Project perseverance - start to finish

[abrogate]

ok this is awesome, but how in the heck does the shifter do what you did, i have that one and no idea the gold part could be adjusted like that. holly crap......

It’s clockable. All the holes line up. Not sure if all the shifters are the same either. Art Carr isn’t around anymore and now theses are sold under Winters (as far as I know), but I bought mine after they became Winters. I did have to modify the gate for everything to shift correctly but I’m not sure that is related to the clocking. I’ll add more pics on that, but they are on my laptop.

 

[chaplinfj60]

mine was hard as fuck to put together, that little clamp that is bolted to the end of the gold bars is a mother fucker of tiny screws and tight area i could not do. i had to weld the screw heads to the clamp. hahaha. but i love the idea that i could move my shifter to this configuration if need be.

 

[abrogate]

mine was hard as fuck to put together, that little clamp that is bolted to the end of the gold bars is a mother fucker of tiny screws and tight area i could not do. i had to weld the screw heads to the clamp. hahaha. but i love the idea that i could move my shifter to this configuration if need be.

I experienced the same frustration with the clamp nuts. That is definitely a shitty design.



At some point I read that the Holley valve covers were prone to letting oil get sucked out of vent. They have no orifice in the vent line. I found that a LS1/LS6 valley cover was a solution if I had a catch can in the system. I didn't want to buy an expensive catch can so I decided to make one from scrap aluminum. The PCV systems can be a confusing topic once you start to research them. It appears that there are several ways that the LS series did them. I kinda closed my eyes and threw a dart and went with whatever I hit... This is the diagram of the system I chose to copy. I notice now that my clean air is actually ran to the port behind the throttle linkage on the throttle body, not the filter/intake boot. After looking on other sites, it seems like others have their clean air ran to the TB port, not upstream of the TB. I have no idea what is right really. I have never had oil in my intake nor does my exhaust smoke when climbing or descending. In fact, I have never even had oil drain out of the catch can. Maybe I have it all wrong, but I have not experienced any side effects that I recognize. Feel free to chime in if you have any input on this subject.

I did not need to modify my 2004 LM7 iron block to install this. This LS6 valley cover (12577927) fit beneath my reversed 2001 LS1 intake without any modification.

With no previous experience with catch cans, I looked at some online and tried to figure out the basic configuration internally. They seemed relatively simple, so I found a piece of scrap that I could tuck between the passenger head and the idler.

The material is 6061 2x4 soft edge tubing. The shop I worked for built awnings and architectual structures and all of our aluminum tubing had the nice radius corners. The 1/4 NPT bungs are from Bung King, one for incoming dirty air, one for exiting "cleaned" air and a third on the bottom of the long drop down section. I put a brass petcock at the bottom and two 3/8" hose barbs for the in and out. Large strand steel wool Scotch Brite pads were stuffed between both perforated sections. I made sure the strands were too large to pass through the holes. I welded a small piece of angle on the back and attached it to the head. It does get warm, but I've never had issues with it.

I also needed a fuel pump mount for beneath the fuel cell. In the past I had run frame mounted pumps and the cell had no provision for an intank setup. I kept with what I knew and grabbed an Airtex E8248. The mount is just a piece of 2" DOM sliced in half and I made a tab to weld it to the frame.

The E8248 design has changed and it no longer has the same dimensions or wiring connections as this. If you order one from Summit or a parts house, this is not what it will look like. I finally burned this pump up after several years and replaced it with a Walbro/TI Automotive GSL392. The new pump has a smaller diameter but still works with this mount. Another difference with the new pump is that it has 10 MM straight thread fitting in and out, so you can adapt it however you need.

 

[Penetrode Offroad]

Side note: if you are ever feeling lazy for finding hole layout, just use a scanner.

That is pretty smart.

