tire carrier finished...

Its not stock, but I didn't want anything that looked like an erector set bolted on either...
I started off with a complete spindle kit 1.25" diameter, with bearings and seals...
I had heard that 1" spindles start snapping with 37" tires, so I went a bit bigger with the 35" spare...


  Spindle and mount

 

The box in the center holds a complete scout 2 wheel spindle, wheel hub, and lockout hub as a trail spare...

This rack can hold my 225 lbs at full swing, just rocks the jeep a bit.

 

About 2 days of work, and cussing...

The red handle is supposed to be rated at 750 lbs of clamping force...

There's enough room on top for a hi-lift that's sitting in the corner...

 

 

 

 

 

 

As nice as it turned out- there is a caveat!    Due to the racks angle matching the tailgate- the carrier has to come past 90* (more like 120*) out to open the tailgate- food for thought

 

Megarun fixes-

I went to several big parts stores for wheel studs AZ, Oreilly, etc.. and they all pointed at the computer screen and said its not available. (who makes the Scout??) 
Went to a parts + plus and the guy behind the counter pulled out the dorman book and found some longer 1/2-20 wheel studs with 1/2" more length.
#667 I think??
These went in well and are long enough  that the new replacement 3/8" wheel spacer for the front threads the lug nuts on fully. I may tack weld the heads in place for extra support.


While I was under there I noticed that the tie rod end spacers:
http://jims73commando.blogspot.com/2013/06/steering-finally_18.html
had snapped their weld on the passenger side and were spinning freely in
the steering arm and doing the turning instead of the tie rod end.
They had cracked welds on the drivers side but were still in
place.   I guess thats what you get for slamming a jeep down from 2-3' in the air!


So I re ground the steering arms , pre heated them with a propane torch, and welded the spacers
top and bottom then smoothed the flats out.  If I have a problem with them again, I'll replace the
steering knuckles with extras and re-work the steering.  If...


I'm hoping to take it out in another week and give another -mild- shake down run.  First I'll check
every bolt on the thing though!

The shake down run was fun, ended up going up dewoody, thankfully a strap over the cage kept it from flopping over the first rock, after that it was all about throttle, throttle, steering, and throttle.

The rear springs are going to have to be replaced, the stock passenger rear main leaf has 2 extra curves in it and its sitting low.

 I think a check of nuts and bolts and fluids and it'll be ready for hot springs in september!

Megarun 14

Well, where do you start? How about here?

183' in 46 seconds. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Yes it is on two wheels


>>>>   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXMAJ86I86Q&feature=youtu.be    <<<<


Check out at 41 seconds.

The crowds expressions are worth a thousand words

 While actually driving away from that beating, the drivers front wheel decided to separate from the jeep and
roll through the obstacle course, thus adding an extra obstacle.
The lug nuts holding the wheel spacers on, became loose ( check them if you have them.  loctitie and retorque them,)  backed out and stranded me in the middle of the main drag.
After getting new studs ( scout has weird sizes btw, has .625 knurl and .655  shoulder)
we discovered that the jeep studs went in, but could be knocked out easily, plus without the spacer, the tires rub the tie rod ends, So the weekend was over.

No other calamities to report really.

I installed some mid back bucket front seats and a free-to-me corbeau fold and tumble rear seat.
All were comfy.  I modified a cj7 fold forward seat mount to the passenger side, It worked great
until after this run I found the front of it was bent up a little.  Among the other problems, I will have to fix that
too.

pre 2014 megarun fix -brakes

In the spirit of Just Empty Every Pocket (jeep) I have been trying to make the commando where it can get road legal... ish The last item on the list was to install a parking brake cable. The jeep cable that was on the it was frayed and was removed during the axle rebuild. This is what I made the brackets for-

In prep of this the rear drums were removed. I noticed the parking cables in the drums were dangling and the brakes weren't extended. After looking at a diagram for 10 - 15 minutes to make sure everything is where its supposed to be, I had realized that the automatic screw adjusters were put in backwards (left to right) so everytime I hit the brakes in reverse the adjuster gave more slack to the brake system!
I reversed the adjusters and all is well. I put in the parking cable and prepared to hook everything up I had to cut the brake cable brackets off and move them behind the front mount of the rear springs where the frame starts to bend up, so when the axle droops there isn't a bind on them.
EXCEPT The new cable is 6" longer than the original. So off comes the t-case skidplate to move the parking brake front bracket, modify the length of that and when that was done, the cable rested against the flywheel- find flywheel cover and install. Not that easy. To install this, the left side exhaust that crosses over the flywheel had to come off, and the front driveshaft. Anyway a 40 minute job turned into 3 hours, but it is running again and has a parking brake!

Front roll cage hoop. v1.2

After getting back into shape to do manual labor again, I decided to get the roll cage completed, at least started to be completed.



Due to the dash design of the commando, I had to come up with a place to put the roll bar.
It is made with 3/16" with 1/4" side plate ( here unfinished)
The outer windshield bolt between the soft dash and the window bolts through
the  lower plate- thus hopefully giving some surface area/ support
the upper edges are what the roll bar pad will mount on then bolted through the back.
I'm planning on bolting the 1/4" through the side of the dash and put a leg  down to the floorboard.




And here's the product-  My friends $14,000 tubing bender didn't like the 1 5/ 8" diameter a500 tubing the rest of the
cage was made from, so I bought some of his 1 3/4" dom and he bent it for me pretty accurately.
The lower outer arms are 51" outer to outer, and since its set at about 60* like the windshield the height is 16"
The lower cross bar is the 1 5/8" tubing.

