Things can go from bad to worse

[hockeydad4-22]

So the damage to the frame extends behind the spring cup. The plan to reinforce the fame with u chanel will cause us to cut the cup off, patch the frame, weld on the up channel, then reinstall the cup.

will moving the cup a quarter inch further outside the frame cause us any issues? Any other ideas

[Justin]

I have no idea, but just wanted to say Wow, that sucks.

[akaFrankCastle]

That's friggin ugly right there. I don't think you'll run in to issues with moving the cup out a bit.

[ZOSO]

As long as you dont move it forward or back a 1/4" wont do a thing. To me it would be smart to do the whole frame right there. Especially the steering box. The frames are known to crack at the box when you wheel them. And if your too worried about it do the pasenger side too. That was both coil buckets are spaced the same off the frame.

[Kinder]

Have you thought about a donor frame to replace the entire section that is bad, just a thought if the damage is that extensive.

[hockeydad4-22]

So after sleeping on it for a night, here is the plan, please give me your thoughts as I hope to accomplish at least some of this over the weekend.

Pics are from the CB website thread

Remove the coil bucket
cut away all the damaged frame - as much as we need to
Grind and mitre all the edges to be welded
cut some internal braces to fit inside the frame - weld them in
cut an angle to fit the massive hole - miter those edges as well
fabricate a new track bar bracket and frame reinforcing (see the pictures below) - weld it in
weld the coil bucket back in place - reinforce as nessasary

As others have mentioned, I suppose we will brace up the steering box area as well.

I may brace it across to the passenger side and weld the U channel over there too, but that my be over kill. Our frame repair U-Chanel will be somewhat larger, but these pic's show what I think is the best option. I may duplicate the U-Channel part on the passenger side as well depending on how much trouble we have with the drivers side.

I do not want to be sectioning the frame - or as Tommy here in the shop said - "replace the whole frame, I did it in the jeep in one night". Well I am not Tommy and this is not a trail use only Jeep, this is a daily driver / off road use bronco, clearly a much more important project!

I tell you what: There had never be any sort of death woble caused by track bar issues again on this rig. NEVER!

[Kinder]

Looks perfect and massive, can't wait to see it done.

[airbur]

Holy crap man...that drop bracket is wicked! Did you fab is up from scratch? You could sell that thing.

[hockeydad4-22]

Holy crap man...that drop bracket is wicked! Did you fab is up from scratch? You could sell that thing.

It is not a store bought thing, it is from the CB web site, a memeber there made it for his trial rig and posted the pictures there in my thread on that site. He PM'd me the details and today we are going to start building it. As far as the bracket, I am not at all concerned about fabrication on it, I am how ever worried about welding the patch in and on the frame....


Silly I know.

Hopefully this afternoon we will have a completed repair, of course we will have to wrap it up by 2:00 to get Andrew to Monument for a hockey game.

I will post pic's as we make progress.

Step one: Find something to support the front end as we are underneath it, I do not have any jack stands and just do not trust the engine hoist with my whole life....

[airbur]

I have 2 12ton stands and 2 smaller ones you can borrow. I'm just south of you off Grigs Rd.

[hockeydad4-22]

How tall are they? We need to lift the frame high enough to get it off the springs, we have to cut the spring bucket off the drivers side. Standard jack stands are not tall enough. (I have plenty of them)

I am thinking I am going to be building something taller to rest it on or to support the engine hoist that we lifted it up with.

We are talking 34-36"

[airbur]

They are 30" tall. They are tall enough to get the springs out. If you put some 2x4s or cinder blocks under them you'd get even more height.

http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-jac ... 34924.html

[hockeydad4-22]

Cool, I will be in touch later then, I am going to get the materials now, have to take Drew to Monument for a hockey game this afternoon so I suppose today is shot, but perhaps tomorrow.

[airbur]

Let me know.

[hockeydad4-22]

eric,

Just sent you a pm .

[airbur]

How's the repair going? Did you guys make any on Sunday?

[hockeydad4-22]

Nope, went home and watched the super bowl on sunday. Hope to start tonight if I can get enough done at work by 5 that I don't have to work late. The stands work perfect thanks.

[airbur]

Great! Glad they are working for you.

[Jesus_man]

Greg, my drop track bar bracket did the same thing. You are probably too far down this road to change plans now, but it's better to put a riser bracket on the axle and leave the track bar bracket on the frame at stock height. My concern with what you are doing is that your setup is only as strong as the metal around it. The idea is to spread the load out across more of the frame instead of those two inches your bracket was doing.

Anyway, I've had to repair my frame twice. Once for the steering box and second for the drop- track bar bracket.

Here's the frame damage:


Hhere is a picture of what was added to the frame for the track bar. You can see the older fix for the steering box. I plated both sides of the frame for the steering box. That's 1/4" plate:


I did ram-assist at the same time, so here is my track bar riser bracket and the outer section is where the ram is.




Here is my track bar frame bracket to allow the track bar to be as long as possible.


Anyway, just make sure you are connecting your new frame section to as much of the frame as possible and a double layer of plate there won't be a bad thing.

