This place needs a buildup thread, dial up warning

[toynrnd]

kwrangln said:

Well, the origional post didnt get many replies, so I didnt think yall were interested. Dont want to bore ya with my lil project ya know. I'll do better from now on.

We are all sitting around crying because we don't have the time, money, tools, space, (insert excuse here) to keep up.

[EricT]

i like your cage, but I have a suggestion

you might want to add a diagonal so that it stays the shape you want it in case the unfortunate happens.

just my .02

[kwrangln]

Havn't looked at this in a while, Eric, I'll be adding an "X" in the halo up top, door bars, and some gussets before it hits the trail. Nope, still havn't wheeled this thing, been on the road too much to work on it. Did get started on another project for it tho, post to follow.

[kwrangln]

I posted a while back about modifying beadlocks for my black YJ, www.the-jersey-devil.com/bbs/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=zach&Number=7689&Forum=All_Forums&Words=beadlocks&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=7689&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=101&daterange=1&newerval=1&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post7689 Well, its time for chapter two of my beadlock story.

This time I'm using my existing rims and adding beadlocks to them. I got 4 beadlock kits for my B-day from the Fiance (Thanks Susan) from MRW. Priced at $90 each for my steel 17" wheels. Well its almost the end of April and I finally got a chance to get started on one of them. I'll post up the pics and descriptions, and we can get into more beadlock info later as I get time.

To start with, the inner lock ring is going to be welded on to the rim so the paint/powdercoat has to go. This stuff was pretty tough to remove with a wire wheel, could have used a grinder but didnt want to get into the metal.


Once thats done, its time to set the inner beadlock ring in place.



Here's a trick for ya. I use foam earplugs to fill all the threaded inserts in the inner lockring to keep welding slag from messing up the threads. This also works great when your painting stuff.


Centering the inner ring is easy and important, get this wrong and your tire will end up off center leading to a rather bumpy ride. I used a combo square and went around the rim about 5 times till I was convinced it was as centered as I could get it.


All clamped in place, about time to take the plunge, after this there isnt any going back.


Space out the welds as you go to limit any warping. Then fill in between a little bit at a time.


Careful with the welding, any pinholes and you'll loose air after your done. Here ya can also see how much down inside the rim lip the inner lock ring sits. This keeps the locks from adding too much width to your rims as the lip will be ground off after everything is welded.

[kwrangln]

Finally, fully welded.


And the lip ground down to leave a nice flat surface for the bead of the tire to seal against.


All in all, I added about 3/4" to the width of my wheels. Started as a 9" wide rim (measured between the bead mounting surfaces).


VERY IMPORTANT NOTE! Check where your valve stem will mount in relation to the bolts for the locks. I got lucky on this one as I forgot to check.


Here ya can see how it all goes together if you ever wondered just how beadlocks work. The inside of the tire will sit on the inner lock welded to the wheel. The outer orange ring clamps the tire to the wheel. Good stuff.


Tires are much easier to mount with beadlocks since you only have to work one bead over the rim instead of both. Here it is fully mounted, just waiting on the lock ring to be bolted on.


All bolted down. I didnt torque them, or even get carried away with tightening them since everything has to be broken down for paint. Just got em fairly tight so I could let is sit overnight (or a month the way my schedule is going) to make sure it holds air.


All aired up and good to go.


I'm thinkin the next set of tires to go on these rims will be a bit bigger.


Fuzzy pic but you can see how close the valve stem is to the lockring, thats why they have to be between the bolts. Metal stems are not an option, they need to flex to pull the cores and get an air chuck on there.

[kwrangln]

Finally got around to adding some more to the cage. Wow, time flies, 7 months later and it still isnt done. Susan is painting tomorrow I think, and when I get a chance to work on it again I'll make the seatmounts and harness mounts. Everything is going to be tied into the cage when I'm done. Its not if your going to roll, its when.

On with the pics.

As always, the pushbutton rollbar instalation/removal tool was put to good use.




The back of the cage is on the ground. The diagonals at the back should add alot of stability side to side, triangles are our friend. And the diagonals in the top should stop any deformation if one of the corners hit first. I spend about an hour climbing around on it while installed in the jeep, laying out where the tube would go with masking tape so I could check clearance. In a perfect world there would have just been a big X in the top, but if I did that I would be rubbin my grape on the bar just driving. While I may be hard headed, it aint as hard as steel so I wanted to avoid that. As it sits I have at least 6" between my head and any tube in normal driving position, going to lower the seats 1" to increase space a bit more before putting an aluminum top on the cage.





Eventually the A pillar legs will be tied to the B pillar legs by a bar under the door, then seat mounts going from side to side. I left the B pillar open from side to side to allow some access to the back seat, but will fill it in a bit with the harness mounts, but nothing too crazy.

I'm kinda diggin tube work, bitten by the bug. Stinger, tire carrier, rockers, more tube, more tube.

