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My Surgical TJ-6 Build

172K views 684 replies 75 participants last post by  T-Jay 
#1 · (Edited)
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I'm doing a final sweep for information on the tub/frame stretch from TJ to LJ. At this point, I've managed to compile a pretty extensive data base of photos and documentation. I'm Just looking to see if there's anything else out there I haven't already found. Here are some build links I've compiled so far. Thanks to those who shared these.
I've got the majority of the parts I need to at least start my stretch, but I would rather hold off until EVERY part needed is within arms reach. That's given me the opportunity to prepare to an almost surgical degree. My goal is to plan, and pre-fab as much as practically possible before I make the cut...or tell my wife what I'm up to...>:)

What I have so far:

• (x2) 16" frame sections (JF classifieds) $100
• (x2) 16" upper tub sheet metal sections (Davey's Jeeps) $120
• (x1) Pair of factory LJ spec belt rails (JF classifieds) $100
• (x1) Pair of Savvy LJ aluminum corner blanks (4lowparts) $485
• (x1) Chrysler technical training body repair guide (eBay) $15
• (x1) B-pillar body section for practice/investigation (eBay) $50

Rectangle Tool Gas Wood Office supplies

What I still need to gather:
  • LJ soft top
  • Fuel and brake line extensions
  • Sheet metal for the tub patch
  • Custom drive shaft
  • Extra body mounts
I've decided to extend my tub at the front lip of the upper cargo deck as many others have done. However, I plan to move my rear wheel housings back as one intact piece with the rest of the rear tub half, rather than cutting across through them horizontally splitting them into two pieces. Instead, I'll only be cutting the spot welds that hold the wheel housings up to the B-pillars. That way the wheel housings will look original when I'm done. I'll net a little extra interior space as well. The only cuts I'll actually be making to separate the front and rear body halves are down through the vertical face of the side body panels. Everything else will come apart cleanly at the spot welds.

Here's a video I made for a friend explaining the plan.


And some sketches:cool:
Gesture Line Font Art Pattern
Bicycle part Tool Automotive exterior Machine Auto part


I'll post more details soon.
 

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#28 ·
I tried out my new bead roller tonight after work. What a cool little gadget. I need to figure out a more precise way to guide the sheet metal through it though. It's fairly easy to wander off the intended course and end up with a bowed bead as you can see in the photo. This is 18ga sheet I cut out of my hood when I installed my new Gen Right louvers yesterday.

Office equipment Bumper Gas Machine Automotive design

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#29 ·
This is a great thread! I may be converting a few TJs if this works out well.

Great Job so far. Lets see it happen
 
#33 ·
Update: I found this cool adjustable hand throttle on eBay. I've always had a hard time keeping steady pressure on the gas pedal while bouncing around in the rocky river beds. The good camping spots are usually a 1-2 hour drive through the river beds over pretty consistent bowling ball sized rocks. With this little gadget I'll be able to dial my RPMs in and take my bouncy *** foot out of the equation. I decided to mount it close to the window so I can reach it during winching as well. I still have to figure out a way to connect it to the actual throttle lever, but at least all the hard work is don't now.

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#34 ·
Update: I found this cool adjustable hand throttle on eBay. I've always had a hard time keeping steady pressure on the gas pedal while bouncing around in the rocky river beds. The good camping spots are usually a 1-2 hour drive through the river beds over pretty consistent bowling ball sized rocks. With this little gadget I'll be able to dial my RPMs in and take my bouncy *** foot out of the equation. I decided to mount it close to the window so I can reach it during winching as well. I still have to figure out a way to connect it to the actual throttle lever, but at least all the hard work is don't now.

View attachment 3139002
I have that same throttle which I use to control my on board welder. Here is how I attached the cable to the throttle. A short piece of chain with just a bit of slack on the gas pedal side, with the cable casing attached to the steering wheel mount. Take extra care to make sure there is no way for the chain or the cable to get hung up on anything, as that could hold the throttle open when you don't want it to.
 

