A few weeks ago while driving the Jeep, the power steering lines completely rusted through and drained the lines in a parking lot. Without easy steering, I parked the Jeep for a few weeks until I could get the parts and a nice enough day to do the repair.
Figuring out a way to get the power steering lines out prooved to be a little more work than you would anticipate for a Jeep having the steering box OUTSIDE of the front bumper. I ended up having to completely remove the front grill and core frame in order to gain access to the lines. It may have only been 12 bolts, and removing the radiator but it brought along its own headaches.
Here is what the Jeep looks like without its front end:
Kinda cool. I’ve never had a vehicle with a main frame so you could just remove a large chunk of the front end. If the Jeep weren’t so rusty, working on this thing would be a snap.
The bad news though was that the radiator was on its last legs. The fins were all rotted away. I was surprised it worked at all… not something I was willing to test with Winter approaching.
A new radiator was ordered along with all new hoses and bolts. But that wasn’t the least of the troubles. The main body mount for the front had completely rusted through the frame. A quick patch panel was made and welded up. Looks pretty nice?
Gotta try and get it all back together tomorrow morning as long as the 40 degree day isn’t bombarded with snow or rain showers!
The music video by Ben Garbe and the Former Frat Boys has finally been released. Its called I’m a DINOSAURus and features scenes with our Jurassic Jeep #18. Check it out!
The welding is finally completed and the gas tank has been reinstalled with a brand new filler neck, tubes and license plate bracket. Everything on the Jeep that was fixed is working perfectly as it should. The rust replacement panels seem to have worked nicely and the Jeep doesn’t squeek like it used to. That being said I haven’t driven the Jeep in two months until today.
What a great way to enjoy the fall weather, its in the 80s here right now… a change from the 50s just a week ago. Just a few more days of summer left until the hard top goes back on.
Finally got done welding (both sides) of the rear frame. It took a while longer to get done thanks to Dragon*Con and a trip to New York with Jeep #18 owner Boomerjinks. I thoroughly welded all sides of the frame with the plates and then hit them with a layer of rust preventing paint, and then black paint. It turned out great, but it makes the rest of the rusty frame really stand out now!
Here is the passenger side, the driver side looks the same:
Now to put the gas tank back in, and drive the Jeep without a top for a few more weeks before it becomes too cold to do so!
Just an update on the Jeep’s rusty frame repair. I have managed to get one side done. What a pain in the ass this is being! The welder is acting funky and throwing sparks like crazy, I have several very nice burns on my arms, hands, and legs from molten metal. I’m overall pretty happy with how the welds are turning out. Perhaps a little grinding and then adding a layer of rust encapsulator and chassis paint.
This will be the first in several posts about fixing the frame rust, as I will not be able to finish it all today, or in 1 single day. The fuel tank removal took longer than I had wanted, and I’m sure installing it will not be any easier. The reason for removing the fuel tank was ofcourse to get in there and repair the frame rust that has plagued the Jeep. The repairs should be very strong, and as long as it doesn’t immediately rust out again, it should last several years before I need to think about replacing the whole frame. Here is the rust that I have managed to break free from the outside (and inside) of the frame. Consider that I had gotten rid of a lot of rust prior, and it all ads up to A LOT.
Here are the plates that I have purchased to do the repair. I got them from a guy on JeepForum, but I think he also sells them on eBay. They are very thick ~1/8″+ laser cut steel, to which I made a few modifications. Here they are clamped in, but in the next few days they will be fully welded into place.
Since it was in the 70′s today I decided it would be a good time to get some much needed work on the Jeep. I was ambitious to think that I would be able to get all of the work done today, but the rust monster has struck again. I intended to repair the rear frame area rust, which unfortunately requires removing the gas tank. It took a lot of cutting, cursing, and cramping but I managed to get the gas tank out after a few hours. Most of the rubber hoses will need to be replaced however, because when the tank was last installed (either by someone, or at the factory) all the clamps were installed upside down and inaccessible.
I will have to resume the welding sometime later this week.
In the meantime I had some stickers made and I decided to see how they would look like on a license plate blank. They need some tweaking and overall are too big, but a set in the right direction for an accurate license plate. (BTW…. would anyone like to buy one?) I also took a quick shot of my work area’s Jurassicness.
While we were developing a way to make sounds for our Jurassic Jeep projects one idea was to load the sounds onto our mobile phones and play them out of the speaker. Rather than limit this to just our vehicles, why not branch out and make it available to all? That is exactly what we have done!
Find the Jurassic Jeep soundboard for Android mobile phones in the Android Marketplace! Here is a video of the app running. We’ll have video of it working in the Jeep in the next few months! For an example, check out Jeep #18 running a similar system here.
Went to a Weird Al concert the other day and managed to catch him on his way out afterward. He didn’t see the Jeep at first, then was thrilled when he noticed our temporary logos. It was a pretty awesome experience.
This is a video of us testing the volume of the powerhorn while the Jeep is running. I initially had my doubts that the speaker would be louder than the engine, or at the very least would be barely audible above it. Boy was I wrong! The horn is placed to the right of the fanbox and is currently running off of a 300w amplifier and an arduino board. Sounds haven’t been tweaked yet, just looping four basic sounds while I did a walkaround. Due to the lack of bass, the t-rex roar will probably never work the way I’d like it to, but the sharp raptor shrieks and dilophosaurus hisses are wonderful. Eventually I’ll have each sound wired to a button on the dashboard so I can play each on command. I still need to work out my “must go faster” clip.
