Grand Cherokee Disaster

[06 H3]

Havent been on much in the past few days...I will tell you why

about 7 months ago on a rainy sunday night I get a call about a flipped stock jeep grand cherokee on a muddy fire road. I go out with a few other rigs to help this guy out. He gets out ok with little damage to the body. He was lucky he didnt get hurt either. Fast foward a few months, havent heard from this guy since but a friend stops by and shows me a upper control arm thats ripped right off the frame. It was the G.C.'s U.C.A. Fast foward another month or so and I still dont hear from the guy with the cherokee but am told from a guy who knows him that the front end is getting worse, the driveshaft ripped out the axle is at a messed up angle etc. Well on friday I get a text that the guy with the cherokee is stopping by. Well my weekend definitely changed then...Starting at 8:30am we started the process of fixing this mess. Most of this could of been avoided if he took care of this right away...Well both Upper control arm mounts were gone. There was just a nice big hole where they mount up...So we go from 8:30am to about 1 am on friday, junkyard runs, part stores pulling the axle etc....

Here are some pics of what went on friday.

We got the whole front end out on friday and started prepping the frame for saturdays work. This was done by me and my 2 friends. One thing that made friday fun was the junkyard run 30 minutes before they close. My one friend helping out has an 85 bronco with the TTB suspension. Definitely an interesting set up. Anyways when getting parts for the jeep I notice a lifted bronco I look at it and there is a rancho lift kit on it. The lift was in good shape, no broken welds, longer radius arms, good drop brackets etc. We get what we can for the jeep and then start taking down the parts for the bronco. We got what we could and hid the parts in hopes to get the rest of it saturday morning.

Dont be alarmed on the look of that axle, lol. That is how a TTB suspension works. It is a type of IFS.

We get home and prepped some of the frame for tomorrows work.

Saturday is when it got interesting...See next post.

 

[3Hummers]

Looks like a lot of work. He must be a good friend.

 

[06 H3]

Saturday I had work till 5. I luckily got someone to cover for me for sunday, I planned on going to cleghorn but had to bail to finish this. My 2 friends and brother start at 10:30 am to go back to the junkyard get some more stuff needed for the jeep and some part stores for the new stuff that we needed. Luckily my friend got the lift for the bronco. I looked it up online and that rancho kit is over a grand. We got it for 80 bucks, drop brackets and all

I get home at 5:30 grab some to eat and get to work. We didnt sleep We started at 5:30 pm and ended at about 9:30 this morning. I am DEAD TIRED.

We had to make some plates and weld em in. We ended up making gussets for the control arm mounts too but it was around 3:30 in the morning and my phone had died my then.

Here is some of the work. My buddy made this bracket and I made one for the other side.

We made gussets later on. Just around 5AM we started getting the axle back in. By sunrise we were tightening things up. Then we had to weld the exhaust back up and test drive it. I was scared for the test drive. I am a new fabricator. This is the most intense repair I had to make. My biggest concern was the control arm mounts not lining up perfectly in the stock location due to the plates. Well the upper control arms were a bitch to put up and had to fight them but they were put on and the driveshaft lined up perfectly like it was before. The ride before the fix was rough, clanking on every bump, it would veer off the road on the freeway and was a death trap. Well the ride after the fix was stock again! It rode smooth and we were successful. I think the longevity test will be important though. We will see once time goes by and how it holds up offroad but I dont think there will be an issue. It is stronger then stock. The plates are thicker then the old location, they were gusseted, and reenforced to the frame. I was defintely happy how this turned out and am happy to see success when I am this new to fab. I learned alot from this, take your time and triple check measurements, angles and everything else, once its on, its on...lol. I hope the guy with the cherokee learned most of this could have been avoided if he did a thorough inspection after the rollover...

 

[06 H3]

The last picture the welds got a little rough. Boy is it a game changer welding on a frame on jackstands in a driveway. They are strong though. They penetrated through the metal and made sure of that and gusseted everything.

Dave it was, we put about 28 hours in two days, If this went to a shop it would be a pretty penny to fix. He is a good friend and even though there was no money gained from helping him out knowledge was, that is what is important to me because fabrication for 4x4's is turning into an obsession

 

[3Hummers]

You may owe the neighbors coffee and donuts for keeping them up all night. Nice job Chris.

 

[06 H3]

Thanks Dave, and yea I owe them for a few late wrenching nights too. :emb:

 

[Timgco]

:thumbs: to you for taking on a project like this! good work Chris!

 

[bebe]

I am so proud of you!

If you clean your surfaces really well before you weld them you will not get the splatter. It won't hurt and your jobs will look cleaner. You also may want to turn it down just a tad.

 

[alrock]

Impressive!

 

[Hans3T]

Very cool dude! I wish I had the ability to do (and understand) stuff like that. :cheers:

 

[06 H3]

Thanks guys! I was very happy, It is very nerveracking putting yourself out there on someone elses vehicle to do this much work. The consequences can be bad if you mess up. Luckily for me my first major project like this I didnt have to worry too much seeing it couldnt get too much worse even if we messed up but luckily we didnt.

Bebe-Thanks, I will look more into prep next time. One thing that made a big difference was the wire. I am building a roof rack for someone similar to scarsman's rack and was using .025 wire, I forgot about that and then realized after doing this side. The other side we used .035 and had better results. I did alot of the designing and fabricating of the plates and gussets. My one friend did a good amount of the welding. I wasn't too comfortable welding on frames yet, but the practice of making the roof rack and doing some exhaust work is definitely helping alot. With the way this kid drives, if he keeps it up he will probably be back for work to the rear end and by then I will probably do most of the on frame welding. Just gotta keep on practicing.

 

[Bigunit]

Nice work!