45acp’s DIVORCED build!

BTW (update ), OEM Taco gas tank parts will be making there way here sometime soon courtesy of Valon.

Gonna try getting this fuel cell deal figured out before I finalize a bed design. I'm buying some so in case I F up, I'll still have the original tank to fall back on.

 

Haha yeah had duals on my F-150. Was nice until the switch broke off and fell inside the dash.
Main purpose(s) of going to the fuel cell is added clearance, protect the tank from rocks, going for a larger tank, and most importantly... because I can.

 

Ben a lot of guys have aux tanks under then bed on expo portal. Ill add one at so,e point I hope

 

Oh course haha

Actually they aren't that expensive or hard to do

 

Found some pics on my old cell worth posting.

Watch where you get the exhaust relocated. I had it done by a shop and asked to have it dumped before the axle. Ended up being too close to the axle and melted the ABS wiring. Scared the shit out of me when the ABS would kick in randomly when I applied the brakes, even on dry pavement. Great shop though and they relocated it again and replaced the ABS wiring for me.



Taken from the back of the snowcat after recovering pyroskier's truck.

 

Didn't notice any heat issues other than the ABS wiring. Moving it back several inches and turning it straight down seemed to make a lot of difference.

 

Convince? Ha..done haha I like next years meet it's less then an hour from my house haha

 

i had mine dumped in front of the axle for. a while.... i had no problems. i now have it dumped behind it for emissions

 

Jon

After a few months of using your stereo head unit, how do you like it?

Pros?
Cons?

I'm about to pull the trigger on a new head unit (trying to plug in and untangle my earpiece when I get calls is getting annoying and dangerous) and have this one of yours bookmarked.

Thanks.

 

Sorry I completely missed your post. I noticed you already got it worked out though.
Been really busy with school and work. Had some free time this evening and shamelessly stole some videos from Monte's photobucket and put them together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByWM4qgnh-o

My younger brother has been toying with the idea of going into engineering so I sent him some rough measurements of the back of the truck so I could get a bed designed using CAD. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to CAD so he's doing most of the leg work on that. I'll post some pics later tonight of what we have so far.

 

I love your truck. I hope to get some 35s on mine too sometime in the future

 

Thanks, 35"s are great!

Here's the foundation my brother made today. Started working on the bed section but not anything worth posting yet.

 

Still working out the tire carrier. Any suggestions on changes, etc?



Where it meets the bumper, I was planning on welding it, but I'm thinking I could put some bolts through there instead.

 

First of the the main hoop needs to have a FULL X in it, not a V and Side bars.

I think you have way too much tube in the floor as well... it doesn't need that much support.

 

Yeah.. Full X for sure. Then I might make it a little narrower in the rear... have the sides tie right in to the end of the frame or even narrower... I like the way it is too. I personally just really like the very narrow look in the rear.

 

Yup, narrower, tree's love to grab shit.

 

I disagree. The V will hold up fine. Is an X better? sure. Is it necessary, no.

I do agree that you have too much tube in the floor.

What is the goal with this? Flat bed? Just a beefy bed so you dont have to worry about denting your bedsides?

I ask because if you were after a flat bed, you've missed the mark. You've basically just created another bed box by having the tall sides like that. If you're trying to just ditch your bobbed bed in favor of something that isn't going to get dented, then you're on the right path. If not then you're better off just leaving your bobbed bed on the truck and adding a cage.

 

Yeah the point of this was a narrower profile and no worries about tearing up the bedsides. Haven't really decided if I'd make removable bedsides or not.

Eventually I'd like an internal cage but I don't think I'd be tying it in with the bed.

 

I'd like the bed to offer some rollover protection if I ever pull a Monte. I figured the round tube would be DOM, and was hoping to get the square tubing locally... what wall thickness would you guys suggest? .188?

Or should wall thickness depend on certain parts of the bed that would be more or less likely to be stressed?

 

.120 wall is typically enough. If you are worried about the cage tubing punching through the sqaure tube in the rollover you can always weld some scab plates to the squre tube first then weld the cage to the scab plates.

The design you have will hold up just fine IMO to a flop or typical slow speed rollover if your crawling. The only time you need serious triangulation all over the cage design is if you plan to race......or if you flip the truck going 80 on the freeway. (ok I'm joking) Nothing wrong with overbuilding something, especially a cage.

No reason to go with a full on jungle gym cage. A good simple design with some traingulated supports in key spots will do you just fine.

FWIW, I built this flatbed for my old '85 truck. As you can see, no traingulation. Just a cross bar on the main hoop behind the cab. Granted it was plated with heavy 3/8 diamond plate halfway up. Even though I rockcrawled in this truck, the cage was designed more for "expedition" type use than for hardcore rollover protection.

I sold the truck to a coworker who took it out the first weekend he owned it and flopped it on its side. The cage didn't flinch at all. Just point out that your design is far stronger than what I did with this one and a flop didn't even phase it.