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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/14/2024 in all areas

  1. Long time, no update! Project has had its typical slow point the last several months. Work and sports (youth & adult) took up a lot of that time, dealing with sports-related injuries, and AZ setting a new record of like 113 consecutive days over 100° or something...well, hard to get motivated to go outside, to say the least. I think the only notable thing I did for the last few months was order a new radiator...still sitting in the box because I've not gotten to relocating the mounts for it yet, but I still have other engine things to do first anyway. The past couple weeks I'd been figuring out how to mount the radius arms to the chassis. Went through a couple designs and finally settled on something I really liked. Got all the pieces cut out the other week and got them tacked together and temporarily mounted up. Pretty huge step right there, because it allowed me to start working on the upper panhard bar mount (the lower mount was done a while ago). Got all that tacked up, too, only to realize that the position wasn't going work and that it would need to be moved forward a little...meaning the lower mount will also have to be redone. Then this week happened...and I finally had a super productive week! I took the whole week off and also flew TownDawgR50 down from WA to help. He'd thrown the idea out a while ago and I finally took him up on it. He was only in town for 3 days, but it was great seeing him and jamming on the project. We focused mainly on the radius arm mounts and crossmember, but also hammered out the corrected upper panhard mount. He went to town welding up the brackets and steering links, freeing me up to CAD and cut out parts. Pics! Radius arm brackets welded up and bolted where the transmission crossmember existed. The bolts are just for positioning; the entire bracket will be welded to the chassis rail. A plate will also be welded to the inner rail with gussets. The driver's side inner rail is free of lines and wires, but there's limited clearance below the cats, which is why everything had to be mounted below the rails. Much more cat clearance on the passenger side, but with all the fuel and brake lines there, plus electrical and pneumatic lines I've added, there's very limited space to weld a plate on the inner rail. Passenger mount showing how the transmission crossmember will attach...front wheel studs pressed into the bracket. This how the crossmember started. I chopped the OE one and built a bracket to put new mounting provisions on it. On the driver's side, plan was to put a plate (shown) to extend the tubing rearward rather than try to build a hoop over the driveshaft (I prefer staying under so I don't have to remove it if I need to remove the crossmember). For this setup, there'd be a 2" square tube (similar size as the center section of the OE unit) offset about 3" and it'd give me the clearance I'd need. But then, I got to this point and didn't like my options on how to attach it to the other radius arm bracket because of all the little height differences involved. So, I ditched that approach entirely and designed a whole new piece. Worked on it today and just need to redo the center piece and trim up the ends on the inner supports, then tack it up and confirm fitment. This took a bit of time to plan out and make the bends, but came out pretty damn good, if I may say so. The driveshaft hoop portion is deliberately shaped to be narrower than the rest of the shape (1.5" vs. 1-7/8") to give just a little more clearance at the point closest to the driveshaft at full droop, but the base plate keeps a uniform width so it's still well protected and boxed in. The big advantage to this is that it keeps my mounting surface flat and low profile, and just looks a helluva lot better. Lastly, got the revised upper panhard mount done when TownDawg was here. Since this piece is entirely bolt-on and uses the subframe mounting hardware, I needed to retain access to hole. Moving the mount forward would block the hole, but I was able to box in a pocket to retain access. Unfortunately, it's not looking like I'll be done by the end of December which is when my tags expire. So, I'll be an outlaw for a while longer until I can get it rolling to get emissions done. But with the recent work, it's that much closer to having the axle attached and in the final position...next step: coilover shopping.
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