Reapairable frame?

rear mounts?>

I uncovered the same issue on the LR of my '94 YJ last year when I installed a 1" body lift. No amount of heating, easy-outing, cursing, etc. would get the SOB out of the captive nut inside the rear tub xmember. The RR came out but just barely. I finally just took a big punch and drove the captive nut (which is about 1" square) completely up and out of its retainers (which was quite easy to do) and used a hole saw to drill a 3/4" hole right above the mount so I could get a wrench in there and I used a nut and lock washer on the bolt. I sealed the hole with a standard plastic body plug and some body sealer. As for the captive nut, Its still up inside the tub, held in place by a big wad of sealer. Otherwise I had to split open the xmember to pull it out, not worth the trouble.

I don't think I'll tackle it myself. Although I have a sufficient welder, I don't have the practice/fabrication expertise. I have a friend who welds for a living (and builds jeeps for fun) and I just found out he's out of work. I'll probably just get him to make the 4 hr trip and put him up for a few days and pay him for his time. I've got a few other projects he can tackle while he's at it.

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 10:31:03 -0600, "Kevin S." wrote:

...broken bolts are stock in trade of vehicle restorations, and can be dealt with faily simply witha good drill indeax and tap set. Center punch the broken stud or b9lt and start with a very small bit. Use liberal amounts of cutting oil o prolong bit life and drill a pilot hole carefully to maintain straightness. Now work your way up the index gradually increasing bit size. If you are only increasing one bit at a time it will drill very quickly and you will spend more time changing bits than drilling ;-) Stop when you reach the reccomend bit size for the tap of appropriate size for the hole. If you did a good job with your center punching and drilling you will find that you are now simply cleaning out the original threads with the tap. If you do a lot of this type thing you may wish to invest in a set of reverse drill bits. May times they will catch the bolt at some point in the process and pull it out for you. As for the one that is sticking out....I concur welding a nut on it would be a good start and while its hot from welding use some parafin wax on it which will wick into the threads. Also on the frame...just an obvious note here. once you have cleaned it up, and before you weld it use so ospho on it to kill the rust before it gets hidden by the new metal. I'd likely sand blast it then ospho...then aweld through zinc primer then weld. But thats just me. ;-) And I'd likely follow teh rerpair with POR-15 covered with Wurth undercoating....but then I hate rust and only like to have to fix it once.

...Gareth

...Gareth

Holy cow. Mine looks new compared to his. That actually cheered me up Bill!

Somehow even before I read your response I knew I wasn't going to have a "real jeep".

That's because you don't have a real battery. :-)

:-)

Have you considered that maybe you should be pricing a new frame and starting over?

Yes I've considered it, but this is a trail only CJ, so if I can spend $300 getting this frame repaired, I'd be saving $1500 over buying a new frame. More $$ to spend on a new cage, winch, etc....

Thats the thoughts I had when I did a frame-up on my CJ-7 6 years ago. The frame had some bad spots that were repaired, I sandblasted and POR-15'ed the rest. I thought I had played it smart and saved some money. The bad news is rust never sleeps here in the northeast, and now my frame is starting to have issues in other places. Now I have to think about getting a new frame, and swapping over my drivetrain, body, suspension and fuel lines. All I did was delay the inevitable, and now I have alot of added work. I wish I replaced my frame when it wasn't mush extra work, instead now it's going to be a huge project. And my frame was in MUCH better shape that yours appears to be. If your is seeing alot of trail duty, then you'll be flexing that rusty frame alot. and it won't like it. Think of it this way, $300 to make it last a few years longer, or an extra $900 to get a few more decades of use.

I live in the desert (western CO), unfortunately I bought the CJ out of Indiana. Rust isn't an issue out here on native vehicles, but if the rust is already there I'm not sure if it can continue or not.

We average 8 inches of rain per year. Snow melts by 10:00 am. No salt out here... etc.

Not sure how this affects you argument.