The Project Begins:

I started the project on November 12th, 2000 by removing the hardware for the soft top and pulling the roll bar out.

I then stripped out the seats, harnesses, console, stereo and cut the wiring for the rear lights. After the tub was cleaned out, I crawled underneath and removed the parking brake cables, gas tank and rear driveshaft. The Sawzall was next to be deployed, and the tub was ready to come off. This step was the hardest of the whole project, cutting through my tub and it's 300 mile/two month old paint job. Oh well. If I painted it once, I can paint it again. I selected an angled cut immediately in front of the wheel wells to retain the fuel filler stamping on the driver's side, yet minimize the complex panel fitting on the wheel wells. Ten minutes later, the rear of the tub comes off!

Once the tub was off, I was able to remove the gas and vapor return lines, cut the exhaust tailpipe and measure and mark the frame for cutting. I selected the "flat" portion of the frame immediately in front of the rear spring hangers as the location to cut. On the CJ-5, this spot is parallel with the length of the Jeep, front to rear, and minimized the complexity of the angles needed for the splice into the frame. Now I was really committed!

At this point, there was still plenty of daylight, but I really needed to reflect on the work I had just created for myself, so it was off to the showers. I would tackle this some more another day.

East Meets West:
I had studied the OEM frame for a few days before selecting common quarter inch plate as the material I would use to build rectangular box tubing to insert in the gap between the frame sections. I have a Lincoln Electric Weld Pack 100 (an excellent little 110v wire feed welder), but had already determined that it's inability to weld ¼" steel in a single pass with adequate penetration, and it's light duty cycle, would make it an unacceptable solution for the project. A friend and fellow FWD-FWD member, Mike Green, was interested in the challenge of the "Grow a Jeep Project." He graciously offered his welder, a powerful commercial grade ESAB Migmaster 251 MIG welder to me for the frame and roll cage welding portions of the project. He was also kind enough to spend one of his days off working on the "Rock Taxi" with me. Another friend and club member, Phil Davis, took a vacation day to assist, as well. He is either crazy or a true friend to spend his vacation working on someone else's Jeep. Thanks to Mike and Phil! I couldn't have done it without your help.

After building box tubing that closely matched the inside dimension of the OEM frame, the inserts were placed into the frame, the Jeep was measured, leveled, aligned, and then welded together. After welding the inserts into the frame, plating was added on the outside of the original frame. No special tools or time was spent on carefully assuring that all was "square," as hard off-roading and a few rollovers had tweaked the frame all along it's length, anyway. It is closer to true now than it was before we started, however.

Here is the lengthened frame before reassembly and the body work began.

Filling in the Gaps:
Now begins the most tedious portion of the growth project - building the body. Since the aftermarket replacment panels I found did not match the contours of the top lip of the tub, I picked up some flat sheet metal to build the floor and to fill the rest of the holes in the tub. After piecing the new sections in, some grinding and smoothing was done and the tub was ready for paint. A quick trip to Russ Baer, owner of BaerTrax, a local Jeep Fabrication specialist, and the 2"x.120 wall DOM tubing was bent for building a new roll cage. After cutting, notching and welding it together, I installed it in the Jeep, paint was shot and the lengthening project was complete.

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