AJOR Crawler Part 2

[Jimmyb]

Rear suspension, Tube fenders and RCI Seat mounting.

With so much custom work being done on this vehicle, it would be so easy to do a writeup on each of the elements and explain them in full but considering there is so much, it makes more sense to just touch on a bit of everything.

Well Since the last story we have made a lot of progress. With any project of this size, a lot of thought and discussion needs to be had about where the project is going. All sorts of ideas have come and gone.



Rear Suspension Setup

With the axle tubes all cleaned up and stripped (Thanks Fatchili), it was time to roll it under the vehicle and mark out the wheel base. It was known approximately where the rear diff was to be put, the chassis had been cut to allow for easier mounting of the shocks etc so once the diff was rolled in, we started looking the link setup.

One thing in the design of the CJ Hybrid that has stayed with us is that the rear would be running a 4 link setup. With this in mind tubing, joints and bolts were purchased and sitting on the floor in Denis's garage. One thing thats amazing is how quickly these items add up in dollars.

Thanks to Maria's collection of cardboard tubes, and an imense collection of gaff tape, we made up the upper and lower warms out of cardboard first and then took a lot of time out sitting, looking, talking, sitting, looking a bit more, oh and talking.

I think we might have even tried to move the diff through its suspension cycle to see how it would work with the cardboard tubes in place.

Once we had established where the mounting points would be it was time to build the brace and mounting tabs on the diff. We used square tube to make up the tabs on the axle tubes, these tabs were notched so they would fit neatly around the axle tube and drilled prior to fittment. Everything that was welded onto the body or diffs was spot welded first to ensure it all worked correctly before final welding.

The beauty of the rear diff is that the pumpkin is steel, not cast, so making the brace and the centre mounts for the top arms was a little easier to design. As you can see in the picture, we used a steel plate, notched at both ends and bent to shape. Tabs were added to the top, at a direct angle to where the arms would be pointing and then these tabs had gussets added.

Arms were a pretty simple item to build. Steel tube, weld big arsed nut on the end, grind back, sleve then wind the joint into the nut and hey presto you have a control arm. Once we had it all tacked in place, we suspended the body and chassis from the roof and started to manipulate the rear diff looking for areas that would bind up during suspension cycling.

To our amazement, we acheived over 35" of downward travel before anything even came close to touching. This type of downward travel may have been used if we went with one of our ideas of running a quarter eliptical setup, or even had we used the nitro shocks, but to get it all up and running sooner we are opting to try out a set of coils in the rear. The setup of the coil mounts will be in another story.





Front tube Fenders
Given that the CJ Hybrid will not be running front guards, we needed something that would protect the side of the bonnet and also allow for intergration into the front stinger. With this it was decided to make up some tube guards. With some right angled corner still sitting on the ground from the XJ's cage, we decided to use them and add length to create the bend and outter edge of the tube guard.

A plate was drilled and fitted to the front edge of the tub, and square tube was used to make up a frame for the quarter panel which was covered in alloy chequer plate and rivited into place.

A cross brace was also run from the front corner of the tube guard diagionally back to the front of the tub. This tub was notched to key into the outter tube. The top of the guards will be sheeted in thin steel sheet and stitched welded into place once the new custom fibreglass bonnet arrives and is positioned.



RCI racing seats
Ebay, what a great place to get cheap deals. Picked up two brand new plastic moulded RCI seats from Sydney and they arrived 3 days later. They come with metal mounting rails on the bottom of them, and you can also purchase runners, which we opted against.

The mounting rails that came with the seats were removed, so that we could make up a full intergrated tube mounting system. Onto the floor of the CJ's tub, we ran a full width tube which would be used for the rear of the custom rails to be mounted to. We also ran a front rail, from the door intrusion to the centre of the tub, mounting it with a bracke tand bolting through the floor.

The tub that was used for the runners, was put in place, and holes where drilled for the bolts to go through the seat into the rails. To save on having to fibble with bolts and nuts also, we welded the nuts onto the rails where the holes were drilled, allowing us to just bolt the seat straight in. The seats have two mounting positions, and will be able to be moved with the simple removal of 6 bolts from the seat.

Now we just have to wait for Maria from MUCANVASPRODUCTS.COM to make up some seat covers with padding as I dont have a lot of meat on me to be comfy enough sitting against bare plastic.

Next up will feature the winch plate buildup, stinger bar, front links and install of the rear coils. Until then, I need more sleep!