Our 4x4 Van Broke! Transmission Crossmember Fabrication - JSW Garage

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]might have got on it a little too hard.

[00:00:06]>> They could have went more catastrophic than what the situation is.

[00:00:15]>> I don't know. It's late. I'm a little delirious. Dad is pretty intense under situations like this. And I don't know if he's just covering it really well, but uh so far so good.

[00:00:30]Mhm.

[00:00:31]>> And then you you you've got differences in diameter.

[00:00:36]So it you know what I'm saying?

[00:00:44]All right. We're down here on some land uh that our friend owns. Got the van in four low.

[00:00:52]We're just going to I don't know. I guess show that the front drive shaft works. And it's been a while since I taken it off road. Heat up here.

[00:01:47]Other The throttle still sticking.

[00:02:52]Heat. Heat.

[00:03:40]That didn't sound good.

[00:03:44]might have got on it a little too hard.

[00:03:52]>> Was the front fender grabbing?

[00:03:55]>> We have we have we got we got problems, but they could have went more catastrophic than what the situation is. So, our crossmember for the transfer case on one side has broken.

[00:04:12]And I'm going to show you that now.

[00:04:15]I can't There it is. That it broke away from that small little piece there. Uh there we go. That broke. No big deal.

[00:04:27]Got a little bit into the drive shaft or what's happened. The transfer case kind of dropped a little bit. Nothing else.

[00:04:33]All the drive line is good. When I was down there, usually these tires hit right about here. So I thought, okay, I'm just I had to do a 180 and get on out of the bottom. So I thought I heard that hitting here, but apparently it just come loose. Uh I come up out of the bottom and uh I think it either I heard something kind of snap and when I got to the top, that's when it just gave way.

[00:05:03]So, uh, our friend has a friend has a tractor and, uh, we're going to get the tractor. We'll pull it out of here.

[00:05:12]It's, uh, it's able to drive, but only thing is I don't want to put it in four-wheel drive. So, now the back end, it's the ground's wet. So, now the back end's wanting to slide around everywhere. So, going to get a tractor and, uh, just pull it out of here.

[00:05:35]So that's that right now. That's the current situation.

[00:06:11]Heat.

[00:06:13]Heat.

[00:06:41]This is exactly what you want to be doing. That is pretty intense under situations like this. So, I don't know if he's just covered it really well, but uh so far so good. Luckily, the road out of here is not that bad. We're going to get it to the asphalt and it's good enough to drive home. Like I said, that thing just broke and it's just sitting on the drive shaft.

[00:07:03]Um we're going unhook right here. Actually, Dad and I were discussing down there.

[00:07:10]We're surprised that that thing has lasted as long as it did.

[00:07:13]>> Make it from here.

[00:07:14]>> Yeah.

[00:07:21]We're uh we're both kind of surprised that mount has lasted as long as it did because I did it when I first started learning to weld and it was just a butt weld on there. So, we'll go back and make it stronger, make it better. And uh yeah, I think if we just jack the transfer case up and get it back in position and weld it, we should be all right.

[00:08:02]All right, made it to the top of the road. Thankful that it is not any worse than it is. Uh just going We're not too far from the shop, so we'll be able to ride it on the road. ging gingerly back to the shop. I'll uh actually hose all the mud and everything off of it. I don't know if we'll get it in today or tomorrow, but uh I mean that's just kind of how it is. The four-wheel drive stuff and off-road stuff, you just I don't know. You you play hard, you all that whatever they say. I don't know. It's just you don't want it to happen, but it's kind of to be expected, especially when you mess around. And I don't know. I thought it would uh hold up a little more abuse than that, but I looked at the GoPro footage and actually what happened.

