Baby Beast Evolution

[AxleIke]

Today I spent A LONG time measuring, remeasuring, adjusting, then remeasuring, double checking, etc...

The result: The axle is positioned under the truck. WB is 110. 22 " frame height at ride height. Caster is at a *rough* 3 degrees. That will be adjusted finally when the truck is done, at a shop.

Then, I welded it to the frame with scrap. Well, strong tack welds.



Then, I put the driver hub together, and mounted a tire to check for clearance, and just to get a feel for how things will look. Even stuck a CO in there to look at where I've tenatively placed link mounts in the calculator, and see how CO fits around the other junk.



The shock is at 1/2 travel in this pic. Ultimately, it will come down a bit, with hopefully a 60/40 down/up ratio.

Here is where the tire sits:



Approach will be halfway decent:



Floor shot to show the total drop. About 4.5"



My garage is short, I wanted to get a front shot, but this is about all I got. At full lock, the tire will hit that front body mount, so off they come.



After that I started measuring out and designed the brackets for the lower link crossmember. Tomorrow, I'll cut them out and get that mounted into the truck. Then finalize the numbers in the calculator, check that things fit, and start building link mounts.

[AxleIke]

Super frustrating finale to the weekend. Spent a bunch of time on wedding things, and misc house work that ate into truck time.

Also, managed to fry a GFCI box by overloading the circuit. Turns out, these things are POS's. Ah well, took me FOREVER to figure that out, but once I did, I was back in action.

I picked up a new air compressor, as the craftsman was putting out tons of water= quick destruction of electrodes and tips on the plasma= no go. Got a 30 gal belt drive, and a better drier. MUCH BETTER, and much quieter.

I also picked up Miller's new Mobile Arcstation. This thing is sweet. Great welding table with notches for clamps, and folds up to fit into an already over stuffed garage:






Yesterady I got all of the old xmember brackets cut off, as well as the torsion bar mounts. Took a long time, and managed to get a nice slag burn through my double wall carharts, just below where my leather's stop. That resulted in some clenched teeth and hopping around (on my back) , which resulted in a smack of the head into the transfercase output, which resulted in howling and cursing. Not one of my finest moments, but, alas, I topped it today.

Anyway, after I got everything cut off and gouged out, I only had a few minutes of grinding, and then a few minutes with a stripping disk to clean the frame.

Today I got my invitations addressed (amazingly there are now INNER envelopes to label. And I thought cars had a lot of parts. I do what I'm told.).

I ALSO got my frame plates cut out, and the crossmember brackets made up. Now I need to position everything, and drill the brackets and crossmember:





All 1/4". They will be further braced and gusseted later.

I've been practicing a bit. Still need to get stand off control down. I move the arc in and and out too much.

Here are a few of the sorta better ones:











I mentioned that I topped the back dance/head smack today. I lit myself on fire. Yep. I was tacking things into place under the truck and focusing on keeping the measurements correct, when I started to feel warm. I ignored it. Then I started to feel hot. I thought I was too close to my halogen work lamp, so I lifted up my helmet, and realized that my left hip was on fire. I got it out, but it burned through my carharts, the pocket and blackened my boxer shorts. WAY to close to the family jewels for comfort, and it looks like a nice sunburn now.

Note to self: WEAR LEATHERS EVEN IF TACKING THINGS INTO PLACE.

So, a sucky weekend with not much done and two painful incidents.

[Seanz0rz]

sounds like the time i lit my shirt on fire with a grinder... wear leathers even when grinding!!!

and i feel your pain on the wedding stuff. tomorrow is my big day!!!


welds look better, just more and more practice, something you get when you do a big project like this. do you happen to have a shop press? if you have a big enough one (at least 12 tons) you can do some practice welds and some super simple destructive testing to see how they are doing. wont be very scientific, but should let you know if they are good welds or not.

looks great, i will be paying close attention to this build.

[AxleIke]

Yeah, I have a 20 ton press. I'll give that a try as I need practice with overhead welding, so I'll rig up some scrap and weld it upside down, and then test it with the press.

