lil bit of tinkering

[Toolman]

Keep going Art. I have the upper links here for you.

thinking outside the frame

[aw12345]

Keep going Art. I have the upper links here for you.

thinking outside the frame

I guess another visit is still in order lol

[jonah]

Hey Art, I didn't make it to your place today. I will have to catch you again later.

The new tinkering toy is looking good!

[aw12345]

Spend the afternoon removing brackets from the axle, then made a dummy upper mount for the left side.
Started to a bit of flexin and bled the air shocks down. At the height it sits now I can get close to 5" uptravel and things will pretty much clear and with what I have in mind I can get the full 15" of travel out of both front shocks. Need to make new upper and lower minds but other that the double sided steering ram I can start packaging the whole shebang under the front. Going to have to hit up one of my7 buds to snag his bender, plasma cutter and notcher and then it's on like Donkeykong

[aw12345]

Bit more play time today
Clearance from the pumkin to the oil pan at full bump



Full stuff and full droop oopsie we got a problem, I am hoping the wheelspacers will help clear this





Not going to worry about that to much for now, some of the tubing and the radiator might find new homes once I acquire the steering ram.
What gives me happiness is the angle of the lower control arms front and back. Also where I want to put the front uppers will work clearance wise.







I like the look of the front at ride height



Looks like some of the firewall is going to be made out some sort of perforated aluminum or steel.
Kinda like the idea of seeing the front tires, with Jeeps a lot of it, is driving by braille, the front camera on my big toy helps a lot in picking rocks, on this one I want to keep it simple.



Width outside tire to outside tire will be 90" once the wheel spacers go in.
As it stands right now the wheelbase is 115"

[aw12345]

Started fudging with the lower control arm mounts for the front axle.
Going to resolve the trans mount at the same time.
Still have to plate the top and bottom and make a decision on how to make a trans mount and the whole shebang can go back in place.

[Chris_L]

I had a south american front 44 with ctms on 37s and broke one once. lots of sparks the 44 and the 30 share the same u joint size and axles size not much of a strength increase

[aw12345]

That's why this thing has a Dana 60 up front and so does my big Jeep. I am not in to wrenching on the trail.
When I go for a trail ride I want to do just that. Wrenching I do either at work or at home at my leisure

[aw12345]

Got my front frame side lower control arm mounts welded up and stuck back in place. Now the hunt is on for a transmount so I can finalize that, then on to gusseting the back of the crossmember a bit. If the fuel cell hasn't shown up by then it's time for a trip to the steel yard for some flat plate to start knocking out the upper control arm mounts and lower air shock mounts. want to tie those together and to the inner C so all of that gets beefed up in one shot.
Also found out after doing a bit of research that the are shocks are 16" and 18" pretty darn sweet. Just hope I can figure out how to tune those things to my liking.

[aw12345]

Started messing with how I want to mount the air shocks
While I was at it adapted a piece of a harbor freight tube notcher to my old lathe, so now I do not have to borrow a tube notcher.

[aw12345]

Tinkering along, pics speak for themselves

[aw12345]

Want to get my hands on a nitrogen bottle so I can charge the shocks, so I can flex this thing with the cherry picker



My fancy notcher

[flatout]

Just use air till you get nitrogen

[aw12345]

Tried that, not enough pressure to lift it

[aw12345]

Did manage to flex it for the most part and came across a few issues, one involves notching the frame a bit so the front upper control arm mount can slide under the frame. The other involves the rear shocks, they need to be angled in more. Which is actually a good thing, the reason that helps stability is actually kinda self explanatory once you look at the one pic and think about where the weight of the body transfers to the axle. Would have been easier to flex this thing with nitrogen in the shocks, since it might have behaved slightly differently. Oh well will deal with that when I have some money to buy a nitrogen setup.
Anyway ran out of travel on the cherry picker. the left front shock still had 3" of travel left