[00:08:54]Um, you would think it broke on the way up under power and all that torque, but actually the suspension and everything was flexing. I got down there and did a turnaround and as I was backing up it was just the suspension was flexed or something and maybe torque of the everything trying to back up. You can hear the snap and see the transfer case and everything fall. So that I think is the breaking point. And as I was going up the hill, the torque and everything was pulling it away from the drive shaft. So it was spinning free. Everything had power to it. And it the other side was still holding on strong enough getting it to the top of the hill. Let off the power. Everything comes back down. Drive shaft hits the uh mount that broke on the other side and it just kind of rode on the drive top of the drive shaft basically. So Now in two wheel drive, nothing is engaged in the front. The front drive shaft's not spinning. Transfer case and mount, everything is resting on the front drive shaft. The other side's still holding fine. And just going to drive it back to the shop. Like I said, I think I'll be able to get it on a transmission jack on the lift, jack it up, and weld it back. and maybe even just weld it in place, unbolt everything and get a good weld around it or do it differently better. So, waiting on dad now. He's going down there to get the other van and we're just going to drive back. All right, we ended up running a couple straps around it just in case, but about to get out of here and head home.

[00:10:53]>> All right, it has been a minute.

[00:10:58]This thing broke in February. So, those are the last few clips y'all saw. That was all the way back in February. It is now May.

[00:11:08]Been a little busy doing other stuff down here in the shop. And uh it's about time to about time to fix it, ain't it?

[00:11:18]>> Well, yeah, but if you wasn't going camping in it next weekend, we probably would let it sit here.

[00:11:22]>> I know. Yeah. So, went to Tri-State Steel the other day and got some tubing and we're going to get this thing in the shop and finally finally fix it. I've been driving my truck, been building motorcycles, other stuff. So, it's uh it's time to get this thing back in the shop and on the road.

[00:12:00]Heat. Heat.

[00:12:20]Heat.

[00:12:39]Heat.

[00:13:10]Heat. Heat.

[00:13:23]registr did its job like y'all saw drove it home actually [music] and uh I don't know did all right just broke I don't know if I showed there it is oh yeah you can see That clearly just broken.

[00:13:46]All right, here's our here's our tube.

[00:13:52]Shout out to Tri-State Steel here in Reedsville. They're all over obviously the Triad, but um got this. We were looking for DOM, but this one has the seam, but for what it's doing, it'll be strong enough. I can't remember the wall thickness. I think it's written down on it, but that's a pretty thick wall and it'll have several bins or it'll be pretty stiff. Let's see if that's written down cuz here we go.

[00:14:25]120 wall one and a half inch.

[00:14:30]But that'll be pling strong for what we're going to do.

[00:14:34]Um, if y'all ever, of course, it's not the same, but if you ever chop one of these Sportster frames up, by the way, we may use that for some frame stuff. Who knows? But if you ever chop one of these Sportster frames, you actually have to take a seam out of the backbone to get the slug and everything in there. So, and I think even the bottom ones have them, too. So, not everything that you think is DOM is DOM, but that'll be strong enough, like I said, to do what we need to do.

[00:15:13]Just to recap how this thing, how we have it designed, and this was, as we mentioned, this was a to get us by until we uh did something better. And now it's time to do something better.

[00:15:25]But anyway, >> um y'all remember the four-wheel drive kits we make? This is some tubing for a spring, spring hangers, all that good stuff. So, there's bushings inside here. We just come up with a plate [snorts] drop system, hanger system, and it runs down, goes to this. There's no rubber here because there's rubber here.

[00:15:47]Apparently, it was not enough give.

[00:15:50]So, you can take this whole thing out with just uh four bolts. Really got to undo it from your I guess your uh adapter.

[00:16:01]>> And I tell you, I think I'll I think some of the problem might have been that caused it to break is we didn't have it mounted on rubber like it would be from the factory, but there is rubber polyurethane bushings here. But >> yeah, >> honestly, I don't think it really had even with the motor mounted on rubber, I don't think there was enough flex and give and that's what probably caused it to break.

[00:16:26]>> And I think I had mentioned this, but I'd been hearing when you put it in gear, when you you're good. When you put it in gear, you know, that thing hunkers down and it flexes a little bit and you feel it engage in gear. Well, every time I would do that, I would hear a click. And then if I took off real hard, I would hear a click somewhere. It was almost like it was in the frame somewhere. I figured maybe springs or something, you know, bushings. But as I'm thinking about, I'm wondering if this thing was just breaking away and it had already somewhat broke and was flexing and when we took it off road, that's what broke it. So, like I said, I think I said that before already in the in some of the clips, but going to get these bolts out and see what we're working with.

