1940 Buick

[Provience]

Guess I should bring this thread over, i've hassled enough other people to bring threads over and everybody can always use more filler just O.K. build threads everything else in Gen4x4 is nice stuff. i'm going to try and cut ~575 pictures down to a more manageable size, but i still ramble.

Welp, might as well post up my glacially slow and hack fab build over here. at this point, all content is good content, right?

1940 Buick 4 Door
2005 LM7
TH350
203/300 doubler. will be 32 spline in and out when i get around to it
FJ60 axles, 4.56 gear, ARB rear, Detroit front 63 or 65" front, i'll have to measure one of these days and 61" or so rear
122"ish wheelbase
37" tires, recentered 8 bolt wheels
4 link front/rear
14" radflo 2.0 remote res shocks
q-amp steering, high volume pump, hydraulic brakes, hydraulic winch, hydraulic steering

Overly Complex Hydraulic System - irate4x4

Toyota Pickup Brake Bible - 4x4 North
this is my first attempt at a custom chassis and i'm not cautious or patient, so it will hopefully be close enough to functional

bringing home the body and title

started off putting things where they go to see what it will look like

lots of measuring and lots of drawing to come up with a rough goal for the chassis

i bought the drivetrain as a package deal, turns out the "never had an issues with it" front axle had a hole. I'm going to keep my grouching about it to a minimum, but feel that the "buy used parts, check them extra or just expect them to be trash" motto always needs to be brought up. this is no particular dig at the seller.

don't run no oil, it destroys the gears

 

[Provience]

being a toyota guy, i've spent most of my life on 8" diffs, so i'm excited to try out the 9.5" stuff.

bought a bunch of tube, being a cheap bastard i went with 1-3/4" tube everywhere. 0.188 for the lower part of the subframe, 0.120 for the main structure, 0.090 for all the straight filler pieces. need more garage next time

bought a rogue fab bender. keeping it on a harbor freight moving dolly is far and away the most space saver bending setup i could come up with. don't have a solid table or clear weather outside

and i bought a rogue fab notcher many years ago. easy and works well. every now and then have to do some weird ones by hand, but overall worth it as far as i'm concerned.

 

[Provience]

for years anytime somebody would ask me about working on or building cars, the first thing was always "focus on the tires, build around the suspension, base the chassis off the subframe" so, had to finally put some money where my mouth was

the axles came with link mounts, 4 rear, 3 front, from 4wheelunderground. brian was actually right down the street from me at the time, so i talked to him for a bit. he encouraged me to go 4 front/rear and use the general rules of "flat lowers, as wide on the axle as you can get, uppers as tight on the axle as you can get and as wide on the frame as you can get" so that's what i've been working off.

this was the first and possibly last time i used straps or anything really to try and hold stuff square, and it shows later on

also bought a CK Worldwide MT-200 tig welder for the house. it only does 140amp on 115v, but i'm likely not going to bother putting 210v service in this house. really enjoy this thing and highly recommend for anybody looking for a 200amp 115v/220v machine.

next to my hobart 140. If anybody is the type of person that looks down on flux core welders, you'll be happy to know that i don't give 2 fucks nor bother to clean my welds before taking pictures :) oddly, i'm a welder by trade

 

[Provience]

cope

Clean

Weld

weld,weld,weld,weld.....weld? they aren't all perfect copes

got it here, needed to do more welding and got tired of welding on the floow

 

[Provience]

Had a fun time with my high torque low speed on/off drill. It now lives on the notcher evermore

still have just the smallest of scar right there on my cheek

 

[Byro]

I had almost forgot about this one. I’ll be following the refresher.

