1940 Buick

[Provience]

Close enough

surplus center rams showed up. went ahead and got some of their joints, so we'll see how long it lasts

i'm just going to chop off the one thing and weld on the other

dual cylinders + tie rod = strong enough hopefully

lightweight = gofast, but unsprung weigh = not flipping over

so i'm going to see if i can fit my winch on my axle, behind the steering. this is going to take a bunch more staring at it

 

[Provience]

i really like the stock dash and look forward to reusing it. good looks > functioning gauges

and bought a bead roller and a couple sheets of 0.040 Aluminium to play with

practice piece was fun

so i figured i'd start on a huge piece of the floor <-- don't recommend for your second ever piece

8" throat means i couldn't reach the middle, so i used a hammer, nut and some wood

 

[ridenby]

So this will be ready for King of the Hammers? Wondered if you would be able to bring this here. Digging it.

 

[Provience]

pretty good twist still in there.

phoned a friend and was told to basically keep beating it and see if i can beat the warble out. don't have a shrinker or a shrinking hammer

true or not, it seems to fit better now so i'm running with it

put a bunch of triangles in there to bolt the floor to. in retrospect, this was stupid. i'm going to go with ~3/4" x 1-1/2" rectangles next time. triangle was a stupid shape for stupid people to do stupid things

and welding the 0.045 triangles to the .120 tube was also stupid, while sitting with a jackstand under each thigh because i didn't want to go inside and grab a short stool

That was all frustrating enough, that it was time for a break.

 

[Provience]

welp, might as well get the front axle into decent condition. i need a break from fucking up my interior

hubs have been neglected for a while, new bearings all around

new 'stock toyota' steering arm studs and drilled for 5th stud. these arms were also set up to brace off the steering stops, so this will be the worlds most ghetto 6 stud toyota knuckles

also pulled apart the 30 spline TG birfs to grease them up.

super grossly welded. i tacked everything in place with the fcaw and then did a pass inside and out with the gtaw, but man was it unhappy going over the tacks and i really didn't want to get up and regrind my electrode

 

[Provience]

figured if i redo that panel, it will be when i'm better, so i went ahead and screwed it in place for now

and bought a bracket from Front Range Off Road to make life easy for mounting the GX 470 brakes. 13.3" rotors and substantial calipers compared to the tacoma stuff i had before, which is now on my rear axle.

had to drill one of the holes as a bolt would go through due to the way the program cut. these are a two piece, the space is just cut out and the main ring is drilled. not sure why the spacer as the holes even close to final size

this kit is designed to swap the knuckles left to right so that you can run the caliper behind the axle. well fuck that, i've already drilled and matched my arms to my knuckles, so i'm swapping calipers left to right and running them in front of the axle. had to trim my quick and dirty fifth stud

stupid socket cap bolts that it ships with probably work great mounted behind the axle but won't work for me. 1/2-20x1-1/4" bolts are in my future so that i can put this in with a wrench.

regardless, it fits and works pretty good !

 

[Provience]

caliper clears the ID of the wheel without issue, this is almost as much brake leverage as i can fit

doesn't clear the face, playing around with some 0.100" shims lands me at needing about 0.250" of space to clear. Really didn't want to run any more spacers, but 1/4" is more than i want to grind off the face of the caliper. oh well, can't win most of them.

safe enough

also pulled out and replaced the broken fitting from earlier. T40 bit worked like a champ

and this is where i'm going to move my upper link to and as far as i am as of today

hopefully giving it some more angle will help take some stress off, granted, it was only very slightly tacked, but it breaking from just lifting the thing up was enough to make me nervous about its strength, so more angle should help locate it

 

[Provience]

CAD'd out some new upper brackets

transferred to metal. for some reason my hands were extra unsteady today, couldn't make even half an inch straight line

matched them up anyways, the grinder will make you the welder you ain't

cut about in half, heated and folded gently

 

[Provience]

I've never been one to only show perfect welds

didn't take the time to clear out space to get comfortable and my weld width and consistency paid the price.