[00:17:32]This is what we got.

[00:17:35]There's the piece that broke. Clearly, I welded this. This is my fault for sure. It penetrated there. Took this chunk of weld with it.

[00:17:48]You can see I mean this it didn't even didn't even penetrate. This is when I was still learning. Still still doing uh probably just didn't clearly didn't penetrate. didn't have enough heat and that's what broke.

[00:18:07]>> Hey, wouldn't you >> Yeah, I know. That's just That's crazy looking. It didn't even stick.

[00:18:13]>> Bubblegum together.

[00:18:14]>> Get the bushes.

[00:18:15]>> I'm surprised it lasted two years.

[00:18:16]>> I know. Going to get the bushings out.

[00:18:20]But, uh then I think I'm just going to cut cut it and grind the material there.

[00:18:26]And that way um I'm not cutting into this.

[00:18:28]>> Too pretty cuz we'll weld we'll twist it where we weld right back.

[00:18:32]>> Yeah. So you going to kind of cover that up.

[00:18:35]>> Mhm. I'm even thinking I don't know. You think like the sport when we do hard tails and stuff, do you think we ought to make a slug for this part >> or is that just too overengineered?

[00:18:47]>> Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that.

[00:18:48]>> All right. Well, >> I think it'll be fine. I mean, honestly, because you know, and I think I've said it before, you that it is supporting, but it it's not it's not a lot of being that the motor supported up front. You got two points. So, it's it's uh it's kind of equaling it out. What's this what it's supporting and it's not really a lot of a lot of weight on it, honestly.

[00:19:23][music] Heat.

[00:19:35][music] [music] Hey, heat. Hey, heat.

[00:19:53]Heat.

[00:20:12]Heat.

[00:20:38]We close.

[00:20:40]Yeah. I just hope I left us enough room on this side.

[00:20:58]get this thing mocked up in place. Yeah.

[00:21:00]And this is um I was just telling Seth, I do get a lot of calls and questions on how we make the crossmembers because we don't we don't make those as part of the kit because there's so many different variations of transmissions that people can use and transfer cases. So, there's no way to really make a a one off. And honestly, I don't know that we've ever made two the same way since we've been making them. Um, there's really no right or wrong way to make the crossmember to support the transmission transfer case, and it doesn't really take much. We we have modified the stock ones. You can do that. Uh, but it I think this is the way we prefer now. We've done a couple of them like this. Uh, and what we do is just buy, you can buy these bushings and mounts from, uh, Barnes four-wheel drive. We get a lot of stuff there. And what it is is just a sleeve, uh, a piece of DOM tubing with two bushings that go in it and a sleeve that you can run a bolt through. And they work out perfect for doing something like this. And all you need to do is just what we do, this is not the right or wrong way, but what we do is we take a piece of angle iron and weld it to the unibody frame just to give it the more strength. And then just cut two tabs that this bushing can fit up in and just mount it on the frame just like this. I mean, it's just something pretty simple.

[00:22:24]A piece of angle wire mel welded and these two tabs for the bushing. And [clears throat] this is not a by no means a fabrication 101. This is just the way I've always done stuff when I fabricated is I I I find out like what my known are. So I I know I'm going to be mounted on the frame here and I know I'm going to be mounted to the transmission here. So I always put those in place and then just do what it takes to bring the two together. Uh, and that's basically the same thing to do with these transmission crossmembers. We know these two pieces are going to be here on the frame. We know this is going to be on the transmission. So, we're just going to take tubing and bend it to make it meet at these two points. And then that's it.

[00:23:09]We'll we'll figure out what it takes.

[00:23:11]It'll be some trial and error bending and and getting it right. We'll tack it up, take it all down. Seth will take it over on the bench, weld it all up. We'll put it right back in it and it'll be good to go. The uh the biggest thing you have to worry about on them, and it's not that hard, is you just got to get around the drive shaft on the passenger side if you're using a passenger side drop. And that's just a mount of uh just bending something or or if you don't have a bender, you can take pieces of metal and and put them together. When uh when we made the one in here that broke, we didn't have a bender at that time.

