[whodatschrome]

“antique Currie 9”...lol

 

[cccj]

“antique Currie 9”...lol

It was built in the 1900s.

 

[cccj]

Got to a point where I could fit the Barnes bumper. Cut out the top and bottom for steering box fitment, as well as trimmed up the grill body mount.

Before:

After:

 

[cccj]

More work on the frame. I needed a solid crossmember welded in vs just a bolted bumper and I also want to run a sway bar for stability. So I found space for a 1.75x.120 tube and clearances it for the steering box.

Also cut up the new Barnes4wd bumper even more.

Overall, I rebuilt the stock design in a more compact, shorter packaging.

 

[cccj]

I’d like to finally get some suspension going. Began on link brackets on the axle. Tacked together the RuffStuff upper link mount on the passenger side.

Moved the brake line and fuel lines off the inside of the frame. Also adapted the fuel fittings to -6 AN and tucked the exhaust as high as possible; now it’s ready for an upper link frame mount

I realized I better take advantage of the nice day outside in the driveway.

Bending shock hoops out of 1.75x.120 DOM.

 

[cccj]

Spent a lot of time trimming mitre cuts on the tube ends to get the angles and height right. Also cut out some 2” x.185 plate as landing pads on the frame. Then tacked in some shock tabs to guess on coilover placement.

It will be tight with such a narrow axle and 2.5x16 coilovers. I’ll need to cut out some gussets/shock mounts that move the bottom out near the ball joints in order to keep the coil out of the frame.

 

[cccj]

It's been a while since I've got to work on the YJ and frankly the project has regressed. I'll explain.

The antique Currie 9" front I have was built for a CJ7 with narrow frame rails and a passenger drop pinion. When I aligned the axle up and eyed the driveshaft angles it presented a problem with the oil pan. Pictured here is a 1" tube from pinion to tcase output at ride height.

ALSO, the NP231 tcase that I removed and sold to a friend, turned out to not work for him. It's a 21 spline input.

My 231/300 tcase set is 23 spline input and will not work with the NP465 trans. Simple solution, the original 231 is going back in.

That means I need a drivers drop front axle. The whole concept of this project has been utilizing old parts I have, so I'm going to make the Currie 9" front work with reusing the axle shafts and width but driverside drop.

Start

In progress

 

[lovett86]

Gotta do what u gotta do sometimes.. good luck.

 

[cccj]

More progress on the front axle rebuild. Built a backbone truss and tacked on the link mounts.

Back under the YJ trying to locate it forward as far as possible while finding space for the drag link, track bar and upper link. The up travel is limited by the power steering pump.

Still working out mounting options with the track bar, both on the frame and axle ends.

 

[cccj]

Frame side bracket work today. Can’t remember if these are Motobilt or Barnes4wd. Either way I always material to strengthen the frame and spread out the welds.

 

[cccj]

After welding all the frame side mounts last week, I worked on the track bar to finish up the axle side mounts. The driver's side is very crowded with everything competing for space on both ends of the links. The pitman arm swing determined how far forward I could mount the track bar, and the track bar determined how far forward I could stretch the axle forward.

I thought I needed to mount the frame side track as high as feasible to allow for up travel. However this inside the frame mount and does not allow for the longest possible track bar and the angle is steep.

The problem shows up when I travelled the axle left and right the track bar arc pulls the passenger side and the coilover contacts the frame. I could barely draw a straight line between mounting points, even airshocks wouldn't fit.

I can't move the coilovers so I'm going to try the change the angles and length on the track bar and see if I can get it flatter with less lateral movement during travel. If that doesn't work, I'm going with a full width axle.

 

[cccj]

I think I can make it work, but we'll see. I lowered and lengthened the frame end of the panhard to lower the roll center and reduced the lateral movement.

I made a mock up bracket from an old upper link.

Now I need to finish my lower links, and use something that holds stronger than PVC, in order to confirm the shocks will clear. I also could switch to 12" travel shocks, because the last 4" of travel of these 16s seems to be the problem.

At close to full extension