Ruff Stuff Specialties had the 7/8-14 LH inserts for 1.5" ID tube on hand

new upper links installed, netted a good bit more clearance from the engine as well as more angle for support

full bump at the highest hole locations

 

[Provience]

Took some good advice from Scott Cee aka 2drx4 to narrow down the winch to sneak it between the upper towers

 

[Provience]

Journey to the center of a MileMarker 12K hydraulic winch!

turns out these are just plugs and don't need to be removed

part of the clocking options for the motor

pops apart with gentle tapping

big ole gnarly planetary set

and a meaty heat treated shaft

 

[Provience]

super tacky grease inside this thing. so that i don't forget later, the big shoulder of the planets goes toward the drum and the small end of the spring goes towards the drum.

everything with 2" out of it. Didn't want to hand cut the drum, i'll use the horizontal saw at work. I'm going to turn a chunk of 2" od tube slightly to be a press fit for the inside of the drum to keep it aligned, and make a sleeve for the outside of the transfer shaft and weld it using the bigger machine. Doing that thing at the house with some angle to keep it aligned just isn't doing it in my head.

also installed some push pins for the dash. makes me feel fancy and they are way easier to deal with than the screws that were there before

 

[Provience]

and finally decided on a direction to get the seat mounted.

chopped up a handle from a home made tool. this was originally a handy way to hold a pinion flange against the floor to set crush sleeve

16" between the feet

went ahead and set these tabs that were in a drawer on there. along the inboard side, that is the middle of the seat, then 4" outboard to the next one. should be stable enough, seat belts are for keeping things in place anyways

and some visual success for the day!

 

[Provience]

Proof that i can kind of weld, never have been able to 'walk the cup' and only got a little bit at a time before i had to roll the thing over

and proof that i can't weld at all

I was trying to show my apprentice some examples on tig welding today, weld too far with the electrode stick out and corrupted this on my tack weld

side shot of how far i had to grind it out

yup, i knew it was bad and said 'screw it' and just kept welding

so then i filled it back in at the house.

 

[Provience]

Spacers and sleeves i used to keep everything straight:

Drum, a piece of 2"x1/4 wall, had to turn it down to 1.990" to clear the inside of the drum.

Drive shaft, 0.790" bore with 1.25" OD

case brace rods, 5/8" ID and 3/4" OD

everything seemed all good, but the spline coupler uses a roll pin, and i had to sand down the roll pin because it wouldn't fit inside the spacer i made for the drum

i added some extra grease there, but it should probably self clearance if it needs it

sanded the drum to smooth, painted it blue because it was handy. drops it down substantially in comparison

that will be much easier to build around

also http://www.masterpull.com/superline-syn ... inch-line/ masterpull claims their 5/16" winch line is rated for 21,700 lbs which is better than the straight dyneema uhmwpe 12 strand 3/8" braid. that should be both plenty of strength and being smaller should help me get an extra foot or two on there.

edit: oh, as far as grease is concerned, i ended up going with the regular moly CV grease i put in the birfs. this winch has rubber orings that make for a pretty tight fit to the drum, i could probably add a drain plug and run straight 30wt oil or 80/90 and it would be just damned fine.

 

[Provience]

welp made something resembling progress, i think...maybe...not sure.

Drew out the new and improved winch bolt pattern, uses 3/8" bolts at 8-1/32"x4-1/2"

Drilled it out and managed to get 3 outta 4 holes in the right spot

i'll make up a plug at some point and redrill this. or maybe i'll use the 2 front and 2 rear face mount bolt holes instead of the bottom feet ones, i dunno, works for now as that is an eventually problem

needed a way to hold things in place. about 2-3/4" off the top of the axle to clear the differential. this is a small and cheap version of what i ultimately want to do, need some kind of structure underneath the 3/8" main plate as i'd like to keep that "bolt on"

installed, it looks like this

and a 14" x 12" with a leg cut out of 3/8" plate will be my base for all things. at least with the winch bolted to the plate, i can clamp it all down to the axle and figure out steering cylinder mounts and tierod clearance and winch fairlead mount. then the whole thing will get a skid of some sort. I need to remember to order some more spacers for 3/4" to 5/8". used parts suck, the ones that came on the tierod and well destroyed.