[00:23:44]So, we just went out in our scrap pile and found uh that sway bar that already had bins in it, and we just cut the sway bar in the sections to where we could make the bends work around the um uh drive shaft. So, pretty simple to do.

[00:24:00]It's just a little bit of work, time, and trial and error to get it done. So, we're going to we're going to get the piece of pipe out, measure what we got, cut it. We may end up doing it two or three times before we get it right. But uh anyway, we'll uh give it a shot.

[00:24:17]Put the new blade in it.

[00:24:19]>> I guess the hard side that means the uh side with the drive shaft.

[00:24:24]>> Yeah.

[00:24:24]>> So, we're going to go 20 in on that.

[00:24:27]>> Yeah. And that and that's um I know that's a little long probably what we need, but that's good because the bending is kind of crazy. You never I we don't ever get the bends right. So we always leave enough to where we can put the band in >> and chuck cut the ends off.

[00:24:43]>> So >> all right, we'll let this cut the band saw.

[00:24:47]>> I tell you what, can you >> Do you need the support of the There something. We ain't looking for a perfect cut.

[00:25:23]>> That's going to be short.

[00:25:25]>> The whole point though right there.

[00:25:44]We've used this technique before.

[00:25:47]>> Yeah.

[00:25:47]bars and whatnot.

[00:25:50]>> It's about about the bend we need, I believe.

[00:25:56]Close to it.

[00:26:00]Should do it.

[00:26:03]We'll see. Could do it. could do it.

[00:26:06]So, it's, by the way, it's not going to be a direct straight shot from the um from this hanger to the mount. It's going to have to go the hanger is here, straight line, and then that mount is over that way. So, we're gonna have to So, we're either going to have to notch it like this just to shoot it over or put something in it.

[00:26:40]We'll just have to play with it. And this is the first time really we have ever used our vendor.

[00:26:54]So, the I really don't know how to do it.

[00:27:02]>> Cool.

[00:27:03]>> It worked.

[00:27:04]>> All right. It took us a minute to get this far, but I think we got all the the dyes and pins and everything in the right place.

[00:27:12]Now, >> we've never How How long? We've had this thing almost a year.

[00:27:18]>> Yeah.

[00:27:18]>> And never really used it yet. We did a couple test pieces, but it was on like some water pipe we had laying around here.

[00:27:24]>> Yeah. And and we made we bought the ram at Harbor Freight and just made all this to support it. So, we may have to go back and do some tweaking on it, but we did it by the manual pump here and it's kind of binding up because this thing doesn't fit tight in that tube. So, it's getting really tight in that.

[00:28:05]Starting to look bent to me.

[00:28:08]>> We got a ways to go.

[00:28:09]>> Yeah, I know.

[00:28:19]Okay. All right. I think we went as far as we can. So now, now we got to try to get this out.

[00:28:25]>> Oh, yeah. It's got to be no pressure on it, I guess.

[00:28:29]Yes. Now we have to move this pin towards this other hole. And that will allow this arm to go back in and have a little more leverage to pull this around. And you'll keep bending the bar with each pin. You can almost go the radius of the die if you wanted to or had to. But we just need that right there apparently. And with that, we're almost there. So I think one more pin will have it.

[00:29:08]Perfect.

[00:29:12]Got a little more air pressure built up now. Rock and roll now.

[00:29:18]Oh yeah, look at that.

[00:29:38]Getting close.

[00:29:50]>> I guess you got to compensate for that thing coming back too. So >> back some >> you got to go past your bend but not too far.

[00:30:01]>> See what it does.

[00:30:06]It didn't flex back much. I think a couple more hits on it.

[00:30:13]>> I think that's it.

[00:30:14]>> You think so? All right. Cool.

[00:30:15]>> What do you think? I've got it.

[00:30:21]>> Yeah, I think we can make that work.

[00:30:46]Cool. Look at that. First pipe.

[00:30:50]First real pipe.

[00:30:53]Nice. Look at that. Uhoh.

[00:30:56]Look.

