Reviews Iro Xj Unibody Frame Stiffeners (Full Set)
This shows how much coverage a typical front stiffener has on your Jeep XJ's frame.
If yous're merely looking for a good prepare of stiffeners y'all tin can go a popular and bulky fix of center stiffeners from RuffStuff that will take a chirapsia. Their forepart stiffeners volition firm upwardly your frontend and improve your steering box mount.
The Jeep Cherokee XJ has been around since 1984 and is popular for existence an ultra-cheap 4x4 that you can load with gear and all the same be comfy. But it has a unibody.
Here's the bargain:
Unibodies are pretty common now, merely the Jeep Cherokee XJ was i of the first 4x4s to use information technology. It took a loooong time for the XJ to be really embraced past the off road community, partly because the unibody wasn't something yous found on "real" 4x4s.
Just at present, you tin can pick up XJs all day long on Craigslist for inexpensive, spare parts are all over, and there is a huge aftermarket of Jeep XJ-specific parts.
However:
It still has that unibody!
The unibody is the XJ's weakness and without making it stronger, you'll flex the body, snap welds, get cracks, and end up mounting important stuff to sparse unibody rails.
The long slot welds distribute force and stress and proceed your Cherokee'south unibody frame tight to the stiffener.
Sooner or afterward, the stock unibody will give up. If you're running 33" or larger tires, you need to seriously call up about stiffening up your frame.
And it won't happen gradually:
Ane day y'all'll have an intact frame, and the adjacent you lot'll accept a bunch of little cracks that just become bigger. People that don't plate their XJ's frame oft wish they had done it sooner.
XJ's without frame stiffeners live on borrowed time.
If y'all're building a Jeep XJ, yous should outset past welding on some frame stiffeners. The stiffeners will provide a strong foundation that y'all can use to mountain all the expert stuff: pause mounts, skidplates, drivetrain mounts, and sliders.
Do you really want to hang your 4 link mounts off xvi gauge sheetmetal?
How Frame Stiffeners Make Your Jeep XJ Ameliorate
The stiffeners you lot buy should be pre-drilled both for rosette welds and admission to the factory frame holes.
After welding on some stiffeners, the first affair that y'all'll notice with your Jeep, especially off road, is that it handles ameliorate. Instead of feeling "loose", it'll feel tight.
Know how information technology feels to drive with a death wobble or an underinflated tire?
And then what information technology feels like to prepare either one of those?
It's kind of similar that. Your general driving experience goes from sucky to fun.
Y'all'll also hear a difference when you're cruising downward the trail. All the noises and creaks your XJ ordinarily makes volition stop. The unibody won't be shifting around anymore and the frame stiffeners will hold everything in place.
At that place are serious performance improvements that you lot can make with frame stiffener plates:
- Solid places to mountain stone sliders, suspension mounts, transfer example mounts, and skid plates: Instead of the paper thin unibody.
- Reinforces weak steering box mount: Stock frame isn't sleeved and the aluminum spacer gets destroyed apace.
- Prevents dents to unibody frame: Dents in the frame's sheetmetal significantly weaken the frame'south construction.
- Better steering: Frame doesn't flex when you turn the wheel - no more sloppy steering.
- Rock protection: Thicker XJ frame stiffeners tin can exist smashed on rocks without worrying.
So what's the install like?
Installing frame stiffeners is going to take you lot some time. If yous want the chore to look make clean and go smoothly, it'due south all about the prep work.
Prep is everything
Hold the stiffeners in place with bottle jacks and jack stands to fit them to your Jeep Cherokee's frame. You lot'll need to do this for marking and welding.
There are some key points to the prep work:
- Become your XJ as level every bit possible: You lot don't desire to have any twist or flex in the unibody or it'll be permanent afterwards welding.
- Pull off the brake and fuel hardlines: They'll be reattached to the stiffeners.
- Mark all the areas that'll be welded with a paint pen: Clear marking and layout is why some people's stuff looks so good.
- Sand the undercoat downwards to bare metal: Exercise this in the marked weld areas.
- Use an eighty grit (or less) sanding disc, not a grinding wheel: Yous don't desire to remove any metallic from the unibody frame where you'll be welding. The frame is thin enough already.
Also practise this stuff
Option a run up weld pattern and stick to it. You'll want to do something like:
- Weld for 1-2"
- Go out 2-iii" gap
- Weld for one-2"
- Leave 2-3" gap
- And so on...
This does a few things for yous:
First, it cuts down on welding fourth dimension - there'southward a lot of welding involved to get these on. Second, it keeps you from overheating the frame stiffeners and unibody frame if y'all're welding it all in a short menstruum of time. You really want to make sure that y'all're aren't putting as well much heat into everything.
When yous're done, nosotros recommend sealing the unwelded sections with a flexible 3M torso sealant and then slapping some paint on everything.
Tin can you fully weld your frame stiffeners?
Go out the full welds to the pros and race teams.
It's probably fine to practice and so, but if y'all're a booger welder and you consistently overheat your unibody frame, y'all'll simply make it weaker.
Yous're going to be welding "out of position", upside down, perchance on your back, for a long period of fourth dimension. It is uncomfortable and tiring, especially if you're non used to it.