 

[Provience]

this is how it looks underneath, i've got lots of space to add lot's of supports and such and whatnot

why didn't i just buy cylinders that already had eyes on them? I dunno, but i didn't

first things first, cut the end off without cutting the actual cylinder

then smooth it out

.


and for some reason i ordered half as many of these as i needed, so go ahead and cut one down a bunch and eyeball it into center.

In addition to allowing the cylinder to tolerate the up/down/in/out swing that the steering arm makes, this also let's me orient the cylinder so that i can put the plugs facing up instead of back, which is nice

 

[Provience]

With it eyballed in to place, begin welding. I pulled the plug for the side i'm welding on so that it can vent and left the plug in for the opposite side with the piston at the opposite end, hopefully this should keep the seals from getting cooked. kind of high risk/low reward when the other option is to simply remove a snap ring and take the shaft out

I tried to take a picture of the "colors of the rainbow" that you get with a tig weld and i want to also explain why i don't care at all about the color. You know those people that want "perfect straw" all the way around? waste of shielding gas

Check out the picture below. can you tell at all what color this weld was before i hit it off with a wire brush and wiped it with a rag? Nope! There is not "excess oxidization" or whatever those nutjobs...er, salespeople, tell you that you get with various colors. every weld that gets put into service is eventually going to get cleaned, the moment it gets touched, the color is lost to time, so don't sweat the color, it really doesn't matter.

I went ahead and ran another loopy pass over top of this one to build it up and didn't take a picture. in theory, with the dual cylinders there should always be more pressure pushing the cylinder into this eye rather than pulling at it, so it probably doesn't matter, but did it anyway.

and i need to cut down the other rod end and destroy the threads that are in there or make a spacer for it. either way, that will be a work thing over lunch next week.

note my tig gloves that keep me from welding on the cylinder too much



and that is my January 16th 2021 update, obviously i've cut out a ton of random conversation and such and probably a bunch of worthwhile information, that isn't to say that i don't appreciate the conversation, just that it doesn't copy/paste very well Thanks for checking the thread

 

[Provience]

So this will be ready for King of the Hammers? Wondered if you would be able to bring this here. Digging it.

yeah, it will make KoH for sure!




(year undisclosed )



I was on the fence about bringing it over or not, since i actually did something, today seemed like the day to do it. thanks for the support :)

 

[Sterlingfire]

yeah, it will make KoH for sure!




(year undisclosed )



I was on the fence about bringing it over or not, since i actually did something, today seemed like the day to do it. thanks for the support :)

Good to see actual progress!
Hopefully you can find more time to work on it in the new year:rolleyes:

 

[Provience]

and what the heck, i'm going to add a few more posts with some of the miscellany.

Here is what a legitimate, well done 1940 Buick should look like, straight 8 and all

some early concept art

and because an exo was never in the cards and i'm not that great at body work, here is a bit closer to reality that i'm shooting for. this is with the hood shortened, which i don't think i'm going to end up doing. So far, i've taken 6" out of the floor and "comp cut" the rear fenders, front fenders will get cut up to clear as well

places for people

and if i ever make T-Shirts to sell at events, the @2bigbronco fan submitted art will be on there

 

[Provience]

I'm using catridge joints and heim joints on my links, needed a tool to adjust the side adjusters. had a buddy who makes knives and such as a home hobby heat treat them.

 

[Provience]

needed a way to measure heavy things. some scrap metal and a 100in/lb spring makes for a fancy and easily adjustable setup

Assembled, sponsored by eibach

turns out, i was a little short somewhere, so it has some natural preload make a mark for 0

write down the scale to be easy to remember

and put it to use. pretty easy to measure and be +/- 15lbs or so, which is well good enough for what i'm doing

 

[Snoop dogg]

I love how unique this is, all the redneck engineering and the dive in head first outlook. That said...id rather be out wheeling even if its puttin around in a jeep on 33s. You have anything youre wheeling in the mean time? Michealangelo did the ceiling of sistine chapel 4-5 years

Honestly cool build, and look forward to following more of the build.

