Build Project: Midnight Panic

[Firstram]

Thanks for taking the time to make these videos. Informative content and impeccable workmanship, as always!

 

[andrew_ln65]

Love this thing, one of my favorite threads here!

 

[Corey Young]

Hey Wheel sells blank rims . They get them from ***an Wheel, made in the USA, DOT stamped. Might be helpful in the future. I have ordered 2 sets of 20s from them.

Blank Rims

 

[Skipped_Link]

So I assume once that tire is lying down, you need the crane to tip it up on the tread. Can you tip It down by hand? How heavy is the tire/wheel?

Standing a tire up is definitely a team lift,
Tipping one on its side is doable without assistance, but you certainly do not need to worry about balancing the tire when rolling it around off the truck,
I’ve not weighed any tire wheel combos yet, but I can tell you the weight of the tires without wheels,
Radial Michelins are 675lbs
10 ply Goodyears are 615lbs
6 ply Goodyears are 540 lbs
These weights are all taken from my tires, the radials having by far the most tread, & both Goodyears being significantly worn.
I should have weighed a wheel, but honestly I was just excited to get them mounted,
I would estimated them to be around 60lbs each.

Hey Wheel sells blank rims . They get them from ***an Wheel, made in the USA, DOT stamped. Might be helpful in the future. I have ordered 2 sets of 20s from them.

Blank Rims

I have run across that company in searching for a variety of wheels, & only recently heard of anyone actually ordering from them,
I’ll definitely have to check them out harder on the next wheel project,
They’re actually one of very few companies & advertise a 25” wheel.

 

[WaterH]

I would estimated them to be around 60lbs each.

Are you saying each half is 60 lbs.? The wheels on my HEMTT are heavier than that and they are only 20x14.

 

[Blacksheep10]

.

I have run across that company in searching for a variety of wheels, & only recently heard of anyone actually ordering from them,
I’ll definitely have to check them out harder on the next wheel project,
They’re actually one of very few companies & advertise a 25” wheel.

They are legit. Down the road from me 30 min. All our tractor fronts/silage wagon tires etc used to be airplane takeoffs with 2 piece hey wheels.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Are you saying each half is 60 lbs.? The wheels on my HEMTT are heavier than that and they are only 20x14.

No, 60 lbs total for 1 complete wheel, (plus or minus) they're not very heavy at all,
Going from a bare drum/shell, my centers & gussets doubled the weight of the wheel,


I finally got back to working on housings, I hit them hard this week too, trying to accomplish as much as possible in 5 days off,
I started out with the lower link mounts, & coming up with a design I felt was above average in the strength department,
After more & more watching what these trucks do recently, "that looks pretty stout" is more like, "that's almost tough enough"
So all link tabs are .500 plate, so the ole plasma cam got a workout on day 1.

The outer half of the link tabs go around the factory axle tube, obviously in two pieces, Notice the upper half of each assembly has a flat edge, this will come into play later,
Any time there is a bolt hole involved, I cut them undersize, then set the part up in the mill, then drill them to the proper size, (preferable with an end mill if possible)

The size & shape of these tabs serve more than one purpose, the basic round-ish perimeter is meant to completely cover theback side of the flange at the axle tube, simply so I do not have to work around the open threaded Pettibone mounting holes,

I spent entirely to much time deciding if I should make the perimeter dimension the same as the mounting flanges, or smaller?

I eventually decided on slightly larger for a nice weld prep all the way around the link tab & flange,

Once fitment was confirmed, & everything was cleaned up, the parts were clamped in place, & the inside was welded first,

Followed closely by welding the outside while everything was good & hot.