[kwrangln]

Just some pics this time, finnished up a couple projects and got them installed. Well, almost finnished, still going to add more to the cage, but just seat and harness mounts so it wont look much different. Finnished all the beadlocks and they appear to be holding air so far. Susan painted everything with Duplicolor rattlecan beadliner, the stuff is awesome. Sunday was a marathon effort in the shop, had to reweld a pinhole in the first beadlock I had done, and then did the other 3 wheels including painting and assembly. Assembly aint just throwing bolts in there, each one is torqued in 3 steps to 20 lbs, so I essentially torqued 240 bolts. Once tires get bigger than 33's, they aint light, the locked steel rims make it worse, guessing about 130 lbs per wheel tire assembly. Yea I'm stiff and sore today.

On with the pics.

Beadlocks.


Yea, I need to clean up the end of the axle shaft for that added "bling".



Cage top.




Closest I can get to wheelin till I get more done.


Overall, I'm diggin the looks so far.

[kwrangln]

More fun in the shop. Its kinda like my therapy, forget about the work grind during the week, close myself in the shop, crank the tunes and create. The project? Tire carrier. I started building a back bumper quite a while ago, and then planned on scrapping it since the pintle hitch would stick out so far taking away from departure angle and I decided to go for a stinger type carrier for the spare. Since I already had some work into the bumper I decided to go ahead and finnish it, run it for a while, then just sell it and start over with the design I have in my head. THIS IS NOT A SALE ADD! It'll be a while before I have the time to redo this, so it will be staying. Just one more thing I can check off the list for the time being.

On to the pics.

Overall with it closed.


From the side. I tried to keep everything as close to the body as possible, I dont like stuff hanging too far back where it will get hung up on stuff.


Open. It doesnt sag much, even with the weight of the 37 on there.


Tire mount bracing.


Quick and easy latch mechanism. 5/8 bolt with a T handle welded to it. The ramp actually prestresses the carrier up a lil bit to keep everything tight and rattle free.


Just a weld shot for grins, this one is on the side of the reciever tube to the main bumper tube. So it has some technical merrit, you can see how deep I recessed the reciever tube into the bumper for departure angle. On a normal reciever, the hitch pin hole is a couple inches away from the face of the bumper making the whole thing stick out that much further.


I decided to try adding some scale to the next few pics. The stick is a 48" ruler I leaned up there as strait as possible to give some idea of how big this thing actually is.




And to finnish this post up, got some new bling to install. 5 point racing harnesses. Got a great deal from a vendor over on the Pirate board, $50 each delivered. These are new SFI approved harnesses, not blems or expired stuff.

One of the latch mechanism.


Now I just have to get the better half into the shop to do some more painting.

[kwrangln]

So this whole thing is taking a lot longer than I expected, got alot done, but still lots to do. With all the work travel, and wedding stuff its hard to find the time. Wedding is just over 2 weeks away, after the honeymoon I need to get crackin on building stuff. Plans are to have it ready for its shakedown run in late october for a local clean up run.

Let me know what ya think so far.

[Deleted]

Nice work! Oh yea, an early congratulations!

[BESRK]

That is nice work! Like the cage!

[Jim63]

sweet cage!!

[kwrangln]

Thanks guys, just wish I had more time to work on this thing, I want to abuse it.

Still have to add seat mounts and harness mounts to the cage before I call it a done project, then I can tackle other stuff. Thinkin I might put an aluminum top on the cage sort of like a bikini top since I dont plan on running the windshield on the trail much, will have to see.

[BESRK]

I was gonna do the same... Remove the windshield frame while I can still get some $$ out of it (eBay) and then make some sort of skin for the top to keep the sun off my bald head ;D Definately want to see your rig on the trail.

[kwrangln]

So I basically lost most of a heep work day due to a gas tank issue. Bolted the back bumper on so I could get the last 2 bumper to frame mounts tacked in place and as I'm tightening the last couple bolts started wondering why I could smell gas. Sure enough, looked a little closer and the skidplate was soaked, with gas starting to drip on the floor. Top of tank was dry so it wasnt a fitting leaking, had to drop the tank to investigate. Found a 1/2" long crack on the bottom corner. Tried the ole wheelers trick and rubbed the crack in the tank with a bar of soap and wouldnt ya know it, it worked like a champ, was dry as a bone in a matter of seconds. Used some 2 part epoxy as a temp patch untill I get around to buying a new tank or just going to a fuel cell.

What to do in the meantime? Well, I needed some way to attach a tow strap to my new back bumper, so why not work on that. Simple project, reciever shackle bracket. I used 2" solid square stock, cut to length, then used a portaband saw to cut the width down for the shackle, finnished everything off nicely with a belt sander.






Once all that was done, new bumper installed, everything good enough for a days work, it was time to play. No rocks in site, whats a guy to do? Hey, that light pole looks like a decent climb.