 

[abrogate]

The old rigs ran both Saginaw TC and P pumps. The TC was from Howe was both modified and expensive. The P pumps were parts store gambles, but they were cheap and abundant. I went with the Goat Built 4401 brackets for my engine, which are designed around the P pump. The reservoir is a PSC P pump remote reservoir with a -12 feed/return. I wanted to keep as many fittings AN/JIC, including the pressure line between the pump and steering valve. I was able to re-use the AFCO TC style PS adapter from my old pump for the new P pump. This gave me -6 right out of the back of the pump, but it was awfully close to the head. I was able to squeak by using a Weatherhead 06U-686 swivel 45 without any modifications.

While on the subject of Goat Built, the TH400 locking dipstick the sell for LS swaps fits awesome. I really like it. This isn't the best pic, but it hugs really tight to the trans and attached to the head. Much nicer than the Lokar stuff I have worked with in the past.

Since packaging becomes tight quickly and I was running out of room to mount the winch solenoids, I bought an Albright contactor and scavenged the winch plug from the solenoid box and placed it high and tight.

 

[abrogate]

The 4.3 in my old rig would lose oil pressure on steep descents and a friend talked me into getting an accumulator for the new setup. I went with a Canton Accusump 2 quart accumulator and found a spot to stash it above the throttle body.

I bought the Accusump without the valve and sourced my own. Canton used to use a Goyen 12QA2-DCA/2628 which is available through industrial suppliers. It appears that the new valves that Canton sells are almost twice the price of the Goyen unit and I am not sure why they changed ultimately. I haven't had problems with my valve personally. The Accusump has 1/2" NPT for the in/out port and needs several components plumbed into the system to work properly. They are an Electronic Pressure Control valve (the Goyen valve), a low pressure switch to trigger the EPC, and inline check valve to prevent back feeding to the pump and some means to Y into the oil system. The Kevko oil pan I am running has a -10 in and out where the OEM pan would have the oil filter. I found a -10 Y from Product Engineering and but the most compact off the shelf EPC/Y block as I could. I placed the check valve at the remote oil filter block and drilled the block for 1/8" NPT for the low pressure switch.

Everything works great, when I can keep the pre-charge in the Accusump. I have had issues with the air pre-charge leaking down, but I cannot find the source. Its confusing because there is no engine oil present on the air side of the chamber, so I don't think it is leaking past the piston. I also cannot find a leak at the air gauge, schrader valve or the end cap of the accumulator. I have also had to replace the pressure relief valve on the oil side once due to leakage through the valve. Canton sent me another for free though.

The LM7 had a DBW throttle body and I wanted DBC, so I found one at a junkyard. I bought a Lokar cable and made a simple bracket for the intake. I made a bellcrank throttle pedal out of my old CNC clutch pedal. I used some bronze bushings from McMaster that I could press into some DOM tubing. The cable centerline had to be offset from the pedal because the cage tubing was in the way. Its kind of a goofy pedal overall, but it works just fine. I did have to massage the cable clevis some to avoid binding at full throttle. There is also an adjustable throttle stop bolt on the front side of the pedal. In the end, staying with DBW would have been easier.

The picture above of the throttle cable at the TB shows the oil pressure sender stuffed next to the throttle linkage. Initially I used a 1/8 NPT street 45 with nipple and coupler to extend upward to allow for the sender. Things were too crowded once I was running the PCV plumbing. I read somewhere on the internet that you could use a grease gun hose for an oil line extension. I figured what the hell, I would try it. I remote mounted the sending unit on the OEM fuel rail where there was a threaded tab using a rubber dipped P clamp. I needed a ground for the sending unit as it is case grounded. Its not in the picture, but I added a ground to the coupler later but using a hose clamp and a male spade terminal (not in the picture). I'll admit that is not some high tech, awesome solution but it has worked flawlessly for years and can be disassembled easily.

My OEM fuel rails do not have a return or a regulator, so I used the Corvette FPR for the easy solution. Wix 33737 coupled with some -6 AN adapters.

 

[abrogate]

The original shocks I purchased for the truck were 16" Fox 2.0 Airshocks. I couldn't fit them where I wanted without some compromises. I opted to sell them and buy a set of 14" shocks that fit much better in the area I had available. The upper mounts allow for easily charging the shocks.

The lower mounts spread the gap at the end of the truss.

