Mojave Rebuild and Random Projects Build Thread

Ya they left me that nice present... Very sweet of them, totally made up for the whole thing, haha

 

Finally!!! An update of substance. My production work has kept me busy but as we get ahead I was able to dedicate some time yesterday to my truck and of course a new product haha.

Introducing the Apex Fabworks "Next Gen" sliders. This is a proof of concept that will be tested and made available in the next couple months. We took a new approach to sliders to make a truly next generation. Taking all the things I love about traditional sliders and offering some new stuff on top.

The basis of the idea is focused on the amount of flex we see with bolt on sliders. In my opinion this comes from the frame plate that bolts to the frame. The larger flat part that is vertical flexes as weight is applied and the sliders deflect upward. Now with that said every set of sliders will flex, and flex isn't always a bad thing either, it is the material withstanding the force and not cracking. But back to bolt on sliders, they tend to flex more than we want and in some cases people have had them come in contact with the body which is what we are trying to avoid in the first place.

With this concept we are trying to eliminate frame plate flex by spreading out the load placed on the plate. By having the legs be wider and taller we have greatly increased the surface area that we come in contact with on the frame plate. The more area we use, the more the load is spread and the less flex we have.

We also are using a new design on the leg all together with this boxed plate. In essence we are using a design that is used on control arms for suspension in off-road race trucks. It provides more vertical strength, is equal or lighter in weight, and is designed in a way so that it is all interlocking. We can weld the legs to the frame plate from the front and the back with our slots and we have a built in ledge for the main tube to attach to and can get more weld on there. Overall this design will increase strength without any added weight.

There are still a few unseen features on these that I will show later as we progress. I have some ideas to test for attachment to the frame with the horizontal plate. The horizontal plate is a key part of the frame plate and helping to reduce flex as well. We also have some fun ideas for the tube work and top plates that will allow you to make your sliders more personal to your build and also more utilitarian at the same time. Sorry for the long winded input, but with these being a new concept I wanted to share my thinking!

And last, big props to @1 Bored Clerk for the open source frame plates. We made a lot of changes to them to fit our idea but having a file to start with was a huge time saver, very grateful!!!

Original Concept



Coming to reality, a few changes from the original idea.

 

Interested in seeing the final installed product...

 

Thanks for the shout-out! I like what you have going on and I'm interested to see where this goes.

 

Of course!!!! Thank you, I can't wait to do some testing on the final designs.

 

Subd. Sweet stuff in here

 

Man I need to do some work on this pig... I will have some actual work pics some time next week of progress...

I did weld the one slider I started on. More to come on those as that is next.

I also ordered some Extended Travel Kings with Reservoirs! Can't wait to get those swapped on.

And last, I have started working on the rear suspension designs in my spare time. Going to be installing my 12" Kings as mentioned before. I also started working on the new fabricated shackles and hangers I will be making. They will not be a flip, but stay the way Toyota made them. This will better suit my driving. Then I am making a 1" drop hanger and a 1" longer shackle. Ride height will stay the same with my deaver 10 leaf pack but it will allow for a little more droop as the longer shackle will have more room to move in it's arc. I designed shackles just now. Hangers next!

 

More fun with solidworks!!! Can't wait to burn these bad boys out on the plasma table and melt them together. Still have some more design work to do and a bit to figure out. The main parts are there though!

Cheesy music on the video I know, better than silence haha. Thanks YouTube for the generic sound bites!

 

That music got me psyched!!

 

Interested to see the shackle hangers I may need to buy some off you if you intend to make some more other then the ones you make for your self.

 

Lets see how it goes and I will see about it. These are not customer easy, meaning the install will be detailed and will require a professional.

 

That's okay by me! This will be replacing my shackle flip. But excited to see how it turns out for you.

 

It's getting crazy over here....

