CJ5 prodject

[raven mad]

frieday

OK, so today was about 2 things ...

1. finish helping my friend build a hidden winch mount for his full size bronco...

2. work on the jeep.
So I built all of my cage mounts base plates that will sandwich the body, I also built all of my new body mounts and fitted the tubing to tie the roll cage thrue the body and to the frame ... I cut up my old roll cage (keeping only the front half) and started to fab. the dash peices ... the front part of my cage bolts to the bulk head werethe dash would bolt to and exstends down to the floor base plates... tommarrow I will take some close ups ( I ran out of gas and so the welding came to an abrupt halt ).... I also started to fab the headlight mounts, I am using WARN dual beem driving lights for headlights, and i will wire them directly into the factory harness..

poser shot to show the b eginings of the roll cage ...

 

[raven mad]

and for the record .... my daughter drew this and insisted on me posting it ...

 

[mmcj7]

Looks like I need her to take a look at my jeep and decide what it should look like. Pretty cool sketch

 

[raven mad]

Saturday

OK, so today was all about finishing the roll cage... Yesterday I made all the plates to sandwich the body and give me a surface to weld the cage to. So today I moved the jeep so that I could mount the bender to the floor ( pro tools 105 )... what follows is not the best or the greatest, but it deff meets my needs ...

This shot show the the general shape.. were the X meets the floor I am going to place a fuel cell, and above that will be a containment rack...

Tommarrow I will tie the roll cage to the frame with the braces I built yesterday ... All in All the cage will tie into the frame in 8 locations ... The A piller is bolted to the bulk head and has a square 2inc. X 2inc. peice of tubing that is welded to the bulk head plate and reaches the floor board and then ties into the frame from there. the cage is built out of .120 wall 2inc. DOM eccept for the V overhead and the V at the windsheild which is .120 wall 1.5inc. DOM... all the plates that sandwich the body are 3/16 inc plate and the supports that tie the cage to the frame are all .120 wall 2inc. DOM ...

So there it is, tomarrow is another day ....

 

[raven mad]

flat jeep TJ dash / kinda

Well, a few weeks have gone by, with alot of things getting in the way and spinal surgery that was supposed to be as simple as baking a cake turned more complicated than building a fution generator !!!!!!!! So I am home, very sore, limited in movement, and for all intensive purposes stoned out of my mind ...;-) I endevored to start working on my dash ... The engine, trany, transfercase, wiring and computer are all 2005 TJ, soooo, I need to use the guages, I did alot of work to be able to use the factory heating and AC unit, so I need to be able to incorporate the heater controller also ... So I cut up the factory dash.... What you see is what I cut up and bolted to the cj5 bulkhead ... The rest of the dash will be a mixture of flat sheetmetal and switch panel with some type of a grab handle on the passenger side ....

 

[95yjjeep]

you going to leave it tan & green camo two tone. the cage turned out really nice. keep up the great work!

 

[JDHolland]

thats going to look really good!

 

[raven mad]

stuff

Thanks ..... the body will be Khaki tan ... windsheild, grill, frame, cage and small parts will be OD green. the axle housings and some interior parts will be Khaki tan ... springs, shocks and belly pan will all be flat black ...
I cut out my peices of sheetmetal for the dash today and began to notch the rear floor section so that I can lower my seats about 3.5 inc. ( Im 6'4") and I prefer not to hit my head on the cage ...
some things I nead if anyone knows some one in the fayettville area that can do it !!!!
1. I need to have two peices of 1.5 inc. .120 wall tubing rolled to a 40inc. arc, so I can start my rear fender flares.
2. fuel cell, I need to build one or buy one that will fit neatly between the rear inner fender wells and acomidate the smog crap that came on the 2005 TJ chassis ...
3. Money, I need more money to finish this thing ;-)

 

[raven mad]

dash is 98% done

Well today I got MOTO ... I loaded up on pain killers and whent to work on the jeep....

I cut up a 2005 jeep TJ under dash metal structure, and created my own dash that fits to a CJ5 bulk head, a combonation of flat dash and TJ stuff to support my desire for an old CJ 5 with modern amenities ... Cruise, tilt, AC, premium sound disc changer, bla bla bla ..... the large flat space on the passenger side will be put to good use, I am saving up to buy a desert racing style large screen GPS and mount it there along with a long range CB ....enjoy

pic of all the stuff mounted in the dash ... The center vents are funtional, and I fitted and reused the windshield defrost duct work as well ...