[hockeydad4-22]

We were able to spend a few hours on Saturday afternoon working on the frame repairs. It took nearly 3 hours just ot get the spring bucket off, but in the end, yes the spring bucket is off and we have cut much of the damaged frame away. We still have a bit more cutting and then it is time to start the actual repair.

This is about 3.5 hrs worth of work so far (not including fender removal). We are most ceritianly going with the heavy duty track bar repair you see above, but we are still considering options regarding a riser on the diff or not, just extending the frame mount for now: My question is do we have to drain the oil from the axel to weld a riser to it? THe shame would be that we just drained and filled the diffs on this thing. Not to big a deal I suppose....

Folks, please do yourself a favor and check your frame around the track bar. I mean seriously, this appears to have been a profesionaly installed lift kit and you would think that the engineers would have known even back then what the liabilities could have been if someone had been injured when this thing tore off. Besides, how much easier would this have been if we had caught it when it first started oilcanning and cracking instead of now - gapping hole in the frame right at one of the highest stress areas of the frame.....

At the bottom pic you can see the old track bar and drop bracket (with a significant chunk of frame still attached) and above it, the frame to Drew's little pony as it sits now. Still have to cut the bottom damaged metal out, grind bevels in the frames and patch material, then weld some internal gussets in, weld in our patch, then weld in the new way over sizd and ridicilous 1/4" U channel over the frame, and finally a new track bar bracket....


We hope to get a lot more done on Tuesday evening. I dont think we can finish but hope to put a bid dent in it.

Oh and just to ad a bit of humor to this whole thread: While cutting the broket track bar off the inside of the frame, I managed to nick the K&N oil filter, cutting about a 1/2" hole in it so now the new oil in the motor is wasted as is the new K&N filter..... YAY!!!

[Jesus_man]

It's a LOT of work, I know. Thanks for the pictures.

I hope others take heed to your warning. If you have a drop trac-bar bracket, go check it now and consider replacing it!

You should be able to just weld a riser bracket on there because the seals for the D44 are in the pumpkin so there should be no oil in the tubes. You want your track bar as long as possible for stability and flex, so keep that in mind if you are designing a riser bracket. I am sure you also know that your track bar and drag link need to be on that same angle to avoid bump steer and possibly death wobble.

J.D.

[hockeydad4-22]

Spent some more time last night on the frame repair....

About another three hours in fact. We got all the bad steel out, and there was plenty, then put two internal gussets running horizontal at quarter points, they extend about three inches past they repair both ways. Those are welded fully to the inner side of the frame and as far as I could reach on the outside. Then we started welding in the patch. Still have quite a bit if welding to do on that before we even start the new track bar bracket.

That'sAbout 8 he's in so far on this repair. I am predicting a complete repair by the end of the weekend

[crawlercreations]

Spent some more time last night on the frame repair....

About another three hours in fact. We got all the bad steel out, and there was plenty, then put two internal gussets running horizontal at quarter points, they extend about three inches past they repair both ways. Those are welded fully to the inner side of the frame and as far as I could reach on the outside. Then we started welding in the patch. Still have quite a bit if welding to do on that before we even start the new track bar bracket.

That'sAbout 8 he's in so far on this repair. I am predicting a complete repair in time for the snow wheeling trip this Saturday!

I fixed it for ya!

[hockeydad4-22]

I like your ambition and the way you think.... And if the snow rerun were sunday there would be an outside possibility... unfortunately it is.not and I am having my wisdom teeth removed Friday. I am planing a day of lounging on the recliner saturday and if I am feeling inspired - sunday spending the whole day on the bronco

[Moab Mike]

Nice editing CC!

[Kinder]

Looking good!

[hockeydad4-22]

Well, the best laid plans can be foiled... Did not leave the couch yesterday until 4: 0 0. And only left then because the 16 year old had driven his mustang to greeley to watch his girlfriends volley ball game. Well of course, that is when Rusty the mustang decides to quit, so down to the shop, grab the trailer, up to greeley, load up the stranded vehicle (starter, no biggie, should be back on the road today) and haul her back to the shop.

by the time we got home, it was close to 10pm and well past this old mans bedtime.

I plan to wake Drew up around 8am and head for the shop to get started on his little pony. We need to stop off at depot for some welding supplies and cut off blades for the saw.

I imagine Daniel will show up late this morning to work on his car too.

I am actually looking forward to spending the day with both boys working on their cars. If anyone is in the area, feel free to stop by. Addy and directions are in the bumper build thread.

[hockeydad4-22]

Well the welding, grinding and cutting are all done, on the drop bracket. Now we have the reassembly, suspension and finally put the fenders back on.

I know that I will forever be known as the king of.the bugger welds, but I doubt they fail.

[Entourage]

Looks really nice. I don't know how to weld any other way - hoping to get some skills at the Bumper Build but you may be de-throwned as King after seeing my skills.

[cracker]

The extra stress placed on the stock track bar mount by adding the drop bracket has done more damage than anything else. Especially if you run larger tires. Justa my .02, but use an adjustable track bar and a riser welded to your axle instead of a drop bracket. Saves ALOT of problems in the future.....Same thing happened to my EB in Moab after jumping the dunes . Now I use the stock mount on the frame and a WH track bar riser on the axle. No problems anymore.