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Imagine yourself deep in a canyon. Now imagine yourself in that same canyon with a broken tie-rod or maybe a broken frame. Scary, huh?

By, TXJEEPER

In Carbondale, Colorado, Pat and Jan Gremillion manufacture Premier Power Welders. The Premier is a high-frequency, under-hood arc welder. The welder gets its power from a heavy duty alternator, which Premier also manufactures. The model used on the TJ is a 170 amp model. Onboard the main box, there is a regulator which constantly recharges your battery as you operate the welder.

An added bonus to the setup is the 115 volt DC power outlet, which is usable for most lights, brush powered tools and universal motors.

Installation is fairly simple, but does require some electrical wiring knowledge and some ingenuity on your part for finding spots to house everything. The included installation manual does a great job and is written clearly enough for most backyard mechanics to get through the job on their own (we did, anyway).

One last note: you absolutely must replace your stock battery with either a Black Panther or an Optima battery. The deep cycle models are required, as you will constantly be putting a major drain on the battery as you use the welder. We went with the blue top Optima, which is the marine version. It is Optima's only true deep cycle battery. This, of course, is of great benefit for winching and running extra lights. On the Project TJ, we only run this one battery and it is performing great for us.

Premier Power Welder
Top View of the welder

Premier Power Welder
Side view with regulator

Premier Power Welder
The welder comes complete with everything you need. The leads and cover are an add-on. Be sure to ask for them when you order.

Premier Power Welder
After unhooking your battery for safety, you will need to remove your serpentine belt (or v-belts on other models). Now is a good time to replace your belt while it's off.

Premier Power Welder
The next step is to remove your stock alternator and put in the new Premier.

Premier Power Welder
The two alternators are slightly different in appearance and size.

Premier Power Welder
Mounting for us on our TJ 4.0L required us to use a different bolt and add some spacer washers in order for it to mount snugly.

Premier Power Welder
Once in place, put the belt back on.

Premier Power Welder
The TJ 4.0's have changed from year to year in how they use the space just over the driver's front wheel. We had already used the ABS shelf for an ARB compressor, so to make room for our welder we had to relocate a vacuum cannister underneath the brake booster.

Premier Power Welder
Here's the view, looking down, from over the brake booster (bottom right of photo). Below the steering shaft is our vacuum cannister's new home.

Premier Power Welder
You'll need to run quite a bit of wiring around both the front and the rear of the engine compartment. We added a wire loom to protect the wires and then wire-tied them in place. Be sure to keep them free of moving parts and heat sources.

Premier Power Welder
We now had a free space on top of the wheel well to mount the main welder box.

Premier Power Welder
Locate an unused slot in your main power box to tap into.

Premier Power Welder
Finally, finish up all wiring and read your operations instructions very carefully.

Operation of the welder is very simple. The idea to getting a good weld with the Premier is to get proper voltage. There is a range on the meter for guidance. We found that the lowest range caused our rods to stick to our work, so we had to increase the rpm's of the motor, using the included hand throttle. The useful range of the welder was in the 2200-2400 rpm range. Incidentally, the Premier can also be used to cut steel, as well as weld it.

There are a lot of details to the install that we omitted, due to space and variations from vehicle to vehicle. The bottom line is to read your installation and operations manuals very very carefully and think everything through three times before you actually do it. Welding can be extremely dangerous and without proper installation and usage can cause both serious damage to your vehicle, and more importantly, to you! Be sure to wear a welding mask with proper tinting, welding gloves, and long sleeves and pants. Also make sure anyone around you also does or is warned to stay and look away. This report is in no way to be interpretted as an installation manual or guideline.




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