After both housings were done, more .500 plate was cut for the inner half of the link mount, they too were welding in place on both housings,

Again the odd shape has its reasoning, basically everything from the flange to the plug weld seen in the pic above is boxed in, trussing the back of the smallest area of each axle tube,

 

[Skipped_Link]

Next was trussing the top of the axle housings, previously I mentioned how I came up with a profile of the factory housing,
I used those measurements, combined with what I wanted on the top side of the truss to draw a pattern in plasma-cam, then proceeded to mow through roughly 1400 square inches of .375 plate,
Drawing, cutting, & then cleaning all the parts was pretty much an all day affair, but once I was done I could start putting parts together,

The top web was tacked up on the table to make sure it was square & flat, the top 11" of flat surface will provide a good partial mounting point for the upper link mounts, (notice the speed holes,,,,,,light weight race car stuff!)

The angled portion of the top web extends down to the axle tubes, just inside the Flange, center above the lower link mounts,

In the above pic you can also see how the lower link mounts are boxed in,

Next on the upper truss was the side plates, all in all the fit the housing pretty good, I had about 5 min of massaging a couple places on each part to improve fit, but not bad, there were no big gaps that I had to deal with at all.

Now you can see what the flat area above the flange is for, this carries into the truss, & after the top web was welded internally to the side plates, that area was capped off, & will provide a location for lower shock mounts,

After the lower shock mount plate was tacked in place, the entire front housing was welded out.

The following day the rear axle housing received the same treatment,
The only difference here was the truss was build to accommodate pads for the bump stops, (which the front housing does not need)

And that's all I got done in 5 days, seems kind of ridiculous, but it's the truth.

Next up is steering, so I have to put champagnes & knuckles back on & get that geometry sorted, upper link tabs should be pretty simple, & then lower shock mounts,
I've seen this setup take a beating on a few trucks in person,

But I'm leaning towards something a little beefier, similar to this,

Hopefully I'll get those items finished, or nearly, by the end of next days off.

 

[Skipped_Link]

I was going to wait on the update, but I'm going to be occupied for the next few weeks, so I better stay caught up for now,
Continuing on with axles, last week after work I got a couple champagnes bolted on a long with a pair of knuckles,

With those in place I was able to start scratching my head with steering,

There were a number of things to consider with this part of the project, Obviously strength/resilience is a priority, eas of service when repairs are made is always something to consider, & then there is geometry, or how well the steering actually works,
I have found that the latter is usually not even a consideration in the MT world,
"Ackerman? what's that & why do I care"
"I've got 4 wheel steering"

Well I can tell you from personal experience going from a rig that had "reverse Ackerman" to somewhat correct steering geometry, it's worth putting some effort in to try & make the steering work correctly.

This is what I have found to be a pretty typical steering setup on most trucks that are running Pettibone corners,

The pic I posted last week referencing shock mounts has almost identical steering,
I've seen a couple other setups that retain the vertical parting line of the knuckle, for serviceability, & adds strength with more bolts holding the knuckle together, but they end up with the tie rod mounting points inside of the king pin centering, & being on the front side of the knuckle, that's not going to work for getting that inside tire to follow the smaller radius/path in a turn,

It appears most guys are using the stock steering cylinder mount on the inner half of the knuckle & building from that, For the most part I can't argue with the logic, but I also would like to have better than average steering, serviceability, & add strength if possible.

After pulling a few measurements, drawing up a couple parts, & hitting the plas table, I had the base parts to start building from,

The 3/8" plate will be welded to the outer half of the knuckle first, then the 1/2" laminated plate will be welded to both the 3/8 & the knuckle,

The reason for such a heavy laminated plate was because it doubles as a spacer so the tie rod will clear the bolt that will tie the 3/8 plate, inner knuckle, & steering cylinder all together,

The steering cylinder will attach to the stock cylinder location, just like everyone else does for the most part.

As you can see the stock cylinder uses a 1.25" pin for mounting, I will be addressing that later on

After bolting the same setup to the opposite knuckle, I was able to make certain the stock cylinder attachment point would work with my 8" stroke cylinders, & that the tie rod would clear everything. Ackerman even turned out reasonable.
With all that confirmed, next was putting the tie rod end in double shear.
Easy peasy, it's just another tab.

