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No worries, the housings are just dirty as they've been sitting around while I continue to fabricate brackets and what not. All of the seal journals and bearing journals are perfect. One of the down sides to a single bay garage, everything gets dirty and there's never enough space ha! Regardless, we still have to do a lot of welding on them ourselves as we prep them for trusses, brackets and mounts.
Now for the exciting part! Our axles have arrived and it's time to get these things underneath the chassis. S&S Fab did a great job on these housings. These are their Race Series 9" housings with 4" tubes, 3/8" welded skids and internally gusseted, yet still allowing a 10" ring gear. As for the knuckles and rear bearing cups, these utilize the 05+ super duty unit bearings allowing for whatever size axles we can afford ha! I've already started on the rear, so I should have it initially mocked up under the chassis soon.
His race series are 4" tubing with the 3/8" armor over the diffs. The only company I know of that does 4130 4" axles is Spidertrax. But for the knuckles, these slip over the 4" tube so no butt welding is needed. We got these knuckles and an open axle so we can optimize caster angle and driveshaft location under the chassis.
Yea I sure do... I'll get some better pics for you and post them soon. However, I used 2x4x.25" because of the 1.5" ID for the shock mount. I measured the entire length of the lower round tube so I would be able to go the full length and tie in the welds to the anti-wobble as well as the heim insert. Basically measured where I needed the shock mount and ripped the 2x4 the entire length equally so I would have 2 equal halves (for each side). Used some 1.5" 3/16" flat bar to cap the back and inner shock mount for strength and water/dirt restrictions.
Yes they did. We will more than likely use the new one as it does save some space. Same size as a rocker switch now. But let's be honest, typically you just turn it on max and forget it haha. Always options which I like.
so i had a spare tire mounted with lug studs and i found it to be a royal pain in the ass trying to put it back on the studs. i mean royal pain. i would just do the hub and no studs.Another reason for the radiator install was to get the final placement of everything so I could get a tire carrier fabricated. To keep on keeping on, I plotted a few ideas in how I wanted to carry a spare. To make things easier to visually see, I threw a spare tire on the back and strapped it down. I quickly realized with a spare permanently in the way, I was losing a lot of space that I could utilize. I decided to make a fold down design that will keep the tire up out of the way, but able to access stuff in the back once folded down. With some spare 1 1/4" tubing lying around, a couple of 3/4" heims, and scrap metal sheet, I created the initial design.
After playing with the angles a bit, I finally was happy with the initial mockup and started to add some additional strength to the design.
Now the hardest part about this whole thing was figuring out a way to install the tire in the "center". I decided to utilize a "spare" unit bearing on the carrier to hold the spare tire down and keep it centered. This will allow us to have a spare onboard for the long races such as KOH as well. Therefore I used some spacers and flat bar to put together a bearing cup. Although not completely perfect, it'll work well as a spare holder. To get it where it needed to be, I removed the carrier, put an old unit bearing in our wheel/tire combo, installed the cup and tacked the cup in its place. I took a few additional scrap pieces and made gussets to secure it to the carrier.
To hold the carrier in the "up" position, I used 1/2" t-handle pins on both sides to keep it from moving. Not super happy with how the initial t-handles came out, I later cut them off and used leftover tubing instead of the flat bar. It made the overall design more appealing and stronger. To complete the look of the carrier, I wanted to incorporate a radiused bar on the rear to help with tire support. Unfortunately I do not have a tubing roller so I did what I do best and improvised. I cut the bar I was going to use 6" longer on both sides so I could use my press and press down in 1" increments to my desired radius. To keep it straight, I added a c-clamp to the end of the bar and a degree finder to make sure I pressed in the same degree every time. Pressing 4-5 times in each 1" placement, the bar turned out pretty close. I did have to go back and press in a few places to made both sides equal, but the end result was exactly what I wanted. I then cut off the excess off both sides and added a couple 1/8" gussets to keep this secure as well.
The last thing I needed to incorporate was something to keep it from rotating around. Although snug with lug nuts installed, I wanted to make sure it was as secure as possible. Brainstorming with my wife, she mentioned straps and later got me a Y-strap from Speedstrap to incorporate with the carrier which would complete this portion of the build. I used some 1/4" plate and cut out some tie downs for the Speedstrap. After adjusting the strap and installing the tie downs, the Y-strap completed the spare tire carrier build. Not only did it take care of the rotating, it presses the tire down onto the rear chassis crossbar, and it also adds additional space for PRP's tire storage.
The end result was perfect. It allows us to carry a spare unit bearing which results in studs/bolts and lug nuts, a spare tire, spare 3/4" LH and RH heims (our steering), folds down for easy tire removal, able to access storage underneath, and adds the additional PRP wheel storage with the Y-strap.
I was able to acquire bolts long enough to bolt through with 1/16" gap from the bearing face however interferes with the back of the lug studs, therefore eliminating the hub from freely spinning making mounting much easier. I had the same issue before, this was my simple quick solution.
Thank you for the input. The rear bar sticks out far enough, I could possibly add some tubing there. Only time will tell, right now we're crunched for time before September/October races.