 

[Provience]

I love how unique this is, all the redneck engineering and the dive in head first outlook. That said...id rather be out wheeling even if its puttin around in a jeep on 33s. You have anything youre wheeling in the mean time? Michealangelo did the ceiling of sistine chapel 4-5 years

Honestly cool build, and look forward to following more of the build.

thanks i've taken the wifes Escape Hybrid "offroad" a couple times and honestly my van with it's obnoxiously loud exhaust and stereo is enough entertainment to keep me mostly satisfied. i've come very close to buying something cheap, but then i wouldn't get shit done on this thing

that said, a 2008-2010 escape/mariner hybrid on 31-33"s with welded diffs would be entertaining just for the novelty of it. next time i move, that is on the list of things i want if i can find one for ~$1k that's been wrecked or something.

 

[Provience]

welp, i had in my head that i was going to take these in to work so that i could bore it out to 3/4" to slip over the shaft. then said screw it and used a burr on the drill to just destroy all evidence of threads after chopping 1" off in length

and then it fit over the shaft easy enough, still above the paint line

and welded. there is a reason these are normally threaded on and serviceable, but certainly this will work well enough for what i'm trying to do. just gotta remember to grease them up every now and again

installed and i tossed the Tie Rod on to see what would fit and where, going to need to offset the cylinders back towards the winch a bit and will have a whole lot of shaping to do on that plate. Also need to order/make some joint spacers. don't actually need any more misalignment, but 1 large and 3 short for each cylinder and 1 large and 1 short for each end of the tie rod will put me at 4 large and 8 short in total of 3/4-5/8" spacers. the current ones are pretty hammered.

 

[Provience]

Moves nice and easy, playing around with how much up/down and in/out

and i've got ~7" between the water pump snout and the winch

figured i'd set on some body pieces and see what my options look like for space for a radiator, i'd really like to keep the rad up front so that i can keep space behind the rear seats generally open and a decent sized fuel tank in the trunk.

 

[Provience]

hood needs to be cut some more, it's still sitting ~2" high in the front

fender, needs a decent bit of trimming to go up and back ~4", but i might actually be able to massage the outside "out" and flatten it a bit and reuse it. still need to cut at least 6" off the bottom to match the rest of the body. but it looks cool and was easier than doing anything else

 

[Provience]

Griffin UniversalFit ComboUnit Radiator for - All Chevy, Dodge Racer, Part Number CU-28181-X (griffinrad.com)

22x15.5x5.5" overall, this would probably work well for radiator size. could always give it a try and if it doesn't cool enough at low speed, go with an electric water pump as the odds that i spend a bunch of time above 3k rpm and high load is pretty unlikely.


edit: also, wanted to add in the latest and greatest version of my overly complex hydro stuff. I *almost* caved the other day, logged in to surplus center and they had a danfoss 200cc (12.x cu in) steering valve for just over $200 what a damned deal. basically everything i want except not progressive rate and not as fun of a novelty.

other interesting note, my cylinders steering cylinders have 3/8" NPT fittings on them and a 1/4" hole to allow the fluid in. at 5 gpm, a 1/4" hole requires about 19 PSI. Due to the piston design, i could probably oblang that a bit, but there isn't "much" to be gained by going to a 1/2" NPT fitting and a slightly longer opening, so i'm just going to accept that gentle power loss. Still planning on running 1/2" hose up to it so as to keep the heat and velocity down as it all travels around.

 

[Provience]

Here is my proof that the holes are 1/4" for the cylinders. sort of a built in damper for big impacts, the more i think about it, the more i think i'll leave it. using a rebuildable joint on the end sure would have been a much better idea than a cheap joint oh well, add some grease and swivel them around and they should be fine

Got the same joints in and welded up the other cylinder

the arm was already built "double shear" on one side. bolt didn't want to go through both of them. after staring at it, realized i have the arms on the "wrong side" if there is such a thing. again, still not sure that i care.

and the old panhard or ram mount, whichever it was, it in the way. can't remember the last time i saw a panhard run opposite a drag link, that's when the light bulb finally clicked that i had my steering arms swapped

so out came the trimmer to trim them up. Eventually i'll add more junk to the steering arm so that the bolt is captured both above and below all the joints. Need to order up some 5/8-24 x 6" long bolts to get through all the things.