2X4 frame for my CJ2A

I had planned on this design with the holes added for rosettes. I was thinking about an inch hole on both ends and a 3/4 slot milled lengthwise into the plate. I have been told that welding on a frame is ok as long as its not straight up and down, hence the rounded ends.


should I do something different?

 

Chris
I would lay a longer piece all the way across and trim the excess to the edge of the frame.(Straight welds)
Then do the Rosette welds that chuck talked about.

 

I ground the plates round on the ends and drilled the big holes for the outer portion.

I used this 1920's or 30's Buffalo Forge camel back machine to turn the 1 1/2 bit. took an hour to drill all the holes, so about 4 inches an hour travel and about 6~8 RPM. slow, very slow.



Next step is to mill some short 3/4 slots along the length of those plates.

 

Pretty nice old Drill Press and those old large sized tapered tanged drill bits.............not something you see much of anymore..........neat stuff!

 

I got the Camel back drill minus the chuck and motor for 175 bucks. I guess it weighs 700lbs. At the time It was just above scrap price. I had a 3 HP 220 motor around, wired it up and it works fine. The belt slips a bit once in a while when the bit gets a hard chip stuck and since I have no belt dressing kicking around I used a gloved hand to put some pressure on it. The power down feed is completely mechanical and has open gears. You can adjust the stop on the quill to push out a lever for the drop out when you set the depth.

It came with no tooling, but when I bought my lathe and mill, that did. I have a number of twist drills for this machine in various morse taper sizes and adapters for all. I also have several giant jacobs chucks that came with it.

 

Finished all 8 of the plates today. In total it took me over 4 hours. I wanted them to be functional and look "pro", hahahahah.



If you don't order them from some guy with a water jet or laser cutter you use an angle grinder, a giant 12" pedestal grinder, a drill press and a mill. Laborious. Worth it to farm out.

These are not all perfectly the same, but the holes are just for extra welding, so they don't need to be.

 

before clamps

tacked up

 

All the holes in all 8 plates are finish welded. It was a lot of MIG welding. They don't look all pretty like they would if I TIG welded them but didn't take 10 times as long.


tomorrow I cut strap, bend it and cover the open angles.

I really think this frame is over kill and am thinking about the extra weight. I am using 1/4 plate to cover the tube seams. Its kind of ridiculous. I guess if i ever wanted to upgrade to a giant engine and rockwells or something dumb like that it would withstand the stress. Never happen.

 

in that pic you can see how the front bumper hangs lower on the drivers side. The front of that frame is twisted. My fault, but there are several pieces scabbed together. Its a wonder it drives at all.

 

Made the straps to cover the open angle cuts. This frame just doesn't need the strength at this point, just to clean it up.


clamped up. Gonna get one on the bottom too.

 

That looks plenty strong. I like the strap set up. That will look good and hold up to most anything.
How has the warpage been so far?

 

All 8 angles have strap tacked on.


So far I have no discernible warp, twist or otherwise. I have been careful to not weld up a bunch of stuff without alternating sides and allowing some cooling.

I took a look at my old frame and I have a spring hanger where the ends of 2 of those straps are. I might have to add another 4" of strap to the bottom.

 

Impressive workmanship. I am getting more interested in watching this now after your engine SNAFU.

 

Finish welded the strap to the plate to the tube. Lots of welding. It will stay together, but it looks far from perfect.The important thing is that there is no twist or warp. I guess I did ok then huh? I feel that this is overbuilt. In between cooling I had time to tear apart my broken jeep.



I could weld another pass and fill every little void, then grind, but I don't need to make it stronger. In addition the extra heat might twist it.

 

Got the frame clamped up. It went together really nice actually. Nothing weird happened. The cross members are in their relative positions. Just clamped so it doesn't matter anyway. I will have to cut a hole for the front crossmember and the steering, but its just a mock up.


I have a real issue on what to do about the gas tank. I can see that as I have it clamped in place that it stands proud of the frame rails. That would be good for clearance and bad for the bed. I don't want to make 4"body spacers, but if I set it down into the frame rails I am going to have trouble with the filler tube.


I think I will need to push this tank assembly as far back to the rear as possible for differential clearance.
I could cut a recess in the frame rail for the filler tube.


Whats the answer?

This is a good thread on this general topic
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f8/cj-gas-tank-install-886370/