Doing It The Hard Way - JL Steering Box and a Front Stretch

[Wildman]

When I was doing my exhaust I used tri-mix also for my gas & then some Solar Flux that you use on the joint you're welding. It's isn't as good as having Argon to purge with but from what I'd read it's better than nothing. I'm not that great of a welder so take it for what it's worth.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TT0RJI/?tag=wranglerorg-20

 

[AirborneTexasRanger]

I run tri-mix when I do stainless. My understanding was that it was necessary to get a good arc. Worked fairly well for me, but it did take a bit of practice.

Definitely made me appreciate doing mild steel…

Tri-mix is best for stainless but can be expensive.
98/2 (98% Ar / 2% CO2) is also good & less expensive.
90/10 (90% Ar/10% CO2) is not too bad but the weld is prone to corrosion.
75/25 will work, but the weld will no longer be stainless steel.

 

[NashvilleTJ]

…
75/25 will work, but the weld will no longer be stainless steel.

Interesting. Meaning the welds will corrode? What about C25 causes that?

 

[AirborneTexasRanger]

Interesting. Meaning the welds will corrode? What about C25 causes that?

Yes, they will corrode due to increased amount of carbon being introduced into the weld. It might not corrode as fast as uncoated carbon steel, but definitely faster than with tri-mix or 98/2. Filler metal also plays a big role in the corrosion resistance of the weld.

 

[carrotman]

Great tips everyone on welding stainless. I knew the C25 gas wasn't optimal, but didn't consider it would add carbon to the material and leave it susceptible to rusting. Bit of bummer, but it won't really bother me regardless. Adding a second bottle for trimix would have likely been about $300. Solar Flux is a good tip too, but I just wasn't willing to buy a $100 can of it. Ultimately I'm just looking for something that will end up looking better than this:

By the way, the wire I got was ER309L in 0.030", and all the stainless is 304, chinesium grade.

I went ahead and got a new muffler from Summit, hopefully will be here Monday. I went with a Pypes Turbo Pro MVT13. Seemed to be a decently quiet and quality option and it looks like it should fit where I want it. Got some butt joint clamps too so I can test it without welding it on.

Some exciting news, at least to me, my replacement battery came in! Now I can move the Jeep out of the garage without stealing another car's battery.

Did a little work on my A/C today. First job was to fix the fresh air/ recirculate door. The plastic peg broke off before I ever even owned the jeep, so the door just always flapped around based on how fast I was driving and how much air was going into the cowl.

Drilled a hole where the peg was and put a 6-32 bolt through it with a double nut on the end. It was NOT easy fitting a drill and my hands and my eyes and a flashlight in there...

Theres some evidence of a rodent chewing through the door there too in the bottom left. When I bought the Jeep, the passenger airbag was shredded from the back side and was all pulled into the HVAC system as a nest.

Next, I took the blower resistor out to repair the wiring. IIRC this is a common issue, but the plug melted and the blower only works on full blast. Wires are crusty too from overheating. I got a FourSeasons FOS 70055 kit to replace the connector, but I didn't have time to install it yet.

Spent a bunch of time digging out leaves and pine needles that had gotten in there over time. There was a ton! I need to put some mesh on the cowl or something.

 

[AirborneTexasRanger]

Good choice going with the 309 wire!

 

[NashvilleTJ]

Great tips everyone on welding stainless. I knew the C25 gas wasn't optimal, but didn't consider it would add carbon to the material and leave it susceptible to rusting. Bit of bummer, but it won't really bother me regardless. Adding a second bottle for trimix would have likely been about $300. Solar Flux is a good tip too, but I just wasn't willing to buy a $100 can of it. Ultimately I'm just looking for something that will end up looking better than this:
View attachment 527752
By the way, the wire I got was ER309L in 0.030", and all the stainless is 304, chinesium grade.

I went ahead and got a new muffler from Summit, hopefully will be here Monday. I went with a Pypes Turbo Pro MVT13. Seemed to be a decently quiet and quality option and it looks like it should fit where I want it. Got some butt joint clamps too so I can test it without welding it on.

Some exciting news, at least to me, my replacement battery came in! Now I can move the Jeep out of the garage without stealing another car's battery.
View attachment 527747

Did a little work on my A/C today. First job was to fix the fresh air/ recirculate door. The plastic peg broke off before I ever even owned the jeep, so the door just always flapped around based on how fast I was driving and how much air was going into the cowl.
View attachment 527746
Drilled a hole where the peg was and put a 6-32 bolt through it with a double nut on the end. It was NOT easy fitting a drill and my hands and my eyes and a flashlight in there...
View attachment 527748
Theres some evidence of a rodent chewing through the door there too in the bottom left. When I bought the Jeep, the passenger airbag was shredded from the back side and was all pulled into the HVAC system as a nest.

