04 LJK Repair, Redo, Recycle - The 3 R's of a First Build

B00mb00m said:
Last thing I have been needed to address from my spring wheeling damages is some way to protect my ram assist. I almost destroyed it at Reiter. I was envisioning all kinds of complicated skids and then talked to @mrblaine and I believe I've captured his idea here. IMO this is everything I need and nothing I don't. 5" x 3/8" steel bottom piece, 2" x 1/4" steel v brace. @mrblaine is this about what you were thinking? I have the v brace welding into the savvy truss.

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The upper brace needs to move out very close to the front edge of the bottom piece if you are going to stick with 1/4". We discussed 3/8" and then you could get away with the midspan brace. But yes, that is the idea. You can also lower the angle of the bottom one to get some more room under the cylinder.
 
toximus said:
Is your cylinder placed low? All around mine as been hit except for the cylinder.

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It just is where it is due to there's a WHOLE lot of shit that gets mounted in that corner, since I don't mount the ram to the knuckle. what set my ram height was I put my upper mount plate as high as the bottom of the shock bolt.

The cylinder is above the tie rod but due my steer smarts tie rod large offset on the ends, the tie rod is a ways out there. So rocks are able to sneak between the tie rod and the axle tube.

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mrblaine said:
The upper brace needs to move out very close to the front edge of the bottom piece if you are going to stick with 1/4". We discussed 3/8" and then you could get away with the midspan brace. But yes, that is the idea. You can also lower the angle of the bottom one to get some more room under the cylinder.
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Thanks, noted. I just went to the steel shop and scored 4 feet of 3/8 x 6" from the remnant pile. So I can do all around 3/8. I'll have to call and talk about the inverted welding technique. I drop molten steel on myself Everytime I try inverted.
 
B00mb00m said:
Thanks, noted. I just went to the steel shop and scored 4 feet of 3/8 x 6" from the remnant pile. So I can do all around 3/8. I'll have to call and talk about the inverted welding technique. I drop molten steel on myself Everytime I try inverted.
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Push, lower the voltage, increase the feed rate, don't lay under it. Barring that, you can do it like you do everything else, pull the front axle and flip it over after you have everything tacked up.
 
I picked up the tie rod mount side of ram by rotating the clamp so the rod end sits higher. Not sure why I didn't do that before. The heims still have clearance at full stroke.

Boy is 3/8" steel a pain in the ass to cut. Mother of fuck. I did a total of about 40" of linear cutting with an angle grinder and Sawzall. I've been working with aluminum too much these days and got spoiled. This is exactly when a plasma would come in handy.

Also realized I've never welded 3/8". Wow the settings are high. Machine called for 6/70 so per Blaine's recommendation I dropped power down to 5 and speed up To 75. I did 3 tacks and didnt have any dripping so this should work out I think.

Now I have to take a pause to fire up the grill, got tri tip to cook tonight! It feels good to be making something again. Although I'll admit I have been pushing this off kind of dreading it for some reason. Probably because I didn't have a good plan.

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Whelp I broke that damn plate off twice with tack welds. Can I say for the record I am not a good welder on my best day but I FUCking suck at welding upside down.
 
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mrblaine said:
Remember all of that time we were supposed to spend tuning up your skills?
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I do now that you mention it. Gawd dammit. I'm at the point now where I'm just doing layer after later to build it up so I can grind it smoothish
 
B00mb00m said:
I do now that you mention it. Gawd dammit. I'm at the point now where I'm just doing layer after later to build it up so I can grind it smoothish
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Are you getting penetration with the first pass? That sounds like a good contender for snapping off...
 
toximus said:
Are you getting penetration with the first pass? That sounds like a good contender for snapping off...
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No terrible penetration. I've tried high power, low power, fast wire, low wire and it just doesn't want to penetrate. That's why I welded the top side of the bottom plate to tube also. So with both sides welded it should be bomber. The gusset should really do all the work in the end anyhow. That top welding was much easier, on high heat, in comparison. I doubt it will be snapping off. All skid loading will be in compression. I won't worry about it.

I'm mostly worried about dumping too much heat into my axle tube so I've been taking breaks with the fan blowing to cool it down. I turn the fan off before welding.
 