If you'll note the mounting feet that go onto the dash supports with the holes the bolts go through.
The edges of the feet have a double bracket that captures the 1/4" side plate

            And the final product...  It doesn't block the window much, and the top can still be bolted on.
I'm going to play with a couple designs for the rear cage to the front.

10-31-13

Since the roll cage is "tight" to start with inside the top, I decided to go with a opening to keep it as easy as possible to get to the back seat and into the front seats. It came out easier to get into than I expected considering I'm over 6-1. There will be gussets added from the
front hoop to side bars

To keep everything looking the same- I made a 30* bend  and shaved it to fit on both sides.
If nothing else- it looks good.



With padding installed

February 2014 update...
It still runs- Got the flat fixed, Getting ready for megarun again.
Finally got a scout 2 parking brake cable & hoping to get it road legal sometime.
I got a nice rear seat for it, now I'm looking at some mid-high front seats
(like a CJ7 style). 

Post wheeling report

I got the urge to go wheeling just for the day.  August, in Texas, 102*, little to no breeze= perfect.

At least the park wasn't busy. 

There was a cold front coming in during the afternoon, it was supposed to get down to 98*

Rich took his nearly stock 06 TJ along just in case.



We wheeled the entire north end of the property, everything had changed from March at megarun.  The easy trails
had extra drop offs, and wash outs.  We went down "old town trio" (blue arrow, that had also washed out) Rich took the bypass
and I took the trail.  It was severely off camber turning down and right to a 2-3' drop off.  After going off the drop off
I heard/felt a sound go through the chassis when we landed on the front axle heading straight down the trail.

 

 

The new steering was doing its job , but after about 6 hours the steering was not doing as good.

I had checked the tie rod ends and found no problems.

I started up spider ravine (bottom of the map) and the first right turn the jeep kept going

straight

off

 the

 trail.

 

Dang.



Rich swears it was the stump that I ran over, but it had to be the drop off. 
As soon as I fix one problem, it moves to a new spot....

 

The notch I had to put in the crossmember for the chebby Saginaw steering box turned into a crack!
It would turn left okay because the crack would shrink back up, but the right turns opened up
the crack and flexed the crossmember and drivers side frame.  At full right turn the pitman arm was 30* off of center but the tires weren't turning.
We did a 20 point turn around to get back to the main trail and back to the trailer.  I'll weld that up and reinforce it with something.  Maybe duct tape.

Also found that part of the idling problem was one of the 3 pins on the map sensor plug had backed out a little causing an intermediate short, egr sensor wasn't sensing, and the damn chebby tbi has
another vacuum leak at its base. Oh yeh, and a tps.
Beyond that- great trip.

Frame re welded...

1/4 x 1.5" bar strap

Gusset around the notch to strengthen/ transfer some of the loads

The finished product.
There may be a TJ style steering box cover in the future too.

P.S. oh yeh- after filing the base flat & rebuilding the tbi, the engine idled smoother, but would only idle at 500rpm.
After plugging and unplugging the various lines, I noticed the engine idled better after loosening
the idle air control.  After shutting it off and unscrewing the iac I heard a hunk of metal hit something- after looking for a dropped socket or something and not finding it, my attention went back to the iac, only to find that the spring was laying next to it and the plunger had shot off to
who knows where.  There's your problem....


New IAC showed up, it idles pretty nice, unfortunately it is 8pm, too late for a test drive right now.

1 TON Steering - FINALLY DONE!

otk= over the knuckle
trf = tie rod flip
high steer, whatever you want to call it...

These are tapered inserts that I got from TMR in Oh! Canada!
There are similar ones from local dealers too. The shipping
to TX from Ontario was more than the inserts...
They are weld in type and require drilling a 1" hole in your steering arm.
I held the industrial drill steady while a buddy sprayed
 cutting oil on the bit to keep it cool.

The insert gets installed upside down to get the taper going the right direction.
Some companies require you to get a $80+ reamer and some mini inserts
to tap the existing hole. I dunno which way is better...

The adapter welded in and ground even with the arm.

weld all the way around



I hope I cut the right part!

Here's the chebby one ton steering y link.  The dom tubing still needs to be cut to length.  It weighs more than the axle.
I'm not kidding.
News:  I originally installed a jeep j10/ wagoneer  drop pitman arm with the same pitman arm rod end
 on the chebby steering box.
This has the same threads/ diameter (although not as long) as the chebby rod end that came with the kit, so I am going
to stick with it unless there is a problem.
The steering ratio from pitman arm length to steering knuckle length should be almost even again
so steering can be quick again like with the old scout arm :)

Delays, Delays: The Super Swampers barely rub against the new steering linkage. Just barely. So just for kicks I'm going to
get some 1" wheel spacers.
It needs a minimum of 3/8" clearance not to rub, but will get more.

Update Many months later... I got a superduty with low miles that needed a few things first to be a daily driver / tow rig (front axle gone through, all fluids $$$!! ya know.) so that took all the money and time from this project. The good news is that I have gotten some 1.25" wheel spacers for the jeep, eyeballed the alignment, welded up the steering, and everything is working and driving again.  
This is it with the body lifted (axle droop ) of about 4". 
At rest the pitman arm is a little lower than the cross tie rod.


Side note- I don't dislike wheel spacers- but if you use them, tighten them down- way down and
red Loctite them from loosening up.