PC1P's 1998 Jeep TJ Build - "Ophelia"

[pc1p]

Have you looked at my build thread? I know it got kind of long but go back to around page 30 which is where the discussion about stretching the frame is. I moved mine back 4.5" and the tires are still under the body. And since I needed the room I also just stretched the front forward with the TNT Customs steering box rotation/stretch kit.


Let me know what measurements you might need for the Savvy mid arm kit and I'll try to get it for you. I have my front setup to clear my motor mount but haven't checked clearances of the engine yet. That is coming next once I get done with the new shock towers.

I was actually trying to find the build thread where I saw it - it's hard to keep track of all the mods sometimes

You happy with the 4.5" rear stretch? Seems like I'm planning on doing exactly what you've done. Anything you'd do different? Lessons learned (I will go back to your thread and look through the pages too)?

I may be stretching the front too, it would really depend on what it looks like when I can get the engine/trans fully bolted in and exhaust in (at least the manifolds and y-pipe). I don't want to limit uptravel much and the Holley mounts put the engine right over the engine, so a small-ish stretch would be advantageous from a clearance concern (at least as far as the engine goes).

 

[Wildman]

I was actually trying to find the build thread where I saw it - it's hard to keep track of all the mods sometimes

You happy with the 4.5" rear stretch? Seems like I'm planning on doing exactly what you've done. Anything you'd do different? Lessons learned (I will go back to your thread and look through the pages too)?

I may be stretching the front too, it would really depend on what it looks like when I can get the engine/trans fully bolted in and exhaust in (at least the manifolds and y-pipe). I don't want to limit uptravel much and the Holley mounts put the engine right over the engine, so a small-ish stretch would be advantageous from a clearance concern (at least as far as the engine goes).

I just did the TNT Customs steering box rotation/stretch kit and it makes a lot more room up front.

Since you don't have to worry about running flares in AZ I'd push it back a little more like Blaine does where the wheelwell opening cuts into the rear bend of the body. So you should be able to get 5"+ out of the stretch. I was trying to stay legal here in WA so have to run flares.

 

[Wildman]

Like this

I can't tell you if the 4.5" stretch will help or improve my rigs handling since I haven't driven it yet.


Just going back and looking at your pictures of the motor mounts.
They sit on the stock 4.0 mounts and don't appear to hang any lower than the stock mounts. If that is the case then I don't see why you would have a problem using the Savvy mid arm kit. Post up a picture of your drivers side motor mount so I can see what it looks like.

 

[pc1p]

I just did the TNT Customs steering box rotation/stretch kit and it makes a lot more room up front.

I did some digging and couldn't find anything, but maybe you know - can the TNT relocation be used with a Currie steering setup? I don't want to run crossover/hi-steer. I can cutoff and relocate the factory TB bracket on the frame as needed (or run an aftermarket one - I have used a DCU mount in the past and it works well). I would only want to run the front 1.5-2" forward.

Since you don't have to worry about running flares in AZ I'd push it back a little more like Blaine does where the wheelwell opening cuts into the rear bend of the body. So you should be able to get 5"+ out of the stretch. I was trying to stay legal here in WA so have to run flares.

I will shoot for 5" but there are two issues I may run into. At ~5", the curve of the rear frame horns may start popping out and may make the body mount challenging to mount. Also, it would depend on the tank - some of the tanks claim "5" of stretch possible" but I have seen that some of those estimates are more of wishful thinking than anything else. The 15-gallon tanks should offer plenty of clearance but living and driving out west, that extra 5-gallons could come in handy (but I won't let that be a major influencer, though if I can spare 1/2" of less stretch for 5-gallons of increased capacity, I'd take that option).

Just going back and looking at your pictures of the motor mounts.
They sit on the stock 4.0 mounts and don't appear to hang any lower than the stock mounts. If that is the case then I don't see why you would have a problem using the Savvy mid arm kit. Post up a picture of your drivers side motor mount so I can see what it looks like.