[AxleIke]

Had a fairly productive weekend. I picked up a 4'x4' piece of 1/4" plate, which I can barely lift, but managed to get situated on my floor so I could cut pieces from it.

I then began building the rear crossmember of my subframe. It will bolt to the frame using 1/2" hardware, through the frame.

This took almost the whole weekend, but it was worth it. I built two frame attachment brackets, and then tacked this monster up:





I know it isn't the best form to grind welds smooth, but I needed good, flat surfaces to mount brackets and the like to, so I smoothed everything out to keep it easy to weld brackets to. I beveled all the edges, so the welds sat in nice and deep, giving me plenty of weld left to hold everything together.

Here it is under the truck:









My dilemma is whether or not to sleeve the frame. On the one hand, it will keep the frame from having any issues with compression from the bolts, but I think the 1/4" plate will take care of that. Because of the flush mount on the brackets holding this thing down, I will need to smooth out any welding done, meaning that the lateral strength of the sleeves won't be that good. I've got some reading to do.

[Crinale]

damn that thing is beeefffyyyy... you're doing some really good clean work to this truck

[AxleIke]

Lots of work, not much to show for it.

Got the frame drilled, and sleeved. That took a long time. Getting everything lined up properly, and then getting the bolts to go through. Takes forever.

Picked up a second grinder to avoid having to undo disks to change what I'm doing. I also started using a 7" flap disk on my grinder. I LOVE it. Those big flap disks last a LOT longer, and really rip through material when you need to.

Got the crossmember welded to the frame brackets. Starting to get a bit better on some of the welds. Some are less consistent than others.

Here's a better one:



After that, I got the front mounts welded up, and tacked up to the frame. I then cut out, and began working on, connecting pieces, that will form the subframe. The lower front link mounts will tie into the front of these (which is why they are hanging down), and the skid plate will attach to all of this, and the transfercase mounts.

Couple of shots of where it sits:







And a shot of how things are starting to look underneath the frame. Not a flat belly, but should be plenty smooth for sliding over stuff.

[AxleIke]

Back at it again after a month or so.

Anyway, I started mocking up my links. And, figured out that I was going to have to change the design a bit again.

Anyway, here is how things are going:



I've tried two different set ups on the passenger side and driver side. One is higher than the axle center line, the other just lower. Obviously, the higher gives better roll axis numbers, but they still aren't great.

Driver side:





Passenger side:





Obviously, either way will require a frame notch. I think I can make that work pretty well.

This is where the upper sits. It should clear the motor mount/motor when flexed, but we'll see.



Anyway, some more pondering to do.

This is the calculator for a set up with the driverside dimensions:



The panhard here isn't correct, but just put in there. The actual numbers will come once I get the steering box figured out. Hopefully some of that tomorrow.

[AxleIke]

Today sucked, and was kinda good. It sucked in that I figured out that my frame is tweaked up front. Just a bit on the passenger side. However, given that I have to notch the frame for the links, and the IFS frames kinda suck, I am giving some serious thought to chopping the frame just rearward of the firewall body mount and using tube (probably 2x3) for the front.

I spent a lot of time measuring today, and decided I need a second person to be sure. But something is off.

I'm also trying to figure out how to mount my steering box. Currently, if I use an FJ80 box, It will want to sit directly over the axle= bad for compression travel.

A shorter pitman arm would do the trick, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that will affect my turning radius.

Anyway, I decided I needed to think for a while.

I did take off my pitman arm, and reverse it to simulate an FJ80 box. Then put in a PVC drag link, and panhard rod after that.

Sorry, pictures will have to wait, camera was dead.

This is the updated calculator:

[AxleIke]

DETOUR!!!

It turns out that IFS frames are great for keeping IFS trucks low, but NOT good for keeping the truck low with a solid axle. It is doable, but requires some sacrifices that I don't want to do.

So, thankfully, I was able to borrow an engine hoist, and with some work of the plasma cutter, sawzall, and grinder, I went from this:



To this:





In a couple of labor intensive hours.

So i have a new sculpture in my garage:



I hope to have the new frame built over the rest of the weekend, but I know that there are some large, unforseen, obstacles that will undoubtedly show up and put me further behind.