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Mad Max - Galaxie Tow Rig

And today's task is drawing up some sketches to mount this thing on here....

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EDIT: Here is what I came up with:

Heim Box.jpg


My game plan is to 3-D print this for mocking up sake, make any needed adjustments or tweaks so everything clears, then machine the plates, bolt them together, and finally weld all the seams. I'll keep yall posted!
 



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Well.... got the bracket printed. There are a few dimensional things I need to correct, and I need to drill out the 3/4" bolt hole a bit more, but I think the general concept is going to work. I think I'm going to spend some time trying to trim a little wasted space off the bracket footprint. Next I need to get the arms ordered and figure out what I'm going to do for a cross-member so I can start mocking this stuff up!

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So due to funds (and paying for another semester of school) I have had to curb my ambitions to fit my current budget (both money-wise and time-wise). One of the ambitions I've had on the back burner was building some off-road headlights. I've always wanted to put the big KC Daylighter's on the roof and I figured this was a smaller project I could tackle this February. Well, upon my initial investigation, it became apparent that KC Daylighter's are dang expensive, especially with any mounting hardware. So I hit the junkyard and found a perfect alternative :)

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This is a 1963 Chrystler NewYorker. And, as luck would have it, all 4 headlight buckets were in it! Even better, they are each a stand alone assembly that just screws right into sheet metal from the inner fender. I got them off, and was only set back $10 by the junkyard! Next, I needed some material to anchor this stuff, and decided to go with #4 rebar (which was a $12 setback). From there I started messing around with some different lengths and decided to start tacking stuff together.

20190210_133356.jpg


I used magnets and some foam to kinda 'levitate' my rebar pieces into place. I cut a slot in the piece of foam so that it wouldn't go anywhere. After I kinda got things set where I liked them, I marked the rebar with where it came in contact with the magnets and then just traced the magnets on the roof so I could take things off and put them back on while maintaining some 3 dimensional position.

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I popped it off, welded the ends up, realized I was a bit rusty at welding, and grinded off the excess. After which I mocked-up what I was going for:

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So today after work I was able to snag a rebar bender from Uncle Bill (who has all sorts of cool equipment!) and got to work bending a top piece to fit onto my little rebar square... It is on the hood of the Junker in this next picture:

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After cutting it up to where I felt good my sister was able to come out and give me a hand holding it in place while I tacked it in. Surprisingly we got it pretty dang straight and I was able to finish welding the upper 'hoop' onto the square. Here is how it looks tonight:

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And again, the lights and little connecting bars are just held in with magnets to kinda demon-straight what I am going for.

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Now to get some sleep, go to school tomorrow, and hopefully get back to this before the week is out!
 






Awesome thread man! :thumbsup:

Going to be keeping an eye on this one.:popcorn:
 






Awesome thread man! :thumbsup:

Going to be keeping an eye on this one.:popcorn:

Thanks MrQ!! Hopefully this thing will live up to all the hype :laugh:....

Anyhow, I was able to get the middle bars cut to length and tack welded in. I need to finish the welds and then bend the rear hoop for the top of the light buckets to mount to. And then figure out a way to bolt all this stuff onto the roof. Probably do something with rubber gaskets so it is water tight?

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This last picture kinda shows the backside of the headlight buckets and the holes I am attempting to line up. If it all works out I'll just drill and tap them right into the rebar.

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Well I had a reasonably productive afternoon today! I started by getting the rear hoop bent and cut to size, then hoisted it into position and measured, measured, and re-measured where I had it placed before I started tack welding:

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Upon getting it tacked, I re-measured and felt very satisfied with where it ended up:

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After which I welded up all the tacks I had left from the evening before and added 2 braces at the top between the two hoops. If there is anything that can be learned from this next picture, it is that I am the proud owner of a denim welding table...

20190215_141635.jpg


My next step is going to be figuring out how to anchor/bolt this whole assembly on. I also want to add some additional supports/gussets sloping back farther along the roof line, however, I don't know if I want to leave it open or cover the top & sides with expanded steel?

20190215_142454.jpg


I'm leaning towards painting the whole thing flat black when I'm done.
 






So... We had some warm weather today (32-35) and sunshine so I finally made the push to get this thing resting under its own weight. I ended up welding tabs onto the whole thing in 4 places that I will drill and bolt to the roof. The tabs are 3/16" thick and I still need to drill for the 1/2" - 13 bolts, which will keep this locked solid onto the roof.

20190218_145012.jpg


As you can see, the tabs are relatively low key, but I will probably paint them some form of rusted off-white to blend a bit more with the roof. Luckily, matching the paint isn't a priority.

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I couldn't help it, I had to pop the headlights in and get a teaser of what is to come. I'm very happy with the results :) Still need to track down 3 more headlight buckets though... going to look at some out of a 1963 Buick Electra a guy in the area is parting out. Hopefully they are similar to the Chrysler buckets.

Oh! And I haven't decided where to weld expanded steel onto this thing, or what I am going to weld onto the backside of the light buckets to conceal/contain the wires.
 






I still need to finish up the lightbar thread - though, it will always be a work in progress like the rest of the car. I did just get back from a totally crazy epic weekend down south in the Junker. No words to describe the trip, so much fun!!!