Happy with the fit, I spent half a day cutting out enough of these parts to do all 4 knuckles,,,,,,top & bottom!
Yup, there will be 2 tie rods per axle, with the steering cylinders centered between them,

Remember how I used a 1/2 laminate plate to space the tie rod above the bolt head? That's a bit more challenging with a nut,
Also, remember how sloppy me 1" bolt fit in that 1.25" pin boss?
To address that, I simply built custom 1" nuts,

The smaller diameter area is just snug in the original pin bore, it also passes through the 3/8" steering arm/plate on the lower half of the knuckle,

Also above you can see while on the lathe I built spacers to hold the steering cylinder centered horizontally in the original mounts,
The smaller diameter on the custom nuts is 1" long, so after passing through that plate, they are 3/8" shy of being flush with the top side of the pin bore, this was done so that I could put a 1.25" smaller diameter, just under 3/8" long, on the spacer above to locate it centered in the bore,
The same thing was done on the upper spacer, the only difference being that smaller diameter area is 1" long, sleaving the whole boss down from 1.25" to 1",

 

[Skipped_Link]

Also while on the late, & threading 1" holes to make custom nuts, some 1.75" round stock was machined to make 5" long threaded spacers,

These are placed between the upper & lower 3/8 plate steering arms, the bolts that hold the tie rods will pass through the rod ends, all of the plates & finally thread into this unit, so there will be a bolt coming down from the top, & one coming up from the bottom,

Once I started welding everything out, the log threaded spacers will be welded in place, along with vertical gussets between each up the steering arm plate segments,
Above you can also see the barrel end of the cylinders got their own mounts, which double as a truss, reaching from the center of the housing all the way out to the flange at the end of the axle tubes,

Since I now know the tie rod length, four, 2.5" diameter 7075 aluminum links were ordered from Summit Machine, & should be here in a couple weeks,

For old equipment parts, steering capability came out pretty good,

I'm going to have to double check & make sure the Rzeppa can handle that angle.


Since this update is about axles, my not-so mini spool showed up last week as well,

I had fully planned on burning a 10 lb roll of wire into the stock sides & spiders to create a nice orb of traction, but buying this thing saved me a minimum of a long day, & at least a night of slow cooling, I'll take that time & put into something else.

The whole steering deal seemed to take a long time, but every part that I thought would work on the front axle as well, was cut & cleaned, or machined & threaded, so the vast majority of parts are done & ready for the second axle.

 

[WiscoF100]

Bravo in the pursuit of optimal steering geometry. As someone who FAFO about how nasty reverse Ackerman is, I fully understand the great length you went to to be different than the rest. These axles look tough as nails. The thought and layout is top notch.

 

[Opiebennett]

For old equipment parts, steering capability came out pretty good,

I'm going to have to double check & make sure the Rzeppa can handle that angle.

Come on man, this is a rock crawling website, you have to show the protractor on there demonstrating 38* and claim 46* one way and 52* the other!

(Really am interested in steering angle for some reason)

 

[bdkw1]

So, center of the axles or center of vehicle for Ackerman pivot point?

 

[Skipped_Link]

Come on man, this is a rock crawling website, you have to show the protractor on there demonstrating 38* and claim 46* one way and 52* the other!

(Really am interested in steering angle for some reason)

I’ll dig my angle finder out, after I zero a couple extra degrees in there I’ll post a pic,

So, center of the axles or center of vehicle for Ackerman pivot point?

I think it was determined in a perfect world, center of vehicle on a 4 wheel steer rig,
Personally I’m happy with anything better than neutral in this application,

 

[Skipped_Link]

Damn near a month since an update!
June has been busy,
The family & I made the trek to Pacific Missouri to check off a bucket list item, Bigfoot open house & this year they were celebrating their 50th anniversary. super cool experience really, I got to meet several pioneers, heros, & personalities of the sport. We got tons of pics, but I'll only post a couple here.

