WEEKEND 10 - 2/17/2001

Our goals for this weekend were to weld all the re-enforcement steel to the frame. Grind and clean the welds up and get a coat of aluminum paint on it to keep the rust down til we finish the painting. Also, my girlfriend, Anna, and Ron took the front axle apart and cleaned the hubs out. Neil began welding the the small flat plates in as I put flexing cuts into the two large patch pieces. We need to repair the left body mount located over the rear axle. Also in the same general location (where the bump stops attach) the metal was completely gone. Then we had to weld in a two foot piece of angle on the lower inside of the rail near the engine mounts. We got all the welding done on Saturday. Sunday we knocked the slag off and grounded all the welds down til they were pretty. Then put a coat of aluminum paint on the whole thing. Boy does that frame look good now.

Here Neil and I are both digging out the front axle from some of Maine finest. In the background you can see the body from Neil's Commando.

This is my girlfriend Anna. She loves working on the Jeepster!

The axle was pretty frozen so we chained it to the Suburban and yank it out, no problem.

Setting the chop saw up to start cutting the slots in the repair steel.

Lots and lots of cuts on each piece.

Same as above.

Me chopping, Neil welding. Did I mention that it's about 20 degrees out.

Neil took the Air Scale gun to the frame to knock all the slag and crap off after the welding.

Then we took that huge grinder you see and cleaned all the welds up.

Heres a good look at the major repair we had to do. The inside if the frame was pretty badly eaten through here so we cleaned and covered it all.

To bottom part of the frame rail here was completely gone so we weld a replacement piece in.

Same piece, other side.

Same location but the other side of the frame.

One of the body frame mounts was in pretty bad shape.

Here's the front of the frame, weld, grounded and prepped for painting.

The front axle after the hubs are removed.

The Dana 30.

One of the WARN hubs.

Anna cleaning a hub.

Cleaning the rear axle housing off to ready it for painting.

The completed frame. Only left to do is add one more coat of Aluminum paint, a coat or two of primmer, and then a coat of enamel.

Another View.

And another.

Here's a close-up of the major frame rail repair. The red outline I added so you can see the two separate pieces.