Full Size Jeep Network

Not much, but a little progress. Front axle is under it, springs supporting the weight. Starting to load the clip again.

Frame is 21.5” off the ground, 37’s look awesome on it.

Gonna be rebuilding my NP205 soon, got a pretty nice kit on eBay for $95

I’m telling you what this Eastwood radiator is quite a nice fit in there! I’ll need to find some hoses that work and I should order my CAC before I lock this in and fill it with coolant but this part of things should actually go pretty quickly. I’m running electric fans so there should be no reason to tilt the new rad like stock one was.

I'm excited for you! This is going quickly

87 grand Wagoneer mostly stock
90 grand Wagoneer (stalled 5.3 project)

Wow! Your making steady progress and its looking great! Im not worthy

Cheapthrills wrote:I'm excited for you! This is going quickly

87 grand Wagoneer mostly stock
90 grand Wagoneer (stalled 5.3 project)

Thanks! It doesn't always feel like it's going quickly. It feels like it's taking way too long but I can't walk away from it sometimes especially when it starts transforming visually into what I want. I can not wait to drive it and start making memories with my family in it. I made a list of the things needed to just get it test-drivable and that's sort of encouraging, but then I made a list of the things that it needs beyond that to be road worthy and it's kind of depressing haha. I would REALLY like to take my family down to Tennessee and Northern Georgia with it this fall, but with the size of that list and the fact that I have more parts to build than time ($ is not the hold up right now, though it may well be at some point) it is not looking promising.

rocklaurence wrote:Wow! Your making steady progress and its looking great! Im not worthy

Haha oh please! I try to work on it 2-3 days a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have an erratic work schedule, sometimes not much to do, other times I go 2 weeks without a break. One thing with this build is I wanted to get all the driveline components right the first time so I'm not re-doing major things that affect everything like axles. The other thing I decided was to not hold back on the things I wanted that are not easily changed or added later like a manual transmission, 37" tires, crawl gears (wanted at least 4:1 transfer case ratio, I'm getting lower). I've found considerably more rust than anticipated, but that's almost all taken care of now. I'm motivated to get this done and I promise this will not be one of those threads that dies 3/4 of the way through. I will continue posting updates and progress even after I "finish" (it's never really done)

I have been working on getting the rear axle and 63” springs set up. Also have prepped the front end parts for some touch up paint on the contact points and where there was some surface rust. I want to get that bolted back together permanently and get my radiator plumbed and start on intercooler piping. I also picked up an Astro van hydroboost and ordered the turbo oil lines.










I also made some progress on the sound deadening so I can get my brakes clutch and wiring hooked back up and reinstall the dash. I will be running this lower down into the floor to where the driver seat bolts up, but I need to paint the floor with bed liner first.



Here’s the layering. Butyl rubber with foil against firewall, CCF on top of that, MLV as top layer. Then new stock carpet and insulation will be laid on top of that.



Sammich

Looking good!

For the front spring hangers, you just cut the stock ones off and moved them out?

And for the rear, that's a piece of 3x3x.250 box/HSS you cut to make the hanger?

Are you going to move the rear shackles too or no need?

MJMadness wrote:Looking good!

For the front spring hangers, you just cut the stock ones off and moved them out?

And for the rear, that's a piece of 3x3x.250 box/HSS you cut to make the hanger?

Are you going to move the rear shackles too or no need?

Thanks! For the fronts yes, I drilled out the rivets for the stock hangers and placed a piece of 2x2 3/16" wall box tube behind them. I closed the ends of the tube and added gussets too, I'll post a pic of a completed one here in a few. I then re-welded the stock spring hanger to that tube and the frame, the spring hanger still overlapped under the bottom of the frame rail by about 1/2". I'm confident this will be plenty strong, and this is not a long term setup anyway, this is "stage one" to get the Jeep driving. One of the first major things I will do to it after it's "finished" is save up and stock up parts to do a 3 link with coil overs up front. The rear I am planning to keep leafs long term. I don't want to say permanently because who knows, I may decide to blow a ton of money on a 4 link and coil overs back there some day.

