Colinb17's kinda sorta build thread - now with 4-link and long travel

Nah, she'll hold. Probably.

More likely I'll flip it before I get out of the neighborhood because I tried to three wheel it around a turn.

 

Getting the last few pre frame-chop things done so I can get right to fabrication as soon as the back half is cut off. Since essentially every piece of tube will be 1 of two, and there will be a lot of components with multiple bends, a properly dialed in bending process is critical. Spent about 2 hours leveling my bender and bolting it down. Lots of fine tuning shims on the belt sander.

Then I did 3 tube consumption bends. This is where you mark a constant starting point on the test pipes. I used the edge of the strap that pulls the tube. From there, you draw a straight line along the top centerline of the tube and mark out 1 inch increments. Using a tubing center finder/level, you lock the piece in and bend to 45, 90, and 180 degrees. Additional mark are then made at the start of the bend, end of the bend, and end of the guide. This allows you to calculate exactly how much tuning is needed for each bend, and I. The case of multiple bends on a single piece, it allows you to determine exactly how to position the tube for the second bend to be in the correct location.

Time consuming but worth it in the long run. This is a process that should be done with every new die, and occasionally repeated with older dies in case there is wear of any components that could throw it off.



The red lines on the right hand sides are the zero point at the edge of the strap, and the left sides where the red is, notes the end of the guide once the bend is completed.

You can also extrapolate the proportional amount of material needed for bend angles outside of these three with good accuracy, so a test bend for every angle is not needed.

 

So very engineer of you.

 

Paid for the whole education, gonna use the whole education! ......also, didn't want to pay for bend-tech, so analog it is.

 

Nothing wrong with analog.

 

I bet these guys were pissed that you ran over their cars!

 

I got off the hook when the national guard followed with their tank

 

Last little bit of tube bending 101 class. I want to say I picked this little trick up from the machine shop in college, but I'm not sure. it was a long time ago.

if you're not building your cage in CAD, or even if you are and need to field fit an angle, using a similar diameter piece of flexible exhaust tubing is great. this stuff is absolutely terrible for exhaust, but a great fabrication tool.

bend the piece of flexible tubing to the desired shape, making sure to maintain roughly the same radius as the die in your bender. then trace the straight sections of the piece. connect the two lines using a straight edge and then put an angle finder on it. if you have a much larger angle finder, you may be able to take a measurement directly from the mock-up tubing, and skip the tracing step.

This random bend turned out to be 81 degrees.

 

Bye Felicia.

 

been a bit busier than expected that last few weeks, so slow progress.

got the fuel cell all sealed up. as expected from @Dayman Karate, the stock unit flange had to have about 1/16'' removed from its radius to fit the motobilt jeep flange. used permatex #2 all over the place, because fuel leaks freak me out. the white ABS(seems like) plastic that the unit is made from seems like the kind of plastic that is not UV stable, so i painted the top of the flange as well.





last thing is that the stock unit is spring loaded on two guide rods. this is to ensure the unit stays on the bottom of the stock tank while being able to move up and down when the tank deflects from off roading, or even from just putting a jack under it to drop the tank. great design from toyota, however, the rods don't offer enough extension for it to sit on the bottom of the new fuel cell by about half an inch. that's a good bit of fuel capacity lost if left alone, and sloshing fuel could also overstress the plastic rods mounts if the cell is just hanging there unstabilized. the easy solution was to pop the c-clips off the bottom of the rods to allow the sender to go all of the way to the bottom of the tank, and then toss some stainless washers on top of the springs, so there is still adequate pressure holding the unit to the bottom of the fuel cell. its not a super clean look, but should do the trick.

photo shows where the c-clips were removed from at the bottom of the stainless shaft.


and installed. i also added a barbed fitting to the return line into the pump reservoir to account for the extra extension that the stock hose does not have. i did clip it straight into place after looking at this photo. i pot the sender float on the opposite side as the fill port so i'm not blasting it with 10 GPM every time i fill up. float arm looks a hair delicate for that.

last note....inspect and clean out your fuel cell before doing any of this. i collected a few aluminum shavings from inside the cell that are likely from motobilt cutting in the additional hole.

 

You should invest in that holly hydra mat.

 

Appreciate you telling me this after I've just permaatextex'd the piss out the entire assembly and hired a raccoon with tiny hands to hold the lock nuts inside the tank while I bolted up the flange....

 

Well, if you ever get back in there.....the Hydramat will be worthy.

 

Have you taken the bottom end of one of these things apart? Looks like it snaps open, but being completely enclosed shell otherwise, im guessing it lets fuel in and essentially traps an amount in it so that a low fuel level sloshing wouldn't starve the pump? Curious how to hook a mat up to the stock unit. Obviously cut out the bottom of the shell. Or are you saying to just ditch the stock pump while trying to retain the sender?

 

Two raccoons and a opossum with an OSHA card should fix the issue.

 

Niceeee much cleaner than my hackjob

 

just wait until its time to hook everything back up. still plenty of opportunity to make a mess of it!

 

Big thanks to @JTFisherman for turning me on to TK1 Racing.

The company is rooted in aerospace machining, doing a lot of work in airplane suspension, but has dove headfirst into the off road suspension world as well, manufacturing swaybars and coilovers in-house.

soooo much more adjustability and fine tuning available with this setup than the Antirock i was looking at.

I spent about a half hour on the phone with the owner. it was a pleasure listening to him nerd out over how they fine tune the heat treating of the chromoly shaft with the buzz of a CNC mill in the background. To simply say he knows his stuff would not do him justice. anyhow, after asking me everything under the sun about the build; dimensions, weights, suspension design, vehicle use, travel numbers, even down the detail of y-axis axle movement through the travel cycle......we built a swaybar.

the starting point was the "trophy truck kit". from there we went with:
-43.5'' wide bar with medium heat treatment.
-20'' arms with dual sheer ends (axle mounts also dual sheer
-aluminum retainer caps (more important for articulating suspension. less important for desert only that sees less articulation)
-weld it yourself linkages, since i dont't know the exact length i'll need just yet. can always get aluminum links once it's dialed in.

i promise some actual building photos soon instead of just a bunch of parts

 

Wooow. I like!

 

With the bed and fuel tank removed, i took rear corner weights. it will be easy to weigh the frame section, leaf springs, etc once everything is chopped off, so i can account for that based on the current corner weight measurements. then i will be able to measure and calculate all of the added parts going back into the truck (tubing, fuel/cell, two spare tires, tools, etc. once i have a final number and shock angle, i can get my upper shock mount in a pretty well calculated position to have a proper ride height with the current springs.

both sides were just a hair over 800 lbs, for a total rear end weight of just over 1600 lbs. unspring weight items; springs, tires, and the axle, will of course be subtracted from that when calculating the shock mounting locations. the rear bumper and removed frame section will be weighed together once everything is cut apart. their weights will more than be replaced with new structure, but its all part of the +/- math.