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#35 ·
NashvilleTJ said:
I have that same throttle which I use to control my on board welder. Here is how I attached the cable to the throttle. A short piece of chain with just a bit of slack on the gas pedal side, with the cable casing attached to the steering wheel mount. Take extra care to make sure there is no way for the chain or the cable to get hung up on anything, as that could hold the throttle open when you don't want it to.
You didn't run the line out to the throttle lever? Like this?
Motor vehicle Automotive tire Automotive design Vehicle Automotive lighting

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To here?
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I was thinking I might be able to fab some sort of coupler to join the provided cable lock in the photo below to the forward facing peg on my existing throttle lever.
Motor vehicle Hood Automotive lighting Vehicle Automotive design


Where did you mount your dial? I had a hell of a time deciding where to mount mine. In the end I decided the left side of the column would be best. I want it to be accessible from out side. I also don't want my 4 year old daughter grabbing a hold of it. Only problem with mounting the dial here was that the face of the panel points slightly downward towards the floor. I'm kind of anal retentive and having the dial point down at an angle bothered me. So I used a urethan bushing I had laying around to make an angled spacer.
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#36 ·
T-Jay said:
You didn't run the line out to the throttle lever? Like this? To here? I was thinking I might be able to fab some sort of coupler to join the provided cable lock in the photo below to the forward facing peg on my existing throttle lever. Where did you mount your dial? I had a hell of a time deciding where to mount mine. In the end I decided the left side of the column would be best. I want it to be accessible from out side. I also don't want my 4 year old daughter grabbing a hold of it. Only problem with mounting the dial here was that the face of the panel points slightly downward towards the floor. I'm kind of anal retentive and having the dial point down at an angle bothered me. So I used a urethan bushing I had laying around to make an angled spacer.
For me, it was much easier to do it the way that I did, mainly because my rig is supercharged, and the throttle body is not in the stock location. Where it is is much more difficult to get a cable to. And one less thing to worry about under the hood.

I mounted the dial in front of the center console. For the welder I need to be able to access it from the passenger side.

My kids are a bit older than three, so no worries there....
 

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#37 ·
NashvilleTJ said:
For me, it was much easier to do it the way that I did, mainly because my rig is supercharged, and the throttle body is not in the stock location. Where it is is much more difficult to get a cable to. And one less thing to worry about under the hood. I mounted the dial in front of the center console. For the welder I need to be able to access it from the passenger side. My kids are a bit older than three, so no worries there....
I see. I originally wanted mine up in the panel where you have your locker switches. But after some deep thought I wasn't willing to take the risk of drilling back through my HVAC just to have the dial there. I gotta go read through your build. That looks like a really well equipped rig you have there.
 
#38 ·
Update: I hadn't mentioned it in the opening post of my build, but there are some pretty ridiculous DMV regulations over here in Taiwan. I always crack a smile when I read posts from back in the good ol US about DMV regulations being a PITA. I only wish we had a fraction of that regulatory leniency over here. In a nut shell, almost any modification to the vehicle that isn't identified in the VIN# is technically illegal. If your Jeep came with a factory hard top, it better have one when it rolls past the inspectors. If your Jeep was white off the assembly line it better be white at the inspection station. Overall height and length of the Jeep are also measured and they be close to factory spec. There's 32" limit on tire size. No aftermarket tire carriers, No winches or bull bars, No engine swaps, No turbos,...

Up until now, in order to pass inspection,

I had to go from this Wheel Tire Sky Cloud Vehicle


to this every 6 months :rolleyes: Automotive parking light Automotive side marker light Wheel Tire Window


The really aggravating part, is that it's not for any legitimate safety consideration. The DMV in this country is just too lazy and unknowledgeable about automobiles to set up a more vehicle specific set of regulations. They would rather just type your VIN# into a computer and match the resultant specs on their server to what you drove to the inspection station.

Our saving grace is that this system and the people who run it is highly corrupt and utterly incompetent. The absence of "car culture" here is such that the vast majority of the inspectors know very little about Jeeps or even cars for that matter. 90% of the time they'll look strait at an obvious modification and never even notice it LOL! Same thing goes for the cops out on the road. None of them bother to enforce any of these useless regulations because they don't even know what their looking at. WIN!

So, through back room "negotiations" with the right people, we motor heads are often able to manipulate the information associated with our VIN#s on the DMV's servers. The mods we can't get cleared in the system can often be snuck through under the radar of uninformed inspectors and or via a padded hand shake with a chosen few more informed but corrupt inspectors.

