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Yamaha RMAX destruction and remodeling

I’ve got more projects than time in the day but I made some progress on the RMAX today with some motivation from Kyle Anderson’s utv class win at KOH in his RMAX.

I think I’m going to call this one the RM37 for the blending of the RMAX with a Dodge M37. Here is the start of the cage that kinda starts to give away the theme.
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More than 6” of headroom with the round roof while keeping a low rod look. I’m really happy with the way this one is turning out.
 
Now that you mention it, I saw an rmax in a KOH clip and wondered how he did. Obviously the feeds were dominated by the big boys and I never thought much else about it. Pretty impressive for a sport/utility to take the na class over the 1000 rzrs, talons and yxz's. :smokin:

I really like some things about the rmax, but I think you're on the right track here.
 
Last weekend‘s progress was ok. I got tired of walking on my tubing so I paused to make some tubing racks for the wall. I had all my steel outside on a covered rack but condensation still caused it to rust so back inside with all the new stuff. It’s a pain to sand the stuff down that got rusty outside. I also got distracted working on the front four link for the Super Duty. Having two projects at once isn’t great for progress with the limited time I have to work on stuff.

Here are a few pictures of the work on the cage and bed.

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For those asking about a Super Duty thread, it will be coming when I start putting it all together in May. Too cold outside for that here and it won’t fit in my garage because the RMAX. Once I am done with it it will be too tall for the 7’ door too. I am getting close to having all the parts collected from about 7 different vendors….working on ordering the stuff for the rear suspension now.
 
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Thanks for keeping me motivated! It definitely helps.

The last two weeks have been a case of two steps forward and one step backwards. I wanted to have the angled bed sides and got them all tacked up, with the rear fully burned in. Mistake! I wasn’t thinking about a spare and a 32” truck tire would have poked out of the bed sides. That is no bedsides on the sides of the tire. That would have looked lame.

Here is what that looked like:
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On the positive side, I got the center frame section installed. I used square tube that matches the frame at the upper a-arms and it ties in to the same location. It did take two attempts though. The first set had a shallower angle by the seat and I didn’t like how I could hit my elbow on it. This one was a lot better.
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A third redo was the front rock rail. I decided that I wanted the hood cage to come off the A pillar angled which is more like a real M37, and all the other old trucks. The original way would have had a foot of straight before it could angle.
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I spent the first part of the weekend cutting out the original bed sides and redoing them as straight. The M37 only had a very small angle anyway so the straight sides look closer to a M37 to me. It simplified the redo and made the bed wide enough for a 35” spare. After redoing those, I got a lot more tube cut, notched and installed. The rear cage section is now tied back into the main chassis. I really like how all of the this turned out. Except my crappy welds. I am out of practice and need to do more welding. The rear v bars are going to have another gusset across the bottom to give that section the look of a rear window.

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It is been really busy at work but I did make some more progress. I decided to recycle the winch mount from the stock XTR bumper and used it as the foundation for the new front end. I was really excited to get the front roughed in so I can start to see the M37 rat rod take shape. The front ended up a little narrower than I wanted but I had to keep tire clearance. That is more important than a look. The front, cab, and bed are nicely proportioned and I like how it is starting to come together

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Thanks!

I know some of you are about to get on me for an update and I need to make some progress. I had a unique opportunity last weekend to go see a NASCAR cup race at Talladega so nothing got done for two weeks. It was an awesome experience and I think I’ll go to another race in a year or so because it is $$$$ to do it right. I’m planning to work on it this weekend because I want to get more of the front end done.
 
I got a small but very important step completed this weekend. Steering! I was able to recycle the stock steering plate with some new tubing for my simplified fixed steering mount. No pivot slop or struts to fail here. Now I can move the car around again if I need to. The stock steering shaft is 1/2” solid bar so I ended up stacking 3/4“ and 1” tubing to make a strong enough spacer. I wasn’t confident in the 3/4” tubing alone. The shaft ended up 5” longer than the original to mate up properly.


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Y’all probably thought I gave up on the build since I haven’t posted in a long time. The Ford build, work, and my daughters hunts wiped out the entire fall but now I’m back at it. In case you were wondering, she got an elk but we couldn’t get her an Oryx. The offrange hunts are very difficult. We did a ton of driving, glassing, and hiking with no success. Anyway, back to the RMAX. I decided to punt on the under seat gas tank and start over with one behind the cab in the bed. It turned out really well and holds 10.4 gallons versus 9.2 gallons for the stock tank. Here are some pictures of that work.

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After making the tank with some help from the pro welder (I was feeling lazy and I wanted it to look really good since it will be very visible) I moved back to the chassis. I knocked out most of the remaining diagonals down the center and tied the shock tower into the frame. I decided what I wanted to do with the a-pilled corners and got that welded up and plated. The final pieces I got done this weekend were the diagonals to the corners of the bumper/grill base.

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Progress update. Got my headlights, buckets and more tube work done. I went with 5-3/4” lights this time to keep tire clearance. 7” lights would have probably hit when I go to 33-35” tires. Proper mounting hardware for the headlights has been ordered but I welded some simple studded bushings to keep this moving. Headlight guards and a grill are next. I want to to see what it’s going to look like. The curved tubes turned out ok for bended them in a regular bender because I don’t have a roll bender. A small bend every 2” did the trick.
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