Next, I took the blower resistor out to repair the wiring. IIRC this is a common issue, but the plug melted and the blower only works on full blast. Wires are crusty too from overheating. I got a FourSeasons FOS 70055 kit to replace the connector, but I didn't have time to install it yet.
View attachment 527750

Spent a bunch of time digging out leaves and pine needles that had gotten in there over time. There was a ton! I need to put some mesh on the cowl or something.
View attachment 527751

Great choice on the battery, Carrot. I run those in all my vehicles.

 

[carrotman]

Got the repair harness installed for the blower resistor, but it still only works on full blast.

Took the dash apart to check the fan switch, and it appears fine, though I didn't test anything.

I think I'm gonna pick up a new resistor even though this one is fairly new, they're pretty cheap. The symptoms pretty much point to that.

Got my CA plate taken off and the FL plate on, finally. Tried to see if I could get my driver side Savvy tail light to work right, but I think the LED module is just shot, somehow. Only 3 of the LEDs light up full brightness, the rest are either dim or off.



In other news, I might have screwed something up. I was attempting to tap power from my under hood fuse box in order to get fused power to my cooling fan, but I think I might have shorted something somehow messing with the spot for the rear defrost relay, I'm getting a crank but no start now. Dash lights up and it cranks strong, but voltage gauge shows 0 and it never tries to fire, as if the ASD relay was disconnected. Really hoping I didn't fry my ECU... Any suggestions for troubleshooting? All under hood fuses except for F21 are getting power, didn't check under dash.

 

[carrotman]

Did some cleanup on the middle section of frame. The rusting unprotected metal was bothering me, and the exhaust is out of the way. Plus I needed to punish myself for potentially borking my computer...

Started by removing the driver side skid plate rivnuts. I had already removed the passenger side ones years ago because they were trashed. These ones were honestly fine, but if I put new ones in I want to replace them all.

I cut the welds (a bit too deep) and used a hammer and cold chisel to shear off the top portion of the rivnut. Then I just fished the other piece out of the frame with a magnet.

After removing those, I cleaned out the inside of my frame rails really well by blowing compressed air into one end and sucking it out with the shop vac through a hole at the other end, then just kept moving around back and forth to different frame holes. Took a while but I got a LOT out of there.

Next, I cleaned up all the metal with a wire wheel, then treated it overnight with ospho to convert all of the pitted rust areas.

I filled in all the gouges and the worst of the rust pits with weld, ground that all flat, then hit it with a coat of alkyd primer and two coats of Steel-it with a little 3" roller brush, like I've done before.

Looking a lot better now. I didn't really bother getting up around the crossmember mount or the body mount brackets because all of those will be getting moved at some point. Just wanted the majority covered and looking halfway decent.

 

[carrotman]

Got my muffler in, looks like it'll fit snug as a bug. I'll have to make sure I angle it slightly so I can get the UCA bolt out without removing it.

I think I'm going to route the exhaust towards the driveshaft and over the UCA, rather than going between the control arms at the frame mount. It gives me more space to tighten jam nuts, and it gives me a spot to add a resonator if it ends up being necessary under the cargo area. Plus, running the tubing along the frame has a lot of obstacles with the sway bar, spring, LCA, etc.

I wanted to reduce my MML down to 1", so I removed the JKS spacer. The MORE mount is still a 1" lift. Are they just using a control arm bushing in these?

There were a few reasons I wanted to remove this. First being that with the excess lift, I had a bolt on the engine bracket in complete contact with the frame bracket causing excess vibration. Didn't take a before pic, this is after lowering it down an inch, but you can see where the bolt head was contacting the mount:

Second, I was unable to remove my crank position sensor with the engine jacked so close to the tub. I recently saw a post about rust on the magnetic pickup potentially causing intermittent misfire codes. Sure enough...

I'll have to figure out how to clean inside there, but I'd be really happy to have that misfire issue solved as easy as this.

Lastly, the position of the engine affects the exhaust, so I'd better set it where it needs to be before I build the rest of it.


I did notice that there is some adjustment possibility side to side when tightening the motor mounts since everything is in a slotted hole. Does this need to be adjusted in any specific way, or is any position in the slot considered acceptable?

 

[carrotman]

I took the starter off to get a better look at the flywheel. Water poured out of the lower bolt which was.. weird. There's the expected surface rust on everything but nothing extreme. I hit it with a wire brush while turning the engine at the harmonic balancer until it got too hard without taking plugs out. Didn't seem dirty enough to bother going further. Sprayed out inside really well with compressed air but didn't get much out besides a little bit of dirt. Cleaned the CPS and installed it, maybe I'll just take it back out to inspect it if I get misfire codes again. Put some thread sealer on the lower starter bolt too, I guess the water could be coming from A/C condensation dripping down?