After cycling the rear end, I decided to add weld washers to the inside of the tabs to spread them further out from the eyelet. With the rear suspension cycling now, I laid out the bump pads and integrated the swaybar tabs into them.

The rear axle was pulled out and welded completely. I mentioned before that this axle housing warped. I addressed a few items on the new one. I bent the swaybar link tabs outward so the links would sit plumb at ride height, changed the angle of the lower link tabs to align with the link better and added gussets at the upper link tabs. Fortunately rebuilding the entire rear end wasn't hard with all the pieces already in CAD, but it was a completely avoidable headache.

 

[The Freeak]

Sick. Following.

 

[abrogate]

The front axle lower shock mounts and bump pads were next. The same process of cycling for placement was needed. The lower shock tabs were pushed outward as much as possible to maximize the frame/coil clearance on droop. If I ever get different shocks, I will be redesigning the front shock mounts altogether. Nothing binds and the clearances are OK, but the shock angles have the coils rubbing on the shock body and gland. I don't need 16" shocks up front and the limit straps keep them just under 14" of travel to keep the driveshaft from binding anyway. If I had a 14" shock in the front, I could have packaged things differently. The front shocks were too expensive to replace and selling these old, rebuilt shocks wasn't going to cover the cost of new ones. I just kept what I had and made it work.

Surprisingly, I was fortunate that I did not warp the front axle, at least not noticeably. I am glad I didn't because a replacement kingpin Chevy 60 is just a tad more than a 14 bolt... The shafts slide in easily and the camber looks correct to the eye, so it is staying for now.

Additional gussets were added to all the link mounts later before paint.

 

[chaplinfj60]

how was setting up gears with that bar there?

 

[abrogate]

how was setting up gears with that bar there?

Not a problem. I can pry the carrier out still and it can still slip passed the tube. I had concerns initially before I added the tube, but I tested it out prior to welding anything in place. With the tube sitting above the centerline of the axle it helps too.

 

[chaplinfj60]

for sure now i know

 

[abrogate]

Since I now had a roller that was not just sitting on the axles, I was getting more motivated to get the truck running. I had so many loose ends still. I had a big white board in my garage that I made a categorized punch list on. I found this to be very helpful. I could pick one item and focus on just that, finish it or get it to the next step, mark it done and move on. It helped having a visualization of what you are accomplishing and what lies ahead. I highly recommend doing this.

One item that I hated on my previous rig is that I could drive through the brakes. The manual brakes are simple, but if you don't have the components matched right, they SUCK. I purchased a brake pressure gauge that threads into the bleeder port, like this Wilwood Brake Pressure Gauge and found that my front calipers were not grabbing hard enough. I read the BillaVista Brake Bible and determined I had a few options to solve the problem without abandoning the manual brake setup. In a nutshell, I could used 1/2 ton calipers with 3/4 ton rotors on the 1 ton front end along with a metallic brake pad. I also went from a 7/8" diameter to a 3/4" master cylinder. This setup works great compared to the old one. The pedal ratio with the reverse swing pedal VS the forward swing pedal also helped reduce the pedal effort.

I found the caliper mounts for my Chevy 60 through LugNut 4x4 . They fit great and I have been happy with them. Take note to read the directions FULLY in regards to the disc mounting to the hub. I did not read them thoroughly and ruined BOTH of my discs. You MUST drill out the caliper holes to a larger size otherwise the D60 studs will crack the rotor hat. I do not recall the specific hole size, possibly 11/16", but it is very clearly printed in the instructions they provide. Don't be an idiot like me. I will mention though, the O'Reilly counter person willingly exchanged these for new ones because I complained that there was a MFG defect. Shame on me.

I went with the same JB6 calipers in the rear for the 14 Bolt.

I started plumbing the fuel, oil and hydraulic steering next. I found ANHoseFittings.com and they were slightly cheaper than Summit at the time. Their website was simple to navigate and I was able to get everything from one place. I am not sure who makes the ends, but they seem to be nice quality. The hose has lasted a few years now, but there are small cracks developing at some of the push-lock barbs. Blue was cheaper than black at the time too, so I went with that.

