I gotta say, it is sure nice to work in a shop like this.
The shop(Welder Bill'T Mfg) is owned by my Friend Bill Rowlette, and is shared by my other friend Sean, who has owned and operated River City Differentials for nearly 10 years. They just moved into their new 10,000 sq ft facility in Rancho Cordova Ca(Sacramento area). Kathy has been working for Sean, inventorying all of his years of boxes full of parts, so its still the same very familliar feeling of "Kathy,..where is this,...where is that", but I have the advantages of several car hoists, air chucks at a hundred locations, every power tool, bender, presses, mill, lathe, plasma cutters(1 that will cut through 1" steel), mig, tig, stick, heliarch,...etc. I also have the access to Bills (Welderboy as we call him) welding skills. He is a Navy trained welder with absolutely awsome welding skills. The entire rig is being Tig welded,..he wont even let me weld on the cage,...he says my welds leave a little to be desired in the asthetics department,..he was however impressed with the strength of my somewhat heavy assemblies, that we removed.
The rig will have coilovers front and rear, but we wont coil the front untill Sean finishes building my high pinion D60,.. a few weeks from now it should be done. At that point the front will get a pretty thorough going over akin the rear.
The front grill has already been removed, and is being replaced with tube work and steel resembling the stock grill,....hmmm at this point I could go with either square or round forward lamps,..or none at all, maybe I should take a poll
The hood will be fiberglass, from All Pro.
The shocks will be 2" Sway Aways, with 16" of travel.
The Rear links will be a modified wishbone using TRE's at the top control links, and rebuildable Johny Joints at the lower control arms. Lower arms are about 44" long and fabbed from 2" x .250 wall Chromo,(ouch, I just bough the tubes yesterday $$$$$).
Material for the project, including the tube, and pipe, rear coils, joints, seats, 5 point harnesses, orbital valve, aluminum sheeting for the custom fuel cell, and floor pan,..etc., will end up at about $1800(not including the front coils yet,..another $900). I have been able to sell about $900 in parts off the Jeep.
I have no idea what I will owe Bill when its all said and done
We nearly completed the cage last night.
The links should be complete today,..as soon as I can generate enough strength from tequila hangover to get down the hill and start working on it.
Ill post more pics if someone comes by with a digital camera.