Long way around...

[RossB]

This may take me a while to explain, but I promise that it will eventually arrive at a discussion of machining...or how little I know about machining...or how I can make every project much more complicated and expensive than necessary.

This is my 1954 Willys CJ-3B


I like to spend my free time tinkering, rebuilding, or otherwise modifying it to suit my tastes. Most recently, I decided to replace the tattered front bumper with a design of my own.

 

[RossB]

I decided on 2x4x3/16" steel tubing, but I modeled a few options out of cardboard before settling on a favorite.



I figured I would angle the ends at 55 degrees to match the shape of the grill and then box them. I rough cut it with the cut-off wheel and them used the Bridgeport to clean up the ends.

 

[RossB]

From there, I whipped up some end caps that I'll weld on later.




At this point, I decided that I wanted some recovery points that I could use for d-rings. My thought was that I'd run the mounts all the way through the bumper and tie them directly to the frame. I looked on-line and found the perfect parts for about $40 each.

9

 

[RossB]

This, of course, is where I decided to make things much more complicated. Why spend $80 on someone else's beautiful work product when I can spend way more time and money by attempting myself? After all, I have THIS thing!

 

[eugene13]

Way to go, I do tube work in my mill, you can make some fantastic nice fits, keep the pictures coming.

 

[RossB]

I've had this Deckel rotary table/index head thing for about 20 years. I think I salvaged it off of a horizontal milling machine that I couldn't even give away as my factory closed and we scrapped the entire machine shop. I couldn't save the mill, but I decided to keep this really well built German table;hoping I'd have a use for it someday.

 

[RossB]

I tried to mount the rotary table on my Bridgeport and discovered 2 things. One, the RT is metric, the mill is Imperial, and the mounting slots don't line up. Two, the divider plate and rotating handle hangs down about 2 inches below the mounting base plate. Problem.

 

[RossB]

A quick sketch and I was off to buy some steel.

The top plate would be slotted for the RT, the bottom slotted for the Bridgeport, and the spacers tall enough to clear the divider plate.

$40 for two 12x8x.375" plates
$10 for a few feet 1.5"x.75" bar

Now I'm $50 in and I haven't accomplished anything yet.

 

[RossB]

I'm a better grinder than I am a welder, but it's a very solid piece.

 

[westerner]

You have a stout piece of 'old school' tooling as the foundation of your project.
There is NO WAY you can go wrong....
Enjoy the build, and keep the pictures coming.