[00:31:03]You nailed that.

[00:31:04]>> Pretty close.

[00:31:07]>> Back in the game.

[00:31:13]So, all right. See, now we're going to have to cut to We got to cut a little bit of angle on this for it to fit.

[00:31:35]>> Okay.

[00:31:38]But I think it'll work after lunch.

[00:31:41]About to start. We probably could go a little more, but I think we can make it work better.

[00:31:46]>> Yeah. Well, the way the thing is, if we just slash, like you said, we slash cut it, that's still going to be plenty to weld around. And then we're just going to have to cut and then cope right there somewhere.

[00:31:58]>> Just hoping to go over the drive shaft.

[00:32:00]>> Yeah, you don't want to cut it too shallow, too much to where it becomes lower.

[00:32:06]>> I want to get into the drive shaft, but I mean, we could we could stick it back in there and put a little more bend on it if we had to. might not be a bad idea to maybe pop it.

[00:32:17]>> Well, I tell you that would take up some of the you bend that would take up some of what you got to take.

[00:32:22]>> Yeah, it >> so we know we have it.

[00:32:23]>> So, I think after lunch, let's stick it back in there and bend it just a little bit more.

[00:32:28]>> Cool.

[00:32:31]>> Yeah, the mockup bend with this it works out, but a little more bend won't hurt. Well, and you Well, the thing about it is is when you when you're bending what I found, and there's probably some kind of formula to this, when you're using that little bitty rod >> Mhm.

[00:32:49]>> and then you you you've got differences in diameter.

[00:32:54]So, it you know what I'm saying?

[00:32:57]>> Yeah. Yeah. I I see what it doesn't work out exactly the same because the diameter of the two things that you're using are >> correct. Yeah.

[00:33:06]>> Different. So, but it'll get you close.

[00:33:08]It'll get you close.

[00:33:21]You got a little more of a bend in it.

[00:33:24]You coed it.

[00:33:25]>> Yeah.

[00:33:26]>> Now, marker to cut it.

[00:33:31]>> It's so dark under here, so I'm hoping that you can see it.

[00:33:37]where we got to cut.

[00:33:41]Oh, we can see that.

[00:34:04]Nothing too rocket scientist calculated Einsteinery has to go on on the second one. So, we're just going to bend it just like we did the first one or close to it.

[00:34:23]I know it takes a minute, but I'd rather wait on this than have to do it by hand and cranking.

[00:34:32]>> I agree.

[00:34:40]>> [music] >> Ready to go. Just got to mock it up. See where we got to cut it.

[00:35:44]>> May have to put more little more bend in it.

[00:35:47]>> Coat that.

[00:35:51]And then just cut the at that angle.

[00:35:54]>> Cut a little slash in it. Yeah.

[00:35:56]Be good. Cool.

[00:36:00]If we don't have a way to cope.

[00:36:04]You know which side you need to cope?

[00:36:06]>> Yeah. This one.

[00:36:08]This is about the size of the tube that we're doing. I just that and then can take a [snorts] this wheel.

[00:36:48]Just cut into your line.

[00:37:33]Just like the pushups.

[00:37:38]Still might have had to massage it a little bit, but be good enough to get started.

[00:37:46]And then what we'll do, it's kind of going up a little bit. I didn't really want that, but it's going to be all right.

[00:37:57]So we'll cut that angle.

[00:38:20]>> Yeah, I like it. It's got a little gap here, but you can fill that in, I think.

[00:38:24]Okay.

[00:38:38]Back it on the other.

[00:39:09]That sucks.

[00:39:16][music] [music] any [music] heat. Hey All >> [music] >> right, now that the paint's all dry, I'm just going to grease up all my bushings and slip it all back in.

[00:40:15]Heat.

[00:40:21]Heat.

[00:40:28][music] >> [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[00:40:48][music] All >> [music] >> right, installed.

[00:41:16]Much thicker material, at least the width of it. Just tubing. You can even see still where I got plenty of penetration throughout both misses the drive shaft completely. Got plenty of room.

[00:41:37]All the welds came out pretty decent.

