Fabrication question about tube bending

[milocj]

I don't know if this is the best place for this question or not, but it seemed like the best place to get a good answer.

I've just bolted an NV4500 behind the 304 in my CJ7 and am having trouble mounting it to the skidplate. I bought the trans, t-case, and bellhousing already mated together and it has a factory Dodge tailhousing with a very low mounting surface which is giving me all kinds of grief trying to get it into my frame without needing a massive drop of the factory skidplate. If I raise the back of the transmission up about 1 1/2 inches I can use the factory plate with some 1 inch drop spacers, but I'm not sure if that is real kind on the engine mounts and it also puts the fenderwell headers really close to the body mount at the front of the tub.

I guess my question is whether or not those cheapy $100 tube benders that you see at the discount tool stores and Harbor Feight are any good? I think I could fab up a nice compact skidplate/crossmember without losing any clearance if I could bend two or three pieces of 1 1/2 inch tube and make a sort of sling under the trans mount. Would I be wasting my money trying to go this route? As an alternative, is there a way I could bend this stuff neatly with my 20 ton shop press? I'm not aware of any fab shop nearby to try to tow this thing to so I could have one made, and I doubt it would be cheap. Besides, it's usually more fun to make it yourself.

[jeepsr4ever]

you dont really need a tubinbg bender for a skid plate...those smaller ones would work fine but they have limitations and when you want to bend some tough or some bigger tubing your out of luck. I would run a channel iron with a piece of 3/16" sheet metal for the skid

[milocj]

I'm sure I could, but I guess one of the downfalls of being a tooling designer is that I want it to be a little "pretty" too. I was hoping I could maake a little sling type crossmember with two small tubes under the trans, just in front of the mounting surface and the t-case, and weld a plate on to bolt the bushing to. The only real problem is that I doubt I could get good enough measurements by crawling underneath with a yo-yo and having the local steel shop weld it up for me. I was thinking that if these benders worked pretty well I could make it up myself (on-site so to speak) and get a nice fitting job for not much more than if I paid someone else to do it.

[jeepsr4ever]

I see you want to over engineer it eh :mrgreen: I say go for it I love it when someone tricks the schmitty out of their jeep

[W.T.Sumner]

I bought one of those cheep benders and it does a fair job. I fabbed my roll cage with it. The biggest problem with them is no gage or degree wheel so you have some guess work involved.

[Mudrat]

I've got one of the cheapy 12 ton 'pipe' benders. Smashes the heck outta exhaust pipe or EMT :smile: , but works pretty good with 1" and 1.5" black iron pipe :shock: . I'm picking up 20' of .120 wall DOM tomorrow so I'll see how some heaver stuff works in it. If not, down to the shop and use the expensive tubing bender :?

Mudrat :mrgreen:

[milocj]

Thanks for the updates, guys. If I get one I'm probably just going to use it for a skidplate/trans mount or two with some DOM tubing. There's a slight chance I might try making some extra roll bar braces, but it's not very likely. I just thought that if I could get one of these cheap enough and it worked okay I would come out ahead of having a mount built and I could have some fun doing it to. Let me know how it works with the smaller DOM stuff.

[Mudrat]

Let me know how it works with the smaller DOM stuff.
Will do. I'll probably get around to it tomorrow or next weekend. We have the 'Fall Fling' at the kids school and I got 'volunteered' to help. We set up last night and didn't get out of there until 930PM. Today the guys are supposed to bring the rides. Now since we're looking at the back side of all the IVAN rain and crap - it's all happening in the gym. Make a mental image of this:
The hi-school gym is a single basketball court with enough room on the sides for the standard pull out bleachers (about 106 x 85' overall)
20+ venders and crafters using 35 - 30"x8' tables
3 rides... Jousting Court 18'x30x4' (this one looks like it'll be fun!!) , Pirate ship, 20x35x18' tall, and the mother of all is "Tsunami", 25x40x27' tall. Since this is so tall it can only fit one way in the gym (won't fit up against the retracted backboards so it's off the back wall about 10', and the wave crest is in the ridge beam) :shock: My concern is the distance from the mercury vapor lights! Anyway, then toss in a guy making kettle korn (cooks outside and serves inside so he has to be by the door), the cheerleaders with a hair and face paint table (hair spray - needs to be by the other exhaust fan), Ski-ball and put-put and Oh Yeah, places to eat 6 pick-nik tables!!! The rest of the games are upstairs in the class rooms!!!

fun stuff and I gotta go get my tubing now. more later

Mudrat :?:

[ROBERT11]

Are the chearleaders going to do you hair and makeup so you can advertise for them? :mrgreen:

[W.T.Sumner]

I have been using 1 5/8 pipe that is obout 3/16 thick for my roll cage and it works ok.

[Mudrat]

Are the chearleaders going to do you hair and makeup so you can advertise for them? :mrgreen:
Well the "Big Top" entertainment guys brought a different slide that was much smaller than the one we had planned for (they brought a fire truck instead of the 'Tsunami'). If they would have told us yesterday we could have had the rides and games in the gym instead of stashing the smaller games (skiball, put-put etc) in different classrooms.

This (http://community.webshots.com/album/189023771uFiWGB) is what it looked like if your curious... and I am NOT a professional photographer and the mercury vapor lamps don't do well with this camera.

Mudrat