Canyonlands 10 Lightened.jpg
 






Awesome shot:chug:
 












Awesome shot:chug:

Thanks guys!!! Glad I can share it with yall! I need to resize the other shots so I can share them here, I will update this post when I resize them :)
 






You should post up your Mad Max style shots too :D
 






So... in keeping consistent with the rest of this thread - I will do the following:

A. Randomly resurrect this thread years later.
B. Restart part way into some idea that worked its way out of my brain and into reality.
C. At some point in the future I will back pedal and fill in the gap and backstory of how I ended up here.

So sit back! relax! and enjoy the next chapter to the Junker's evolution since the wrecking yard.

Here is a picture of parts I bought:

1.jpg


Here is a picture of the 'other' frame:

2.jpg


And finally, here is the first cross-member getting tacked in to begin the mock-up of the 4-link for the rear:

3.jpg


👍
 






Awesome mechanics and artistry.
 






Looks like a cool project. Can't wait to see the results:chug:
 






Thanks Rick & Mr. Alligator! It should be a fun time :chug:

So did just a little more this evening - wanted to tack on the lower link mounts & start to get a feel for how long I need to cut my links down to.

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As you can see, the main cross-member is also just tack welded in - nothing permanent yet. I will likely make some sort of a gusset between it and the frame - though, I did replace the OEM frame rails with 3/16" square tubing. I measured out the center and just did some mock-up clamping of the brackets on the bottom side of the cross-member:

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Then I leveled and tacked in the brackets I have available for the axle end of things - after which I slid the lower link in and came to realize the angle I have is way to steep for this out of the box bracket:

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This clearly isn't going to work! Now I am hunting down something that is ****ed off to the side a bit - maybe a 10° or 15° angle?

This is the only thing I have found so far - available on RuffStuff Specialties:

R2094-full.jpg


The bracket pictured has a 10° offset, however, I don't like how tall it is even at it's lowest point. I am going to browse around and see if I can find something better - if not maybe I'll just modify the one I have and see what I can come up with. If anyone happens to have a recommendation I am happy to check it out!

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No matter the outcome of this guy - I think my next task is modifying the other axle brackets I have and making a sort of mounting plate for the top of the diff.
 






So.... I am back at the drawing board - but in a good way. I was planning on running a two piece driveline that would mount to the top of the crossmember. Well, it turns out the U-joint that would be mounted after the hard mount won't have a prayer of hitting the angles that the rest of the suspension will. So, I chopped the crossmember out and am going to straight lower links and triangulating the top link from the outside of the frame. After coming to this conclusion (and a previous commitment to cut the floor out of the car) I decided I should start making a game plan prior to chopping all this stuff up.

Now, I'm not really good at planning - but I'm going to do the best I can with this thing. We have a scanner at work and 'The Man' happens to be a great owner. Couldn't ask for a better place to work. One of those perks was being able to use our scanner to scan the car and the frame. It also helps that I am one of the engineers that uses this thing on a weekly basis :)

Screenshot 2020-09-20 145708.jpg


So the above image is part of the stitching process. Long story short - this scanner takes all these scans and has to stitch the scans together to create a complete image. These auto stitched fine (mostly due to good common geometry like flat steel surfaces from all the stuff in the shop) but 2 under the car had to be manually stitched - was a crap shoot this time. Only one stitched ok, the other I gave up on and just deleted.

Below are the shots of the car after processing the scans - stitching - creating a 'point cloud' (which just takes the bazillion points and consolidates them to a few million points) - and cropping what I want as an export to a ReCap file.

Screenshot 2020-09-22 072552.jpg


Screenshot 2020-09-22 072721.jpg


I didn't take a screenshot of the stitching process - but I scanned and did all that hoo-haw with the frame as well. It came out super good and is pictured below getting ready for export:

Screenshot 2020-09-20 134025.jpg


Now I can only work on this on the weekends or before work so it has taken some time to get everything processed and finally into inventor - but I did get the frame into inventor today!

Screenshot 2020-09-22 160337.jpg


So now I can do stuff like model up replacement parts of the frame - then see how it will fit with the existing frame and the body of the car. On top of all this - I had a wheel bearing go out in the Exploder and was up this evening replacing both of them so I don't loose a tire on it like I did on the Junker.

Anyhow - I'll keep this updated as I go - I'm sure this will be a disaster going down the road (especially if the insurance company knew this was all going on).
 






@Suicide77 Are you still around? I looked you up on FB and saw that you deactivated your account. I was looking for pics of the finished car out in the salt flats. I hope all is well.
 






@Suicide77 Are you still around? I looked you up on FB and saw that you deactivated your account. I was looking for pics of the finished car out in the salt flats. I hope all is well.
Yes sir! Just finished my senior year of college which certainly took up a bunch of my time. I'm glad I made it clear that this thread will be randomly resurrected years later, with all sorts of back pedaling to fill in gaps. Have yet to finish the chassis - blew up the trans last year and swapped in a T5 behind the 390. The Junker is hilariously conspicuous as seen in the attached photo.

full
 



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I love this car....especially the carb check valve ball dimpling on the piston.
 






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