willysmjeeps.com

If it could go wrong it went wrong this weekend. I finally made the decision to replace my rear crossmember....so I got out the grinder and started grinding off rivet heads. No problems or surprises encountered. Next I attempted to mount my alternator using a knockoff bracket fabricated by my son. The bracket turned out to be too far out on the angle iron so I called him up to make me another one with modifications. He came right over....whipped me out a second one....wished me luck and headed out on a hunting trip. This bracket turned out to be too tall....so it wouldn;t work either.....gave up on this until my son comes back. Next....thanks to a little oops by my brother....I found out (what I had suspected but was hoping to be wrong about) that my rebuild of my master cylinder involved a little too much honing and the piston wasn't seating very well and allowing brake fluid to collect inside the rubber boot at the back of the cylinder. I'm soooo smart I had anticipated this so I felt really good about having a new cylinder already in-hand to install. What I hadn't anticipated was:
1. that the rear bolt on the cylinder cannot be removed without taking the entire cylinder out....and this requires at leaast a small degree of pre-planning
2. that the pin on the brake petal arm and the clutch control rod can interfere with each other if the cross-shaft bracket is installed with the brake petal resting on the center crossmember
3. that the tie bar, if installed on the cross-shaft, and allowed to hang straight down cannot be brought up into position along side the master cylinder because of the exhaust heat shield
4. that whoever decided what orientation the cross shaft should be in to drill the cotter key holes is both ambidexterous and capable of using their feet like a monkey

One can definitely be spoiled by working on these "simple" vehicles with their bodies off and engines pulled. If there is a place where reading the manual is really necessary its that area immediately under the driver's feet where.....steering....braking.....a little electrical.....exhaust....drive train...and fuel linkage all come together.

I rounded out my weekend by rearranging the "guts" on both ends of my draglink. Thay are now picture perfect! I figured why not.....since this would be the last time to do so without the master cylinder in my way. This task actually went very smoothly. Next I installed my exhaust system gaskets...one below the exhaust manifold.....and the next two flange gaskets......and muffler. This went very well also now that the funky rear bumper and old crossmember are out of the way.

So now I'm just waiting for my new rear cross member and new fuel lines.....another modified alternator bracket......and my frame is done. Whaddya think......frame complete by Christmas?....uh...no.....I mean THIS year!!!

I'm assuming your tub is off. Are taking it down to the frame? I had to flip mine over a few times to get the rear cross member to go on.

When you put the new rear cross member on, sometimes the holes don't line up. I had to put a small bottle jack in between the end of the channels to spread them a hair and get the bolts started.

Are you using rivets? I used bolts made to look like rivets if you want to go that direction.

I think you can easily get the frame ready for assembly this year. Here is the breakdown from my project from the point of a bare frame with no rear cross member. This includes total garage time, cleanup, ect. The rear cross member was harder than expected and I had come up with some ideas along the way.

Sand blasting (sourced out) - 4 day turn around
Repair small problems on frame - weld nuts broken off. - 2 hours
Fabricate rear cross member fake rivets - 10 hours
Install rear cross member - 10 hours
Prime frame - 5 hours (2 coats)
Paint frame - 5 hours x 2 (3 coats then one final coat)

I usually start at 5 in the morning on weekends and holidays and work until the family wakes up and that is why my project has taken over two years to get to the point I'm at. The cold weather is putting a damper on this. I don't know your situation so you may finish quicker.

yikes......did I actually read that right.......cleanup time? I knew there was something I forgot!

You are correct......my tub is off.....and has been for quite some time. I even pulled the engine and drivetrain and overhauled the entire lock, stock, and barrel. I got the frame sandblasted and then repainted it too. And that was about the end of doing things in the proper sequence. Naturally I waited until I was almost finished with the frame to decide to redo the rear crossmember.....and even then its only because it interfered with the new exhaust system. Now I'll have to do some additional painting on the frame...but oh well....so it goes.

At this point I'm leaning towards bolts to hold on the rear crossmember since I have no riveeting tools and know absolutely nothing about the subject. Can I ask what lenght bolts you used? I'm not really doing an exactly perfect restoration....just a basic functionality restoration.....but I'm trying to do it such that if the next guy wants to "do it right" all he has to do is remove the nuts and bolts and install the rivets. Same for the alternator.....rather then modify or re-drill the front mounting plate I'm just bolting on a shop built bracket that uses the existing mounting holes and leaves all the generator mounting points intact. Its been fun.....but soooo slow.....but thanks to all the help from you guys on this site....I might actually finish in this lifetime.....I think.

Third option which is what I did, clamp the rivet and weld on the inside with a mig welder. I cut the rivet length first to help with the finished look and I am quite happy with the results.

Here is a picture of my frame and what I did.

http://www.willysmjeeps.com/v2/modules. ... c&start=15

I'm not at home but I think I used 3/8 carriage bolts from Home Depot, lock washers and thead lock. They are the shortest ones they have. I turned down the head to the exact size of the rivet head so you can't tell from the outside. I used the square part at the top of the threads on the carriage bolt to grab with my 4-jaw chuck. I then ground off the square part.

There are two rivets on top and on the bottom that you can't turn the wrench in to tighten but you can get the wrench on them so I left the round head on the carriage bolt and ground a slot. I used an impact driver to tighten them down then ground the dome off the carriage bolt. It looks perfect. I then welded the plate on the center in a way that it would be easy to remove the bumper if it ever gets bent again.

I toyed with the idea of riveting but it was just too complecated for me and I was worried that at my skill level it would just make a big mess and probably result in a loose cross memeber.

You will realize very quickly that you don't have much room to work with when the cross member is installed.

Yeah, I can imagine its kind of tight inside the frame....and to compound things....my frame has the boxed in area over the rear spring rear shackle mount. I'm thinking I can still get a wrench in there to backup the nut and then impact hammer the bolt head home from the outside. I feel fairly certain I'm not the first person to tighten up hardware bass ackwards and figure this is my best bet for getting a good tight crossmember. And since I'm really not that much into appearance I'm just going to leave the hex heads intact for the next guy.

On another note.....in a previous post either here or on the g503 board....there was some question regarding the mounting hole diameters in the repop crossmember. Just for the record......my frame holes are 3/8" and the holes in my old crossmember are also 3/8". To remove the old crossmember I ground off the flat heads of the old rivets. Was surprised to find that the rivets had expanded during installation to accommodate both hole diameters. In fact.....if one wasn't careful one could lose sight of where the rivet actually was once all the head was ground down. And while I never had any problem punching the rivets out of the frame and cross member I did have to hit some a lot harder then others to get them started driving out backwards. Just my $.02 cents worth.....if you lay a new crossmember with 1/2" holes up against a frame with 3/8" holes and properly drive home a rivet (that swells to fill the 1/2" hole) you can forget about ever grinding off the rivet head and driving it out inward cause it seems like the half inch rivet wouldn't pass through the 3/8" frame home......yep.....I think I'm going to use bolts.

Here's what you want the bracket to look like, I don't think Willys works makes them anymore, but an internet search can locate a company the has them.

http://www.film.queensu.ca/cJ3B/Alterna ... l#Mounting