Done for the night. Will try to weld a little more and grind smooth and paint tomorrow.

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Pretty crazy if you Google "Jk hydro assist ram skid" there are very few examples of ram skids. Most of the serious rigs out here though have them. Not sure if it's the slippery rocks out here are unique in their ability to hone in on Rams or what.
 
3 months later and just got a ship notice for my Savvy tub sliders! Woohoo. Stoked to have this for one particular obstacle at my home spot.
 
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I really wanted to try to smack my new steering skid but I exhausted ALL my wheeling options and came up with no one who could go. So I headed out for a family day to go shooting in the natty forest and what a wonderful day it was. No jeep whistle so that is great news!! Did a long hill in 4hi on a logging road and was slightly over 160deg f on the tranny temp so I would call that a win.

I also picked up a full set of factory service manuals for the jeep. These things are rad and I look forward to using them often given that this vehicle appears to be the world's least reliable auto of all time!! Haha.

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Still lacking wheeling partners recently so I tore into another project. Ordered these tub sliders back in June and finally got them a couple weeks ago. First thing to notice upon unpacking is how light these are and especially since they are stainless steel.

I started on the passenger side since due to my exogate this will be the harder side. I was roughly copying Blaine's work on the Midnight LJ. I have the Metal cloak armor so that complicates thing a bit. It requires me to use the extra exogate backing plate due to hinge cutouts. I also had to drill a bunch of extra holes and I also added a 3/8 aluminum backer plate to the tub behind the rub rails.

I'll paint these tomorrow and get the tailgate mounted and start on passenger. I hope to have it all buttoned up by end of day tomorrow so I can put the side windows back on (my kids are freezing!)

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Good progress today but never as fast as I hope. Savvy did not ship enough nuts to finish the job so I did two trips to ace hardware and STILL didn't get all the right hardware. It was one of those situations where the fine thread nuts were mixed in with course threads and I didn't check every one.

So didn't quite finish just need to finish bolting down the rail reinstall the fender and reinstall the tailgate.

When I was at Ace hardware I decided to change colors for the tub rail and the fenders. I was using hammered bronze but it looked like it was trying to match the khaki and doing a bad job of it. So I switched to metallic oil bronze from rust-oleum which is kind of a sparkly charcoal. I like it a lot. I burned a LOT of time today stripping the fenders for paint but its worth it to have a found a good accent color. I like it better than satin black. The metal flake goes well with the oem metallic khaki Imo.

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One note when adding these tub sliders to non savvy corner armor it can be a bit of a pain the asshole. I had to do some funky hole drilling to make it work like filling holes with RTV and slotting other.
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Also kind of got lucky on the slider width. It JUST clears the metal cloak fender.
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B00mb00m said:
Good progress today but never as fast as I hope. Savvy did not ship enough nuts to finish the job so I did two trips to ace hardware and STILL didn't get all the right hardware. It was one of those situations where the fine thread nuts were mixed in with course threads and I didn't check every one.

So didn't quite finish just need to finish bolting down the rail reinstall the fender and reinstall the tailgate.

When I was at Ace hardware I decided to change colors for the tub rail and the fenders. I was using hammered bronze but it looked like it was trying to match the khaki and doing a bad job of it. So I switched to metallic oil bronze from rust-oleum which is kind of a sparkly charcoal. I like it a lot. I burned a LOT of time today stripping the fenders for paint but its worth it to have a found a good accent color. I like it better than satin black. The metal flake goes well with the oem metallic khaki Imo.

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One note when adding these tub sliders to non savvy corner armor it can be a bit of a pain the asshole. I had to do some funky hole drilling to make it work like filling holes with RTV and slotting other.View attachment 192811
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Also kind of got lucky on the slider width. It JUST clears the metal cloak fender.
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With regard to the hardware, my installation trick for you is likely what caused you to need twice as many as were supplied. ;)
 
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mrblaine said:
With regard to the hardware, my installation trick for you is likely what caused you to need twice as many as were supplied. ;)
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Hah! I thought that was just the way. Weirdly I wasn't short by half I short by like 5 nuts. Wow it would be a serious PITA without capturing those bolts.
 
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