Time For a New Look!

[superswamper_800]

Well I was gonna what untill I got her up n runnin before the next update but what the hell Im gettin real close!!
Engine crossmember/coilover brace all wraped up



With that finished up I was finally able to bolt up my coilovers and get her sittin on her own weight!

After that it was time to clearance the front half of the frame for steering and the brake rotor. A little 1.5 sch40 and 1/8" plate took care of that just fine, was even able to reuse the original body mounts...with a little trimming and got the orbital mounted up and a new lower engine crossmember in there too.


Started wraping up the axles after that, new seals F/R, welded spiders(BOMBER), gear oil, repacked wheelbearing, brakes......
Custom Off Road's front u-joint style axle seals

Rest is from memphis equip.

[superswamper_800]

New boots

All locked up now F/R


Everthing back together n ready to rock, minus a steel braided brakeline for the front that Im waitin on, bumpstops, and limiting straps.


Rearend all wraped up, minus shocks, trac-bar, and a driveline.


Finishing up the last set of body mounts for the front of the cab. Soon as these are done I can drop the body lift FINALLY, run some exaust, fire her up and bleed the steering and brakes, drivelines F/R, seat & harnesses, take her down to the shop for an exo-cage, trac-bar and mount the rear shocks and its off to the trail. Sure I forgot a few thing but theyll be brought up later.
Cut the original cab mounts off and reworked them a bit, should work out good.

[superswamper_800]

[superswamper_800]

Oh and Ive gotta fine tune the coilovers a bit, their sittin a little high still, Im runnin 300/400 now so Ill probably drop to a 200/400 or maybe even 200/300 and that should level it out and still give me some adjustments to play with.



Not gonna do the boatside just yet so the rockers gotta go at least.

Pile of inserts in the back ground.

[superswamper_800]

Swaped out the 29spl cummins nv4500 so it can be used in my 75' cummins/powerwagon build and swaped in the 23spl gasser nv4500 that I picked up awhile back. Had to do a little inputshaft swaping in the transfercases too.
No more Hemi Orange

[ffdustyw]

Looks great! I would hang onto those coils. Looks like plenty of room for 54's

[superswamper_800]

Ill deffently hang on to them so I can play around with the different spring rate setups and really fine tune it later on down the road, hell I might even end up runnin em after the exo-cage, winch and all the extra goodies are on it, Ill have to wait an see what my final weight is. As for tires Im lookin into a set of 47 LTBs, with the body lift gone and a set 47s Ill probably have to do a little trimming for the up travel but they'll fill in the wheelwells about perfect.

[superswamper_800]

Few shot without the bodylift Hard to tell in the pictures but its a HUGE difference!!


Still gonna look massive behind the towrig.

Now you can really see how much I need to drop the front still, might bring the rear up a hair but mainly just lower the front.

[Wh1t3NuKle]

Love the updates and progress. Lots of groovy ideas for me.

Couple questions for you.

1. What ride height are thinking you'll settle out to?

2. Where are you mounting the resi's? Adjacent or on the shock tower leg?

3. What ya doing with the old winch bumper stinger kabob?

[Pinkcrawler]

This looks awesome I love watching your progress!

[superswamper_800]

1)Not sure what the final ride height will be but Ill be sure to post that soon as its final, Ill see where Im at right now though. 2)The resis will be mounted up under the hood where their sittin in the picture below just raised up on some mounts. 3) That pile of poop pipe got cut up and scraped....well the most of it did, the stinger acually got cut down the middle and used for the lower arch on the front frame extention, no need to bend up new pipe.
And this picture also shows my next little issue Ive got and thats the brake master cylinder doesnt fit between the booster and the engine/coilover crossmember with the bodylift gone Solution: Ditch the booster and go with a willwood race style setup with dual side-by-side masters

[ffdustyw]

This muthr fuker is looking sick! You need to get this thing in a magazine when you are done before bash it up!

[superswamper_800]

Hell ya thanks man, that would be bitchin.

Got a little more done today, got the cab/bed all alined and bolted back down, started wraping up all the loose ends like stray wires, plumbing....etc to get ready to fire it up and clear a path for the new exaust which I was able to get a good start on too, wasnt able to run it the way I originaly wanted to but what worked is going to flow and sound a hell of alot better then what it had, goin with 3" from the manifolds back to an x-pipe into 2) single chamber flowmasters, should sound mean as hell!!
Started with a pile of 3" from about 6 trucks and got this started, rest is pretty much a straight shot.


The beginings of my X or H pipe, everythings gonna get cleaned up big time after the final weld.