 

[raven mad]

stuff

Tommarrow I am hopefull to remove the dash completely, and build the stearing colum mounts so that the tilt will work, as well as build the box that will hold the battery and under dash ground points (there are like 12 under dash grounds in the factory TJ harness ....

I also cut the drivers side floor out, so I can do the sheetmetal work and lower my seats.

 

[raven mad]

monday

It seems to be a habit now ... I get up, I take pain killers, I eat breakfast, go out to the guarage and work on my jeep ... I actualy slaved my son away today and had him workin on it for me (with supervition) .... Finished up the drivers side floorboard seat-well ..... cut out the passengerside, and cut out all the sheetmetal to close it in ... Then it was nap time...

Son hard at work...

drivers side floor board...

My seat fits perfectly into the notch ... That lowers the seat 2 inc. and moves it back 2 inc. over were I had it mounted previously ... Now I dont hit my head ....LOL

 

[raven mad]

floorboard

Finished bolth sides, now Im off to Mc cune Ind. to fetch me some plate for the rock sliders ... once they are built I can finish up the body mounts ....

For the record, I told my wife this morning that Im gonna save up and buy me an Aquila Aluminum tub next year ...

 

[bbbcb04]

well, here goes. I finaly had some time today to work on the prodject .... with a lot of help from my 16 year old son I made some progress... I am hopefull that by next weekend the front and rear susp. will be done and the cj5 body will be firmly bolted down to the TJ frame ...
Here she lost some weight ... 8 inches off of the frame ...

here is the rear bumper ... the bumper is a BTF rear stretch bumper, with about 14" cut out of the middle, flipped upside down so that the shackles swing from the top... I welded a peice of 1/4" 4.5 inc. wide across to tie the frame rails together, then welded the pieces of the BTF bumper to that and capped the end's ... The winch plate is a piece of 1/4" as well ... I still need to buy correct hardware for the shackles, place the roller fairlead for the rear, bolt the winch down and finish the latteral supports for the winch plate ... But atleast I made some progress today ....

A side view of the rear bumper

subscided to your build and really like your fab work keep it upthe good work .im doing the same thing to my yj in the rear as you have but with xj springs .do you use the measurements from the xj (frt. shackle hole to the rear shackle top hole or do u put it so the angle on the shackle looks good .i did a mild stregth and got the top rear shackle hanger hole on one side back futher than the other and it leans more on that side than the other when you turning .thanks for your imput

 

[raven mad]

subscided to your build and really like your fab work keep it upthe good work .im doing the same thing to my yj in the rear as you have but with xj springs .do you use the measurements from the xj (frt. shackle hole to the rear shackle top hole or do u put it so the angle on the shackle looks good .i did a mild stregth and got the top rear shackle hanger hole on one side back futher than the other and it leans more on that side than the other when you turning .thanks for your imput

Good question... I used 7.5 inc. lift soft ride XJ springs. What I did when I set up the rear suspention was to measure the overal length or the leaf spring including the radius of the spring (a arched spring is actualy longer than a flat spring). then I established a common front spring perch location, or more specificaly the center point of the front spring bolt, marked it out on bolth sides and then measured to the rear of the frame, understanding that a shackle has a progressive effect on the spring and that they realy have an active effective range and that I was tought that the shackle should not exceed 45 degrees I simply measured from the front spring bolt location to were the lower shackle bolt should be at its maximum angle under compretion ... from there I built the rear bumper to support that location...
You said that you set up one side of the rear suspention different from the other!!! How much difference is there???

 

[bbbcb04]

Good question... I used 7.5 inc. lift soft ride XJ springs. What I did when I set up the rear suspention was to measure the overal length or the leaf spring including the radius of the spring (a arched spring is actualy longer than a flat spring). then I established a common front spring perch location, or more specificaly the center point of the front spring bolt, marked it out on bolth sides and then measured to the rear of the frame, understanding that a shackle has a progressive effect on the spring and that they realy have an active effective range and that I was tought that the shackle should not exceed 45 degrees I simply measured from the front spring bolt location to were the lower shackle bolt should be at its maximum angle under compretion ... from there I built the rear bumper to support that location...
You said that you set up one side of the rear suspention different from the other!!! How much difference is there???

there maybe 3/8 of an inch .this time i will measure twice and cut once . thank for the info didnt mean to hijack your build thread .