You can tell what I'm working on at home by what I'm looking at while traveling,

I met Colton Kiser while we were there (owner/driver of High Roller III) we had a pretty good Pettibone conversation where I learned a number of things I need to keep an eye out for.
A long time FB friend Ricky Fowler was also there & is the new owner of the Gun slinger monster truck, It was really cool to meet him in person, & see another iconic Ford powered truck.

I got home & had one more day off before I had to go to work, so I mocked up some wheel ends on the rear axle that had the steering setup.

Then the following weekend, we drove up to Moses lake Washington where I got to fill the seat in the USA1 truck for a day, (more seat time)

Then strait back home, where I disassembled the rear axle & finished welding the cylinder mounts to the housing,

The next step was to get the front housing caught up to the rear, however while inspecting parts for the front, I found one of the knuckles I had set aside has a couple threaded holes that were stripped & had been repaired, the repairs looked solid, but I wasn't real excited about starting off with those parts, so they were set aside for spares, & I decided it was time to start stealing parts off the log loader that the kiddo & I picked up last year,
Lucky for me, this year I picked up a tool that really helped with this task!

Slave Labor

Allison did get to do the easy work later on, after we got the corners un-bolted, I had her run the crane while I did the ground work, Not long into that process the wife showed up & assisted a bit, it was quite the family gathering for a little bit in the shop yard that day!

I actually had the camera setup & recording when we started the crane work, unfortunately it was about 95* out that day & about 2 min in the camera shut off, I think due to heat?

Even though I have no real proof, (other than I'm still alive & still have all my digits),,,,Allison did an amazing job running the crane, we started of with basic verbal commumnication, but started working or way into real crane signals by the end of this little job, Overall it was a really fun afternoon, but I was surely disappointed to find my camera had recorded so little.

The rest of that day was spent disassembling those two corners, & running everything through the parts washer,

Somewhere in the last couple days that week, I also got a call that my tie rods were done!

 

[Skipped_Link]

Solid 7075 Aluminum, 2.5" diameter, threaded for 1.25" joints, I was actually able to get in on the pre-terrif pricing shortly after the first of the year, so I had paid for the material & asked they hold onto it until I could get a length sorted out,
By having the rear finally mocked up last month, I was able to get Summit Machine that measurement, at that time I also decided it was worth a little extra money to have them custom engraved while they were at it.

The following work week I was stopping by the shop every night & running each half of both knuckles through a tub of evaporust, After 5 days I was able to wire wheel them & they cleaned up pretty good,
So, I was finally able to get the front housing mocked up, & ready for steering parts,

I was able to use all of the same parts that I did on the rear, with the exception of a couple spacers at the knuckles to account for the caster that the front has,
I was also able to check clearance on the tie rods, since they had also shown up.

Perfect!

I still have to weld all 4 knuckles, then move on to shock mounts, anti roll bar mounts, driveline cage mounts, & upper link mounts,
Those are priority next weekend,
My last day off I was thinking about the fact that I am going to be tearing into the 3rd members soon, & I don't really want to do that on the floor, or just rolling around on the bench,
So I whipped up a mount for my smaller engine stand, I think this will be a much better deal for working on these parts.

And finally for those of you that have an extra hour of your life that you'll never get back.
Most of the last two posts are on the YT.

 

[giles45shop]

I met Colton Kiser while we were there (owner/driver of High Roller III) we had a pretty good Pettibone conversation where I learned a number of things I need to keep an eye out for.
A long time FB friend Ricky Fowler was also there & is the new owner of the Gun slinger monster truck, It was really cool to meet him in person, & see another iconic Ford powered truck.

I really enjoy your posts, machine work and monster trucks have always been something that interests me. Scott Hartsock (Gunslinger) was a local guy. Long before he was into monster trucks he was building trucks to go mudding out at our local powerlines. I met him a couple times but I wasn't close to him like some of my good friends were, so it was a real tragedy when he died. Nice to see that Ricky will keep that truck going. In the mid/late 90's I also became friends with Kurt Dabney, who was another local monster truck guy. He was running the independent circuit and I would do some machine work for him and help pit. I Also met his brother Kirk (Maximum Overkill) quiet a few times when he would come down to visit Kurt. Both of them ran blown and injected alcohol motors, so hearing yours brought back loads of memories.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Hardly update worthy, just a bunch of the same from the week before.