The metal I pictured for the rear is all 1/4" plate I had my local metal/fab shop bend for me. In hind sight it would have been cheaper and more accurate to have purchased a hanger and had them just bend the L shaped piece for me, I paid almost $40 for the two C pieces and they're not perfect, but they'll do. I couldn't use 3x3 1/4" wall because the spring bushing is actually 3" wide. Maybe I could have bought a 3.5" .250 wall tube but I didn't check. I really should have just bought these from DIY 4x4 for $40+S&H

I am going to end up moving the rear shackle mounts also, though I think I can use them to get an idea of how the rear springs will settle in with weight on them before I cut them off. Hoping to have this close by the end of the week.

Completed front shackle hanger

Adventure_Wagon88 wrote:Completed front shackle hanger

Yeah, I don't think you have to be worried about that falling off.

This is an impressive pace you have established. Watching with great interest.

Red-dog wrote:This is an impressive pace you have established. Watching with great interest.

Thank you! Always great to know there's people watching and rooting for me haha

I of course don't feel like the pace is fast enough, I wish this could be my full time job as I'm sure most of us do. I am fortunate to have a very understanding and supportive wife, though she hasn't been super fond of this Jeep. But now that I've got her obsessed with vintage campers to pull behind the Wagoneer and assured her it will be a great to vehicle, she's suddenly very interested in a timeline for completion and therefore much more open to setting up a better budget for parts.

My goal is to have it rolling this month and driving next month. Road worthy by October. We'll see if that happens!

What's the source for your sound deadening materials? I'm about ready to install my dash.

SJTD wrote:What's the source for your sound deadening materials? I'm about ready to install my dash.

I purchased the Noico products from Amazon, this was plenty to do the firewall and trans hump, probably the entire floor back to the front seat mounts

Butyl: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012B ... UTF8&psc=1
CCF: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075F ... UTF8&psc=1

I purchased the 1lb/sqFT MLV from Acoustimac.com: https://www.acoustimac.com/soundproofin ... yl-1lb50sf
They are in FL, shipping is a killer, but even with shipping the price is the best I found. 50 SqFt is more than enough to do the firewall, it's probably enough to do the entire floor, or the passenger area and inside the doors if you wanted. For now I'm just doing the firewall on mine. I will add more if I feel it's necessary, but it's literally 1 pound per square foot so I'd rather use sparingly.

Thanks. I've got the butyl. Got it on Amazon a few years ago for the tailgate and 1/4 panels. Reckhorn is the brand I think.

That MLV looks pretty good. I wonder if vinyl shower pan material would work, I'll have to weigh a piece of it. It's only 1/16" and may be no cheaper. Been about 20 years since I bought it.

SJTD wrote:Thanks. I've got the butyl. Got it on Amazon a few years ago for the tailgate and 1/4 panels. Reckhorn is the brand I think.

That MLV looks pretty good. I wonder if vinyl shower pan material would work, I'll have to weigh a piece of it. It's only 1/16" and may be no cheaper. Been about 20 years since I bought it.

I’ve heard of people talking about using shower pan liner. I can tell you for sure it’s not nearly as dense though thickness is similar. It’s probably more effective than nothing not not nearly as effective as MLV. I read a post on an audio forum when I was researching and a guy was testing both and determined the MLV was many times more effective

Man, I love it when people do my research for me!

Been a little lacking on progress it feels, but still made a little. Got my 37’s mounted and balanced using compound.



Found a Cummins part that works to make a nice tight first elbow for my exhaust down pipe and uses the v band clamp. Going to slide the motor forward 1”. Thankfully I hadn’t bolted that in yet, the cradle is just resting on the frame rails.



Mostly I have been working on the rear springs. Almost there! I ordered the rest of the u bolts and shackle hangers I will need from RuffStuff to complete this.

Here’s the spring hanger welded together





And welded to the frame. Still a little more welding to do on this side.





This is a 112” wheelbase for now. When I do the 3 link front I want to push the axle forward 1-2”. As you can see from
The spring mount I have plenty of room to drill another hole and slide the rear axle backwards if I wanted.



I can’t fit a 37 until I trim. Planning to cut up and back, not forward at all.