On the body mounts I would suggest using thicker pucks instead of welding on the tubing.You want some flex in there so as not to rip the mounts out of the tub.And on the frame painting I highly suggest POR 15 chassis paint.It is a bit exspensive but seals out the rust and is hard as a rock.Very hard to chip,you can beat it with a hammer and not chip it.If it is applied correctly.With the salted roads it would be a good investment for the Jeepster if you plan on keeping it around.

 

Give me a call, I have one tore down to the frame with frame mods that you might like to do on your rig. Sent you an email last week regarding Jeepsters guys stopping by last Saturday. 916 645 8761

 

All though winter can be hard on vehicles, I dont think you have to worry about salt on Californias roads. I belive they did away with it and use a pretty much sraight sand mix. The enviromental impacts of salt are just to damaging. It completly changes the PH of soils and streams, plus makes it into are drinking water. So hopefully this helps with your salt questions. I know Toulumne county doesnt, its really easy to contact the county and ask. Good luck

 

FWIW, up here in the Northland car dealers advertise "California Cars" as a sales hook. Which is not to say they'll last forever, but up here they dump salt on the roads by the truckload/mile.

Anyway, if our vehicles last quite a while with that, I wouldn't worry too much about CA salt.

 

Here's what we had to deal with on Punkin. After the 30+ gallon gas tank was removed, we found major frame damage in the rear. The tank was so big that it hid the damage on initial inspection for purchase. Here's the rear cross member.

 

Thanks to Ryan, "The Jeep Guy," who supplied us with another frame. We decided to improve on its' design before putting the body back on. The good thing about the Jeepster's frame over the CJ's of the same era was that the Jeepster frame was boxed while the CJ's were just C channel. But the Jeepster stopped short and used C channel from the rear frame rails aft. Here we plated up the rear cross member to make it boxed.

 

Here is what the old right rear frame rail looked like. Someone used a torch to attempt to straighten it.

 

We then cut off the rear frame rails on the old frame. The old right rail was used to box the left rail of the new frame and the old left rail was used to box the right rail of the new frame.

 

Punkin now has a fully boxed frame, but alas, the old frame reminded me of spiney lobster after its' tail has been removed.

 

Tim posted pictures of some great work. We have not done a frame off yet, but I did reinforce the rear crossmember on Ole Yeller as follows;

1. Remove rear body mount bolts, middle ones and leave only the front ones on.
2. Jack up the body from frame about 2", there is enough give to do so.
3. Use a piece of 4" C-channel and cut/fit over existing crossmember middle, extend to outer side of frame rails.
4. Cut holes for your bumper/hitch/etc. in the channel.
5. Put it in place, clamp and weld er up!
6. Paint, lower body, reinstall old or replacemenmt bolts, reinstall bumper and viola; strong crossmenber!

You can just see the channel in this picture.

Brad.

 

Here is how I did mine-

 

Pics of the finished product...

 

Another angle-

 

Ah, so THAT'S what it's suppose to look like. IYRC my whole rear xmember was cut out

Thanks for the pics guys, I'm off to the material rack to find me a chunk of tube.