I did finally receive the Detroit "No-spin" for the front diff, so it got cleaned up & ready for install when the times comes,

I also took the time to shorten the 40 champagne bolts about .025" to make certain they do not bottom out in the fange,

I'm starting to feel the push a bit, I'd really like to see the truck done in time to make an August 10th show,
Knowing I'm getting short on time I've started putting in a couple hours a night after work, mostly just drawing, cutting or cleaning parts,
Hopefully by next days off I can finish welding everything on the housings & knuckles, then a big cleanup, final assembly, & paint,
It's a lot of work, but they pretty much have to be ready to go in the truck before I go back to work if I'm going to make my deadline.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Another ridiculous amount of hours invested this week, I think my shortest day was 15 hours,,,up to 18 hours for a couple of my 5 off,
Some progress was made at least,
I finished drawing, cutting , & cleaning the tabs for the rear housing after work last week, so this days off I was able to put the front housing on the floor, & move the rear housing up on the table & get it completely welded out to match to front, (noteworthy, each bare housing came in at 340 lbs)
Next was the front knuckles,

They were all disassembled & removed from the champagne's, then the two halves of the knuckles were reassembled & completely welded out,

Each knuckle took approximately 2 hours from preheat to finish welded,

Since everything was apart, I had Allison clean up all 8 king pin bearings, races, & grease cups,

Each welded knuckle with no hardware came in at 104 lbs. In the pic above behind the kid you can see I had the front pair reassembled with champagne, KP bearings, caps, & 90% of the hardware, each assembly ended up weighing right at 200 lbs.

As this welding portion of the project progressed, I noticed the flanges at the housing ends were continually moving (pulling) from the welds, it started as soon as I welded the tubes into the flanges, (I actually put them in the lathe at that point & took .005" off the face to make them flat again, after welding the flange & tubes into the housings, I checked, & sure enough, they had pulled again, (no surprise, they were some heavy welds) well then I trussed the housings, boxed in the lower link mounts, & run the steering cylinder mounts all the way out to the ends of the housings & tied them into the flanges as well, So you can imagine how "un-flat" the face of each flange ended up.
I don't know how critical flatness really is for this application, but I do know flatter has to be better, So in an attempt to correct the issue as much as possible, (short of hauling them to a machine shop with a lathe that can swing 28" or so) Or spending a stupid amount of hours setting each end up in the Bridgeport & facing them off with a 90* head & shell cutter, I decided to build some tooling,
Starting with a 14" diameter 2" thick aluminum drop, I built a 10" diameter disc with a 1.25" bore/register to fit / bolt onto the alignment bar I used to install the flanges, two of the alignment pucks were installed in each end of the housing, & the bar slid into place, a 60 grit self adhesive paper for a disc sander had a hole cut in it to fit around the bar, then stuck to the new disc before being bolted to the bar itself,

On the opposite end of the bar, I found that one of the dies for my harbor freight pipe threader has the same thread pitch at the thread on the end of the bar, so driving the bar & disc would be easy (albeit slow) but if I didn't have to be there keeping pressure on the disc, it could sit there & chew away at it all day at the lower RPM,,,, I weld out to the shed & grabbed a tender spring from a 2.5" coilover, built another puck, this one to alighn the spring, & hold a bearing separating parts that turn from parts that don't,
Now I have a drive system & approximately 200 lbs of pressure on the sand paper.

Add a long 3/4" bolt through the lower link mount to keep the drive motor from rotating, & a zip tie to keep the drive motor spinning, & you end up with the worlds slowed disc sander.

I probably spent 4 hours building parts for this project, & after about 2 hours of letting it run, the effects were small, but noticable,,,,,I guess proving it did work,,,ish.