As far as hydraulic lines, we have a hose crimper at our farm that is set up for Weatherhead U Series fittings. I like them and have used them for years on our farm and construction equipment. Weatherhead offers long sweep swivel 90's that can run parallel with the short sweep swivel 90's. This works out great for steering valves.

I weeded out a factory wiring harness for the LM7 so I didn't have a bunch of loom wadded up behind the dash. Since I had relocated the coil packs to the valve covers, I did away with some of the OEM connecters. The alternator switched sides from the OE spot too, so a custom harness made sense to me. I used LT1swap.com for all of the pinouts and diagrams. It was super helpful and I learned a ton from that site.

Lastly, If you have cars that you need to move around on a smooth surface, I recommend GoJak's . There are similar products by OTC and others, but we have had these jacks since the late '90's and they are awesome. Admittedly, the ones we have don't work the best under 42x15" tires, but they do the job. On more standard car and truck tires they work great. There are newer models for 16" and 20" wide treads that would probably be better. They didn't offer that at the time. I was able to spin my buggy around in my 20x21 garage by myself, so that I could have the engine pointed toward the work bench while I did the wiring. You can see in the video that the tires are too wide for the jacks we have and they kept rolling out from under them, but I would imagine that the appropriate jack would stay in place. I have never had this happen under any other tire.

 

[abrogate]

The project was complete enough to drive out of the garage right before we listed our house for sale. There were some Section 8 apartments nearby that you had to pass to get into our neighborhood. I left for work one morning around 4:30 AM and saw a crime scene with a person covered in a a white sheet on a gurney being wheeled out of their apartment. Turns out that a local judge had a thing for fucking young delinquents, literally. His young drug dealing boy toy shot a guy in the face with an AK47 just two streets over from my house. I was glad I could drive the buggy out and take it to the farm again so I could get out of dodge.

Witnesses shift blame in statements following Dec. 30 murder in Belleville

I hated living near a crime hot spot and was dumbfounded that our house was under contract for above listing price in less than 24 hours. This started a pause on the buggy project, but I had reached a huge milestone with it being mobile.

Anyway, here are a few shots from the day I pulled it out of the garage for the first time.

I still had lots to finish, like panels and paint. I took it back to the farm for some test and tune.

 

[Boomtacoma01]

lots of great ideas and fab in this thread.

 

[chaplinfj60]

lots of great ideas and fab in this thread.

for sure... i love this thread....

 

[abrogate]

I have been fortunate to have access to our family farm for playing around along with testing and tuning. The property used to be a Peabody strip mine and it was decommissioned prior to land reclamation requirements. Its not farmable aside from cattle or other livestock operations. Large boulders seem to migrate upward out of the ground yearly. You cant really dig anywhere on the property without pulling microwave to refrigerator sized rocks out of the soil. The one major benefit to playing around here is that I can identify major issues before making a trip to an offroad park. I quickly found the two biggest problems with the buggy.

You may notice that I still had a ton of loose ends and one of them was limiting straps. Above you can see I have plenty of articulation. Too much in fact. The bump stops are placed right to limit up travel, but without limiting the down travel I bound up and broke a shock shaft on the compressed side. Previously I mentioned I bought some used, broken coil overs and rebuilt them. Only one shaft was replaced at the time because it was broken, but I guess there was damage to the other one or that the binding was so bad that I snapped a 7/8" shaft while crawling through the ditch. This pic was taken right as a broke too.

It was just the shaft that broke, so I ordered a new one and rebuilt it.

The next issue that was revealed was truly a bummer. I had tried to keep things cheaper and reuse as much from my old buggy as I could. I had some purchased High Angle Driveline 205/Toyota flange yokes because it was cheaper than new driveshafts. I took a stock Toyota shaft and shortened it, but I didn't bother with putting in a heavier tube because this was only temporary. This was a big fuck up. I wanted to verify the shaft length was correct before cutting down my H.A.D driveline that I was set aside for this project. That never happened.

I was using all four flange bolts, the pic is from when I was removing the shaft. I was just cruising around at the farm, probably bashing over and through shit and things came to a grinding stop.