 

[carrotman]

My welds were pretty junky when I was filling in the rusty bits on the bottom of my frame the other day. I just thought it was from the rust, but nope, figured out my problem. Gas supply line broke.

It's a polyurethane hose and the whole thing was incredibly brittle and greasy/sticky. I think it was just chemically degrading, though I don't know what caused it. Replaced it with a rubber washer hose I had.

Got the front half of my exhaust completed, aside from the hanger.

Hopefully the flex pipe was a good call.

 

[FarFire70]

My welds were pretty junky when I was filling in the rusty bits on the bottom of my frame the other day. I just thought it was from the rust, but nope, figured out my problem. Gas supply line broke.
View attachment 529050
It's a polyurethane hose and the whole thing was incredibly brittle and greasy/sticky. I think it was just chemically degrading, though I don't know what caused it. Replaced it with a rubber washer hose I had.

Got the front half of my exhaust completed, aside from the hanger.
View attachment 529051

View attachment 529052

View attachment 529053

Hopefully the flex pipe was a good call.

Looks good!

That's a lot of heat being thrown off that cat into that oil pan. Are you planning to put some sort of heat shielding?

Even under the passenger footwell with heat shielding, the floor gets screaming hot from cat in stock location. I suspect the same will occur for that oil pan & oil within without some good shielding.

 

[carrotman]

Looks good!

That's a lot of heat being thrown off that cat into that oil pan. Are you planning to put some sort of heat shielding?

Even under the passenger footwell with heat shielding, the floor gets screaming hot from cat in stock location. I suspect the same will occur for that oil pan & oil within without some good shielding.

I'll probably need to put something there, but need to do some test drives to see how bad it is. Would probably use embossed aluminum sheet.

 

[FarFire70]

I'll probably need to put something there, but need to do some test drives to see how bad it is. Would probably use embossed aluminum sheet.

I haven't checked out the cost but I've seen other builds trying this. You could coat the oil pan for another layer of protection.

https://lizardskin.com/heat-protection/

 

[carrotman]

I used that as bedliner, it doesn't really work that great IMO

 

[carrotman]

I think I got the part of the exhaust figured out that goes over the rear axle. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be. When you consider how much the control arms and driveshaft will move, there really isn't much space.

The tailpipe shouldn't be too hard, just need to figure out where I want it to end. It helps that my passenger rear shock is missing

 

[NashvilleTJ]

I think I got the part of the exhaust figured out that goes over the rear axle. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be. When you consider how much the control arms and driveshaft will move, there really isn't much space.
View attachment 529256
View attachment 529257
View attachment 529258

The tailpipe shouldn't be too hard, just need to figure out where I want it to end. It helps that my passenger rear shock is missing

Interesting. How much clearance do you have over the upper control arm? On my rig at that point my upper almost touches the bed, and even closer at the upper axle side links. I had to curve mine up and over the upper link just after the footwell.

I don’t recall, what size pipe are you running? Looks good.

 

[carrotman]

Interesting. How much clearance do you have over the upper control arm? On my rig at that point my upper almost touches the bed, and even closer at the upper axle side links. I had to curve mine up and over the upper link just after the footwell.

I don’t recall, what size pipe are you running? Looks good.

The pipe curves up right behind the footwell. There is about 4.5" of clearance to the arm at ride height, and it is about 10" away from the axle end of the arm. Assuming I successfully end up with 6" of uptravel, that part of the arm should only move 4ish inches. I do need to actually cycle the rear axle though to confirm before finish welding, the afternoon sun was just cooking me yesterday. Piping is all 2.5"

 

[carrotman]

Took the springs out and stuffed the rear axle up to check things out. The axle in these pics is about 7 3/8 above ride height, so a bit more than I would expect to even run. LCAs are about 1/8" from binding on the frame, and the UCAs are pressing into the floor right behind the drain holes where the sheet metal is embossed.

The UCA does start to touch the exhaust, but there is still an inch of clearance to the body as demonstrated with that 1-2-3 block with blue tape on it.

The driveshaft gets close, but it seems to clear. I tried articulating the axle too, but it is closest at full stuff.

I should still have an extra 1 3/8" of clearance, give or take, compared to these pics if I stick to 6" of uptravel, so it should work well.
I did discover that my driveshaft will bind pretty quick when drooping the axle, likely made slightly worse by my recent removal of 1" of MML. I'll need to be careful with that. I think the too short sway bar links might limit down travel enough to protect it for now.

I figured out my crank/no-start issue too. Kind of embarrassed that I missed it, but fuse #11 behind the glove box (PDC) was blown. Replaced it and it started right up.

Since it was running, I got to listen to a preview of the exhaust with the new muffler, and man it is a lot quieter than before. Gonna try to get the rest of the exhaust knocked out tomorrow morning. Still need to figure out the hangers too, the stock ones probably won't work.