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Expedition Scrambler..?

Something like this, just mounted to the other tube instead of to the body:
upperhinge_280-1.jpg


This is sorta what I'm going to build for mine- GenRight builds this one.
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Work in progress... sorta.

Yeah Randy, That GenRight was kinda the inspiration for how I got started on mine. But working with what I have and wanting a little different approach I wanted to tie it into my rack instead of the the rocker protection. Not sure why other than the lines seemed to flow better. But the issue right now is there isn't enough room between the bumper and the bottom tube of the swing out for dog ears with a bolt through it. And on the top side I am as high as I can go also. I'm not done and I will have a few days this weekend to mess with it but its gonna be a little... different? :)
 
A couple baby steps...

Got most of the swinging portion of the tire carrier welded up and the hinges burned in. I won't say I'm really all that thrilled with how its going but at least its moving forward. For now I will just use the solid rod to act as the hunge pivots but there has got to ba a better way to do this eventually. I did an unloaded trial swing and it reminded me I havent added the rear bumpers tie-ins to the corner armor yet! Yikes... lots of sag and flex. :o The other thing is this contraption is long! when in the open position it must stick out the back about 5 feet! This should be interesting once the tire and wheel is on...
No pics today as I was kinda busy working and didnt realize they were closing. I'll snap some tomorrow. Its time to clean up and find beer-30! :cheers::woot:
 
todays progress...

I guess I made some forward progress today. I got the mount portion about 60% fingered out and welded up. Still need to add some more bracing to it but at least a tire can hang there now. :)
I tried to go with my idea of making the tire mount adjustable but it was prooving to be more of a PITA than it was worth. So I finally just broke down and made it solid. I'm still no where near happy with the swing out pins but its what I have to work with. Here is some pictures and sorry about the quality. Not sure why sometimes the phone works well and sometimes not? *shrugs*
 
Have you thought about getting into engineering? Your ability to design and build with limited resources is excellent.
 
Just... dang!

Well... I kinda overslept a lil this morning thanks to my room mate dragging his stripper girlfriend home and them yelling at each other most of the night. And by the time I got to the shop someone had pulled the welder away from my jeep. Spent all day there and din't run one bead of weld. :(
I did manage to finish cutting out the extra bracing and what not for the tire carrier so now all I have to do is burn it in.
To pass the time I also got the tent turned around and drilled the holes to mount it to the adjustable brackets. Got all of it attached and snugged down for good, at least until I pull it all off to paint. I wanted the tent to come off pretty easy so its not up there all the time. I also thought it would be cool to be able to adjust it fore and aft to shift the load. All the way back it will act as an awning when its deployed, which is nice.
I also had a huge "DUH" moment that somehow escaped me and I feel kinda dumb. In the bay I'm working in,about 5 feet from the jeep, is a metal lathe!!!!!!! :banghead: And while I don't have a clue how to work it I can be taught. So now I can try and find either some brass, bronze, or even mild steel to turn down to make the hinge pins work correctly! DOH! Can't believe it didn't occur to me! Im my euphoria of realizing this I started looking around for some suitable solid stock to turn down...My only options seemed like a winner at first... but no joy. I found some old CV axles from some random car in the scrap pile. My thought was to just turn those down into pins. Well... like I said, I don't know much about this stuff. Seems that axles/shafts are way to hard to turn down on this machine.?. Oops! :shrug: So sometime this week I will go looking for metal. I leave for school again next weekend so it doesn't look like much more will be happening for a while.
Bobby: Wow sir... thanks for the compliment! I must say that what I do is out of need more than ability. I enjoy scrounging in the junkyards and my brain kinda works outside the conventional box. Sometimes it gives me good ideas but more often than not its is a dead end. My one caviot is I won't skimp on saftey stuff or make a vehicle unsafe by cheaping out. Doing things from left overs for less is one thing... shade tree engineering is an entirely different thing! Some ST engineers scare the bejeezus out of me. There is a fellow soldier on the military jeepers site that has the worlds greatest example of how NOT to do things. I feel bad for him.. he truly got taken! He was sold an SOA jeep that is just plain scary! Ever seen a home made drop pitman arm? How about a front axle offset 2"s since the "builder" couldn't figure out how to mount the diff side spring!?! Ack.
So here are a few pics of where the jeep is at as of now... hope to make some more progress but time may be running out...
 
