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TrashE

This is about the ride height I am shooting for. Back will come up an inch or two.
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Glad to see progress !
Fab work is dope !!! As always.

Thanks, unfortunately progress is going to stop for the next 7-8 months while I fulfill other obligations and go back to work for the summer season.

I appreciate everyone's comments and interest in the build. Making the truck a roller was my main goal this time around and it even has a transfer case now! I will post up my front 14 bolt axle build in here since it hasn't been covered in the thread yet.
 
I bet that's a fuck ton more work.
Fab work level is unreal and super clean !
 
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Your fab work looks great. You already went all in on the bed conversion, why not give it a chop?

I just have to draw the line somewhere, lol. Like bebop said it's a ton more work and it wouldn't be fun so I can live with it like this for now.
I can suck up to my friends at Scelzi and maybe, possibly get an aluminum body on a pallet to weld up myself in the future - that would be fun.

And thanks!
 
I bet that's a fuck ton more work.
Fab work level is unreal and super clean !

Yep, just shortening the doors is several hours each, let alone the body. Almost as much work to build a whole new box. I did consider chopping it though :homer:

Thanks for the comments & compliments :beer:​​​​​​
 
For the front axle housing I started with a rear 2001(ish) van axle from my local junkyard. A better choice would have been a drw pick up axle from around the same era but none of my local yards had one and I couldn't find any from a private seller so I bought this one for around $150.

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It has 3.5" OD axle tubes, ribbed housing for my pleasure, and a larger pinion head bearing.

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Older style race pictured in newer support.
 
Cleaned up the tubes and eventually wire wheeled the chunk.

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Then I cut the new long side axle tube as close to the spindle as I could. I had to come inboard some to get a consistent ID for my sleeve.

Then I cut the short side tube at my desired offset leaving some wiggle room for adjustment. I don't have any pictures of the sleeve but it was 18" long with about .300"+ wall thickness that I paid a machine shop to make with some tube I brought them. The sleeve was a press fit even after leaving it in the freezer over night.

I left the spindle on the tube to help line everything up with my bar and alignment tools. It was surprisingly straight. Pic taken in 2017 just before welding.

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Bevel on both sides and a small land on the sleeve. First pass was tig welded.

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After it was welded I checked it again with the alignment bar & pucks to make sure it was still straight. Then I cut off the remaining spindle and ground the tubes clean to hide the weld joint. The final bit of grinding was done with a DA sander.

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I like the smooth look but have also come to like the appearance of a visible weld joint. It's just a matter of opinion.

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Then it sat around for a few years like this.
 
Cut it somewhere in this general area.

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Did away with one of the bolts making it a lucky 13 bolt. Factory extra.

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That looks about good enough.
Bolt hole & drain plug get welded.

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Steering parts coming out of hibernation.
Solid inner/outer knuckles with chevy spindles and hubs.

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Next step was to assemble my outers and get a measurement of how much length they would add to the axle. Just zeroed the angle finder on my table....

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Then made sure the wms was on the same plane before pulling any measurements. You can see my little shim stack under the rotor on the right.

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Then measured from the hub wms down to the table.

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Looks like 12.125"

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​​​​​​NOTE: This is a reference number and doesn't account for pressing the C on.
 
Subtract the reference number (12.125") from the amount the C will be pressed on.

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2 inches would be fine but I'm going to make it 2.125" just to simplify things and make life a little easier. I made note of that with a sharpie inside the C.

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By subtracting the amount needed to press on the tube (2.125") from our reference number (12.125") we are left with an even 10 inches.
That means the steering and outer assembly will account for 10"/side or 20 inches of width total on the axle.
 
For my desired width of 71.5" I needed to trim tubes down a little bit.

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​​​​​​Marked it at 51.5" and cut the tubes.

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Ice in and around the tube might have helped the install.

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Fire definitely helped the install. I used a propane torch to heat the C.

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Nice !!! Reminds me when I built my front 14 bolt.
 
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First one I heated until it started to turn yellow. I got it on in time but I had to move fast and tap it a couple times with the little hammer to get my castor right. Second one was a little warmer and just starting to turn purple - that side was much easier.

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Slid them on to my mark which was 2.125" in from the end of the tube.

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As they were cooling off I went ahead and put 4 tack welds/side. You can see in these pics the different colors of the Cs.

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I tacked them while they were still warm so that the thicker forging wouldn't soak up the heat and crack the weld. They were cool enough to touch but you probably wouldn't want to hold it for too long or pick it up. A full time fabricator or welder could hold onto it no problem.

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The first attempt was an educated guess so I assembled it and put it on its own weight, it was off quite a bit (almost 4°) so I decided to mock things up a little more thorough and only have to fix it once.

I started by switching the front transfer case output to a flange style yoke because they are a lot more common. Also picked up a new 1350 cv head assembly.

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Picture for size comparison.

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A new 1410 slip yoke from this place, the tube adapter to match, new u-joint, and some DOM tube.

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With the truck at my desired ride height I installed the pinion support and bolted up my mock driveshaft.

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Since it's a CV joint I pointed the pinion right at the front output and made my pinion angle match my drive line angle.

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Once the pinion angle was pointed in the right direction I snugged the u-bolts down enough to keep everything in place and tacked the perch to the axle. I didn't tighten them nearly enough to distort the threads or stretch the u-bolts and ruin them for future use.
 
Once that little chore was out of the way I moved on to checking my castor angle. I ran a string line from the center of each axle front to rear and jacked up the axle until the line was level. Once I felt good about it I took the string all the way off and did it again to double check. This took a quite a while and was tedious but I'm glad I took the extra time to check as this is an important part of the vehicles handling characteristics... or whatever.

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The knuckles needed to roll forward about 3.5° to be where I wanted them.
 
Old tacks cut with a 4-1/2' safety wheel and die grinder. The little hammer came out again to rotate the Cs. Then some new tacks were applied.

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