I run the setup on both ends of the front housing a couple hous each, & ended up with a flat contact patch top to bottom, with the sides still a little shy,

 

[arse_sidewards]

Need an oil drip for that wet sanding/honing action.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Ultimately I decided to try assembling the rear housing without any machine work or sanding, after chaining the housing down to the table so I could get even close to the 460 flt/lbs of torque each of the ten 7/8 bolts were good for, I started bolting on one corner,
I have a torque wrench that will do the 460 ft/lbs no problem, however it doesn't fit, so a cut of end wrench & 28" of tubing, combine with about all I had in me, had to get pretty close to 400 anyway,
And even only at 400 (at best) suface irregularity became less of an issue,

There is still a very small air gap at the front/rear of the Flange where there are no fasteners, but most guys weld those areas anyway!
If you look close you can see this done here,

I'm still undecided on weld the champagne's to the housing just yet.

Somewhere in here, (probably while the pipe threader/sander thing was running) I disassembled the rear 3rd member, drew up a pattern for a brake caliper mount to bolt onto the pinion bearing retainer, complete cleaned out the housing, & installed the mini spool.

Since the rear housing was on the table, & the knuckles were installed, I just continued with assembly, Starting with the newly spooled 3rd member/chunk.

I mentioned in my last YT video the axle shafts were about 2" short of touching in the spool, due to accounting for the spider cross in an open carrier, to keep the shaft from floating out of the Rzeppa splines, an aluminum thrust slug was machined & bolted onto each inner axle shaft.

That should limit the axle movement down to about .125" for each shaft, or .25" total if they both floated one direction,
Ultimately if I have more shafts built later, I'll have them add an inch to the overall length,

The last thing to do before installing inner shafts was a some kind of inner seal, I have found that a Ford C6 pump/torque converter seat for my inner axle tube perfectly, & sealed nicely on the larger diameter of the axle shaft right behind the Rzeppa splines, unfortunately that diameter stepped down before it reched the actuall inner axle tubes, & the bore through the champagne is a rough forged finish, & was just a touch to big to retain the seal , had it been a machined finish I could have built a sleeve to adapt the seal, but I was not 100% confident how accurate the raw bore was in line with the rest of the parts anyway,
I believe most Pettibone & Clark guys don't even bother with an inner axle seat, instead they rely on on the ball wiper seals, (like an old closed knuckle Ford, or a strait axle toyota,)
While I do plan on putting good effort into the wiper seal system, I would like to at least try to dam up that oil in the housing a little,
After some digging I found Mcmaster Carr has some Butyl rubber grommets in an ID/OD range I though would work, it was a little bit of a wrestling match, but I got one stretched over the splines, & once to the smaller shaft OD, it fit really nice,

Now the OD of the grommet was on the large side, & I figured I would have to find a way to cut or machine it down, but,,, while sliding the grommet down the shaft, I noticed it had a tendency to roll into this kind of umbrella shape,

And it was just pure dumb luck that when rolled in this manner, combine with a liberal amount of lube, it slid into the inner axle tubes perfectly!

Assembly continued with spindles, easy work other than the couple dozen 5/8 spindle bolts that were torqued to 215 ft/lbs,
When I got to the hubs I had to make a decision, I would assume like any other piece of equipment, the wheel bearing are oil bath, but on a Pettibone pie pan there is a wheel seal on either side of the wheel bearings, one seals the lube from leaking externally (into the brakes) just like anything in the world with wheel bearings, the second seal separates wheel bearing lube from the planetary,,,,I guess they don't want the tow pats sharing oil, I can only assume this is to prevent cross contamination if there is a failure in either side?
The crazy part to me is there is no way to put oil in the wheel bearing cavity, the only way I can see doing it is stand the hub on edge, (or hang from a crane) fill the cavity as full as possible, (a few ounces at most) then slide hub onto the spindle,
This might be hard to do at a show somewhere, aspecially of a guy was in a hurry,
I figured I have two options, remove the inside seal, & let the bearings share oil with the planetary, or, keep the seal & grease pack the bearings,

