Shame… seriously. I should have bought a welder a long time ago. Car life without a welder is like AE86 life without an LSD. I’m serious. Now I can sneer at all of you welder-less people and make comments about you that you can’t and won’t understand because… I’m better than you.
Not really.
Have you seen these beads?
Tow hooks were a part of an optional UP-COUNTRY package, that although… not uncommon… was and is not found on the majority of ZJ’s. I was looking to retro-fit my hookless ZJ with hooks… and was suprised that it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. For one, the ZJ, being a unibody design doesn’t have a good thick and solid place to mount the hook. On most trucks it goes on a 3/8″ or at least 3/16″ thick frame, but on the ZJ… the frame is just many sheets of 18 gauge steel bent and oriented to give strength. No single place is really strong enough to hold the entire weight of the truck, so Jeep used some 3/8″ brackets that tied a couple of places on the unibody together to provide a platform for the hooks.
Hooks are cheap. Find them at Princess Auto for like 10$/pair.
Brackets are not cheap. New from Jeep, they are about $200. Various online retailers list them for $110… $110US. After shipping and exchange rates that’s about $200 anyways. Even my local Jeep junkyard (JEEP STUFF) wanted $180 for a pair of bent and rusted ones. So… I bade my time and waited until I found a set of brackets and hooks at the local self serve yard. I paid $10 for the pair.
But the hardware was rusted bad, and some bolts had snapped off inside of one of the backing plates. I tried drilling the bolts out, but didn’t have any luck so… I just decided to cut the old nuts off, and weld some new ones on.
The old nuts had a lip machined into them which helped support the bolt, and give a little more strength to the assembled units. I couldn’t find similar nuts at my local store so I stole some from the junkyard. Jeep uses them in a number of applications. These came from the lower rad support.
Nasty welds. I welded three sides of six, which should give more than enough strength. The whole reason for welding is just to save putting a wrench in a really awkward place. In this case: deep inside a frame rail. Definitely not pretty though… but for a first project, I consider it a success. Tow hooks are on… and I actually used them today trying to pull my neighbours skidsteer out of the ditch. I failed hard as the full size skidsteer weighs about double my truck.
So… I am practicing and trying to get better. Hopefully soon I’ll start patching the sabiroku.