Thankyou sir!

Thanks Randy! Coming from you that is a great compliment.
Its a cool, rainy day and the shops closed today so I don't think anything will happen. I may go by the jeep just to think a little...seems good for the brain cells to stare but not actually have to wrench? :) I also may try and play with that google sketch up program to see about the front half of the rack/basket area. I have a couple ideas already but don't want to go to crazy with it.
 
Head 'em up, Move 'em out...

Well,
Got back from school on friday with the understanding that I would be heading to Afganistan. Showed up to work Monday morning to be told "Nope...your being transferred, today!" Uh...ok? So now it seems that I will be making a move about 15-20kms down the road to a new unit. For me that is a bitter sweet deal. I do this job because I love it and I'm pretty good at it. For me, being in the fight is what I do, not hanging around the barraks cleaning junk or playing in the woods. And most of my first unit is there without me... kinda sucks.
But I suppose on the brighter side I will be able to get back to the Jeep. Once I get it moved to the new shop I can pull the tranny and see what is causing the tank noises... I won't have big bucks to play with but I should get it moving along as soon as I know what it needs and can get the parts. That will be the slowest part.. shipping stuff here takes forever! At least I can get back to working on it though...stay tuned! :thumbsup:
 
tanktanktankBANG!

Sorry my updates have been MIA. Been a lot going on around here lately and my new post has the worst auto skills shop ever. Its only open until 1800 during the week (about the time I get done!) and on Saturday only! ***? Add to that I was pressed into helping some friends fix their 03 GMC Pick-up and my Jeep time has been nil. I did drive down to the shop to carry my tools in the jeep. ;) Funny thing is it made the Tank-tank noise all the way there. When I went to move it after I ran out of time, something went BANG! And now I get no movement? Trying to put it in gear is a no go also. Guess maybe the clutch finally gave up the ghost?
On a brighter note, I did (finally!) get to talk to the guys at Northwest Fabworks and have an order placed for my parts. The correct input for the BlackBox to go behind the NV4500, The bell housing adapter for the tranny...etc. So hopefully after the holidays I can return to wrenching on my own junk. Just in time for the snow! :)
 
The culprit..

Got to wrench on the Expo-8 today, finally...! Having finished my friends truck and going into holiday half days I have finally found a moment to tinker. It had gone from moving and sounding like a tank to suddenly no movement at all. No grind, no nothing? Put it in gear, any gear, and let the clutch out and there is no nothing. So I thought perhaps the clutch had finally given up the ghost or the T/O bearing... or all of that? *shrugs*
Well... after draining fluids, pulling the shafts etc... I managed to get the t-case and tranny out.After a quick peek into the bell I realized there didn't appear to be anything really wrong with the clutch...? So that made me worried since it could only be either the t-case or the tranny...or both!?! A quick run through the gears of the t-case gave me no ill feelings and it all seems ok. The transmission on the other hand...
Toast!
Not only did it not want to turn but it made some nasty noises doing it. That of course made me really curious to see what the issue was. Pulling the top cover off the T-5 isn't as easy as one would think. Either that or I was just tired of feeling like it was going to leave me stranded, again. So after some brief attempts to remove the roll pin to allow the top cover off I broke out the big remover. This was the final straw and no turning back and strangely I didn't feel bad at all! After a few strong raps with the MFH the cover finally broke enough to let me see inside...see pics.
Sure, this could have been repaired and reused but I just don't think it is up to the AMC 360 and all the rest...And since the NV4500 is still waiting patiently in the crate...I am just moving forward. Parts will be ordered and this thing will move along and be improved while I am at it. I just hope the parts come quickly and are the correct ones.
Thas all for now all... more later, promise!
 
better, no doubt.

Yeah, The NV is a big step up in strength from the T-5. Its not completely without its design flaws but for my application it should be fine. Seems the NV is known for loosing 5th gear... mostly in Diesel powered trucks that to heavy loads and use cruise control a lot. I'm hoping that since mine was in a gas powered, low mileage vehicle I will not have this issue. We shall see I suppose? :)
 
More carnage..

