The adventures of a Jeep and its driver.
Inspired by a product I have seen online and used in other YouTube videos, I set out to make my own welding square. I learned a little Fusion 360 and designed this small 8″ welding square. I was fortunate enough to have this cut out on a water jet at a local maker space. Used the Primeweld TIG 225x to weld it up.
For a second there, I though @davidfreiburger was in my garage. But I guess my son likes to fix cars in his flip flops, too. 😂
That escalated quickly!
Apparently, I bent my sector shaft the last time I went wheeling at I have feeling I know when, but it’s baffling that it actually bent. My ABS was going ape shit. Steering wheel way off center. I took out the stock box and it binds part way through the cycle – a sure sign of a bent sector shaft.
My options were limited. I could have replaced it with a stock box for $500. Nah. I could have ordered a but they were 2+ weeks before they could ship. That would be cutting it close for an upcoming trip to Another option would be to get a ported box, but not get the ram, but that seemed to be kind of a waste of effort. The last option would be to just get the complete kit – rip off the bandaid. I went with the Big Bore XD2 steering box, with the new pump, larger reservoir and the cooler.
To say this “kit” was easy to install would be an over statement. It’s more of a collection of parts than a complete kit. There are instructions that literally contradict each other – that could have been catastrophic. The fittings that came with the cooler make it impossible to mount it behind the grill – I got new fittings from And there is no way to mount the reservoir without having to modify the stock air box. I cut a huge hole in the bottom of it to make room for the hoses. I still need to figure out how I want to fill that part in.
I did have to modify my track bar bracket. There wasn’t enough vertical room to mount the tabs for the ram. And my first gen track bar would interfere with the Big Bore steering box and the hoses that feed the ram. I ended up replacing it with the newer edition.
I took my time over a little more than a week. I’m thinking about giving it a test run next weekend at Southington before our trip to AOAA.
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Don’t tell the cops! ;)
I was making some tack welds on a project the other day and it was awkward to reach some of the areas with the torch and reach the foot pedal at the same time. I installed the finger trigger on my TIG torch to make these operations easier. I made a video of the results and some explanation of what how some of the controls on the welding machine are affected.
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I had designed this small cabinet a while ago. When I find time, I try and make progress on it. I have the main frame finished, not it’s time to add some doors.
Took the Jeep Offroad for the first time this year. Stupid Covid. Met up with some friends at a local off road park. Just had some fun and was good to be around friends, socially distant of course.
