Well its been a 3 evening week this week. The rear bumper brackets have been braced and fully welded. The bumper has been fully welded. The next big job on the list is to narrow thw rear axle. This evening the half shafts where pulled, the hub nuts removed, the hubs taken off. The axle tube marked and cut. Total removed on 1 side is 3.5" so overall the axle will be narrowed by 7". Was hoping for 8" but cant as caliper clearance. We are gonna have this Saturday on the truck to try and finish the axle chop.
Very pictures heavy. today we cut the other axle end of. We finished machining the spacer tube, we cut the drive flanges of the drive shafts and this allowed up to fit the half shafts back in to thw diff. Once the shafts where back in place the axle ends where slid in place and the ali space fitted to square everything up. We then tacked the axle ends in place and made sure the ali alignment piece could be turned. We also machined down one of the half shafts drive flanges ready to be tacked onto the shortened shaft and then we need to cross drill and pin the 2 parts together before fully welding. But of a rubbish right up but hopefully the pictures will make sense of it all.
Well this week we have fully welded both ends of the axle, they both been root welded and final cap welds. Plus the anti-roll bar mounts have been fully welded now.
Both of the half shaft ends have been machined and fit the shortened shafts. They need to be machined to have pins locked in and both fully welded.
Well this week we put the axle back in, we fitted the new rear calipers along with new cables.
We then worked out where the cables would run and made a new cable mounting plate. We tacked a new center cross member in place after we worked out a mount for the electronic handbrake motor.
The motor will not travel its full length once everything is fitted and setup.
Well this week you get some photos to look at. The rear bumper brackets are all welded. The tow bar socket has been set in place and has been gusseted to add strength.
The chassis rail ends have been plated and drilled to allow little brackets to be bolted on to mount a Ford badge.
Well good few nights on the truck, the number plate mount is now plated in the Ford badge mounts are done.
We also set up 1 of the shortened half shafts on a pillar drill and i set to trying to drill 2 10mm holes to allow use to knock in 2 pins to lock the 2 parts of the shaft together.
We also started to widen the first of the rear mudguards. Bit of a difference between the old width and the new width.
No major updates this week. We did get the second mudguard split and made wider to match the first 1.
The 1st 1 has been squared of along the bottom edges. Did have some parts arrive, new rear braided brake lines and the fittings, also so new mid panels for the truck.
More left to do on the mudguards but we will get there.
Well this week we managed to get the second mudguard sanded and the have now both been dressed are are fairly square. We also drilled 2 more holes and welded in 2 more tubes. This is to allow the braided brake pipes to pass through from the inside to outside of the chassis. We fitted 2 tabs for the brake hose bulkhead fittings to give us a transition from copper to braided. We also made up 2 new copper brake pipes to connect back into the standard brake pipes.
Well this week we made a start on the mudguard mounts, my mate bent up some 3mm steel and cut us some end plates.
We welded 2 M10 nuts together and drilled the end plates to suit. We then welded the nuts to the back of the plates. Then the end plates where welded to the ends of the folded brackets.
4 more to do for the other brackets but the folded bits are slightly different shape. Everything else will be the same.
Well this week we made up the first mudguard mount, cut the edge of the mudguard and let the mount in and tacked it up. Now we have the first 1 as a guide we can make up the others when we get there.
We also machined up 4 pins to knock into the half shafts to aid locking it altogether. They where knocked into place and then hot route weld followed by capping welds.
Anyone know what i have been making, never tried to make a circuit board. I have had very little experience soldering on circuit boards. Also this has been the first experience with computer coding.
Well plenty of photos to look at. This week we have done Tuesday, Thursday and a chunk of Saturday.
So let me explain, first of all we made and mounted some plates to the end of the trucks body. Then we made up some top outriggers, followed by some lower outrigger mounts and lower outriggers. We then joined both sets of outriggers together.
After that we set up the new rear side panels that we have has cut and folded. Once we had the panel heights set we set about shaping the panels to fit to the new body mounting plates. After a bit of shaping, welding and sanding 1 of the side panels fits nicely. Next we need to mount the back of the panel then shape the rear to allow for the mudguard to have clearance.
Well only a small update from last night. We tapped the axle breather and fitted this nice little unit instead. We also tacked in the front and rear lower mounts into the second mudguard. We also cut 40mm of the overall length so the rear sits at a nice level height. We left the first mudguard in place to use as a reference. The truck looks a little different without the new lower rear side panels.