GHOST SHIP: Custom Chingaderas

@JLee does free shipping! Haha. And TW10 for us.

 

When is your next availability for a CMC? thanks!

 

PMed

 

The bumper came out so badass!! Great job man

 

Right on man! Thanks Ryan! NOw I just need one of those “built not bought stickers”!

 

Went to see Sergio to install my néw brake upgrade, get a bigger cmc and brackets for my RTT. Saw my wheels and spacers weren’t torqued to spec and were loose during the install. Not a good sign from a local shop that I took my truck to. But as always, Sergio is the man!

 

Right on Andy! Glad to have you back in for more work. A thinner spacer should get you where you need to be to clear the UCA and address the rubbing issues.

 

Will be back for the tire carrier!

 

My husband said, he is glad Sergio doesn't charge customers by the word He talked his ear off too.


Sergio - I owe you the box of dates still. Been running around, hopefully mid April I will drop a box off. 48 Ford needs some measurement for ordering new wheels as its rubbing. Will have to bring that by

 

Went to see Sergio today for yet another modification to my suspension. I have to think he is getting sick of me, but he just keeps the conversation going while I’m sure I annoy him lol. Another killer install today on my front shocks, he makes this stuff look easy. He noticed a conflict with my front bumper attachment points and the Icon RR mounting plates, and like the pro he is busted out the cutting wheel and solved it super quick and very clean. Even smoothed out the cut area and threw some touch up spray on it for protection. He also pointed out a torn CV boot while doing the install, and offered to do the repair once I receive the parts. As always, super happy with his work and his great attitude and personality. Thanks again Sergio, see you soon. I’ll probably show up with those hydro bump stops and those BAMF hangers!

 

LBJ

 

Reagan. Does that make me a trickle down baby?

 

R. Lee Ermey would have a field day with that!

 

Had some good shop time today. Converted back to a metal shop from a week of wood working. Which basically means I rolled tools out of the way that were no longer needed and rolled in the welder and evo saw.
Adding a swingout tire carrier to a HC bumper. Bunch of random closeups before I finish everything up.



Got these gussets from BAMF and I always keep a few around for odd jobs.

I always like the color change.

 

Adding a swingout to a Pelfrey HC bumper for @socalexpeditions

This project required some creativity to move the swingout about 2.25” away from the bumper to clear the upper curve of the third gen tailgate. The pelfrey bumper trucks in pretty tight to the back of the truck and if you attach a swingout directly to the the face of the bumper, you’ll contact the tailgate before you can fully close the arm. You’ll see what I mean in a bit. My solution was to build boxes to move the hinge and latch to the desired distance but they also have to be internally gusseted to support the weight of the arm both open and closed. Another thing to contend with was that there isn’t a flat vertical area to work with so you have to work around all the angles to make sure your swingout isn’t leaning into the truck or out towards the back.

Here’s the hinge side. My sharpie marks show vertical and horizontal lines that are level and you can see the difference in the angles of the bumper’s uprights.








Here’s the extension in place with the 4x innovations hinge. This is the most critical part to get right. If you get the angle wrong the swingout even by a couple degrees, it will droop when you open it all the way. You can see all the angles needed to make this fit correctly.




I added an internal gusset at a diagonal to support the extension internally from collapsing under load. It made more sense to have a structural component rather than a hollow box. I don’t know if it was necessary because I’m not an engineer but I’ve seen enough stuff break that I wanted it to be strong so it made sense to me.



And capped it off



The latch side was a lot easier to put in place. Double shear with one side captured in the gusset for added rigidity. And I was even able to keep the Pelfrey logo. What you can’t see is that the plates landed right where the hole was for a BSM, so I welded in a plug and smoothed it out.








Here’s where I realize I didn’t take pictures of the completed swingout. But here are some of the bumper was installed.



And you can see how much clearance is left between the swingout and tailgate. There’s about 3/4” between the furthest point of the tailgate (which happens to be the bulge of the backup camera) and the swingout. That should allow for any movement off road.




Im showing this process because adding a swingout to a bumper is a lot more work than people realize and you can’t just glue it in place. Different bumpers have different things to work around but the devil is in the details.

 

You absolutely killed it brother. I’m very happy with it and your work.

There might be a rise in number of people asking for swingout quotes from you...I’ve seen many swingouts be added, and not many are as well built and engineered.

 

#GHOST SHIP engineering

 

Nicely done!
I know what I'm doing when I get back from DV...

 

Took some time today to clean up my old workbench. I didn’t take any before pictures but happened to find an old pic in this thread that shows pretty much what I started with. I’m not gentle with my workbench, I got it when a contractor I knew was remodeling a Jewish bakery in Westwood. They were getting a new prep table and were throwing out their old butcher block table that was used to prepare dough daily. I scooped it up because it was a good piece and just threw some polyurethane on it and called it good. That was about 10 years ago. Since then I used it as a welding table, a cutting board, a paint booth and a soldering station. Between the cuts, burns, paint overspray and buildup of spilled wood glue, the surface had gotten really bad where it was hard to find a flat spot to work on. I sanded the whole thing with 80, 120, 150, 180, and 220 grits to smooth out the top and remove the old finish. I wasn’t trying to get it perfect since I know I’ll be beating it up again but I wanted a smooth start. Three coats of water based poly followed with a quick wet sand with 600 and a final coat of poly and now I have a work bench that makes me want to work on stuff. I also took the time to degrease, sand and paint my 60 year old vise so the whole setup looks new again.

here’s before:



here’s after:





And a close up of the vise just because.


The table still has a few nicks, cuts and burns that were too deep for me to bother trying to get out, but overall I have a smooth finish again and that’s what I wanted. See you in another 10 years.

 

Did you brew that GhostShip IPA?