Marlin Crawler's New Rock Crawling Long Travel IFS Suspension System (#RCLT)

I repaired some tractor implements with my flux machine. First machine I had. Perfect for blasting through the shit, portable and easy to get good penetration. Way outside of spec at 1/2” but some notching and a few passes and it’s solid haha crapload of smoke and mess though

 

What’s funny is just in that thumbnail I think I see some undercut

 

His video about the HF bender helped me a lot. I bent one piece for my front bumper and wouldn’t hesitate to do some more bends with it. Small incremental bends are key with it. They won’t be as strong as using an actual tube bender I suppose, since the way it deforms, but for the limited amount I will use it (mostly aesthetic), it makes sense.

 

IDK buying a $40k truck and not springing for a decent $1-1.5K bender is a little unbalanced in priorities imo - especially if you're building any safety equipment like a cage. Some of my younger friends (previously students at the school I worked at a few years ago) just bought a Lincoln like you have - they have a Miller and a HF MIG 140. I asked them to let me know how they stack up - they are fabricating fences.

I've worked on all thicknesses up to .25" with a 2nd hand 110V Hobart 140 with 030 wire.



Finding projects like my battery tray that wouldn't need fully welded joints and fully welding them for practice helps.



Over the years I have gotten better and fully appreciate there's a learning curve. That said go back and make things right if you booger it up. Just my 2 cents on this.

 

Buying 1.5k worth of bender for a few aesthetic bends seems unbalanced to me. I’m not building a cage with it. I don’t bother hiding my welds in pictures. I know they aren’t perfect and there’s a shitload of master welders on the internet that will happily let me know. I appreciate the helpful responses, though. I don’t have to be perfect, I just want to get a little better every day. I always jump in with two feet in anything I do. I’m usually in over my head, but I’ve never let that stop me. I never give up.

 

Yeah that isn't even close with the 5" shackles. How compressed are your shocks at full bump - just curious after not seeing anything longer than a 12-14" shock in there, but I also see that your lower mounts probably compensate for that.

@Dayman Karate Re: Bender: yeah to only do a couple bends on smaller material doesn't call for a quality bender, I actually have a couple bends on 1.5 .120 HREW I cut off of a bumper to make a step on my rear bumper that were made with a HF pipe bender. Seeing the amount of deformation and knowing that they were done slowly and packed with sand when they were done makes me wary of agreeing it's a good way to go for bigger and beefier 1.75X.120 DOM. Guess knowing when to make the call on what tools to use comes into play here. I had a couple critical tubes that needed to be bent and decided to look around for a buddy that had a good bender.

Re: Welding: I hope that my posts weren't discouraging - not my intention at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is look at who you're taking tips from - either someone that leaves poor quality welds on their work or certified welders like Jaime and Bob on weldingtipsandtricks.com and weld.com who's content are both 100% free on their sites (at least Jaime) and on youtube. You'll see the approach to good welding of which recreating your final welds and practicing them before welding on the part is a big part of. You'll also learn what to look for like heat marks and undercut - both of which show up in your rod end bung weld here. I'd pick up $20-30 worth of 1.75x.120 and 1.50x1.20 or 1.50x.250 and practice welding them to mimic a rod end since the 1.5 will slip into the 1.75 like a rod end bung. Preheating your material will help with the lack of heat you can generate until you get 240V welder too, you can see the very small amount of heat marks on your bung. The biggest thing is practice practice practice. I like your attitude though and it will just be a matter of time before you're making perfect welds all the time!

And you can see on the tube structure supporting my battery tray that the welds are pretty lackadaisical which is because they were the some of the first round tube welds I had done and didn't want to take the time to redo them knowing that in the future knowing that it was a non-critical part.

 

I appreciate it. I’ll look into those two sources and try to dig in deeper. I get ahead of myself sometimes and I’m trying to get things right the first go and not come back and do it over again. Coilovers should be arriving today and I’m hoping to set this thing on the ground soon. I’m ready to ride and work on it less haha the small details have ended up being worse than the links. Poo welds aside

 

I'll measure again once they shocks are back in, but I think we got pretty close to full compression with the 12" shackles. The lower mounts are a bit long, but I didnt want to go up into the bed.

 

I never thought about this.... holy crap.

 

I’ve heard of people using their water heater and making a plug, but you’ll be less pissed if you forget to plug your dryer back in…

 

Made my own extension cord too because the plug for a dryer is different than the normal 50A plug that welders use. I only have about $70 into the cord, pretty inexpensive.

 

I used to do the same thing too. Now the cable is just an extra long 240v extension cord for the shop.

 

It’s pretty easy to wire in a new circuit on your panels too. That’s what I did and made up a 30’ extension cord for the welders and plasma. Even wired in the new 240v outlet while the panel was hot Far simpler to have a dedicated circuit than keep unplugging the dryer, that got old quick!

 

I need to replace the whole panel. Old Zinsco or similar and it's maxed out for circuits. Was gonna have them replace the box, and then run a sub panel into my garage so if I trip something out there I'm not running into the house to flip the circuits back on.

 

I’d love to because the panel is in the garage, it would be really easy. I’m only renting though so for now I’ll suck it up and deal with the cord.

 

Leviton makes a fairly cheap dryer plug I picked up at Home Depot . Cant remember what I paid, its probably gone up anyway.

Depending on how long you make your cable, it should be 12 gauge or heavier.

I was lucky and had this heavy duty 12 ga already hanging around. Its about 25' and allows the Hobart to reach the end of the garage.

 

Mig welding is for peasants

 

Guess that means my long travel is bound to fall apart any day now

 

Along with half of my truck too!

 

I would like to take the time to tig weld better - barely getting my truck finished in 6 years as it is with MIG so going to hold onto that status for the time being.