The mount goes about 2" back from the factory 4.0L mount. The more I read about V8 mount interference, the more I think it only applies to Advanced/Novak style mounts. If we could figure this out with some pictures and measurements, I'd own you a beer

 

[pc1p]

In the process of acquiring the rest of the parts I need for the stretch. So far I ordered the GenRight body mounts, the Motobilt TJ Stretch Tank, and the Motobilt HD Rear Crossmember...

I went with the Motobilt gas tank because it was already set up for the 05-06 style fuel pump, was confirmed to be compatible with the 05-06 NVLD system when used with the appropriate -8AN adapter (since I need this to maintain emissions compliance with the Hemi swap), has a well-designed fuel-pump module mounting system (the 05-06 GenRight ones I hear can be finicky) and was just about 1/2 the cost of the GenRight unit (with a 10% discount code I had).

I wasn't planning on getting a new crossmember but this one looked well made and has internal bracing to really add some considerable strength. I figured since I'll be back there, might as well do what I can to beef it up some more. Motobilt even claims you can use this crossmember in lieu of an actual bumper. I may do that temporarily, at least until I get the stretch and suspension done and dialed in, then will see how much of the corner armor is exposed and go from there.

*** Quick note - if any of my AZ Peeps wants first shot at a gently used Savvy gas tank skid, let me know! Sold!

I've been trying to research what those who have already done this use for sleeve and frame extension tubing. I have seen 2.5" x 4" x 0.120" as well as 2.5" x 4" x 0.188" recommended for the outer tube and 2" x 2" x 0.25" or 2" x 3" x 0.25" for the sleeve. Some people even just use some 1/4" plate to make extensions built onto a piece of 2" x 4" box (like some weird looking steel Chinese finger trap). I may take a trip out to Totten Tubes here in PHX to see what they have...

I still need to order the Poly towers and some factory-sized body mounts for the next stage of work. I figure I'll get the interior stripped this weekend and pull the tub next week sometime. My Savvy tailgate armor just arrived, so I will likely get that fitted and installed, plus get my Exogate test-fit and modified (to fit around the Savvy lights) before stripping them off for paint.

After getting the Hemi mounted up and banging out some work on my RamCharger, I have some extra room in the garage. I'm going to take the opportunity to clean and organize my parts racks (especially since I'll have some more coming soon) and hopefully find a way to store the tub next to the chassis so I can work on it inside. I really don't want to move the tub 50-yards from my side yard when I need to test fit and throw it back on.

 

[Wildman]

Here is what Blaine does and the advice he gave me when I did mine. And it worked great.

2.5" x 4" x .188 wall. Line the inside with 1/8" that sticks out past each end 3". 2" on the top and bottom, cut to width 4" for the two sides. Plug weld on both sides of the joints with 4-5 plug welds x 1/2" in diameter, fish plate the inside with 3/16" that laps the whole mess.

 

[pc1p]

Here is what Blaine does and the advice he gave me when I did mine. And it worked great.

Any particular reason why you (he) does it this way vs using a 2" x 3" sleeve inside? Most of the people/builds I've followed on the TJ-6 stuff seem to go the 2" x 3" route and then use 1/8" or 1/4" flat stock to build up a nice tight fit for the sleeve, then do similar plug welds and final squeeze+weld.

 

[Wildman]

Any particular reason why you (he) does it this way vs using a 2" x 3" sleeve inside? Most of the people/builds I've followed on the TJ-6 stuff seem to go the 2" x 3" route and then use 1/8" or 1/4" flat stock to build up a nice tight fit for the sleeve, then do similar plug welds and final squeeze+weld.

You'd have to ask Blaine the reasons why he does it this way. But I can say it worked really well and was a tight fit.

 

[pc1p]

I've been asked on many occasions how I make consistent progress on projects. The first reason is simple - my wife is totally awesome. Aside from being smart, sexy AF, and a hard-working professional, she understands that we all need our personal time to decompress and empty the bucket a little bit. For me, working on my rigs is really the only thing that I can do often enough to make it worthwhile. The second reason - I'm a huge dork; making spreadsheets, to-do lists, gantt charts and timelines are half the fun So naturally, I made a rough timeline to post in the garage...

