The welds look good to me, Donovan, nice work!
BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Good stuff. Pulse/stitch welding is a favorite of mine too. I am sure Northernregal and I would love to sit you behind a TIG torch.
What you have done is short of miraculous. Congratulations on a superbly done project. My only remark comes from observing the Hooker headers which look like ones I long time discarded because one pipe on each side went inside the fender well and severely cut down on my turning circle, and my front tires scrubbed the hot pipes each time I tried a simple parallel parking maneuver. How did you manage to avoid this problem?
Looking good man! I might have missed it but what are you using to brake the metal? Im assuming something with some removable fingers?
Appreciate the accolades, thank you.
Actually if you go back through the thread, you will find that I added some adjustable steering stops to the lower control arms and locked them down just before the tires contact the tubes. But to be honest, I very rarely ever made contact with them the entire time I was driving it. Certainly not during regular driving conditions. It’s not a daily driver either though, so there was never a need to parallel park.
You actually discarded those headers? That may have been a grave mistake, Hooker no longer makes them and they can be pricey if you do happen to find a good set. If you still have them, I might be interested in purchasing them from you just to have a spare set in case I ever damage these ones.
Thank you!
You didn’t miss it, I mentioned bending in my metal brake but have never posted a picture of it. It’s nothing too fancy, just a 24” box and pan (and yes, with removable fingers) mounted to my bench top.
Standard double car, 24’ x 24’. I try to use every inch of space to its maximum efficiency though.
I wish that was the standard here. It doesn't look huge, but definitely bigger than my "2 car" 20x20.
Sweet setup, i need to get me something similar here soon. I Have been looking at a bunch of different options, this one looks similar to the Eastwood. I am pretty sure they are all the same just different paint and stickers lol.
Well, it looks like I’m going to be delayed and held up temporarily due to a head cold. Took the day off work today to try and kick this and I’m already bored, so might as well post on my progress of late.
When I left off in my last update, I had inadvertently created the driver’s side pedestal due to not paying attention and bending the metal on the wrong side. So the following night, I repeated the process and made the passenger’s side like I had intended in the first place.
I got it all bent up, edges welded, fit and metal finished out, and even punched my plug welding holes in the flanges and figured it was good to go. Here is the pedestal portion of it mocked up on the underside of the crossmember.
Still version 2.0 at this point.
Lots of pictures, but I wanted you guys to get a 360 degree idea of what this thing looks like. A couple more from a bit further away to get an idea of size and perspective. Keep in mind this is only the pedestal portion of it, and upside down on the crossmember.
So far it was looking and fitting really well. I Cleco’d the crossmember back in place for yet another test fit, and it not only fit beautifully, but is now also EXTREMELY strong. Just as it should be. If it was wide enough to stand on, I would take pictures of me standing and jumping up and down on it, it’s that strong.
Perfect.
And one from a bit further back for Eric:
One small issue tho, the very furthest corner was juuuuust touching the exhaust pipe. Not acceptable because it’ll rattle and vibrate with normal exhaust movement and drive me nutz. Cardboard templates can only take you so far, they’re floppy and deflect easily, so that’s likely what happened. I needed to find a way to move/remove the offending corner, so out it came and time to create the latest revision, V2.1.
The other markings on the bottom shown there are to drill a hole for the body mount to pass through. It has to be that large to provide adjustability when aligning the body back with the frame.
Did yet another test fit after this alteration, and now it’s 100%. I have roughly a 1/4” - 3/8” of clearance between the pipe and the pedestal, and still lots of room for movement in the body mount cage box I built.
Y’all didn’t forget about those guys did ya??
They’ll get cut and modified slightly before getting fully perimeter welded to the bottom of the pedestals.
Aaaand that’s where I’m at now. Chomping at the bit to get back out there and finish off this side since I’m so close, but gotta kick this head cold BS and get back to 100% strength again first.
I’ll use this final metal version as the template to build a new driver’s side one, and that shouldn’t take me long once I get into it. Then cut out the last remaining bits of the old floor crossmember and weld this new one into place. Then it’ll be onto starting to create new rear floor pans!
Thanks for checking in gents. I appreciate it.
D.
When I left off in my last update, I had inadvertently created the driver’s side pedestal due to not paying attention and bending the metal on the wrong side. So the following night, I repeated the process and made the passenger’s side like I had intended in the first place.
I got it all bent up, edges welded, fit and metal finished out, and even punched my plug welding holes in the flanges and figured it was good to go. Here is the pedestal portion of it mocked up on the underside of the crossmember.
Still version 2.0 at this point.
Lots of pictures, but I wanted you guys to get a 360 degree idea of what this thing looks like. A couple more from a bit further away to get an idea of size and perspective. Keep in mind this is only the pedestal portion of it, and upside down on the crossmember.
So far it was looking and fitting really well. I Cleco’d the crossmember back in place for yet another test fit, and it not only fit beautifully, but is now also EXTREMELY strong. Just as it should be. If it was wide enough to stand on, I would take pictures of me standing and jumping up and down on it, it’s that strong.
Perfect.
And one from a bit further back for Eric:
One small issue tho, the very furthest corner was juuuuust touching the exhaust pipe. Not acceptable because it’ll rattle and vibrate with normal exhaust movement and drive me nutz. Cardboard templates can only take you so far, they’re floppy and deflect easily, so that’s likely what happened. I needed to find a way to move/remove the offending corner, so out it came and time to create the latest revision, V2.1.
The other markings on the bottom shown there are to drill a hole for the body mount to pass through. It has to be that large to provide adjustability when aligning the body back with the frame.
Did yet another test fit after this alteration, and now it’s 100%. I have roughly a 1/4” - 3/8” of clearance between the pipe and the pedestal, and still lots of room for movement in the body mount cage box I built.
Y’all didn’t forget about those guys did ya??
They’ll get cut and modified slightly before getting fully perimeter welded to the bottom of the pedestals.
Aaaand that’s where I’m at now. Chomping at the bit to get back out there and finish off this side since I’m so close, but gotta kick this head cold BS and get back to 100% strength again first.
I’ll use this final metal version as the template to build a new driver’s side one, and that shouldn’t take me long once I get into it. Then cut out the last remaining bits of the old floor crossmember and weld this new one into place. Then it’ll be onto starting to create new rear floor pans!
Thanks for checking in gents. I appreciate it.
D.