I decided on the latter, since the bearings feel like they are in good shape, clean, only residual oil in the cavity & the seals seemd good as well, I just needed to find a way to pack them in place,
When I first started this project I had built a couple aluminum slugs that fit both the bearing & seal (one slug for each bearing) one slug was drilled, the other drilled & tapped, then a long bolt passed through the first slug & threaded into the second. This combination, sealed the bearing off from contamination while running each hub through the parts washer,

A washer tig welded to the bolt head was useful for both tightening the assembly without tools, & also a good pick point, especially when setting the hubs in the parts washer,

As you can see above, I just added a zerk & drilled a grease passage so I could pump grease between the seal & the bearing, then I could watch from the opposite side of the bearing as the grease pushed through, (zero waste)

The pic above also shows the wheel tether rigs that I got installed on two of the hubs this week as well.

I got both hubs greased, but was only able to install one hube & all of it's associated planetary parts before simply running out of time this week,

I'll get the second side assembled tonight after work, then the rest of the week I'll get a couple hours a night in working on assembling the front axle.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Need an oil drip for that wet sanding/honing action.

I wondered if some kind of cutting fluid might make it better, I did set up a mister system I have, not liquid, I was just using it blow metered air between the disc & flange face to clear the dust, I think it helped, but fluid to clean carry would have been the ticket I think.

 

[posford]

I wondered if some kind of cutting fluid might make it better, I did set up a mister system I have, not liquid, I was just using it blow metered air between the disc & flange face to clear the dust, I think it helped, but fluid to clean carry would have been the ticket I think.

Lapping compound? Or too gritty?

 

[WiscoF100]

I’m surprised you didn’t rig up your own portable line boring type machine with a fly cutter.

Axles are absolutely a work of art. You’re an engineering genius and top notch metal gluererer

 

[WaterH]

I take it this is final assembly? Does that mean no powder coat? Will they have fancy paint? Pin striping?

 

[Skipped_Link]

Lapping compound? Or too gritty?

I think the 60 grit paper has plenty of bite, if had something to carry the debris away & clean the paper would be most beneficial

I’m surprised you didn’t rig up your own portable line boring type machine with a fly cutter.

A pretty rigid setup is needed to do any face work especially that diameter,
I would much rather cut than sand or grind if possible, this was just the quickest option to put together with what I had on hand.

I take it this is final assembly? Does that mean no powder coat? Will they have fancy paint? Pin striping?

Correct, final assembly, no PC or fancy paint this time around, actually they are getting a light coat of primer & then enough flat black to make them one color,
I’m trying to keep coating build low, PC or base/clear makes it hard to get tools on fasteners that will be getting bolt checked every show.
Also I want something that’s easy to sand or wire wheel off in case welding repairs are needed,
Maybe after these parts have proven themselves I’ll pull them back out, sand blast & apply good paint.

 

[WaterH]

It appears to me (and everyone else on here) that your attention to detail is second to none. But the other monster truck guys have been building and busting theirs for a long time. Obviously, you have studied the other monster trucks. Do you find that they are done better, worse or less pretty? I’m talking about the axles in particular. When I look at your axles, I can’t see how they can bust, but they seem to bust em all the time on TV. They never show what actually busts. I’ve only been to one monster truck event. Of course, no one busted anything at that one. I would love a “Carnage share” post from you.

 

[WiscoF100]

I know nothing about the capabilities of field machines like that but I’m sure facing is more difficult than boring. Just figured if anyone had the grit and resources to accomplish such a thing, it would be you! But you’ve got a deadline to meet and enough mousetraps to solve. 🤘

 

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It appears to me (and everyone else on here) that your attention to detail is second to none. But the other monster truck guys have been building and busting theirs for a long time. Obviously, you have studied the other monster trucks. Do you find that they are done better, worse or less pretty? I’m talking about the axles in particular. When I look at your axles, I can’t see how they can bust, but they seem to bust em all the time on TV. They never show what actually busts. I’ve only been to one monster truck event. Of course, no one busted anything at that one. I would love a “Carnage share” post from you.

