2.) The Fab work (frame rails)

For me the fab work was going to be the shinning glory of this build... I have seen some pictures of YJ's with coil conversions front and even rear and they leave all the stock hardware and mounting brackets they are not using on the frame... You know how cheesy it looks to see all that fab work going into a cool custom suspension then you see the big ole ugly leaf spring perch hanging out there like a sore thumb?....Cheeesayy!!!!! The plan was to stretch the wheel base 8 inches in the front and cut out the stock tube cross bar in the front and box it all in with 3x5 1/4" wall box tubing and extending the frame rails to move the steering box forward and also have a solid place for the track bar mount... Before all of that could be done guess what.... yup you guessed it cut those spring hangers off! Also the sway bar mount, track bar mount, grind down the steering mounting tubes, and cut out the main front cross member tube. The box tubing slips over the frame rail but there is a ½” gap on the inside in the height direction… You cannot get the box tubing in 4-1/2” so you need to figure on cutting down the tubing… I did this after sliding on the tubing so I was sure that things would turn out correctly…. Sometimes it’s easier to fab that kind of stuff in place…With the length of the tubing already figured I used my chop saw to cut the ends on a 45 degree angle…I used a hi lift jack to hold the frame rails together while I was doing this fab work so the width of the frame rails stayed in position…After I got the three pieces in place and tacked very well I started the layout of cutting down the height of the box tubing...Using a guide or a fence I cut down the tubing with the plasma cutter and cleaned up all of the edges with the 4-1/2” grinder… Once that was done it looked pretty weird, like a rain gutter on the front of the frame…. The next step was to help tie in the new front pieces to the frame… I cut a piece of 3/16” steel sheet and made it to cover the front winch plate area and run down the frame over the “hump” right to the motor mounts…. This will tie in everything so well I am sure I could hang the YJ off a cliff with the front end…..On that note the frame from the front end clear to the belly pan has been plated with 3/16” steel plate on all 4 sides of the frame rail…..So with the front plate in place I started the layout of cutting down the sharp corners of the front frame rails… This is something that I laid out once then after looking at it for a few days I changed the angle…. I am happy with the way the front end turned out….