’m already deeper into the engine/trans swap than I really wanted to be.