Ulysses

30 Years watching a shiny light whilst upside down with a bucket on my head, many thousands of pounds in weld tests to ASME and EN standards, If I had welded the bumper on, it would still be attached and the car would have come out....... the axles might still be where they were, if they were that stuck...... but the bumper and the chassis it was attached to would have been in one piece lol. I can weld broken hearts.....

I have welded lifting points that have been tested to 100t+ and fabricated the deck of the 400t machine, it was welded to.

Sadly with a pacemaker now fitted, no more welding for me...... luckily I can still use a grinder and cut plate. Still got a few mates on the circuit and in local fab shops, finding a reliable bead of weld is no problem.

3t tested spring loaded (hold flat) lifting points are about £20 each. Welded to a triangulated 4mm chunk of box, it should pull the plug out....... never mind my 1100kg.

The flame cut lifting points that jack has suggested are 15mm plate with what's looks to be a good 20mm of section at the eye. Maybe 20t before you get any deformation and failure would be 30t+. I would expect the lifting eye to fail before the weld attaching it.

The old story, there's welders and then there's welders. Root, fill and cap.........

I had a Jimnybits winch tray with points attached but sold it on without fitting it, I think I can fabricate something just as strong but a fair bit lighter and with the weight not so far forward.

sniper

Update as its been a while and ive been busy.

Tyres were fitted and balanced on the nuts as best they could. Methinks balance beads are needed instead, but thats another story. They of course ended up on J999MNY for the crimbo outing :laugh:











Bit of extra trimming of arches needed but they fit and match with the rockwatt transfer gearing properly at last. Speedo is off, but thats to be expected.

Then this happened:



One of the rear springs snapped in a bad place :pinch: Cue a rushed trip to pickup some springs and other bits from James Priestly and Kev Duckworth for greenlaning on the 30th.

All nothing to do with Ulysses really, but as they were inteded for that I wanted to post it here. Ulysses will now be getting the cast off's again (cooper 31x10.5r15 on black modulars 15x8), not such a bad deal :laugh:

Other news relating to Ulysses is that ive swapped and welded brackets about on the gearbox from JP and started fitting it. Im going to do a seperate post about that tho

Heres the link to the topic about the gearbox swap...

www.bigjimny.com/index.php/forum/7-jimny...7me-conversion-guide

Now that ive got it back in and bolted up with a new clutch, the rocklobster box from TomDK went in (5.14 ratio and a spine'd cradle). On with the Cooper's on 15x8's and 30mm spacers for a test fit. Trim up the (again cast off's) arches which came from James Priestly, but are the ones Kiethy was making, rejects apparently.

Out with the grinder and a bit of trimming to fit around the steel bumper and its looking like a pretty good setup now. Ive asked Kiethy to make a new set of arches next time he's got the machine on as they are a bit different now at the front end and would need less trimming (plus ive made a bit of a mess of trimming these first time around ).









Does look nice and wide now though Maybe the 2" lift is enough? those tyres are 31" so thats where most of the clearance will be gained, lifting the suspension further would help the radius arm mounts, but thats about all...

31" without bodylift?

Is the M18 going here, or on J999MNY ?

OlaGB wrote: 31" without bodylift?

Is the M18 going here, or on J999MNY ?

What M18 :whistle: Not in here

There is a 2" body lift in there I had forgotten about (well most of one!). Its also got 2" trailmaster kit in there so I guess 4" total lift. The tyres would probably work without the body lift kit if I bash out the arches enough. As it is with the total 4" I will need to trim out some of the wheel arch inner bits and bash at the front body mounts a bit, so perhaps worse without the body lift, though not much worse. These arches from Kiethy are great and give loads more clearance around the wing as you chop about 2" off the bottom edge of it to fit them.

That's got a definite presence, I like it!

OK then, rainy Sunday in the garage playing with the welder (and grinder :laugh: ).

First job was to get the lower tow point bar fitted and bolted on. It has long bars that go back into the chassis rails, so I have drilled through the chassis rails and welded some nuts onto the legs that go in there, bolted on and was pretty good. Then welded on bits of the earlier 'smiley face' hoop to the sides.





Time for lunch and a think. Was still looking a bit too smiley face for my liking, so made some short tube links at the towpoint locations to try and balance it up. Pretty pleased with the look. Tried fitting some mesh into the side to see what it looks like. More thinking needed there. Maybe some nice big round lights would be a better thing to bung in the space. Middle is of course for a winch of some sort (anyone selling a winch?). Nearly finished, but it needs to shed some weight! It must weigh about 30kg. I can cut away a lot of the metal that isnt seen without affecting the strength and shape. Currently, I would definatley win in a crash :ohmy: :whistle:







Also fiddled about with some scaffolding tube to make the start of a roll cage. Also not bad, but needs some fine tuning. The snorkel at the front will be a complete pest to work around. Planning another hoop like the one below to go up the sides in front of the wing mirrors, kick back to match the windscreen angle, then over the roof to the other side.





Now i'm getting used to the tube bender there might be some changes at the back as part of the process.

Bumper looking good matey
I like it with the mesh

I agree with Jack, the bumper does look ace.....

Lets hope your learning curve with the pipe bender doesn't mean going round the car twice, it took me an awful long time to figure out how to bend in more than two planes. I used to datum most bends, cut and weld.

My welding is far far better than my math....... 6G, Multi process, Multi coded pipe welder..... Failed CSE math....

sniper

Looking GREAT that Riccy!

Dave, armchair enthusiast for a while :lol:

Looking forward to the next chapter

made up a mesh panel for the other side and welded in place. Pretty pleased with them now.

Got a couple of 2 function lights off amazon so have cut the mesh to let them poke through and welded on a little bracket for them to bolt to. Again, pretty pleased with them. very bright things.




Also attached the driver side wheel arch plastic as well. looking much better at the front end now.

The lights have a 'halo' function intended for sidelights or daytime running lights as well as a flood function (high beam)











no more progress with the roll bar though :laugh: