Frankensteins GQ Resurection

[OLY]

i got the coil brace brackets folded and grabbed some more steel to make the last 3 brackets

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the tacked the passenger side engine mount on

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made the plate to bolt to the engine, i made sure i had a cutout for the oil feed for down the track when i turbo it, i haven't seen any of the aftermarket ones where they have this. and i made the connecting pieces using the same cardboard template method

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tacked the side plates into position

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pulled it all out and welded it up on the bench

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i added a gusset in welded them all up and blasted them with some satin black killrust enamel but it got a bit dark, i'll throw up a finished off and installed photo tomorrow, i got everything cut out for the driver side, just have to chamfer off the corners and stick it together, that's another job for tomorrow

[OLY]

a quick snap of the mount welded and painted up. today i bolted it together and put it in place, came out alright.

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Time to start the driver side. again the factory two part Nissan mount

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Cleaned up the base plate and zapped the bottom together, cut out the engine plate with clearance for the injector pump bracket ready to make the side plates

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the cardboard templates bolted firmly in place, should hold??

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all tacked together, welded up on then with a gusset and painted up. popped it in and fits a treat.

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as the old mounts were so sagged and stuffed i didn't have much of an idea of heights and such, i use a spirit level on the shift plate to gauge it.

[OLY]

the next little project is the tail shaft crossmember. i was looking at how to notch it to gain clearance for when it gains some height and suspension travel, and just when i had it all worked out in my head a mate came around and said " why don't just cut the crossmember, spin it and weld it back in"

well that's a lot easier than what i had planned!! so that's what i did. i used my exhaust pipe cutter to scribe a nice straight line around the bar and ran through with the thin cut off disc. cleaned up around the cut and put a V groove to weld it up.

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this photo doesn't quite show the amount of extra clearance gained but when i spin the tailshaft i'll make sure it is enough but i'm pretty confident that it will be heaps and with a bit of black paint over the top it doesn't stick out like a big notch would have so hopefully i can fly under the radar a bit with it.

[rusty_nail]

wish i had your skill also man! its awesome! where bouts in the world are u?

[OLY]

wish i had your skill also man! its awesome! where bouts in the world are u?

Thanks man! i'm in Goulburn nsw

[rusty_nail]

oh nice! just up the road haha! looking forward to seeing this frankenstein on the road one day!

[OLY]

oh nice! just up the road haha! looking forward to seeing this frankenstein on the road one day!

haha yeah me too. will be a while off yet though as I have a fair few idea's rattling about in the noggin' that I want to try to put into practice and see if they work out

[OLY]

After wondering what the next piece of the chassis that might benefit from some attention was, i decided to have a play with the rear lower control arms. to make it easier to get to the mount on the chassis i started but cutting the body mount off, marking it accordingly of course, then i cut the control arm mount off, used a hole saw to cut out the crush tube in the rail

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after a fair bit of measuring, double checking, then checking again i re-drilled the hole for the crush tube and welded it in, tacked the mount back on in it's new home and gave it another measure to make sure it would all work out then zapped it all up properly.

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i just tacked the body mount back on in place until i make the arms and do the other side so i can run them through their travel arc's and make sure i don't have to modify it any further then i'll weld it up. I'll cut a couple of tubes and weld them in to fill in the holes i left and give the chassis back it's strength.

I cleaned up and painted the control arm mount on the passenger side, but didn't get a photo, i'll grab one tomorrow. I cut the driver side control arm and body mount off and cleaned up the rail, i'll weld the mount in place tomorrow so it matches the passenger side. hopefully i can find some steel tomorrow that i'm happy with to make the control arms out of and i'll get them made and see how it all works

i also had a little delivery in the post

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now i can finish the bracing i started making and there is no way the rear coil towers will move crack or bend like they are well known to. After a bit of research online I decided that the brackets alone wouldn't be enough but would probably only move the point that cracks and the only real solution is a solid link between the two coil towers. because i have already made the brackets and the fact that the towers are slightly bent up i think the brackets might give back the strength so i'll use them as well as the brace plate

[OLY]

as promised the pic of the mount with some paint

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the other side snipped off, cleaned up and tacked up blasted and painted.

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A quick Tip for those of you playing at home.. notice i didn't weld the front side of the base plate of anywhere that it met up to the curve of the chassis. you can weld on the top and bottom flats and the sides but not on the curve, now i am in no way a boily or qualified fabricator so i may be a little off with my reasoning for this but i believe that it creates a stress point and will cause the chassis to crack. even if you take a look at the factory mounts there is a gap at the curve off the edge of the chassis.

so now that both the mounts have been moved and re welded i'd have to say if i were to do it again i wouldn't move them quite as far back. i moved them 410mm as this was the maximum length i could get with the arm working properly and not hitting anything. if i had only moved it 380mm or so then i wouldn't have had to make the mounts suit around the pipe crossmember and it would have been a lot quicker and easier..

anyway now that all that is over and done it's time for the control arms... sounds easy right? not many steel places around here had anything suitable, in fact the piece i did find was on a rack out the back of an engineering company that nobody knew was there and apparently they don't make that size anymore or something and there is just enough to make the arms with all of 30mm to spare or something. lucky

this shows the difference in wall thickness, a factory arm that measures up at 2.42mm wall thickness and the pipe i'm using for the long arms measuring 8.75mm. time to dig out the old tube notcher, i'm reducing the offset on the chassis side to 1.5 degree to compensate for the extra length in the arm

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hopefully i'll get to finish the arms off tomorrow

[ns3474]

the next little project is the tail shaft crossmember. i was looking at how to notch it to gain clearance for when it gains some height and suspension travel, and just when i had it all worked out in my head a mate came around and said " why don't just cut the crossmember, spin it and weld it back in"

well that's a lot easier than what i had planned!! so that's what i did. i used my exhaust pipe cutter to scribe a nice straight line around the bar and ran through with the thin cut off disc. cleaned up around the cut and put a V groove to weld it up.





this photo doesn't quite show the amount of extra clearance gained but when i spin the tailshaft i'll make sure it is enough but i'm pretty confident that it will be heaps and with a bit of black paint over the top it doesn't stick out like a big notch would have so hopefully i can fly under the radar a bit with it.

you might wont to turn your tail shaft around so the thin end is bolted to the transfer case other wise with a bit of suspension travel you will be making some nasty grinding noises.