Replacement crawler

[mxracer919]

Started down this road a few years ago. Started setting parts back for a LS powered scrambler. Had dana 44’s, spring over with 35’s. Wanted to build a jeep that I could drive anywhere and wheel. After driving it, which it did great, I decided if I were going to make any concessions (rattles mainly are what drive me crazy which is standard on any cj....haha) I decided it was going to be on tons and 40’s.

I have bought a few things here and there that I have been setting back. Have been sitting on a 6.0/4l80 for a few years that will find its home in the new one. Bought a TDK frame and tub in ft worth, had a set of Rubicon express extreme duty spring over leafs (didn’t work out on the crusty jeep, made it sit to high). Had a set of 40” MTR’s on trail ready beadlocks, and a set of one tons being a Chevy 60 and 14 bolt. After selling the d44 LS powered 8 (crusty looking leftovers jeep......twice actually). At some point I bought a 3.8 atlas driver drop atlas after deciding to go super duty front, wanted to try my hand a driver drop with the ability to spot the possible diff catcher on approach. Somewhere in there I ended up with a set of air shocks, then at some point ended up with coilovers.

Decided I was going to build a wheeler and do it right vs throwing it together with what I had. So with that mindset finally somewhat had made up my mind so I sold off extra parts and finalized the plans. Ordered a set of ORI’s, picked up a set of racelines with a dot tire I’m hanging onto for when I pick the kids up from school lol. Going to throw the dot tires on another wheel and pick up a set of soft compounds for the racelines. Also picked up some rock sliders of Starkebaum and a set of poison spyder rear aluminum corner guards. Had some Tj aluminum highline fenders I was going to adapt as well.

Being the tub I was going to use was rusty I planned on doing a buggy style aluminum floor. While daydreaming about how to tie the new floors into the existing setup I started thinking about cutting up the new tdk frame.....seemed like a shame to cut the rear off a $2200 frame (I didn’t pay that, but someone did!) to gain the uptravel I wanted. Had a buddy try to start selling me on the idea of a tube chassis. Sounded nice but I didn’t want to spend a year building my frame.

Then I ran across the goat built website. They offered a few different chassis options. After looking at it it seemed like the route to go. With the cost of metal currently and the time to had to do something then re do I felt like it was the ticket. Ordered the chassis in June, just showed up two weeks ago. Went with their 115” wheel base “LJ” Chassis. I would have wanted to bob the scrambler anyways. Opted for the kit that came with all the floors, sub frame, skid plates, rear trailing arms, corner guards etc. essentially need to add a grill, hood, cowl, windshield frame and door surrounds. It was designed for a Tj body, but I’m going to skin it all with cj metal.

Currently have been cleaning up around the shop and getting everything squared away. Hoping to have some progress on the chassis this week. A lot of welding in my future!

Started cleaning up the super duty axle yesterday while on shift. Only used a porta-band. Still have lots of clean up to do with the grinder.

After selling my crawler I went on a shopping spree and spent a few dollars. Front truss, diff covers front and rear, front upper link mounts, front and rear gears and setup kits, front arb, Holley terminator x max, improved racing baffle for the f body oil pan, and an art cart shifter for the 4l80 have all showed up. Still waiting on the rear arb, us quick shift 4 transmission controller to show up. Have a new set of corbeau front suspension seats on the shelf and was able to latch onto the rear corbeau out of my crawler.

Lots of work to do, chomping at the bit currently for some extra time to get started!

 

[Randyzzz]

Wow! This should be good…

 

[mxracer919]

Finally had some time to get shop picked up a little to make some room. Was able to get the frame fixture mocked up on the 2x4 fixture base and start laying out some tubes.

 

[mxracer919]

Finally got some help! Have all the lower frame tacked together. Getting ready to add the upper fixture portion and adding some upper bars. Just a couple more pieces.....lol.

 

[mxracer919]

A little more progress. Finished up the rear inner fenders then had to flip chassis around in the fixture to finish out the front frame and start on the cage. Easier done on the floor from here out.

Got close enough I could lay in some of the rear aluminum floor to check how all my fit came out. Have been stressing about and 1/8” this way or that and “x” degrees away from level or square........I found I was much happier after throwing the tape measure into the yard (kidding obviously). All the nut serts lined up on the money with the pre drilled holes.

Thinking back to when I backhalfed my Cj7 I found out early on that a tape or level did zero good as there wasnt anything on the jeep that would line up. Just got to where I eyeballed it all and made it match, haha!

 

[CHIEFWAHO]

Sweet! I need to come by and check that out sometime.

 

[mxracer919]

Sweet! I need to come by and check that out sometime.