[00:41:39]Had a little bit of splatter here and there, but I was able to burn in. I had it set pretty hot. So, this thick material, that thick wall tubing, wanted to make sure it really bonded together.

[00:41:50]And I think it did.

[00:41:52]So, we're back in the game. You can even see uh what does that say? Canada.

[00:41:59]I think that said Canada on it. So, which I they made some square bodies in Canada. I don't know if this van is made in Canada or not. We'll see.

[00:42:11]Anyway, I don't know. It's late. I'm a little delirious.

[00:42:17]But crossmembers in [music] All right. Well, that's the end. And I think the last shot y'all saw, I was uh bolting up the crossmember in the shop and uh dad and I actually we come out here and uh we were planning on like, well, how do we end the video? What do we do? And we thought about, well, do we put it back in four-wheel drive and come out here and play around? Um the ground looks pretty dry. And as y'all know, these military tires and this 10bolt front end. Yeah, they're kind of open diffs and stuff, but we don't want to come out here and break a axle on dry ground. So, uh, just going to have to end it like this. End this video like this, but looks like next week you were saying it was going to be pretty rainy off and on.

[00:43:22]>> Yeah. I mean, and I mean, y'all know the four-wheel drive works. We just we broke the crossmember last time over here playing around, but it like Seth said, >> as dry as it is, there's really nothing to really >> even show anything about doing four-wheel drive cuz it's just kind of flat.

[00:43:39]>> Yeah.

[00:43:39]>> And even the hills, you know, there's some pretty good hills over here, but unless they're wet and muddy, it's nothing to really do anything. But >> yeah, we got back up in here. I mean, if y'all remember, we did the uh build breakdown on my bike, and you're able to get back up in here in two wheel drive with even with with choppers and motorcycles, so it's nothing too crazy over here. It's the only real place we have personal access to for any off-road stuff, right? As of right now.

[00:44:06]>> Yeah, it wasn't really a four-wheel drive video. It was just fixing.

[00:44:09]>> It was just fixing the fixing the crossmember. So, y'all saw that.

[00:44:12]>> That's another thing, too. We We uh It looks good. I'm happy with it, but it was the same thing last minute. We threw it together at the last minute cuz we had to get it ready for the camping trip. That's right.

[00:44:21]>> Just like everything else, we wait till the last minute and and throw stuff together. But it it really turned out good.

[00:44:26]>> Yeah. In fact, I drove it to Sandy Ridge this weekend. Had kind of a birthday camp out thing and we got it done and in time and cleaned back up for that. How far is Sandy Ridge? It's probably what >> 861 miles. [laughter] That's about uh 40 >> 40 50 45 miles.

[00:44:43]>> So drove there, drove back, everything did fine. Cross mirror is perfect. I mean, pretty simple fix. Pretty simple redo. Glad it's stronger. It's looking better. But like I said, >> got better welds on it this time.

[00:44:55]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can tell that uh it stuck together on this one. But anyway, next week it's going to be some uh it should be some pretty good weather to have some four-wheel drive fun. So, we'll uh we had some requests on I think both Facebook and Instagram for some a little more van content. So, we'll do that. But, uh, as far as this video, thank y'all for watching, sticking around, seeing how it got fixed and and all that good stuff. Uh, shout out to Tim at Okay Recycling. Uh, >> keep watching. We We Another thing about Tim, we've got his bike in the shop now.

[00:45:28]Uh, going to build him a cool chopper out of a uh >> we won't get into what the bike looked like that he bought, but [laughter] yeah, we'll be working on that in in the in the shop. So, that that we're looking forward to that. Uh, >> yeah. And yeah, shout out to the OK Recycling. Uh Brian Batty down at Batty Tire in Yadkinville, North Carolina. And always our buddies down at Prism. We missed you guys this weekend at your uh grand opening. I wish we could have been there, but we had prior engagement, but we'll catch up with you soon.

[00:45:59]>> Thank y'all for watching and uh we'll catch y'all on the next one.

[00:46:10][music] Heat. Heat.

[00:46:18][music] [music] Heat. Heat.

[00:46:54]Heat. Heat.

[00:46:59][music] [music]