95% of all the trucks out there running are using an aftermarket housing, (imagine an overgrown trussed fab9,) & a good majority of those are build by one of a few companies that do & have done that type of work for many years, But even those proven companies/parts fail on occasion, I would say as far as the housings themselves, fatigue is probably what eventually puts them out of service, they can be repaired & put back into use after some pretty crazy failures, but eventually they are just start moving, or cracking to often to justify reparing, that's about the time they get replaced, I do not know for sure what material they use, to build these housings but I'm certain its spec'd for the application,

The failures you are seeing on TV are more than likely spindles, king pins, or even occasionally a knuckle, the housing to chamange connection is also an area that could fail, just not quite as common,
Part of these failures is the choice of parts, the most common trucks you will see on TV are monster jam trucks, & a lot of those trucks are owned buy the promotion company, for the most part these are cookie cutter trucks, everything under the surface is the same, chassis color & body is about the only thing that makes one truck different from the rest, (easier to maintain if everything uses the same parts)
As far as I know, all of these trucks are running F106 3rd members, fabricated housings, & 20 ton Clark planetaries,
Now in stock form I would say the 20 ton Clark is probably the weakest of the common planetary options, but they've been used for a long time, in the early days the 20 ton Clark was one of the easiest to adapt for MT use, if I remember correctly, the stock axle shafts plugged right into the Rockwell 5 ton that most monster trucks were using at the time, so installing planetaries on an existing truck was easy using those parts,
"Easy" is a key word to remember here, since it was easy, the majority of builders racers started using them, & they were everywhere, eventually the sport outgrows the parts in their stock form, combine that with the fact everyone has been buying them for so long, & big companies (like Feld/monster jam) will pay top dollar, they've really gotten quite expensive,
Suddenly aftermarket support becomes an industry, & the only saving grace for an anemic part is what someone else can build for it,
In short, the 20 ton Clark is like the LS of the monster tuck planetary world, started out as a decent option, & it's EASY, but at some point it becomes subpar for the application & requires inginuity & redesign to make it work.
I'm only throwing a little shade at the LS here, so you fanbois don't get your panties in a bunch.
With the current options available the Clark parts you are seeing on TV are quite strong, but when you have a company owned truck driven by someone paid to put on a show,,,it takes a tough ass part to live in those conditions,

Now to compare to what I have going on, I started with the Pettibone simply because I was told by someone I trust, that it was probably the tougher option in stock form, & after looking at some parts in person I believed that, (it did't hurt that I got into the first set really cheap & close to home, & I feel truly lucky to have gathered up 3 complete, reasonably priced sets since then)
The 3rd members are simply bigger, stronger & cheaper than what most others are running, that was a easy choice for me,
The housings are an experiment, they're stock truck housings trussed with A36 (mild steel plate) simply relying on girth & what I feel looks good, If I have a failure there, I really feel it will be a bent housing, but I think there are other parts that will fail first, honestly the flange/champagne connection or possibly the knuckle is my biggest concern when I just step back & think about it,
I do think that I am a considerably more conservative driver than the "professionals" you see on TV, & that will also help keep equipment alive longer, I hope.

I'm not sure that's the answer you were looking for, but I appreciate the engagement.

 

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I know nothing about the capabilities of field machines like that but I’m sure facing is more difficult than boring. Just figured if anyone had the grit and resources to accomplish such a thing, it would be you! But you’ve got a deadline to meet and enough mousetraps to solve. 🤘

Time is the biggest factor here for sure, (And I don't like that one bit!)
It's been many years since I up close to that kind of equipment, (just out of school I helped with quite a few line bore jobs out in the field) And to this day, even with a 2" bar, I remember doing a larger face like this was challenging, chatter being the biggest fight,

I just keep telling myself I'm not the only one with crooked flanges, but i'm probably the only one worried about it