[slickrock209]

what a dip shit i didnt even notice the body lift was off yesterday.

[csmith24]

Can't believe the bodylift is gone!! Looking sweet. Can't wait to go wheeling.

[Tinker]

Doing that exhaust is fun huh?

A 12" disc sander helped me alot.

I tried to mate bend to bend and strait to strait as the bends shrink a bit.

Not always possable but try and keep any transition from strait to bend in
one piece to keep the step in ID smooth.

[superswamper_800]

some good tips there. I made it all as smooth as possibale but using old, pre-bent exaust has its limitations. Got it all wraped up for the most part, still got a couple little exaust leaks to address and add in a cross-over pipe but all in all she sounds mean as hell and has a WAY quicker throttle response. And with the exaust done I was able to finally bleed my steering and wrap all that up. HOLY SHIT!!! That 3.0 kit feels like itll move a damn house, absolutly effertless
Exaust all welded up ready to be bolted in, dont mind the 24 different welded joints but it was all free.


First test of the steering with the full weight of the rig on the tires, got a weird angle on the camera and it makes the rig look hella tall and narrow

[turbosniper1]

Well, it's been about a month and a half since we got an update.... Making progress?

[Mountain Ram]

Originally Posted by superswamper_800

Oh and Ive gotta fine tune the coilovers a bit, their sittin a little high still, Im runnin 300/400 now so Ill probably drop to a 200/400 or maybe even 200/300 and that should level it out and still give me some adjustments to play with.

Something wrong with your spring rates here... To hold your truck up with lighter coils- you will have to cranke them down- alot.

I am running 350/450 on my 2.5 16" FOAs. It flexes well and my buddies said it rides like a couch... The truck only has a 5.2L and the axles are D60s with 44 TSLs. Not to whore up your thread, but I finally got mine offroad- Pics below.

Todd

Ride height

[superswamper_800]

Originally Posted by turbosniper1

Well, it's been about a month and a half since we got an update.... Making progress?

Tell me about it, I was supposed to be out on the trail this memorial day weekend Not much in the way of updates though, works been pretty dead lately. Still tryin to figure out exactly what Im gonna run for brakes, probably just gonna have to redo the CO mounts and brace so I can fit the stock booster/master setup, but Ive got a couple idea to try first.
1) get rid of the stock booster all together and go with an old school non-boosted master cylinder(cheap,easy)
2) Sence Im only running 2 brake calipers Im thinkin I could find a real small brake booster/master cylinder setup out of like a subaru, jeep, samauri and make that fit/work(cheap,easy)
3)^^ redo the CO mounts/brace and use the stock setup.(dont wanna do)
4) buy something like a Willwood race style non boosted master cylinder setup from Summit(small, compact, expencive)
5)hydro boost brakes(expencive setup)
Im sure there is more setups I could go with but my brain hurts and just wants this project to be done with already! Probably give #1 a shot and if thats not enough braking power Ill redo it then, at least Id be able to get out wheelin again.
Everthing under the hood is all buttoned up except the brakes.


Finished up the exuast finaly, added some 1/4" plate to the flanges to keep em from warping, a couple feet of tailpipe and finaly got around to making my crossover pipe and installing it, sounds so much better!





Working on the new transmission mount(s) too, had to make up a couple little templetes first, should work out good.

[superswamper_800]

Just some random pictures

[superswamper_800]

Also picked an old 26" 5th wheel to convert into a flatbed. Got lots of good parts and apliances out of this thing if anyone needs anything.

Lookin like a bomb went off

As it sits now, ready for new steel.

[superswamper_800]

Originally Posted by Mountain Ram

Something wrong with your spring rates here... To hold your truck up with lighter coils- you will have to cranke them down- alot.

I am running 350/450 on my 2.5 16" FOAs. It flexes well and my buddies said it rides like a couch... The truck only has a 5.2L and the axles are D60s with 44 TSLs. Not to whore up your thread, but I finally got mine offroad- Pics below.

Todd

No, its just that my ride height is still sitting about 3-4" to high in the front and the top adjustment nut is already backed all the way off(or up), so I figured I would need to go to a softer spring to get it to drop down that 3-4" or maybe a shorter 14" spring or something. What length springs are you running? Both top n bottom of mine are 16"ers.

[Mountain Ram]

If memory serves... 14" uppers, 18" lowers. That's what most people recommended.

I have some pics of how I mounted my uppers in my EXO Cage thread. I was barely able to get it under the brake MC.

Todd

[superswamper_800]

I might just pickup some 14" 300s or 350s and see what that does for me, but I deffinently need to drop to front end 3-4" and I think that might do it.