Anything welding

tried that as well. With the bed being shortened and high clearanced, I cut most the bracing out of it and had to add bracing inside to get the tailgate to close and stay square. With the box at the back it still hits the wheel wells and drawer wouldn’t be able to open because of the bracing. You can see the bracing in the other pictures as it’s what the crossbar is attached to

there’s a lot of downsides to using the drawer style box but my old one was a top open box and although fit better, I had no good place for a cooler and box was to small overall. I may end up making another box down the road but for now this will do I think.

 

I’ve been meaning to buy a second from them. But a few guys here have used and suggested them previously. Once you have the tank, you can still get it filled (exchanged) at air gas.

 

Awesome. Good to know. I appreciate the advice!
I guess this means you don't hate me.

 

You gave me firewood once a long time ago. #neverforget.

 

Hahaha Now that you saved me some money on my cylinder, I owe you a spool of wire!

 

Well made a some sleeved bushings. Make shit 100% by hand takes so long… will cut the other tube tomorrow and tack it all together to see if it’ll actually work

 

I make most of my own bushings like that.

 

Turning the bushings down took forever. The poly flexed just enough the lathe tooling didn’t want to catch... super annoying.
Everything else was scraps I had laying around or repurposed.

 

Oh damn, never mind. I don’t “make” the polyurethane. I buy the bushing halves from Low Range and I cut the inner and outer sleeves for them. I use them all the time for my tire carriers so I keep a bunch of the poly halves in the shop and just cut the sleeves as I need them.

 

I had some that were close in size so I just took a 1/4 in off each and then turned down some sleeves to go in the middle with a half inch bottle. Buying them would have been more time efficient but I had quite a few bushing laying around from spares for leaf springs.

 

i have some metal/rubber bushings (the kind that get pressed into control arms) laying around. been holding onto them for those kind of projects

 

There are probably other companies that make a similar product but machined "bushings" exist for the purpose of mock-up and fab to eliminate cooking bushings.

https://www.tmrcustoms.com/collections/poly-bushings/products/1-6-2-aluminum-mockup-bushings

https://www.tmrcustoms.com/collections/poly-bushings/products/2-625-3-aluminum-mockup-bushings

 

Building a 14 bolt. I’m not the best welder.

 

I saw those. If I ever order stuff from ruffstuff or tmr I’ll get a set. I have some aluminum bar stock laying around I could make them out of too. Which ever comes first

 

You have nothing to be ashamed of. Those look great!

 

Those look great, just remember, a pretty weld won’t always hold, and an ugly weld won’t always break. It’s all about penetration…

 

Maybe it's my untrained eye, but did you have to span a decent gap between the truss and axle tube? Looks like you could've gotten a little more penetration on the axle tube if you weren't spanning that gap. Gap or not, your welds look much better than some of my most recent work...

 

Are you also going to weld to the cast center?

 

It some places yes and others not. The truss wasn’t an exact fit so had to work with it a bit. I ran this I think at 19.5v and 300ish IPM with .035

No, the truss isn’t meant to be welded to the cast center though I did run a large weld on each of the tubes as some extra security against the tubes spinning.

 

I don't know shit about armoring an axle, but I do know about warping of metal.

Is there ever an issue with the entire axle warping with all those long welds? Do you counteract the warping by running beads on the other side?

Color me curious.