Well, it seems weird doing a build thread for something other than the bronco, but its time. After flopping plugly last season, the tops wont go on, and thus the boys will be subject to rain and heat. two things I am not crazy about. (you know, its a funny thing being a father. i never cared about shit; see bad shit all day long at work, take stupid chances and otherwise disregard my health and safety. But now that I am married with two boys, that is all I worry about. ) i also had some isssues with smog this year. granted, they were my own fault, but IMO, the green weenies are going to be gunning for the 80's and 90's cars here pretty soon. SOOOOOOO, I decided to spend a lot of money (250 bucks) and bought a 1961 Scout 80. Stock it has a twin stick D18, 152 4cyl motor, D27 axles with 4.27 gears and lockers, a 100" wheel base, and a shit load of rusty bolts/parts. It also only weighs 3900 pounds from factory, so I am shooting for 5K total. here it is in all its glory the day i bought it
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So the plan is to strip the Bronco, and put the scout on front and rear radius arms, 1 tons, 42 now with 44's next, the 351, klune and 205, etc, etc. All the shit the bronco has. I also plan to stretch the wheel base from 100 to 110 at least, likely 115ish, exo/ino cage it, and cut the fawk out of it. Hopefully it will be street legal as I like driving around town too much, and still would rather drive to the trail than tow.
how would you guys flange this cradle to make it removeable? Or would you make it removeable? I would like to be able to drop the oil pan without lifting the motor.
It if was a bit wider, maybe you could wiggle the pan out. Not sure where your links are going. The headers are going to be right there too. Plates on each side bolted in, or just one big bolt down the middle?
Or a combination of the two. Weld some flat bar to craddle so it overlaps the motor mount This would prevent it from twisting. The big bolt straight down will not let it spread. Trying to think of the forces on that cross member:homer:
As shown, with or without the cradle, all the forces will try to rip the mount (horizontal square tube) from the vertical inner frame wall.
Perhaps forget the cradle and reinforce/triangulate the mounts instead?
Note, orange is drawn in 2d, but intended in 3d, say about 6" front to back?.
Orange "captures" the frame on three sides using a short plate on the outside, a tall plate on the inside, and a flat plate on top to tie the two together; plus 2 or 3 plate triangles (shown striped) as gussets. Essentially you're making the frame stronger and taller at the engine mount area.
Basically, you're almost double boxing the frame at the mount, while vertically entending and gusseting the inner wall.
Red is drawn 2d and intended as 2d: Plate triangles welded to the front and rear faces of the existing horizontal square tubing.
Its important to make the vertical orange plates extend above and below the existing frame rail. You might box the rail entirely and add a bottom orange plate, too. Make the side plates too short and they'll want to punch through the existing frame rail side. You want to instead press evenly along the whole surface of the frame rail side, especially the 90 degree bends at the top and bottom.
If you still want to stiffen from frame-rail to frame-rail, then add some sort of strut-tower-to-strut-tower bridge type stiffener (like the ricers use) over the top of the engine: Shown in blue with hex = bolt heads for cross-engine-piece removal.
I have seen this done with roll cage tubing using a tubing bender instead of square tubing and a band-saw Then make the removable joints flanged and sleeved (like header/collector flanges) for easy crossover tube removal.
ILl gusset the the engine mounts for sure, and coil over hoops will go just forward on the enging mounts, which will be tied to the tube fenders and cross over the engine. Im just trying to figure a good way to mount he cradle.
The oil pump sticks pretty far down, its hard to get the pan off without a lot of clearance
ILl gusset the the engine mounts for sure, and coil over hoops will go just forward on the enging mounts, which will be tied to the tube fenders and cross over the engine. Im just trying to figure a good way to mount he cradle.
Given the quoted text above (engine mounts reinforced and frame rails tied together), then why use a cradle at all? Seems like it would be in the way and totally redundant. Maybe I'm just being :homer::homer: about it?
I don't know. I thought adding a cradle would make the mounts super bomber and eliminate a lot of the fframe flex. most factory rigs have a sort of cradle. Now, i know lots of the suspension stuff hangs off it too, but ????
Started working on my truss todaytoday. Not very fancy, made from 2x4x.25. Its still a little long, and I need to figure a good way to tie it into the housing.
Need to add some material to my frame, figured I would use some 3/16 2x4 nd incorporate the body mount into it. This will be the cut line.
The only issue I am having is that to get the pinion pointed in the right direction, the diff cover is a good few inches back from the truss. Im on duty for af ew days, so my head is swimming with ideas. Id like to find someone that can weld a web in there, along the top of the housing. Sterlings have been known to spin tubes. I dont think I would be comfortable mig'ing the web. Ive been told to use a nickle rod, but thats beyond my ability.
no, Ive been working a lot of OT, and just got back from taking the boys to Disneyland. I should get some "me" time in the coming weeks.
the body is off, Im working on the rear 4 link, and waiting to take the body to my cousins powdercoating shop to sand blast the thing.
Thanks for the interest
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