 

[Provience]

so i made up this little table. the intent was just to be a cutting table

but, if it fits it ships. turns out it is also a chassis table

there is exactly 1 spot i can bend long tubes at in my garage

 

[Provience]

Made up some adapters. i'm fortunate to be working in a machine shop at the moment and i get to use the equipment to run personal projects during lunch if i'm not otherwise too busy

i'm generally wary of but welds in tubes, especially when they are going to be in sheer or high impact areas, so these make me feel better for spots that won't have a joint covering them

upside down version of the subframe/floor about done up

random picture, tig weld on the right side, flux core on the left side. mostly depends on how comfortable i'm feeling, how many hands i've got available and what side of the garage i'm on for which welder i grab. they are both running 140 amps, so while i get more control with the tig, one isn't inherently any better for gluing these tube together

 

[Provience]

Junkyard hydroboost from a 198? suburban. should make for plenty of crush to math the GX470 brakes i'm running up front

PRP seats. i'm only 6'2" tall and ~190lbs on a fat day but still had to go with +2 wide and a tall seat and +4 (35 or 39"?) or so in order to get my head to actually hit the pad. it's amazing how small most seats are. not something i ever though about until i hit a tree going backwards at about 15 mph and put my head through the rear window

harni, harnessess' ? 5.3 for the front seats, 5.2 for the rears for the wife and kid

tech tip of the day: If you ever want a GOOD disc for grinding tungsten, get a diamond disc. this was 5 or 10 $ off amazon and will outlast anything that isn't diamond substantially. intended use is "concrete grinding" don't need anything aggressive, but don't get like a 400 grit

flipped the frame over and started working on the link placements

 

[Provience]

sometimes the liquid wrench is the only way to get used parts apart.

did a bunch of playing and flipping and around of stuff to what goes where

and this is why i'm going to a 32 spline input to the D300 to match the 32 spline outputs. internal twists i'm okay with on used parts. still cheaper than buying all new and actually getting lightweight stuff that works as it should

driveshaft clearance without a rise in the floor should be nice later.

and from concept

 

[Provience]

to reality for link brackets. i'm way too cheap to spring for even a chinese plasma or to bother making wheels/rollers for my torch. if it isn't free hand i just don't want it

same goes for 'walking the cup' welding and battery powered tools. can't have that cheating stuff in my life

oh yeah, my worlds cheapest freestanding drill press doesn't like to drill holes. sometimes the belt slips to let me know i've gone too far, sometimes the chuck pops off

 

[Provience]

random note: the 8" deep truck pan is much too much to be acceptable. still need to find/buy a cheap pan. can't hardly bring myself to spend $250 on one. for that price i might fuck around and make one

suspension mockup is important. i've heard so is adjust-ability. unless i'm way off, probably won't mess with the Anti squat much though

and trying out the front

it's amazing how precise a bucket can be if you adjust your measurements to 'number of buckets'

 

[Provience]

safety is important when using an engine hoist that came out of somebody elses scrap pile. really should just put new seals in that and my floor jack. oh well, metal from the cutting table also works.

motor mount and engine skid in place. hence why the 8" pan won't do, but a 5.5" should fit

everybody has to post pictures of snow when it snows, well, it snowed

also started on the worlds worst transfercase mount. i hate it, but it's still there

 

[Provience]

and the other half of it

if you don't post a picture of a weld, is it even a build thread?

 

[Provience]

i'm reusing some joints, wasn't able to cleanly cut this one out

it will be replaced, so i stuck it in backwards so i hopefully wouldn't forget

seemed like a good spot for the uppers at the time

upper links tower of power. lower links are mount above axle centerline, so to keep 10" of separation these jokers got tall

Compared to the old 3 link uppper mount

 

[Provience]

cut, hammer, remove and even clean a little

 

[Provience]

so i tried to use a level and be halfway decent about it

used some string to mark out the body, chopped the bottom 6" off of it and just kind of hacked around the wheelwells

 

[Provience]

First test fit of the body

lots more cutting to get it down to just the shell

 

[Provience]

Radflo 2.0 14" shocks from 4Wheel Underground

Transfer Case goodies from Northwest Fab

 

[Provience]

upper shock mounts

yes, they are a massive lever, but i'm hopeing that tying them together will keep them from ripping off in dramatic fashion

slappin up some more tube

Precarious cut

but it actually worked very well and didn't feel like death at all

 

[Provience]

outline of tubes pretty well set

stared at some tape

Until it turned into tube

i've only got 3 seats, because when i started my kid was small enough for a car seat with harness. by the time i get done, he'll need his own PRP seat

and a shot of the whole variety of the cheapest calipers you can buy. the verniers are far and away more consistent/accurate/repeatable/reliable than the other two

 

[Provience]

busted out my high precision band saw to make some quick tabs

and make setup quality rear upper shock mounts. these actually seem to clear where i want to put the interior so there is a good chance they will simply get braced where they are at. it's only temporary unless it works

when i went to pick up the chassis to put the shocks on, i managed to destroy the front suspension

and let the magic smoke out of one of the shocks

magic ratchet straps to the rescue!