After a weekend in the high 80ºs, I know that summer is around the corner. As a result, I need to get this thing ready for paint ASAP and get it prepped and sprayed before the daily low temps push into the upper 80ºs until October (even if still sitting on a cart!). With that, I took advantage of some free time and started gutting the interior. I found some interesting info along the way. Pulling the airbag revealed an unfortunate issue:

I was honestly up in the air about removing the airbags anyways. These are pushing 25 years old and my dash wiring has been what appears to be a pieced together harness (at the HVAC side) and has been repaired at the ignition switch (see below). I could reuse the space where the passenger side airbag resides for my micro-amplifier as well as my CB module. I could also run my preferred Grant 14" thick-ring steering wheel rather than the one in there now. The only reason I may keep the current steering wheel would be if I could retain the cruise-control switches to work with my Hemi ECM's built-in cruise control.

One thing I have never seen mentioned was the spare harness leads that Jeep included above the fuse box:

It is a slow and tedious process since I'm unfamiliar with the plug connections and support brackets of a TJ, but I eventually got it completely stripped down...

While everything was out, I took the chance to pull the brake/clutch pedal assembly. It appears to be a perfect match to the replacement auto-tran brake pedal assembly I got off of eBay.

Next up is to pull the seats and find a place to store these interior parts so I don't step on them in the meantime. I also have a new heater core and evaporator, so I will rebuild the HVAC box and have that ready to go once the tub is painted. I'm thinking that now may be a good time to undercoat the tub. I know a few people have use Lizard Skin with good success. While I don't believe that it's as effective against temperature insulation as people make it out to be, it does have a nice texture and should hold up well to road debris and add some noise dampening.

 

[Wildman]

I've got the Lizard Skin ceramic coating that I am going to spray on the inside of my tub. I'm hoping between that and having the headers & Y-pipe ceramic coated it will cut down on the heat inside my Jeep. I wasn't as worried about the noise so I didn't get the sound coating. Since you are going to have the body off I'd spray the underside with the sound coating and then the inside with the heat coating.


Here are a few pictures of how the upper link on the front looks near my motor mount. Don't know if this will show enough for you to be able to determine if it will work with your mounts.

I'll get you a few pictures with it at full bump since it moves the upper arm closer to the motor mount.

 

[Wildman]

Here is that the upper link looks like with the axle at full bump on both sides.

I'd thought I could move the upper link over a little bit but there really isn't any room to do that.

I can get you the measurement from the front of the frame to the motor mounts if that would help any.

 

[Mike_H]

I've been asked on many occasions how I make consistent progress on projects. The first reason is simple - my wife is totally awesome. Aside from being smart, sexy AF, and a hard-working professional, she understands that we all need our personal time to decompress and empty the bucket a little bit. For me, working on my rigs is really the only thing that I can do often enough to make it worthwhile. The second reason - I'm a huge dork; making spreadsheets, to-do lists, gantt charts and timelines are half the fun So naturally, I made a rough timeline to post in the garage...

View attachment 232696

After a weekend in the high 80ºs, I know that summer is around the corner. As a result, I need to get this thing ready for paint ASAP and get it prepped and sprayed before the daily low temps push into the upper 80ºs until October (even if still sitting on a cart!). With that, I took advantage of some free time and started gutting the interior. I found some interesting info along the way. Pulling the airbag revealed an unfortunate issue:

View attachment 232698

I was honestly up in the air about removing the airbags anyways. These are pushing 25 years old and my dash wiring has been what appears to be a pieced together harness (at the HVAC side) and has been repaired at the ignition switch (see below). I could reuse the space where the passenger side airbag resides for my micro-amplifier as well as my CB module. I could also run my preferred Grant 14" thick-ring steering wheel rather than the one in there now. The only reason I may keep the current steering wheel would be if I could retain the cruise-control switches to work with my Hemi ECM's built-in cruise control.

View attachment 232699

One thing I have never seen mentioned was the spare harness leads that Jeep included above the fuse box:

View attachment 232700

It is a slow and tedious process since I'm unfamiliar with the plug connections and support brackets of a TJ, but I eventually got it completely stripped down...