Parts on order or on the shelf now:
- King OEM Extended Travel shocks with Remote Res
- King 8" 2 tube bypasses - Got a wild hair with these...
- King 12" Remote Res with Compression Adjust
- King 2" Hydro Bumps
- All-Pro Ubolts
- Icon U-Bolt Flip Plates for Hydro Bumps
- Wheelers Rear Brake Lines
- 4 limit straps
- 4 Limit Strap Clevises
- Nitrogen to Co2 adapter
- Poly Performance Co2 Regulator
- Smittybilt high lift jack

Also in works:
- New shackles
- Rear shock mounts
- Hydro bump mounts
- Bolt on Rock Sliders (one 60% done, other is still just steel on the floor)
- Two rear full size tire mounts (cool folding design in the bed)
- Jack mounts
- Bed rail system to add tie down points
- Front hybrid bumper

Man that's a long list... I have a Mojave Road trip on 1 March so I have until then to do as much of this as possible. Sunday I plan to finish my sliders and my jack mounts so I can get those off to powder. Followed quickly by getting the front shocks off the truck, compressing my suspension and starting work on body mount chop and fender/wheel well trimming to get full stuff at full turn with no rubbing. Then onto all the other fun stuff from there. Priority is all the suspension work, then all the other stuff will happen as time permits. This is going to happen fast and should be a killer mid travel build when I am all done!

 

It's a build race.

 

Enjoy watching this build!!

 

DAAAMNN!! tick tock tick tock

 

Well I made a little progress yesterday. And got more parts in the mail. This pile need to get on the truck! And that's not all of it, and there is more... I need to stop posting and start working. Too bad I just got a root canal and then while excitedly opening the bypasses box I sliced my finger open. I know when to take a hint and maybe call today a down day, haha.

Here are a few rough pics of the sliders. 1st is my doing a very rough test fit of the tubes to make sure they are where I want with no clearance issues. Then a couple detail shots. I am excited to see how the inverted/grooved dimples work.







And here is my stack o parts...

 

And then King said "Let there be wheel travel."

Been really at it the last few days on the rear suspension. I just finished all of the mock up of everything and now it's time to burn it in after this pizza break and TW update haha.

For those who want to know, here is some info on what I have learned:

Toyota really wanted to limit what we can do with these trucks in so many ways...

First, the flat springs. Because of the design and the flatness of the rear springs at ride height it is impossible to not have negative arch on your springs at bump... In order to get any sort of up travel you need to go negative and I am convinced there is no way around this. Yes going negative will cause springs to fatigue faster. But the stock design already does this... So I made some compromises as to what I thought was a fair amount of negative and bump travel and went from there.

Second, there would be a great way to fix the flat springs if Toyota didn't add this sweet detail... The shackle actually sits underneath the frame a little bit. On Fords they combat flat leafs and negative arch with longer shackle. This allows you to change the pivot point and get flat at bump instead of early. This also allows you to have a spring with more arch at ride height, it's a great design. Well because Toyota put the shackle partially under the frame you cannot do this trick. Well you could if you cut off and built new hangers, cut off and built new front mounts so that you could clock the back of the spring outside the frame... But if you are gunna do that, why not go DMZ or Camburg spring under and use a different design.

So with all of that above we are left with what we have. However! I am still very happy with what I have been able to get out of the rear suspension so far. Here are my numbers:

Rear Shock: King 12" Travel, 2.5" diameter with remote reservior and compression adjusters
Rear Bump: King 2" Travel, 2.0: diameter hydro bump
Rear Leaf Springs: Deaver J66 1" lift pack
Rear Spring Pad: Icon hydro bump flip kit spring pad
Rear U bolts: All Pro replacement set for flip kits
Rear Wheel Spacer: 1.25" Spider Trax, may switch to 0.75" ones
Rear Upper Shock Mount: Complete custom fabricated part with the shock mounted as high in the fender as possible
Rear Lower Shock Mount: Complete custom fabricated part mounted as high and as close to the axle as possible

Rear Straight Up Wheel Travel: 12" on the dot
Rear Flexed Wheel Travel: 14.5" on the dot
Negative Arch on Spring: 2.5" from center line

My final thoughts are that this will be a fun set up when I am done. The rear shock mounts are a little bulky but they are super strong. I still need to finish some frame tie ins and welding for those. I also will be adding a cross bar in the bed to tie the two towers together. My frame is not boxed yet (in the future when I have time) and these towers are longer levers on the frame. So with a cross bar I think I will be able to mitigate almost all frame twist or flex that they may offer. I also plated the outside of the frame to add some much needed strength. I am also needing to run a wheel spacer to avoid tire on shock rubbing. I have 0.75" of clearance with these wheel spacers. I may go to a shorter spacer as the hydro bump will probably never compress all the way to allow the tire to get this close. We will see. I will run these for now.

 

Full Bump


Full Droop


Flexed