Real life kept us from working on the XJ Saturday, so we started Sunday by getting the winch mounted to the front bumper. Here you can see us working on the placement of the winch.
As you can see where centering the fair lead on the bumper, which mean the winch its self is a little off-center. The 8274 takes up a huge amount of room on the front and is going to block the radiator more then I would like, but it was either that or reduce the approach angles more, which we are trying to avoid. I’m a little concerned with where it is placed causing heat issues, but Tom came up with way to mount a larger radiator and mechanical fan later if it becomes an issue this summer. Anyways here is a side view.
With the placement figured out we bent and coped some tubes to connect the upper and lower tubes and give us a place to mount a faceplate since an 8274 mounts onto the front faceplate instead of down below like most winches now days. While Tom was doing that I started work removing my current transmission cooler, and the A/C system. The transmission cooler is going to be moved as far toward the passenger side as possible to try and get it out from behind the new winch, yet still in front of the mechanical fan. Later I plan on also getting a matching cooler to mount on the driver side and use as a power steering cooler. The A/C is getting converted to OBA, so most of that hardware is also getting removed. Here you can see the two vertical pieces in place and the crap behind, which I have yet to remove.
And here it is with the winch plate in place, as well as the winch, and I’ve finally started removing the A/C system.
To get some idea how tight this is going in, here is a up close side view with everything removed. Where going to put a plate between the winch and the radiator to make sure the cable doesn’t eat into the radiator if it gets all pilled up.
With that accomplished We deiced to finally start working on plating the frame rails. Anyone who has ever had to remove the belly skid from a TNT Custom LA lift knows that it is no easy feat, since the control arms are attached to the skid plate the front axle generally wants to move forward until it hits the fenders. We finally fabbed up some extensions for Toms home-made jack stands so that we could support the front end and removed the tires from the front axle so that it could hang free. We then removed the skid and confirmed that yes, I had managed to dent a ¼†thick, reinforced skid plate. And not just a small little dent, a good 1†deflection in the center. That went into the back of my truck, and after a visit to the carwash to get it cleaned up is going to get straitened out and more reinforcement added. I’m just trying not to think about what would have become of my transmission and transfer case if it had not been there.
With that removed it was time to start plating the uni-frame. Here you can see the piece of plate that will go on the bottom driver side rail. The larger holes are for welding, the three smaller ones are for the bolts that attach the belly skid to pass through.
With the extra plating in place the existing hardware isn’t going to be long enough. After all between the after market belly skid, and the ¼†plate you have almost ½†of extra thickness. New bolts are easy enough to come by, but on each side of the vehicle one of the bolts is pre-welded into the uni-rail. That is the bolt hangs down from the uni-frame and you attach the nut instead of the other way around. Since this bolt isn’t long enough it had to come out and a new bolt welded onto the new plate. This called for Tom to break out what must be the only piece of cutting gear that hadn’t until this point been used on the XJ, his cutting torch.
Here you can see what I am rambling about, the two outer bolts will simply be replaced with longer ones, the middle one is the new one we added, we will cut it to length once we have it all back together and know what the proper length is. Also you can see the side of the rail, along with the various holes I have drilled into it in order to mount my old rock rails and the belly skid. After we finish scrapping away the undercoating we will place another piece of plate here to further strengthen, as well as to cover up this unsightly mess.
