ML builds an old truck

Update time. I've made some progress.

I bought a 255 amp 220v/1ph mig welder at an auction last summer and finally got it up and running and moved to the house. I needed to add some fish plates to my frame where I cut it in order to add back some strength so I ran some test beads to get the machine dialed. I'm happy with the welding I did but I wish the beads looked a little better. They're very functional though and nobody will ever see them when this is done.

2022-03-03_04-09-52 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

My welding area - Miller TIG, Century (now owned by Lincoln) mig and a chinese plasma cutter that's really really awesome.

2022-03-03_04-10-12 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

I made cardboard templates for the plates, transferred that to wood and added in some offset to account for the head on the plasma torch and then cut from 3/16 sheet.

2022-03-03_04-10-32 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-10-51 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-11-05 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-13-27 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-11-44 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-12-02 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

The next order of business was to ditch the Mustang 2 front end someone added to this frame sometime before me. They really didn't do such a great job welding it in. Lots of areas that could have been welded weren't and a lot of the beads had bad penetration. Kind of just piled into the joint and not melting into the parent material. It took a couple hours of cutting with the plasma but she's gone.

2022-03-03_04-12-16 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-12-32 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-13-39 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

I'm going a little unconventional with this project and part of that was I HAD to have some nasty looking tires. That meant 35x12.50 off road tires and a set of plain Jane steel wheels from Summit Racing. With the front end gone I couldn't help but place these tires to get a glimpse of what things are likely to look like at the end.

2022-03-03_04-11-31 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-12-57 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-13-15 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

Turning my attention back to the rear axle I needed to get new carrier bearings onto the Detroit Trutrac that I'm putting in place of the oem open diff. I froze the carrier in the freezer at the shop over a weekend and then did the work Monday afternoon. This device you see on the bridgeport table is actually a hot plate designed to help repair cell phone screens. I borrowed it from someone it the building and turned it up to 175c (around 350f) to expand the bearings.

According to the CMM I have at the shop the ID on the bearings grew more than .005" I turned an aluminum driver to fit the bearings and the mill spindle turning it into an arbor press. It worked but the bearing only went on 2/3 of the way. I pulled my driver and added a hammer to the equation and was easily able to drive both bearings all the way home.

2022-03-03_04-13-51 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

2022-03-03_04-14-01 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

I pulled the open diff and did a little measuring of both units on the CMM

2022-03-03_04-14-44 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

Other than that I was able to pull the rear end and leaves from the truck to make way for the parallel four link I'll be building. The axle that was in there was a ford 8.8 from (I think) a Ranger or F150. What I thought was really cool was that the leaf spring mounting bolts were both greaseable. The bolts were drilled and had grease zerks on them.

2022-03-03_04-14-13 by Kevin Ames, on Flickr

Right now I'm in the process of replacing rotted brake rotor dust shields and e-brake hardware on the rear end. After that will be figuring out shims/backlash on the ring gear. Once that's done it'll go home with me for rear suspension mock up.

I already got in some 2" x 3/16 wall channel and I have 40 feet of 2" x .25 wall DOM tube on the way. 40' of that stuff was $700. I shit my pants when I got that quote. It's enough to do both the front and rear link bars and I'm already in for a penny so....