Stitch welding is like hedging your bets a niggling so that yous don't go fatigued and sloppy and brand a huge, brittle Heat Affected Zone downwardly the length of your unibody.
A few welding tips
RuffStuff's front stiffeners come in 3 pieces per side to make them easier to install. The reinforcement plates fishmouth together where they see.
XJ frame stiffeners are thick, usually 1/8" to 3/16" steel. The XJ unibody is thin - around 16 gauge or one/xvi" thick.
This makes welding difficult:
Information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to screw upwards when welding thick metal to thin metal because the thick metallic requires more than rut to melt than the thin metal. You lot don't want to blow holes through your frame while welding on your stiffeners because it kind of defeats the purpose of stiffening up the unibody in the first identify.
So, a few tips:
- Practise! Get some sheetmetal and some iii/16" plate and practise some upside down lap welds. This will show yous your weaknesses and you'll be able to figure out how to adjust your body and arm position to get clean welds.
- Smaller MIG wire similar 0.025" will exist easier to weld with.
- When you're welding, aim more at the thick frame stiffener and less at the thin XJ unibody: The weld puddle volition wash into the unibody.
- Keep the torch moving! If you linger in 1 spot, yous'll blow a hole in the unibody.
- Switch dorsum and forth between sides to let things cool: You tin weld your XJ stiffeners too quickly, just not likewise slowly.
Simply to reiterate ane signal:
You demand to do a few test pieces and then that you can dial in your welder's settings and effigy out the proper technique for welding the thick XJ stiffeners to the thin XJ frame. If you lot can get your technique down y'all won't overheat your frame and everything will look improve.
For some more than great unibody welding tips, cheque here.
iii Jeep XJ Frame Stiffeners
You tin can just see on the right where the heart stiffeners ties in under the front end stiffener.
What exercise the best XJ frame stiffeners look similar? We like to see:
- i/8"-3/16" thickness
- Holes drilled and slots cut for rosette and slot welds
- Pre-bent for easy fitting
- Factory holes non covered up
You tin can make your own frame stiffeners for your XJ, but it'southward a ton of piece of work. If you'd rather be wheelin' you're ameliorate off buying a frame stiffening kit that's light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-cut and pre-bent to fit your Jeep.
Kits are pretty cheap for what you go and will easily salvage you a couple days just cutting and fitting plate.
If yous're going to be pounding your rig's underside on rocks, thicker stiffeners are better. 3/16" tin take a lot more rock abuse than 1/8".
RuffStuff XJ Frame Stiffener - Center
These 3/xvi" center stiffeners extend into the front and rear wheelwells and also beetle 1" under your floor for actress forcefulness. This is more than other stiffeners.
The RuffStuff Specialties XJ center frame stiffener is probably i of the most well-known reinforcements for XJ frames.
Once welded to your framerails, they'll add well-nigh 45 pounds to your XJ. They're 3/16" thick - unless you have a good reason, you shouldn't go thinner than this on the heart framerails since they're so exposed from below.
They are prebent, predrilled, and slotted to let for perfect fitting on your frame. There are several holes for putting in rosette welds to go on the stiffener solid with your frame when the going gets tough.
These stiffeners have a little more reinforcement and protrusion than other stiffeners - they extend one" under the floor and extend into both wheelwells.
If you lot're simply going to add one stiffener fix, this is the one to apply.
RuffStuff XJ Frame Stiffener - Front
These three/16" thick stiffeners come in 3 sections for easy welding. and have some nice slots and fishmouths to ensure that y'all're laying down plenty weld.
Got sloppy steering? Steering box mountain messed up?
If your steering and frame aren't damaged even so, it will be.
After yous weld these laser-cut stiffeners on the front end unibody of your XJ, they'll strengthen and stiffen your whole frontend and assistance keep your steering box in ane spot!
They are 3/16" thick, which is plenty to mount any your desire, wherever you desire it. They come in iii separate pieces for each side to minimize the amount of disassembly y'all have to do for installation.
Instead of holes for rosette welds, these have long slots cut in them. Welding these upwardly will distribute stresses over wider areas and agree more than of the stiffener tight confronting the XJ'southward unibody frame.
Front end end stiffeners are highly recommended past anyone that's doing difficult wheeling - yous need to do steering box reinforcement anyway, so why not go the whole way?
Atomic number 26 Rock Off Road XJ Frame Stiffener - Total
This set of Cherokee frame stiffeners starts at the front end and goes all the way to the back. They are fabricated of ane/8" and 3/16" thick steel.
Need the whole enchilada?
The Atomic number 26 Rock Off Road XJ Stiffener kit is a full set, that does your unibody frame from front to rear. Every bit you tin see, it's a whole lot of welding!
This kit comes with 3 basic parts:
- Front XJ frame stiffener: 1/viii" thick
- Center XJ frame stiffener: 3/xvi" thick
- Rear XJ frame stiffenener: 1/8" thick
The whole set up will add nearly 80 pounds to your XJ. Every weld-on panel has holes for rosette welds.
Source: https://www.roundforge.com/articles/jeep-xj-frame-stiffeners/
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