So that leads me back to my stretch project. With all this regulatory crap in mind, my stretch approach needs to be a bit more strategic than most. I had a sit down with my secret DMV mole this past week and here's where I'm at.

The good news is that I will be able to manipulate my tub dimensions in the DMV's system to hide the extra 15" I plan to add. The revised dimensions in the system will reflect the overall length of an LJ. This was by far my biggest concern since the very beginning of my stretch plan.

The not so good news, is that for whatever arbitrary reason, I won't be able to work the same magic with my wheel base dimension. As far as the official DMV records are concerned, my wheel base is set in stone at 93". This latest development brings my build to a strategic fork in the road with a major judgment call to make.

Do I play it safe and preemptively reconfigure my stretch approach to allow for more wheel base adjustability to comply with the set 93" TJ dimension in the event that it ever becomes an issue? OR,>:) take a leap of faith and go full speed ahead with the current stretch approach hoping the wheel base goes unnoticed by the inspectors?

Option 1) Cut and stretch forward of the wheel housings as planned.
Option 2) Cut and stretch across the center of the wheel housings.

Option 1) moves the entire rear wheel housing back 15" resulting in the most possible interior space. I would be stretching 15" across the full interior width and height of the Jeep as opposed to just the narrow and shallow rear deck area. More interior space is the primary reason for this project. However, this option "could" bite me in the *** down the road. The problem with moving the entire wheel housing back in one piece is that, my resulting TJ-6 wheel base will then be more or less locked in the neighborhood of 108". At that point if I needed to move the axle forward again any more than a few inches to satisfy a DMV inspector (In a worst case scenario) the rear wheels would run into the wheel housings well short of 15". The worst case scenario, would only happen if a DMV inspector for some reason deciding to measure my wheel base and cross reference that dimension with what my VIN# brings up in the system. With no room in the wheel housings to shrink the wheelbase back to 93" I might end up having to get the Sawzall out. Last week I hit up several local 4x4 groups on FB asking if any local guys have ever had their wheel base measured. 12 responses came back and every one said no. Apparently, standard procedure only calls for an overall length and height measurement on passenger vehicles. So chances are, I could move the entire housing back 15" as planned and slide through under the radar without the inspectors ever even noticing the longer wheel base. On the other hand if an inspector did happen to notice the longer wheel base and wanted to be a @#$%, I might end up having to pay him off. Or even worse, cut the tub up again and reconfigure the stretch if he couldn't be bought.

Option 2) Relocate my tub stretch point back to the center of the wheel housing. Stretching the tub here would leave the front half of the wheel housing right where it is and move only the rear half back 15". The result would be an elongated wheel opening with plenty of room inside for the wheel base to move back and forth from 108" to 93". I would then stretch the frame at the apex of the curve over the axle. A temporary suspension reconfiguration in the event of a "worst case scenario" would get my wheelbase back to 93". No post stretch sawzall cuts to the tub would be necessary. I'd simply swap on a second set of LJ length corner guards with the wheels cut out in the forward TJ location to match the temporary 93" wheelbase and hide the left over opening behind the wheels.
Like this: Tire Wheel Vehicle Automotive tire Motor vehicle
Wheel Tire Automotive design Motor vehicle Rolling
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The Jeep would look like a midget scrambler with a huge rear overhang rolling through inspection but it would be "legal" and a day of tooling in the garage would have it stretched back out to 108". On the down side, this stretch option would give me significantly less interior space compared to Option 1. This option would also require a custom 4 link set up to clear the extra 15" of wheel base and hold the rear axle back there at 108" My short Currie arms wouldn't work in this option due to the frame stretch location being up over the axel instead of in front of the frame side control arm mounts like Option 1. I'm also not sure how my Currie rear track bar would fit into this funky equation so I might need to switch to a double triangulated setup in the back. That would add another $1000-$1500 to my build cost where as my Option 1 parts list is pretty much bought and paid for at this point.

All things considered...I'm leaning toward the slightly riskier Option 1. Either way, once I get my overall tub length changed in DMVs records next week, I'll have the next 8 months to decide where to cut. GOD SPEED...:D
 
#39 ·
That sucks...

