I'm going to be reusing the front of the Jeep body back to the firewall and then building my own from there back on the 81 CJ-7 project. My question is what should I use for body mounts? All the stock ones are shot and am looking for any ideas premade or homemade.The cheaper the better!

So what would you use or would you just solid mount?

Just for your info I boxed the rear of the frame and plated the inner all the way so frame flex will be less then stock the plans inclued a family cage also.

Yep, but it ain't cheap.



I made mine from JCWhitney floor stiffeners... these are "U" channels. The cost for those is about $7 each. These are Item D, below

Thanks for that info I never saw those before

But I was really looking for the rubber mount (hardware) between the body & frame. If I should just use stock or if there is a low cost solution for them.....Sorry if I wasn't clear on that

Like your idea for the bump stops made out of a old tire [img]images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

This is one place where you don't want to go "low buck." I've seen plywood mounts and hockypucks turned down on a lathe to fit the frame mounts. Now I'm cheap as the day is long but I'd not be lookin' for a sub for this material. the tub, fenders and grill are all riding on this material.

Rubber mounts are great, nice and soft, but only last a bizillion years.
Poly mounts last longer (2 bizillion years) but they are harder and are noisy.

IMHO go with poly... almost all the on-line places have 'em, like JCWhtiney, Four Wheel Drive Hardware, Leon Rosser, Quadratec, etc. Cost is about $60 for a full set.

Solid-mounting is not viable. The frame will flex, and if it forces the body to flex at the mounts, the body will fatigue crack.

Hockey pucks are sometimes used, but I suspect that they are too hard, and will also cause fatigue cracking. I've also heard that they can crack and fall out.

Cheapest I have ever heard of, that might work OK, is rollers from a boat trailer. They are about 2" in diameter, and 6" long. You can slice off biscuits as tall as needed.

Remember that you must have either the frame or the body sandwiched between rubber biscuits. You can't just put rubber between the frame and the body, and bolt it together.

Frankly, I think that I would use urethane body mounts designed to be direct replacements for the stock items. Body mounts are more than just rubber donuts - they are designed and placed to handle the relative movement between frame and body at each location on the body. A CJ7 uses nine mounts of three different configurations. They could have just used one body mount style, but didn't. My guess is that they had a good reason.

Also, I suspect that urethane mounts are softer than trailer rollers. That's one place where softer is better, up to a point.

Here is a super cheap idea that I am currently using as a toque arm mount on my transmission.

Find an old junk tire. Cut peices out of the side about the size of body mounts 2" diameter or so. Stack them together in the height requiered. Clamp in a vise or clame with C clamp or 11R vise grips to some convenient fixed peice of metal (I use the front bumper on my jeep). Drill a hole in the center of the stacked rubber, use a drill bit which is over sized and use very little pressure, I used a metal bit but a wood bit would likely work beter. The metal bit tended to spread the rubber and cut a much smaller then expected hole.
This worked well for the toque arm mount tires may be to soft for body mounts but there is likely some other sorce out there that might provide harder rubber.

bandhmo

How about that body mount rubber that 4wd sells for the fiberglass bodies?

Is that stuff just rubber with a small hole in it?

The problem I have is I may need to have a little taller mounts because of the boxing and I have this picture in my mind about a Jeep front but kinda like a flat bed in the rear but not sure if it is feasable yet.