Come on by anytime, hoping to have the chassis complete soon and move onto making it a roller.

 

[mxracer919]

A little more progress. Was able to get the rest of the cage braced up and the front seat bracket secured. Had to test fit the front floor panels to make sure the seat base was correct.

At this point I need to harvest the cj tub I’ll be using. I’m not sure how much I’ll have to massage the front of the chassis to make it look right (outer fender bars and grill hoop) since it was designed to use Tj sheetmetal. I found out last week that Ian Johnson on the four wheeler channel on motor trend built one (the black and yellow keep). He slapped a cj grill on it with a Chris Durham Tj to cj hood. The lines don’t look quite right since grill hoop is wider to match the tj grill.

Edit:
After uploading pictures of Ians jeep I think I’ll be able to tolerate the the outer fender bars. Would look better IMO narrowing up the bottom of the grill hoop to match up closer with the cj grill.

 

[sdsupilot]

You are making great progress! I was hoping Ian drove that on Ultimate Adventure this year. I did talk with him about it. For sure a dream style build.

 

[mxracer919]

Had to grab the gooseneck trailer at my dads to go pick up a load of lumber for a patio I’m building and I walked by the extra Cj10 grill I was able to keep off the last 10a I sold, guy wanted a normal cj grill.

Anyways decided to grab it since it was right there to eyeball the cj grill and hoop contour. Not terrible, I’ll have to get the hood and cowl mocked up before I decide what to do. Planning on running a normal cj grill. Just the 10 grill was too easy to grab, it’s a wall hanger.

 

[mxracer919]

That’s unfortunate.......

Had ahold of it with one hand (apparently not that good) and when I pressed the switch it whiskey throttled out of my hand .

 

[CHIEFWAHO]

That’s unfortunate.......

Had ahold of it with one hand (apparently not that good) and when I pressed the switch it whiskey throttled out of my hand .

Better that cord than your flesh!

 

[93_Fummins]

That’s unfortunate.......

Had ahold of it with one hand (apparently not that good) and when I pressed the switch it whiskey throttled out of my hand .

Silly Okie, that's not how cordless grinders work....

 

[don87401]

Look at the bright side it shut it's self off.

 

[mxracer919]

Almost finished with welding up the subframe. Mig welded all of it with exception of the cross tubes that have to be ground flush after welding, broke out the tig to save some cleanup.

 

[mxracer919]

A little progress. Finished up welding the truss to the superduty front. Now I’m working on getting the subframe connected. Has been the most tedious part so far trying to hit the measurements. Have had to walk away from it a few times, haha!

Parts keep showing up as well which is always exciting! Went with the bigger ARB compressor so I could do tires as well. Bought the 26 circuit painless harness with the waterproof fuse block, should make it nice and clean. Also my steering stuff showed up, PSC big bore gearbox and psc p pump for the 6.0 to run it all with hydroboost. Drug out the seats I’ve had set back for it, talked my wife into a set of seat heaters for the front seats for my birthday, going to be more comfortable than my daily!

 

[mxracer919]

Also big news around here, I finally finished out the Langmuir shelf I’ve had for the past 2 years and made it an almost functioning plasma table. Haven’t cut anything yet as I’m still fine tuning the parts for the rear axle truss but hoping to in the next week or so.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R2ulqp4Pr55IPRmrl8CUHFsXwXfXVqtY/view?usp=drivesdk

 

[mxracer919]

Have stalled out a little. Still working on welding here and there and prepping the 6.0/4l80. Got the f body pan on and the improved racing baffle. But have been focusing my efforts for the past two weeks on a ramp truck build. Putting a 68 c50 onto a 1998 one ton chassis. Has a VE pump 12v with nv4500.

 

[mxracer919]

More parts showed up, the most exciting being the 14” ORI’s for all four corners. Ordered these in July, knowing it was a 6 month lead time. Currently the lead time is over a year!

 

[mxracer919]

Have completely stalled out on this. Pulled off for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks that ended up being 2 month of working on the ramp truck. All the hours spent on it kinda burned me out on working in the shop, the crawler was supposed to be a fun project so don’t want to work on it if it’s stressing me out. Also the wife and kids are out of school for the summer (wife’s a teacher) so haven’t been doing much shop stuff.

Towards the end of the truck project the wife mentioned she was ready for c10 nationals (the show I was planning on driving the ramp truck to) to be over, didn’t quite make the deadline…..truck still had to many gremlins to take it on a 5 plus hour trip south to Ft Worth.

If all goes as planned I should be back on the crawler this fall, it’s not much fun welding when it’s 100* outside anyways, lol.