I think I'd risk option 1.

And I also think that having the huge overhang in the rear would make your modified Jeep stand out worse at inspection than just a longer wheel base.
 
#40 ·
Sand1235 said:
That sucks... I think I'd risk option 1. And I also think that having the huge overhang in the rear would make your modified Jeep stand out worse at inspection than just a longer wheel base.
I think you misunderstood me. The overhang created by moving the rear axle forward to a 93" wheel base would undoubtedly attract attention BUT at that point the Jeep would actually be legal according to the amended overall body length the DMV would have in their system. ;-)
 
#42 ·
bfr said:
FWIW In the 2.5 years since I did mine I've only had one person pickup on the fact that it was stretched on their own (and that guy was a hands on LJ owner).
No one noticed it was not a factory LJ? Or no one noticed it was 15" longer? I've read through your build several times BTW. Very slick. I wish I had access to a donor LJ tub. I probably would have done mine the same way you did.
 
#43 ·
I think the average TJ owner assumes it is a LJ. From talking to non jeep people, I don't think the average person is aware there is a difference between the TJ & LJ. Most would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them unless they had one of each in front of them.

To most people the only distinction is between two doors or four.
 
#44 ·
bfr said:
I think the average TJ owner assumes it is a LJ. From talking to non jeep people, I don't think the average person is aware there is a difference between the TJ & LJ. Most would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them unless they had one of each in front of them. To most people the only distinction is between two doors or four.
This is EXACTLY what I'm counting on. ;-)
I'm 90% sure I'm going with my original plan to stretch behind the doors. Thanks for the input!
 
#45 ·
UPDATE!!!

It's official. As of this afternoon my TJ's overall body length is legally 15" longer matching the LJ length in DMVs system. I also got my overall height raised 8", my hard top switched to a soft top, and my winch and winch bumper will also come up in my VIN specs as legal!

The next time I go in for inspection all I'll have to do is pull my tire carrier off the back, swap my 35's for OE cookie cutters and add a goofy modified roof rack on top to make up the difference in tire diameter and spring height.

By the same token, I am now officially locked in to this project. By the time the next inspection rolls around my overall length needs to match the LJ length they have in the system or I'll fail. I'm all in now.

VICTORY!!!
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Honestly how dumb are these inspectors? Would you pass this roof rack off as overall vehicle height? LOL!! Wheel Tire Car Land vehicle Automotive parking light
 
#46 ·
Woot! That's pretty crazy that things are that strict there but at the same time so corrupt that you can just change the numbers in the system for a price. Glad you are full steam ahead though!
 
#48 ·
Thanks guys. I'm hoping to get a welder in a couple weeks. I have to admit I've never even welded before so this is going to be interesting... I originally was going to get a TIG but after some research I think MIG is a little more my speed for now. I do have a metal savvy friend who's going to stop bye and stitch up the gaps between my temporary tack welds in the frame extensions.
 
#52 ·
COZJ said:
This has got to be one of the most well-thought-out builds I've ever seen!
Thanks! I plan out of nervousness lol! This is by far the biggest project never done.
Aggie76 said:
Subscribed! Love the self sketches and custom fabrication aspect of all this. I can't imagine there's lots of Wranglers in Taiwan? Are they sold there or have to be imported?
There's mostly YJs out here. Some TJs but most are 97 and earlier. And very few run 4.0's. The only JK's here at this point are ones imported by rich guys. My buddy runs a shop that does high end custom builds. Mostly JKs but some TJs and the occasional odd build. He designs and builds most of his stuff in house. The big spenders buy new bone stock JKs from the states, ship them over, and send them strait to him.
 
#53 ·
T-Jay said:
Thanks! I plan out of nervousness lol! This is by far the biggest project never done. There's mostly YJs out here. Some TJs but most are 97 and earlier. And very few run 4.0's. The only JK's here at this point are ones imported by rich guys. My buddy runs a shop that does custom work. Basically rich guys buy new JKs from the states, import them to Taiwan and send them strait to him. Big bucks!
Curious - How does your buddy who does the custom work on the JK's deal with the inspection requirements which you described?

Jeff
 
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