 

[raven mad]

there maybe 3/8 of an inch .this time i will measure twice and cut once . thank for the info didnt mean to hijack your build thread .

No worries here man... its cool that we have this web site so that we can all enjoy each others creations, and input from each other.... 3/8 of an inc.... im asuming that its off at the upper shackle mounting point and that effects the shackle angle wich in effect has changed the spring rate (felt spring rate) so it feels softer on that side becouse the spring has less ressistance from the shackle. Ide say that my guess is that perticular upper mounting point is (3/8 inc.) Closer to the front leaf spring bolt or leaf spring center point than the other side... well, this is assuming alot I suppose... let me know how it turns out and what you had to do to correct it !!!! Peace

 

[raven mad]

rock slider

OK, so I finaly made a descition concerning the rock sliders.... I have gone back and forth on the boat side idea !!! But in the end I just built some old fationed rock sliders, they are welded, not formed, so they could be nicer if they were formed, but owww wellll, it is what it is ... they exstend 6 inc. from the lower body line up and they exstend from that same body line in to the frame rail ... I will be adding some tubing to them, but first I need to find a constant radius tubing bender for the rear flares...

The 1/4 inc. plate steel was sheered at Mc Cune's and I picked up the hardware from fastenal in Fayettville...

Finished except for the tubing and I am waiting for the countersink bit to get here on tuesday so that I can countersink the allen head bolts into the rocksliders ...

 

[1stgenxxx]

Nice work. I like rear bumper/sliders turned out!

 

[raven mad]

today

Nice work. I like rear bumper/sliders turned out!

Thanks... Nothing that Im doing is realy that hard to do... Im deffenetly going for the utilitarian look ... I wish I had a press-break, maybe an Iron worker with a sheer station and a tubing roller, but we all work with what weve got and can afford ...

 

[ragnarbronco]

hey buddy.....guess who......
thread subscribed to....gotta check out how you tend fix the things i break (window) on your jeep...haha. jk.

 

[raven mad]

hey buddy.....guess who......
thread subscribed to....gotta check out how you tend fix the things i break (window) on your jeep...haha. jk.

funny..... we need to go wheelin when you get back ... I need to get off my butt and finish this thing !!!!

 

[ragnarbronco]

funny..... we need to go wheelin when you get back ... I need to get off my butt and finish this thing !!!!

Couldn't have said it better myself. Haha. Take it easy. Heal up then finish it. Ill still be around a month or two when I get back.

 

[raven mad]

June 2nd.

Ok, so not alot of progress lately, but today after returning from work I decided that today was the day.... I needed to work on the coil towers, so I cut out the cone shapes for the bottom of the coil towers to tie into the frame, I still need to cut out a couple of gussets but I will do that tommarrow morning. I removed the factory track bar bracket (pain in the A@$) and I relocated the stearing box... The pitman arm cleares the frame bye about an inch... I am gonna order some high stear arms tommarrow and notch the frame to clear the tie rod and drag link.... I also need toreplace the front hard brake line with a stainless steel braided hose !!! Im thinking about running the brake line down the drivers side radius arm, but we will see !!!!!!

cones on the bottom of the coil towers...

Pitman arm clearence

front look at the Box location. I still need to cut out some plate and box in the top mount for the Box.

 

[pitbullcruiser]

Nice build man, love those tires and wheels.

 

[raven mad]

june 3rd

Set back this morning.. I wasnt payin attention and I inadvertently knowcked my 4 foot tall Bottle of Argon over, braking the regulators and the bottle shot across the floor .... DUMMMMM MOVE !!!!!!!! After my Wife whent and got a new set of regulators I built the upper mount for the P.S.Box. I built the mounts for the Air conditioning condensor and mounted it. Then started on the radiator mounts ... Looks like I will have 4.25 in. from the face of the radiator to the water pump ....Plenty of room for a good electric fan !!!!!


Ide like to blame this weld on someone else, but infact ....I did it, atleast its strong the front of the mount is open so that I can tie it into the stinger next week ...