The twisted shaft bound the yokes and the forces tweaked the doubler enough to crack the tailhousing of the TH400 :(

I broke my transmission before I even fully welded the chassis. I was beyond furious, but it was 100% on me.

I had a collection of TH400's in my shipping container and I was able to gut a spare and swap all of my components over. I had to modify the new case for the RMVB, but aside from that it was straight forward. I finally got to use our new/used heated parts washer too. It was a nice score from Craigslist.

New driveshafts and yokes were in order along with a solution for better mounting the transfer case.

 

[abrogate]

Due to the short rear drive shaft, adding a CV took some extra effort. I read online that the 1350 CV's generally maxed out around 30 degrees unless modified. I had a local driveshaft shop build me a set of 1350 front and midship shafts and a 1350 CV for the rear. I also had to get new yokes for the axles and front output of the transfer case and a flange yoke for the rear. The front was straightforward aside from making a new pillow block mount.

The Neapco rear CV didn't even hit 30 degrees before binding. I was pretty frustrated. The shop assured me it could hit 30. I was almost binding sitting at ride height. I tore it apart and used my grinder to bevel all the corners and open up the inside if the yokes. I had a few pipe grinding cones laying around from opening up the inside of Toyota closed knuckles for Longfields, they worked great for getting a uniform grind on the inside of the yoke. I got these grinding cones from Grainger and used a sand paper flap barrel on a die grinder to smooth things out.

In the end I was able to hit 38.1 degrees at binding. This was more than enough to have zero binding throughout the rear suspension travel and then some. I limited the full droop in the rear for the belt and suspenders precaution.

 

[abrogate]

Speaking of belt and suspenders, I built another transfer case support for the rear in hope that it would eliminate future headaches.

The mount can be removed from the transfer case, then the doubler can be removed as usual.

 

[abrogate]

Switching the rear driveshaft to CV also called for a change in the pinion angle. The existing axle housing was warped because I welded it at beer thirty. I scoured craigslist and found someone who wasn't smoking crack and asking $1000 for a 14 Bolt. I picked it up from a guy on the other side of St Louis who had a legit monster truck in his back yard. He had an RV carport for the truck, it could only fit under it with street rollers. He was selling all of his one tons axles because his new setup was on Rockwells. I got the axle for $200, which historically is even high for a 14 but times have changed.

I stripped it down and got to work.

I was able to nest all of my cut files for the axle and cut every piece except for the cap and lower gussets at one time. I decided to bench weld the majority of the truss this time and then weld it to the housing over a span of a weekend.

Before welding it to the housing, I installed the axle and cycled the suspension using the lift to verify the pinion angle was right and the CV didn't bind.

 

[abrogate]

The warped 14 was shaved and I had turned the ring gear down to work in it. I figured maybe I would hang on to the center for a future project so I opted to get a new gear set for this axle and ditch the mini spool at the same time. I picked up a Yukon full spool and 5.13's along with a Motobilt 13 Bolt cover and pinon guard.

The 13 Bolt cover is so much less work that a full shave and it doesn't leak like the shave did. The added clearance of a shaved 14 is not worth all the extra work involved. I have done two 14 bolt shaves and would recommend the 13 bolt cover to anyone weighing the two options.

The full spool is 100% beef. Previously I had a mini spool I got off of eBay and had a cross pin pop out while wheeling and was lucky that it did not grenade the gears. At the time I just welded the pin back in and it worked for years, but I had to set up a new carrier anyway, so I opted for the full spool. I froze it in the deep freezer overnight and the new ring gear dropped right on.

The housing was removed from the truck again and I welded it out. I didn't have any I beam at the farm to strap it to, so I took another gamble. I worked in much smaller sections this time and welded it out over a few days.

I've been trying to make sure my nephews are going to be wheelers. I've been getting them in the shop and exposing them to all the different aspects of what it takes to make something from scratch. Hopefully we can build something together someday. They are a few years older now, but still cant reach the pedals.

 

[BustedCrank]

That's a selling point on having a plasma table right there. Would bring the suck even more if you had to cut the truss parts all by hand!