I got to pull the flywheel out today and spent a little more time looking at the various greasy and grimy junk. I wasn't convinced that the one bad gear I saw was responsible for the Jeep no longer moving. Found a few more contributing factors I think. :banghead:
The flywheel seems pretty well glazed to me so that will be getting resurfaced when the parts arrive for the swap. The Borg and Beck clutch disc has lots of wear and one of the springs is snapped! I pulled the input bearing retainer off the T-5 before it went into the scrap bin and did a little deeper peeping..yup, Found the real culprit! Check out the pics. :crazy:
I also am kinda getting peeved about the rear springs. The Waggy springs were in ok shape when they went in but it didn't sit quite level. Now that I have the RTT and exo-rack/swing out tire carrier/all the junk in the bed...the rear is dragging its butt BAD! I'm not really sure how I will address this yet. I could tear into the spring packs and add some more leaves but I think that is more just guessing. Is there any way to actually figure needed spring rates and try and find something off the shelf that would work? Maybe some HD Waggy 2" lift springs or something? Any thoughts would be great. I'd like to make it level and be able to carry stuff but I also don't want it to ride like a dump truck. Maintaining some flex would be nice too! :)
 
ouch...

I spent a while talking to the guys at Northwest Fabworks yesterday and finally ordered most of my parts... Rough guess is it will be about a month before everything arrives here. :( But at least the ball is rolling and that huge chunk of money is spent. OUCH, 1700 bucks or so.!. And that isn't even all I will need...sigh. Oh well. What is the old proverb, "you have to pay to play?"
While talking with NWF I layed out all my stuff for the black box so he could see what I had to work with via pictures. We were able to nix a $55 dollar hardware kit since I have most of that. But he noticed in the picture that my cable was broken! :O Since this was a brand new unit I bought from a FSJ guy that had only used it for mock up I can only guess it got broken in my moves. Anyway... we got to talking about shifter stuff and I decided to go full cable. They make a pretty neat reverse twin stick set up for the 300 which will join the single for the range box all in one assembly. The reverse design should allow me to route the cables more carefully to avoid the bulky NV4500 and the exhaust stuff and still place the shifters somewhere comfortable.
Thats about all I have for now guys...my pre new years party with a Romanian bartender has my head ringing like a bell... so I'm going to nap before trying to repeat the shananagins tonight. :)
Cheers and Happy New Years to all!
 
Happy New Year!

As far as springs go, call Alcan Spring http://www.alcanspring.com/ and talk to them. They will be able to make a spring that will ride smooth and fit your needs perfectly.

Otherwise...were you using front Waggy springs for your rear? If so, there is a stock HD spring pack, I think 7 leaves. OR a set of Ranch 44044 front springs lift a Waggy 3"...
 
Spring...

Thanks Randy,
I don't think I could successfully order springs from Alcan or whoever without knowing the actual weights. Thats hard to do since most of the free space is full of my tools and whatnot since I don't have a place here to put them. Thankfully the NV is out of the back but the sag has set in pretty good. I have a few sets of replacement center pins here so I may just try and play with some junk springs. Just add some into the pack and see if it helps. I really don't want to go any higer as the thing would already clear 37s no problem. I just want to sit level and not drag its butt when stuff is in the back. I thought of maybe air bags but don't see how they would be used and not limit travel? If I can't make the shakeNbake spring set work I will start looking at replacements off the shelf, so to speak. Its amazing how complicated it is if you think about it but this may just be fixed with good old fashioned trial and error? :)
 
FWIW Alcan has a pretty detailed questionaire to fill out rather than actual weights, things like what winch where, how many tools (that's a weight question), what gear (another weight) where do you carry it, spare size and where carried, uses, etc. Plus before they do anything they will cal or have you call them to talk about your jeep specifically so it's pretty well tailored without having to spend time at the scales loading and unloading...One thing to know though is that your 'lift' will be significantly greater than what you ask for initially, they expect it to be what you ask for after it is sagged not before
 
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