Something w/ rabbits. 72.5 pages of BS

So seeing as spring is just around the corner, I thought I'd start a thread on the future undertaking of swapping in the Dana 60.

The axle is from a 1986 "Fawwd" F-threee "fitty", sporting some kingpins and a whole lot of rust. I took this axle apart a few months ago (except stupid me didnt remove the pinion nut before breakdown ) and had it hot tanked. I wanted it sandblasted, but the machine shop owner smirked and said "naaah yo, that junx is too big for my blasting cabinet" .. okay except he didn't really say that cauz he's old and a really cool guy. ANyways *twirls blonde hair*, this is my plaannn:

- WMS-WMS this axle is just a bit over 69" wide so I'm going to cut the passenger's side down a few inches to match 'ye ol General Motors 14-bolt axle. So this is going to require custom axle shafts and I think I'm going to go Chromos and 35-spline outers off the bat from the most awesome guys at Complete Off Road.

- Drive flange or lockouts? They are about the same in price and its a dedicated trail rig so I'm leaning towards the drive flanges. Right now, the cheapest flanges I found are the Teraflexes at $180 for a pair. If anyone knows of a better deal, please let me know !!

- High-steer arms and a double-ended hydroponics goodness ("cylinder").

- Opposite-ended panhard bar! The idea is to mount the chassis end of the panhard on the passenger's side frame rail and the axle end on the driver's side. Doing so should allow a more simple and cleaner design since the axle-mount can be mounted on top of or near the differential housing, instead of a tower on the passenger's side (like in my current D44 setup). I also plan to boost the panhard as far up as possible to increase the roll center of the front suspension. Yeah the concept is a little strange but I'm hoping it'll work and won't have any issues (no drag-link to factor into the design). But if anyone knows of any problem running this config, please chime in!

*EDIT*
- Detoit Locker for the carrier. I'm please with how the Detroit in the 14-bolt has performed so I figured I'd run the same in the front. Of course 5.13s to match the 14-bolt.


So here's the little guy, he's been in this position for the past few months just collecting dust:

 

[JTX]

Dang haters.

 

[BKennedy]

My Explorer is buried under a pile of stuff the wife did not want in the house anymore. Due to lack of use, I had to charge the battery twice before I just disconnected it so it wouldn't die in the garage. And I don't have the excuse of a major modification festival, like Iz. I just have not taken the dang thing out of the garage in about four months.

 

[Maniak]

My Explorer is buried under a pile of stuff the wife did not want in the house anymore. Due to lack of use, I had to charge the battery twice before I just disconnected it so it wouldn't die in the garage. And I don't have the excuse of a major modification festival, like Iz. I just have not taken the dang thing out of the garage in about four months.

Its almost wheeling season.. You have to do something to it before you take it out this fall. .and fixing the xfer case doesn't count. .

~Mark

 

[Dannyboy]

well, I'm no better, mine got put on a trailer in Moab, dumped in the backyard with a tarp on it. It's currently sitting on jackstands w/o wheels/tires with some engine trouble that I've yet to gotten around to fixing.

 

[410Fortune]

the BII has sat in our driveway for 4 months this summer baking in the sun, now for the last two months it has been re-located to the side of the house (back yard) to continue baking in even more sun. Last time I started it the battery was dead and it spewed coolant ....lots

Finally I have the garage ready to accept the BII again..having a baby makes hobby's TOUGH! LOL
I miss my truck, all these jerks driving around in their built rigs...so jealous! hahaha
We have gotten to the mountains about 3 times this summer, usually its 3 times a week!

Hes worth it I cant wait to build his truck!

 

[BKennedy]

Its almost wheeling season.. You have to do something to it before you take it out this fall. .and fixing the xfer case doesn't count. .

~Mark

Does digging it out of all the boxes and crap its buried under count as "do something", cause that is all I am planning on doing? I might dust it off first, oh, and I need to hook up the battery.

 

[IZwack]

An excuse as to why I havent made too much progress on this:

Last week I picked up a Miller TIG machine and had to build a new welding cart/table to fit two shielding tanks and the two welder (as well as the plasma cutter). I've been practicing at night on some mild steel for a few days now :

 

[RockRanger]

Bling bling. I need to come by and play with it sometime. I also want to check out your explorer.

 

[IZwack]

Sure you can - just be ready for the weirdness of the process. I nearly fell out of my chair the first time I stepped on the foot control, and I kept diving the tungsten into the puddle.

EDIT - oh and for the record, this thread might slow down a little (although I will try to work on it every weekend) because I got a new position (same company/agency) thats a bit more time consuming and not as flexible as the previous.

 

[mynameisaric]

just wait till you turn into a ground for the high freq. start. Thats a fun feeling that will catch you off guard. You'll love tig once you get the hang of it. There is so much control over the weld pool, and how the weld turns out. I used to irritate my boss because i would never use the stick welder, but then he realized there was no clean up work, and everything looked 10 times nicer.

 

[Kirby N.]

You guys are sissys. I roll out the old skool montgomery ward buzz box for everything....
















Man I wish I had a tig. Who am I kidding? That is sweet!

 

[dkchrist]

The ground thing is always fun. The whole sweating while welding thing usually ends up with a shocking result.

IZ, the welds look great. When ya starting to weld aluminum?

 

[410Fortune]

when you started all this had you ever welded before?

 

[section525]

What machine did you get, IZzy?

 

[IZwack]

I might try my luck on some aluminum this weekend.I have 1lb of filler rod, just gotta get some material from Home Depot to practice on.

This thread is the first time I've used a MIG and/or TIG. I did use a flux core machine for my brother's Samurai and I used a stick welder for the first SAS.

This TIG is a Miller Diversion 165 - the cheapest TIG Miller makes. The majority of my welding will still be MIG - I just need the tig to do aluminum and maybe small things like the pedals and whatever stuff around the dash area.
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[410Fortune]

thanks for the inspiration!

 

[mynameisaric]

i havent done alot of aluminum, and i'm not good at all. but i can tell you it takes about 150% of the amps that the same thickness steel would take. turn it to ac and run high freq. continous. dont forget to use the green tunsten.

 

[Kirby N.]

The ground thing is always fun. The whole sweating while welding thing usually ends up with a shocking result.

IZ, the welds look great. When ya starting to weld aluminum?

You think that is bad? I was welding a perlin on in Venezuela on a building project last year. It started to rain, but we were trying to get it done so I worked through it. It was all good until I was sitting soaked straddling a steal beam truss. When I struck up, you can imagine where I grounded out through my soaked pants!! Wow, I gave the olson twins a little jolt...

 

[IZwack]

Played around with some 1/8" thick "alyewminium" (as the Brits would say).

 

[dkchrist]

You think that is bad? I was welding a perlin on in Venezuela on a building project last year. It started to rain, but we were trying to get it done so I worked through it. It was all good until I was sitting soaked straddling a steal beam truss. When I struck up, you can imagine where I grounded out through my soaked pants!! Wow, I gave the olson twins a little jolt...

HAHAHA, sorry but that is pretty funny. Electricity + water = a hair raising experience.

IZ that looks very good on the aluminum. One problem I have run into is the weld pool at the end will cool too quickly and crack. I think you can slowly relax your foot toward the end of the weld and help to prevent any such problems. Keep up the good work!