Project: Midnight Panic

I understand he updates on fb. Can’t one of you puter nurds make it automatically prod him there when someone posts here? Shame him into update? At the rate he works, he’s probably on the next build now.
 
It’s really a bummer I haven’t been able to do more on this project,

I should have waited on the trailer until this was finished,
Then as soon as the trailer was done I went & tore up the transfer case in the buggy, so that became a priority.

I will have updates as soon as the truck gets moved back to the other side of the shop. Hopefully late fall/early winter.
 
Just checking here for updates,,,

Actually I did move the truck back over to the "working" side of the shop,
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While I have been working on it a bit, it's probably best to not get your hopes up for big gains for a bit, I have a little over a month left of event prep & comps, one this coming weekend, & the final one of the year held locally the middle of october,

So we'll just ease back into this project,

I decided to fire back up with a bit of wiring, Remember that schematic drawn up in paint? I started bringing that to life,
But before I could actually start running wires I had to come up with a place to mount a few switches, two for the front & rear air locker switches, & one, 3 position switch that will be used to select the rear steer modes,

Shooting for compact, a short piece of 1.5" square tubing was coped, drilled & slotted, then welded to the back of the shifter mount,
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The end was capped with connector clip to mount a small fuse holder.
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It didn't take long to figure out that I made this part challengine to work on later,
A brass buss bar was build to make wiring a ittle more compact, but there was still five wires to get in there,
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Now I could start running some wiring,
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Temporary of course
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It was about this time I though, "If I could powder coat a few of my own parts, I wouldn't have little things like this slowing me down"
I have a great local powder coating guy, & I have no interest in doing many parts, but I think I could do enough little parts to keep the project moving forward to justify a small setup, so I bought a small PC gun & a couple pounds of my favorite colors,
The above shifter mount got to be my first test piece,

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Hard to tell in the pic, but that is the part coated in a gun metal grey powder,

With that part coated I could actully put it together & wire it for real.
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I still need to wire in the rear steer solenoid valve, main pump feed wire, & the compressor feed, then the rear steer & locker wiring will be complete,
Maybe I'll get time to do that after the off-road event this weekend,
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...
 
So this project went back into storage, Mostly so I could tackle other projects, I've been wanting to put together a new engine for the buggy for a few years now, & with all the machine work finally done on that I figured I better focus on getting it all assembled, but, our "new normal" everyone talks about includes pretty terrible part supply issues these days, so even that project is backed up a little,

Luckily the Midnight Panic project is only one bay over from the two post lift, so it's not real bad moving it in & out of the lift bay & over to storage,
this last weekend I did decide to build an attachment for the forklift to make this job considerably easier,
a couple hours & some scrap steel for a quicksting that will reach under the front axle housing,
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By picking the front tires off the ground I'm able to pull the truck out of storage & back it into the lift bay in the shop just like a trailer,
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The buggy engine is still priotry at this time,
But I am officially back on this project, again.
 
EndlessMtnFab said:
Whatever happened with the flex plate "issue" you posted?
Click to expand...

After sending pics to Meziere, & explaining my concerns, the owner of the company told me to "Bolt it on & torque it down, it'll be fine,
So I did,
That was actually the first thing on my to-do list after getting the truck back in the shop this time around,
I pulled the SCS, & transmission so I could install the flex plate, the torque converter, & the transmission input shaft,

Here's the Meziere billet flex plate installed with new ARP bolts torqued to 85 ft lbs,
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The converter was one I had bought from Edge racing converter many years ago for my old mud truck, (probably around 2006)
I was shipped back to Edge for a cut & clean, & make a couple adjustments to suit this project,
The input shaft I had a little decision to make as I was not to sure about the origonal part I had bought for this project,
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The top shaft is 300M & advertised as “good to 2000+ ft/lb of torque” This was hte second shaft I had purchased for the project
Second shaft is an unknown manufacturer, also 300M & was considerably cheaper. This was the origonal part I had bought.
Third one I believe is 4340, & has already served its life in a 1,500+ HP heavy truck
& only in the pic comparing shaft design
Last is a stock input, also for comparison purposes

Notice the difference in spline termination on that second shaft compared to all the others, while I beieve it is probably a strong part, I decided to go ahead & go with the known manufacture that was claiming it would handle over 2000 ft/lbs, (top shaft)

I have not reinstalled the transmission yet, but I hope to have everything reinstalled in the truck next week, & maybe even get started on a little of the main wiring,
 
holdmypocket said:
Asking (likely on behalf of many here) are you documenting any other builds besides this and the Jefferson's Trailer? Every time you update I get a burst of motivation to go work on my shit.
Click to expand...
I really haven't had anything going on personally worth documenting,
My dad has a project that I will be involved with a little bit, maybe I'll sneak a pic or two of that in once in a while, It's no 4wd, but it'll be a pretty cool pile of parts when it's all done,
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I was actually just thinking this morning that I should try to make a little stronger presence on the web, I'll never be any kind of Youtube star, & I don't even have an instagram to "do it for the gram"
But if a guy ever wants to get any kind of sponsors, recognition, or backing, it'll never happen without being someone on the internet,
Regular ole tallent just won't cut it anymore, :laughing:
 
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