I finally got around to removing the windshield. I had a feeling there would be some heavy rust in the channel, and I was right. I had the frame sandblasted, and yep, she's got more holes than I had hoped. But, it's still fixable. The black stuff you see is residue from when I sprayed it down with Ospho. Most of the small pin holes will be filled with All Metal. The largest holes will be patched with new bits of sheet metal. The good news is, there is no rust on the inside of the frame, at least as far as I can see in there with a flashlight. But, just in case there is any rust, and to prevent future rust, I am going to completely coat the inside of the frame with Eastwood Internal Frame Coating.



Close-ups of the worst areas.

I ordered a custom control cable to connect the NP231 to my modified TJ t-case shifter. I need to fab up two brackets for it.

Now with 2 coats of epoxy primer and 2 coats of high build primer.

The one ton steering kit and a new pitman arm from WFO Concepts came in today.

This afternoon, I made one of the two brackets needed to hold the transfer case shifter cable. I'll tackle the second one tomorrow.

This morning, I got going on fabbing up the cable bracket that mounts down by the transfer case. Even though I had to design the thing on my back, I think it turned out pretty good. Got everything tightened up, and tried it out. Hey, I can shift transfer case! I haven't been able to do that in over two years! Cool!! One small problem, though. The shift pattern appears to be reversed. I'm thinking I need to flip the t-case lever arm over to the bottom, but that means I'd have to redesign my nice new bracket. Or, I could just leave it the way it is. I REALLY hate having to de-do stuff! Hmmmm.....

I decided to correct the shift pattern problem. That meant doing a cut, weld and grind on the shift plate, because for it to work on the bottom, the rectangular hole needs to be clocked differently.
Here is the modified plate. I traced it out before I did the modification. I fitted it to the t-case and worked it by hand, and it works great.
I'll modify that beautiful new lower cable bracket tomorrow morning.

The TJs have a belcrank in the system somewhere to makes the pattern what it is. On a side note, the original bracket sure looked good!

Fabbed up the new lower cable bracket today. With it and the modified lever in place, they work great! The shift pattern is correct now.

My newly installed transfer case cable runs right through the area where the transmission cable linkage would be mounted. That worried me, so I installed the trans linkage, to see if there would be any problem. The t-case cable rests on a lever arm, but I ran the trans through all of its gears by hand, and the cable did not interfere with anything. I can easily raise the cable off the lever arm by securing it with a cushion clamp up near the bellhousing. Whew!!

Tonight, I got the trans cable shifter hooked up to the trans. It's cable-shift mania in my garage!!! :rofl:

Some random pics of the install. The Winters Sidewinder shifter cable cleared everything beautifully. When I first opened the box and looked at the bag of linkage parts that it came with, I was thinking, what the hell kind of Rube Goldberg setup is this?? But actually, its quite a clever design.





The long gold-ish brackets were originally aimed straight back. I removed the bolts and clocked the brackets downward, to help point the cable in the direction it needed to go. Otherwise, the cable may have come up too short. The electrical tape around the cable hole in the floor is temporary. I will eventually put a rubber grommet there.

Got the new pitman arm, HD tie rod and drag link installed temporarily. I also installed the M.O.R.E. steering box relocation bracket. The stock lower steering shaft will be replaced by a beefy Borgenson unit.

The good news is, my list of things to do before I blow it all apart for paint is getting very short. I'm on track to begin the body work and paint sometime next month. My plan is to paint the smaller individual parts of the body, and then paint the tub last.



The spare tire came in today. Not a big deal, I know.

Nice work Dave.... You are really cranking it out in this nice, cool weather!

My swing-out finally has a spare tire on it. I took some measurements, and found that I have enough room to stuff a pair of Rotopax 2 gallon containers between the tailgate and the spare tire. I can attach the Rotopax mounts to the A-frame of the swing-out.
I plan to mount the license plate in the middle of the spare. I need to build a mount for it, with a provision for a light.

The Borgeson steering shaft assembly and the Trailtubes DIY rear fender flare tubes came in this week. When this pic was taken, I had already shortened the ends of the flare tubes by 4". The flares will be 5.5" wide.

This morning, I got started on the rear fender flares. I want to make the panels out of thick steel, but at the same time, I have to be able to bend it by hand, so that will limit me to 16 ga. steel sheet metal. I've decided I'm going to spray them with black Monstaliner, same as the bumpers and rock sliders.




These are the weld-on tabs I'm going to use, to enable bolting the flares to the tub.

I bought the 16 gauge steel sheet metal today. As soon as I got home, I cut and shaped one piece, and tacked it into position. I'll do the other side tomorrow.

I received my PSC BFH Brawler front bumper this morning. Wow, that was fast, I placed the order Thrusday night! Thanks for the speedy delivery, Morris 4X4 Center!! It was all beer and boobies, until I cut open the box and pulled out this rusty thing!!! Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!? It looked like they stored it outside for 6 months!!!



I was all set to call up customer service and let them have it with both barrels, but I had some Ospho, so I sprayed the bumper down with the stuff, in hopes removing at least some of the rust. I was wrong. It didn't remove some of the rust...it removed ALL of the rust!! I was happy again!

what size Winch are you going to install to help you get over those curbs in the mall parking lots ??