View attachment 232701

While everything was out, I took the chance to pull the brake/clutch pedal assembly. It appears to be a perfect match to the replacement auto-tran brake pedal assembly I got off of eBay.

View attachment 232702

Next up is to pull the seats and find a place to store these interior parts so I don't step on them in the meantime. I also have a new heater core and evaporator, so I will rebuild the HVAC box and have that ready to go once the tub is painted. I'm thinking that now may be a good time to undercoat the tub. I know a few people have use Lizard Skin with good success. While I don't believe that it's as effective against temperature insulation as people make it out to be, it does have a nice texture and should hold up well to road debris and add some noise dampening.

My wrangler is in a similar state right now...

Waiting on my uncle, who does commercial refrigeration, to come evacuate the AC system so I can finish.

Interesting you found an auxiliary harness down there. I did not have that in my 04.

 

[pc1p]

I've got the Lizard Skin ceramic coating that I am going to spray on the inside of my tub. I'm hoping between that and having the headers & Y-pipe ceramic coated it will cut down on the heat inside my Jeep. I wasn't as worried about the noise so I didn't get the sound coating. Since you are going to have the body off I'd spray the underside with the sound coating and then the inside with the heat coating.

A friend of mine with a YJ sprayed his tub, inside and out, with the heat coating. He said it made a noticeable difference but it felt exactly like my YJ did before I replaced the flooring and added butyl mat and jute. I am interested in the sound deadener on the outside (even if it only marginally helps with noise) since it looks good as will prevent any corrosion/intrusion under there.

I am not sure what to do on the inside, I have a can of POR-15 I was going to use for it, but I may end up just checking all the seam sealer and spraying it solid when I paint the Jeep in a few weeks. I want to run a BedRug brand floor, which looks nice and has some built in insulation, but I will likely add butyl mat like I did to my YJ to the front floorboards and trans tunnel.

Here's what I did to the YJ (this was still in the apply stage):

This plus some jute pad under the footboards and a molded vinyl floor took the hottest part of the floorboards (the trans tunnel near the shifter-to-shifter plate interface) from ~ +90º ambient temperature (almost 180º on the day I tested it) to just over +15º ambient. The majority of the floor, particularly where the feet typically stay, was essentially the same as ambient. The road noise was slashed to the point where I almost accidentally tried to restart the motor (quickly glanced at the tach just in time!) and it made for much more pleasant road trips and late-spring wheeling trips.

Here are a few pictures of how the upper link on the front looks near my motor mount. Don't know if this will show enough for you to be able to determine if it will work with your mounts.

These are helpful, I'm going to save them to my phone so I can scroll through them while I'm in the garage checking on things!

 

[pc1p]

Before I get this tub pulled and prepped for paint, I wanted to get the rest of my Savvy armor and my Exogate installed. One of the big issues with the Savvy rear armor is that it isn't drilled for your factory tire snubbers or tailgate carrier. Not a problem for most of the people running rear armor since they aren't using a tire carrier, but I decided to try to Exogate since I want to be able to carry my spare around on daily use and mild trails, and then only throw the spare into the tub when needed.

There are a handful of suggested methods for correctly marking the holes for where to drill; here is what worked for me:

I used a set of correctly-threaded Allen set screws and install them in such a way that they stand ever so slightly proud of the hole they are in. I then reinstall the armor and gently tapped on the outside of the armor (using a soft faced dead-blow hammer) where the set screw is underneath. This puts a nice little indent into the somewhat soft aluminum armor in the correct location that needs to be drilled. A center-punch, followed by a small drill bit and eventually up to a properly sized hole via a step-bit and it makes quick work of it all.

Everything fits fine and now I can start tearing everything apart to make this tub as light as possible!

 

[Chris]

Nice job on lining up that armor in terms of where to drill the holes for the snubbers. I was trying to figure out how one would go about that without a tap measure and a lot of very accurate measuring.

 

[pc1p]

Nice job on lining up that armor in terms of where to drill the holes for the snubbers. I was trying to figure out how one would go about that without a tap measure and a lot of very accurate measuring.