 

[Sterlingfire]

Oh man! I been following this from the start. It might take a bit, but your method is good. I hope to see some good progress in these pics!

 

[Provience]

i can't keep focused on any one thing long enough to get it done, so i figured i'd install the detroit i picked up for the front and get the new gears put in it.

you don't really need the right tools, as long as you have some tools

while i don't mind using cheap calipers on most things, a decent digital mic is worth having for measuring shims

pretty these pictures are of the last setup that i did. good, bad or otherwise i'm not taking it apart again until it breaks

trying to match a used, previously run pattern

 

[Provience]

Oh man! I been following this from the start. It might take a bit, but your method is good. I hope to see some good progress in these pics!

thanks! I'm going to keep updateing it on 4x4north as well as here. Today is the first day in nearly a year that i actually went out and messed with it :(

 

[Sterlingfire]

thanks! I'm going to keep updateing it on 4x4north as well as here. Today is the first day in nearly a year that i actually went out and messed with it :(

I know the feeling, i haven't done any work on mine since March of last year...i actually need to get it rolling so i can wheel it outside and tarp it:rolleyes:Taking up valuable room in my shop. Too many projects, too little time... one day I'll die and won't care anymoreOr i might actually get it done and roll it over 8 times my inaugural runAt least I'd get street cred

 

[Provience]

i sold the regular hubs that came with this axle when i sold my old minitruck axle, so i'm running my IFS hubs. I've owned these hubs since 2001 i think? came with the truck in stock form, 1987 pickup was my first truck. the very first time i got stuck offroading and couldn't get out, i called my grandma, who was still spry and only in her 70's then, and me and her hiked in a couple miles with a come-along and 4 lengths of "old loggin' chains" to rescue me from my "boonie crashing"

still use those chains and just scrapped the now broken comalong last week. just a few months ago in a fit of depression, i finally sold the title for that truck and away it's carcass went to the scrap yard.

so there's some snapped pins and sheared studs on those now...time to fix that!

7/16-14 bolt upgrade and more pins should do the trick

also, the rear brakes were absolutely trashed on this thing, damn studs had been both welded in before and had spot welds to "build up the splines" don't do that. if you need to get some broken shit off the trail, just weld them in place. weld on the splines isn't worth it

 

[Provience]

I know the feeling, i haven't done any work on mine since March of last year...i actually need to get it rolling so i can wheel it outside and tarp it:rolleyes:Taking up valuable room in my shop. Too many projects, too little time... one day I'll die and won't care anymoreOr i might actually get it done and roll it over 8 times my inaugural runAt least I'd get street cred

i think it was the build thread "driveway build" where a dude did that. Built a dopass buggy rolling in and out of the garage, mostly in the driveway. got a divorce, got freedom, finished the buggy and absolutely yard sale'd it on day 1 and twisted and bent up a bunch of stuff Damn!

I don't remember the username, but i'm pretty sure he fixed it? it's been a while

to my advantage, nothing is particularly straight to start with on mine

 

[Provience]

it was previously set up to use stock toyota solid axle disc rotors and calipers. i had tacoma rotors that i'd previously used and couldn't give away, so....#fuckit slip on rotors are better than press on, plus i already had em. looks close enough on hat

i'd like to take a moment to thank my sponsor TIDY CATS, we soak up your shit!

took the shaft in to work and turned the OD down and recut the face to clean up the smooshed out metal

stock toyota IFS front wheel studs to replace whatever was there before

and back together, well one side anyways

 

[Provience]

pretty much there. might need to do an 1/8" spacer, might just not bolt them solidly and let them float. not set on anything at the moment. fixed calipers on semi float axle is probably going to be a pain in the ass, but i'm hoping the 1-1/8" master cylinder will make up for whatever knockback/slack it ends up getting

now that it was all together, pulled it out of the garage for the first time. finally counts as a car

body needed to be trimmed some more, it was still sitting a few inches higher than it should have been