Brody
August 3rd, 2009, 07:09 AM
Since I will eventually lose my 'extra' garage space and my heap is going to end up outside again, I decided that in addition to redoing my rear end and my basic once a year clean up, I would go the extra mile and do a real clean up. I took pictures for my insurance company once it was clean as I knew that it wouldn't last long...
In my routine maintenance schedule, I tighten everything under my rig about every two weeks and check all of my diff, transmission and transfer case fluid levels. I also pay particular attention to some of the critical areas that would cause serious problems should they loosen up, namely the steering knuckle nuts, spring hanger bolts, T case, engine and transmission mount bolts, and driveshaft mounting bolts.
Once a year, I go through the whole under carriage, exterior roll cage, and body and do a basic rust removal and repaint. This year, due to the insurance, I attacked the frame rails, springs and anything else I could clean up. Rust is a drag and seems to be never ending. Painting also serves a couple of purposes other than simply making things look better-it protects against rust and also provides a smoother surface that grease and dirt have a harder time sticking to, making cleaning easier. One of the other things that it does is show where any wear areas are....you end up with no paint on them and it helps you identify mystery noises.
I also decided that I would move the rear winch down into the frame rails and mount the fairlead on the bumper and lower the spare tire carrier, thus giving me some much needed room and lowering my center of gravity a bit. This involved boxing the frame a little around the winch mount and relocating the OBA air tank under the rig. I also had to remove a cross brace on my exo in order to do this. I rewelded a piece of tubing lower down to mount the spare tire mounts on and, since I took out the upper cross brace, added some gussets to the lower section for stiffness and support. The relocation of the winch also meant that I had to relocate my receiver hitch from the mid bumper location to the the bottom of the bumper, something that I changed awhile back before I bobbed the bed as it was dragging a lot. Due to the amount of bed butchery I had to do in order for me to drop the winch and weld the brackets, I had to cover the hole in the bed. What I used for this was a bed liner tail gate protector that I scavenged from the garage rafters on a fix and flip I was working on. A little custom cutting and the liner worked fine and looks good, too.
Speaking of scavange, almost all the steel I used for this was heading for the junk pile. The basic winch mounting steel was 3 1/2x 3 1/2 x 1/4" steel lintel from a construction job. The misc plate was from the free scrap bin at Altitude Steel as was the strapping and angle iron used for the air tank mount.
One of the other things that I did was to add some grab handles to the inside of the existing tube doors so that people, including me, would be inclined to grab the handles instead of wrapping their hands over the outside of the door frame. The handles were made from some extra extended push up bars that I had kicking around and, since they weren't structural, didn't have to be heavier gauge in order to work.
In the interest of saving a few bucks and to also make the rig look better, I decided to start using a cheaper paint for my rock rails and exo cage. What I used was the 'Teflon' colored wheel paint instead of the more expensive Dupli Color Truck Bed liner that I had been using. After all, the rails and exo get scraped and trashed all the time and the kind of paint doesn't matter very much.
I also included a shot of the Rodeo seats that I installed a few weeks ago. I got these for $22 each at the Pick and Pull and only had to modify the front outside mounts to get them to fit.
Here are a bunch of pictures:♦
In my routine maintenance schedule, I tighten everything under my rig about every two weeks and check all of my diff, transmission and transfer case fluid levels. I also pay particular attention to some of the critical areas that would cause serious problems should they loosen up, namely the steering knuckle nuts, spring hanger bolts, T case, engine and transmission mount bolts, and driveshaft mounting bolts.
Once a year, I go through the whole under carriage, exterior roll cage, and body and do a basic rust removal and repaint. This year, due to the insurance, I attacked the frame rails, springs and anything else I could clean up. Rust is a drag and seems to be never ending. Painting also serves a couple of purposes other than simply making things look better-it protects against rust and also provides a smoother surface that grease and dirt have a harder time sticking to, making cleaning easier. One of the other things that it does is show where any wear areas are....you end up with no paint on them and it helps you identify mystery noises.
I also decided that I would move the rear winch down into the frame rails and mount the fairlead on the bumper and lower the spare tire carrier, thus giving me some much needed room and lowering my center of gravity a bit. This involved boxing the frame a little around the winch mount and relocating the OBA air tank under the rig. I also had to remove a cross brace on my exo in order to do this. I rewelded a piece of tubing lower down to mount the spare tire mounts on and, since I took out the upper cross brace, added some gussets to the lower section for stiffness and support. The relocation of the winch also meant that I had to relocate my receiver hitch from the mid bumper location to the the bottom of the bumper, something that I changed awhile back before I bobbed the bed as it was dragging a lot. Due to the amount of bed butchery I had to do in order for me to drop the winch and weld the brackets, I had to cover the hole in the bed. What I used for this was a bed liner tail gate protector that I scavenged from the garage rafters on a fix and flip I was working on. A little custom cutting and the liner worked fine and looks good, too.
Speaking of scavange, almost all the steel I used for this was heading for the junk pile. The basic winch mounting steel was 3 1/2x 3 1/2 x 1/4" steel lintel from a construction job. The misc plate was from the free scrap bin at Altitude Steel as was the strapping and angle iron used for the air tank mount.
One of the other things that I did was to add some grab handles to the inside of the existing tube doors so that people, including me, would be inclined to grab the handles instead of wrapping their hands over the outside of the door frame. The handles were made from some extra extended push up bars that I had kicking around and, since they weren't structural, didn't have to be heavier gauge in order to work.
In the interest of saving a few bucks and to also make the rig look better, I decided to start using a cheaper paint for my rock rails and exo cage. What I used was the 'Teflon' colored wheel paint instead of the more expensive Dupli Color Truck Bed liner that I had been using. After all, the rails and exo get scraped and trashed all the time and the kind of paint doesn't matter very much.
I also included a shot of the Rodeo seats that I installed a few weeks ago. I got these for $22 each at the Pick and Pull and only had to modify the front outside mounts to get them to fit.
Here are a bunch of pictures:♦