Only thing I would do different if I had to do this again would be to use a thin blade or file and cut some notches on the top of the set screw - OR - use some black Sharpie to give the strikemark some contrast. I'm very stereoblind so even with a cleanly marked hole, having some more visual depth would help me with the center punch alignment (not that it caused me any issues, but I certainly spent a lot of time double checking the indent and center punch with a flashlight at 80-85º).

 

[Mike_H]

Only thing I would do different if I had to do this again would be to use a thin blade or file and cut some notches on the top of the set screw - OR - use some black Sharpie to give the strikemark some contrast. I'm very stereoblind so even with a cleanly marked hole, having some more visual depth would help me with the center punch alignment (not that it caused me any issues, but I certainly spent a lot of time double checking the indent and center punch with a flashlight at 80-85º).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZZP1VA/?tag=wranglerorg-20

I bought a can of this...its SO much better than a sharpie.

 

[pc1p]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZZP1VA/?tag=wranglerorg-20

I bought a can of this...its SO much better than a sharpie.

I will have to get a bottle of that... seems like Prussian Blue from shop class but it dries to the touch, which would be quite handy for stuff exactly like this! Thanks for the recommendation

 

[Wildman]

Glad I could help out with those pictures.

I didn't want to use any of the mat insulation type stuff since I do some deeper water crossings now and then and my experiance with that type of stuff is it HATES water. This was my reasoning for using the Lizard Skin.

Jeeps coming along really well.

 

[pc1p]

I try to avoid Harbor Freight stuff for heavy-duty tools or something safety critical, but I figured dollies were simple and hard to mess up, so I used a 20% off coupon and picked up 2 sets of Pittsburgh 1500-lb dollies. I gotta say, I am upset I didn't buy a set of car dollies a long time ago - they work absolutely amazing!

I wanted to turn the TJ around in the garage so that the butt was facing outward, but didn't want to wheel it down the driveway at the risk of not being able to push it back up. I also want to be able to move it side to side while I prep the tub in a few weeks. I gave these and try and I still cannot believe how easy it moves, even over the expansion cracks in the floor.

With the Jeep spun around, I finished stripping the inside of the tub and began removing the armor and Exogate. I cut off the old roll bar padding but left the seats in there (temporarily) since I don't want them cluttering up my garage any further. With everything out, I took the Jeep off the dollies and wheeled her back into the driveway just enough to clear the garage door. I used a 1/2-gallon of Super Clean, a 1/2-quart of Simple Green (inside the soap tank) and my 1300 psig power washer and went to town...

The amount of crud and mud that just continued to come out of cracks and crevices was amazing (and a bit disgusting). The Jeep, even when stripped apart, had a somewhat musty, old-basement smell. It wasn't terrible, but it was something I noticed in the garage, at least on the hottest of days. Having seen what the airbag looked like, my guess is that the smell was a combination of some critter droppings, cheap cigarettes smoked many, many years ago, mold/mildew, and old red-clay (which seems to stick to the underside better than Gorilla Glue on a scalp!).

Based on what I read and what I discussed with @Wildman, I picked up the materials to do the frame stretch. The only parts I'm missing still is the 2.5" x 4" x 0.188" tube which had to be special ordered. After thinking about it some, I think I'm going to leave the front of the tub attached to the frame while I stretch the rear. This will let me get the stretch pieces made and plug-welded in place while also allowing me to locate and rough-weld in the rear crossmembers (the new Motobilt HD one I'm getting in the rear, as well as the one above the gas tank) and the rearmost center body mount. I can also rough-in the Poly shock towers once I know where the frame will sit under the body (I will most likely have to do 90% of my body trimming while I'm here). Once the crossmembers are located and tacked in place and the frame is where it will be, I will then remove the tub and do the final welding...

I happened to bolt in my t-case just to double check and it looks like I'm getting some tub interference. I may order the "No Body Lift" version of the UCF skid plate (only 1" of lift vs the 2" of the "Ultra High" version I have now). but will want to try some 1" spacers first before order it and having it not fit. I think the additional 1" will clear but if not, a BFH and a 2x4" should take care of the rest