I finally got the rest of the roll cage tack welded together. I have to say, Poison Spyder did a great job designing and manufacturing this cage. Not once did I have to pick up the grinder in order to make the notches fit properly.

Totally Cool......Hurry Up Slacker

Rickster

Jeeper Dave Motorsports........ Has a nice ring to it!!!!

Dang it boy you been busy while I wasn't looking. I got a lot of reading to catch up on but from what I see it's going awesome. With the CJ front end and the CJ gate it gonna look great.

Been laying low, extremely busy accomplishing a whole lot of nothing. We all have been there.

After finishing up all of the welding, I sanded the cage down with 80 grit sandpaper to remove the anti-corrosion coating, and to give the epoxy primer a toothy surface to grab onto.

Cage is epoxy primed, high build primed, and back in the Jeep. The Poison Spyder YJ full cage kit doesn't have mounts to secure the top of the windshield like the factory roll bar does. I didn't like the idea of the windshield being unsupported, so I fabbed up some mounts.







My transfer case is back together, finally! All of the internals have been sitting in a plastic bucket for over a year, and it's nice to finally have it ready to install in the Jeep. Since my Jeep was originally a 4 cylinder, the stock t-case configuration wasn't up to the task of living behind my stroker V8, so I beefed it up with a wide chain kit, 6 pinion planetary, and JB Conversions Super Short SYE. Another change I had to make, was to change the input shaft to a 23 spline to match the output shaft on my 727. Somewhere along the line, I lost the vent tube, so I drilled out the vent hole, and installed a barb fitting.

NICE JOB DAVE I LOVE IT WHAT KIND OF HP U THINK THAT STROKED 318 MAKES

The new dash panel is mocked in place. It's made of 1/8" thick 5052 aluminum. Still need to decide on gauge and switch layout, and the style of gauges. A glove/storage box on the passenger side is a given. After the seats are temporarily in place, I'll begin designing the center console.



The seat brackets came in today. Corbeau Baja RS suspension seats in gray vinyl should be here next week.

Its been a month, whats the newest with the jeep?

Finally figured out where to locate the shock hoop support.



I decided to sell my current Dana 44 rear axle, and all of the parts I had collected for it, and step up to a 14 bolt FF rear axle. I went to a local pick a part salvage yard. I didn't bring tools with me, as I was more on a browsing/scouting mission to see what was out there. After about 10 minutes of looking around, I came upon a 2000 year cab & chassis with its 14 bolt laying on the ground underneath it. After checking it over to verify it was indeed a 14 bolt C&C, I noticed that the only things left to do to free it from the chassis was to cut the e-cables and the rubber brake lines. So, I drove out to the nearest Home Depot, and bought a bolt cutter (I didn't own one anyway), and went back there and made short work of those items. The axle assembly was missing the driver's side hub parts and axle shaft, but the guy I dealt with was really cool, and he said that I could come back anytime and pull a shaft out of another 14 bolt, and he won't charge me anything. Since I am going with Solid's 6 on 5.5" conversion hubs, I really didn't need the missing hub, but I used it as a bargaining chip to get the price reduced by $49.00. So, the final price I paid was $150, which I thought was
reasonable.


I cut off the shock brackets and the spring perches, and smoothed up the tubes.


I needed a more stable rolling platform to set this heavy SOB on, so I built a dolly out of some leftover steel I had lying around. Bought the caster wheels from Northern Tool.



The Corbeau Baja RS seats came in.

Man, that 14 Bolt monster almost makes a Dana 60 look a little weak??

as you drove out of the parking lot the guy who did all that work was pulling back in with the tools he went and got to finish the job.

he stashed the drum/axle 2 rows over hoping none would bother with it laying on the ground opend up while he was gone.

imagine his surprize when he walks back and finds it MIA already.

nice score on the 14 bolt. that should roll the jeep around just fine.

some of my best finds have already been pulled in the u-pull when I find them. I have rolled the dice and won everytime so far with a good working score.

what yard was it? Tampa? clearwater?

I like junkyarding, never know what you will find in there.

OK, this is what I got accomplished this weekend. I converted the 14 bolt's huge drum brakes to 1/2 ton disc brakes, AND, converted it to 6 on 5.5" lug pattern, so it matches my current wheels.
To ensure that the weld-on caliper brackets were located correctly, I rigged up some brake lines and fittings, and hooked up my air compressor line to it. Worked great. The 120 psi air pressure locked the calipers to the rotors, thereby aligning the brackets in the position they need to be in. I hit them with some tack welds, but I couldn't burn them in, because my shielding gas cylinder was literally on fumes. I'll get it refilled tomorrow, and weld them in tomorrow night.



Later this week when the Barnes 4WD 14 bolt cover arrives, I'll do the shave on the bottom of the centersection.

As soon as the Barnes cover arrived yesterday, I got to work on the shave. The second design 14 bolt has a bunch of stiffening ribs on the bottom of the center section. These ribs are about 1" tall, so I cut and ground them down to about a 1/4" in height, in an effort to make them less "catchy" on rocks and such.
I haven't decided how I'm going to fill in whats left of the 14th bolt hole. If you have a suggestion, I'd like to hear it.