 

[JunKU]

Great thread, looking forward to more. 👍

 

[abrogate]

I wanted a relatively compact one ton, V8 powered buggy and I achieved that. I made some things a little too compact and didn't plan the transfer case shifter ahead of time. I thought I could just run some cable shifters, but the seat cross member was too tight to the 205 and they typically route forward from the rear. The push/pull control cables take up a lot of real estate and I had none left. The inner passenger seat frame is very close to the 205. I could still slide my hand between the two, but that was about it. Triple sticks seemed impossible. I had to creative, but with the help of some marijuana I had a vision. Here is what I what saw and how it came together. It is complicated, but I fucking killed it.

I didn't own a lathe at this point in my life, so I had to source some shifter pivot bushings from Bung King. These were 1" long x 1" OD with 1/2" ID bronze oilite sleeves.

My vision was to use bellcrank's for the 205 and straight linkage for the 203. The 203 and 205 had opposing high and low positions on their shift rails and the use of bellcrank's on the 205 allowed for me to achieve the same High-Neutral-Low position on the triple shifter. Hope that makes sense. I used the 203 adapter for the shift lever mount and the 205 tail housing for the bellcrank mount. I bent the bellcrank mount to match the contour of the 205 and that allowed me to orient the front and rear output linkage stacked.

I ordered some Grade 8 1/4" fine all thread and ball stud female heims from McMaster for linkage. I considered making left and right threaded links, but decided having all right hand threaded pieces was the better option. I wasn't sure if 1/4 would be sturdy enough, but I feel very confident they are perfectly fine.

Both cranks are 1:1 even though they are different length. They both have the same throw and both sticks align when they are in the same H-N-L position.

Initially I wasn't sure that I could pull off triple sticks and had the 205 front and rear to the outside and thought about putting the 203 in the center. I played around and moved the front shifter to the center and that made the 203 easier. It looks chaotic, but it works great. Nothing touches, everything shifts smoothly and I was able to get a low profile, compact triple shifter.

Video of it in action. This was a mock up and things were not fully welded. The bellcrank pivot bolt was welded to the mount and that help eliminate any slop there.

The passenger seat clears everything easily and the sticks are conveniently place. I was happy to tie up this loose end because the task was daunting and I wasn't sure how things were going to pan out.

 

[chaplinfj60]

now that shifter is legit. wow

 

[Sean]

Those shifters are things of beauty!

 

[chaplinfj60]

i just had a chance to watch the vid. there is no way i could get mine to move that easy. wow.....

 

[The Freeak]

Those shifters are fuckin RAD. Killer work

 

[chaplinfj60]

quick question on the shifters, by having that extra pivot point and they are longer do you actually gain leverage and is that why it is so easy to move?

 

[abrogate]

Those shifters are things of beauty!

i just had a chance to watch the vid. there is no way i could get mine to move that easy. wow.....

Those shifters are fuckin RAD. Killer work

Thanks guys! I am proud of how they turned out. Sometimes things come together just right.

quick question on the shifters, by having that extra pivot point and they are longer do you actually gain leverage and is that why it is so easy to move?

There is mechanical advantage to having a fulcrum, but I did not gain that with the bellcrank. The front and the rear shift rails have the same travel for getting into each position. I wanted the shift levers to have the same throw, so I made the bellcranks with equal length arms for a 1:1 movement. Even though the front and rear cranks have different length arms, they have the same mechanical advantage of 1. The shift lever length compared to the distance of the first ball stud from the shifter pivot is where there is mechanical advantage. I don't have the numbers in front of me though.

The real benefit of doing it the way I did is taking advantage of the space I had available for the shifters and the location of shift rails. I wanted to be able to pull the lever backward to push the shift rail forward.

I like using the site Omni Calculator for stuff like this. Their Fulcrum Calculator is simple to fool with and you can punch in your numbers to quickly see the mechanical advantage of your system. I could have made the shifting even easier by having different length arms. Part of why the cases shift so easily in the video is that there is no load on the gears, so nothing is in a bind. They can sometimes be stubborn when the shift collars are not lined up as well.

Hopefully that makes some sense, because I am honestly having a hard time putting it into words.