The Frame

See The Road So Far for pre-journal progress.

2020-10-13

No pictures, but I painted the inside of the driver side frame rail with the Eastwood internal chassis coating I used for the opposite side. Hopefully that prolongs its life some. Though just not being in a region with harsh, salty winters anymore probably helps.

2020-10-11

After nearly two years of inactivity, I've finally done some work to the Jeep once again! The main reason for the long hiatus was the need for a garage-like space to be built because working outside in the mud wasn't cutting it anymore, and of course laziness and other projects got in the way of building said garage-like space. But we're here finally.

Anyway, before I had shelved the Jeep for two years, I had cut out the rotten center of the grille mount bracket and tacked in a replacement piece. Then it sat in the weather unpainted for two years, so it had plenty of time to blend nicely with the rest of the Jeep! (coughcoughrustcough) So this weekend I cleaned it up and finished the welds!

Flap wheels and surface conditioning discs are magical.

I kind of wish I hadn't elongated that hole. When I first tacked in the piece, I had some difficulty getting the grille to line up with it and enlarged the hole probably out of frustration. As far as I could tell, though, the hole was pretty close to where the original was, so it probably wasn't necessary. Oh well. It gets covered entirely when everything's installed anyway.

The Road So Far

The frame had some areas I knew going in were going to need some work. The biggest of which was the rear passenger-side corner of the frame. It had clearly suffered greatly at the frozen, slushy hands of Ｔｈｅ Ｎｏｒｔｈ.

This particular form of rot is apparently not an uncommon ailment of the YJ because it seems AMC neglected to put drain holes here. Or much of anywhere for that matter. And apparently Chrysler didn't think it was worth altering the spec. There are plenty of holes on the top and sides, but none to speak of on the bottom, so stuff can get in, but it tends to be unable to get back out until it has eaten through the steel.

There are really only two fixes here:

  1. Replace the frame entirely.
  2. Cut out the bad parts and replace with new steel.
  3. (Bonus third option) With some string or paracord, tie the spring shackle to something more solid and hope for the best.

The rest of the frame seemed solid enough, so option 2 looked like the better deal.

Now, a smart person who has never welded before would have an experienced welder work on their vehicle frame, but I am not a smart person, and I wanted to weld, dangit! Luckily a friend of mine is an experienced welder and was nice enough to give me a couple lessons in MIG welding and to answer all my newbie questions. (Shout out to Eric!) So I practiced a ton, checked my work with acid etch tests, had Eric inspect my practice pieces, and he and I were confident that I could do the job adequately. I cut out what little actually remained of that area of the Jeep's frame (it was way worse than it looked at first!), and I welded in a "Safe-T-Cap" patch piece from Auto Rust Technicians and painted it. How it will hold up long-term remains to be seen, but there's so much super-hot lap weld on there I think the rest of the frame would break up before this area comes apart.

Since I was in there, it was a good time to patch a small hole in the rear crossmember.

Another part of the frame that was pretty bad was the center grille mount bracket. Though this was pretty much cosmetic. This bracket does almost nothing. The grille rests on two rubber bumpers that sit on top of the frame rails and the sides are bolted into the fenders.