4.3 swap update - long

[John Nutter <jnutter@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I put in a good day out in the garage. The motor mounts are in place and
came out better than I thought they would. I used the engine side parts
as is, except for welding inside of the channel for extra insurance. For
the frame saide I found some channel iron. I'm not even sure what size
it is, except that it is the piece of metal that holds the spare tire up
under a Grand Wagoneer :-) It worked out perfectly and I feel very
confident on these mounts. By some sort of luck everything lined up so
that I was able to use the original mounting holes in the frame, so I
just drilled the mounts rather than welding them one. It's nice to be
able to change things later if I need to.

Speaking of the frame... I had a crack in it that I fixed 5 years ago. I
noticed my welds on the old patch piece had broke and the crack had
opened again. It's in an odd place, about 6" back from the first body
mount and on the top. I never did figure out why it had cracked there -
until today. I noticed that the welds holding the inner and outer frame
together were never done right, all the way from the shock towers to
just behind the proportioning valve - and the crack was at the exact
spot where the weld was good again. I could actually squeeze the inner
and outer frame rails together by hand. Mystery solved. I welded all of
this up and patched the crack and put on some extra plating for good
measure. The weld on the bottom of the frame was fine. Hopefully it's
gone for good. I don't want to end up with a frame like Rick Pewe's GPW.
I'd rather have the suspension do the flexing. Of course I wasted about
half my day on this repair, but at least the body was off.

The bulk of the cutting on the 8" x 2 1/2" channel for the skid plate is
done and I just ned to do some trimming and clean up grinding. I used my
stick welder to do the cutting. I set it at 225 amps and kept pushing
the rod through. It cut like a dream. A hot dream. Did that ever throw
some heat! At least I used up most of the junk welding rods that were
sitting out. Tommorow afternoon I'll finsh the skid plate and possibly
start on the plumbing and wiring.

Did I mention that it looks like I will end up with equal length
driveshafts? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30" or 31" long. I'll
probably run CVs at both ends and have a third made up for a spare. Good
thing I've been collecting Grand Wagonner front drive shafts - the later
ones have a decent sized tube and will work good once they are
lengthened.


- --
John Nutter '85 CJ7
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