Anything welding

How easily removable? Would be sweet if you could get it to swing. Not as strong structurally but seems like that thing would be a PITA under normal use haha

 

Yeah, I'll have to live with it. It would require removing some Allen head bolts. Believe it or not, the most we use the bed for is to put groceries in the cooler back there. The tailgate drops with the bar in place and the cooler slides under it. If I did remove the bar, it would be to haul something big that would need to be slid out of the bed.

 

Not the prettiest but those aren't going nowhere!! Corners where to biatch to get to. Those are UCAs brackets btw.

 

Double check the fitment of the UCA with washers and all before you start bolting everything back together. With the heat warp, some guys had a hard time getting the UCA back in. At least now you can tweak the mount a bit to give you some wiggle room. IIRC, @EatSleepTacos welded his in place with the bushing sleeve, UCA washers and a second set of thin washer as a spacer to account for the movement.

 

I did not (I don’t have this gusset yet) but this is good advice!

 

I though it was you. Must've been someone else that that fabs/installs frequently. But yes, good advice. I stored that one away in the old nugget for future reference.

 

No need here, not your regular UCAs going on there. Got the bolt in while welding though, goes in n out smooth. Lmfao

 

No more washers/bushings status here.

 

The misalignment spacers for the rod ends will take up the same space so the same idea still applies.


Just trying to offer you some advice.

 

No worries, they fit better than my pants. Lmfao

 

Got some more practice in today. Working on form, consistency and dialing my machine in. Started with some t-joints on 1/8"...



Been dealing with 1/8" quite a bit lately and felt pretty good about it. Moved on to practicing some verticals and some tube joints. Still have a lot of work to do on the tubing...




After the 1/8", I moved to 1/4" verticals (top, down) and felt pretty good. Slowly getting more comfortable, just need to put in some more time behind the mask before I feel like I can get it all dialed in...

 

Tremendous

 

Got working on some gussets:

 

Tremendous

 

That was me, based on advice from @Squeaky Penguin

Untitled by Michael Halat, on Flickr

I did all the fitting with the UCA and tacked it with the bushings still in, then pulled the bushings off and kept the sleeves and the tiny fender washer on the outsides, ran my first couple of beads, alternating locations to keep the heat down, and then eventually pulled the bolt/sleeve/spacers out for finish welding.

 

I recently found out the Dirt King tower gussets actually come with fender washers for that reason and state exactly that in their instructions.

 

N00B question time.
did you weld your gueests on the "outer edge" of the tube because that's the strongest for tube, or just because it was easier? ( as opposed to the middle of the tube )
I know you weld gussets on square tube on the edge to make them stronger, so that applies to round tube as well?

 

I did that so the gussets would be a little farther from the body so I could wrap around and weld the corners and a little on the backside. I also didn't want water pooling in some of the gussets (depending on their position) and wanted all of them matching. I don't think this way is easier, it's just what I thought worked and looked the best, the way the cage is positioned on the cab.