Finished, and tested

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Stephane Daury

Alreaddy dirty, as I tested them Saturday afternoon, but here is the completed first iteration of my JKU rock sliders, fully welded, and painted.

I’ve added 3/16th flat stock to armor the gaps. Angle cuts are purely only there for styling. I’m probably going to taper the end of the bottom tube, and seal it, since only the top tube will be integrated in my future steel tube fenders, later on.

Pretty happy with them, and love not having lost any ground clearance, while fully protecting the body.

My weekend

Image

Vroom vroom!

Image

Jeep XMJ build update: Ground to a halt? Not quite.

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Stephane Daury

I spent part of last Saturday “deleting” the rear door posts on each side, to keep the line consistent. I’ve also tackled part of the missing sheet metal at the tailgate. I’ve used pre-formed sheet metal straight from my donor car’s rear quarter panel, for a pretty effortless perfect match.

I started tackling improvising a functional tailgate, with salvaged hinges, on Sunday. Unfortunately, my trusted grinder died “of old age” in the process, threatening toput quite a damper on things.

Nevertheless, I found other things to work on to finish my weekend work on the project:

adapted the internal door trims
removed the seat from my old daily-driver XJ (aka my donor car), then test-installed it
test fit the trimmed doors (about 3″ cut from bottom to accommodate the rock sliders)
repurposed the original tailgate rubber seal
applied a generous amount of Rust Killer on some exposed parts. Most of it will eventually be sanded off when I get closer to the finish work, but it’ll keep things clean in the meantime. Had already done the same to the undercarriage and wheel wells.

Thanks to Amazon, I was able to get a good replacement grinder, for a good price (~~$160~~ $59), by yesterday, so next weekend should be fun. Will be installing some Frog Fab unibody rail stiffeners soon, so I can move on to the boatsides, as well as some new extended break front lines.

Jeep XMJ build update: working on those buns of steel

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Stephane Daury

Here’s how I spent my time last weekend. Things are moving along even nicer than what I was expecting when I started the project. Loving every minute of it!

First, I salvaged the tailgate from my donor car, and adapted it to my new needs. I’ve lost a couple of inches in the back, thanks to having trimmed it to only its sheet metal, since the tailgate will mostly be a visual placeholder, without any structural need.

Took a break from making noise on Sunday morning, and tried my hand at bending steel tube for the first time, starting to work on the 1″ tube fenders I’d envisioned. The trick that seems to work best to bend DOM tube without kinking it using that press, which is technically a pipe bender, is to use the die for half the tube’s size. 1″ pipe is inside diameter, 1″ tube is outside diameter. 1/2″ schedule 40 pipe is about 1″ to the outside walls, and cradles the 1″ 1/8″ tube snugly.

I resumed working on the back in the afternoon, by starting fabricating a bed cover out of 1/8″ steel plate. I want to protect the bed from the elements, and make it a giant parts and tools box, with drawers. The spare will be flat mounted on top (with additional framing), easy to slide in and out, and accommodating up to 40″ tires.