Something w/ rabbits. 72.5 pages of BS | Page 83 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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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 :rolleyes:) 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 :D !!

- 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:

DSC000871.jpg
 



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That shifter design was a no-go. So it was redone.

The gold part is a 14" long, 1" OD aluminum suspension link tube I found on SummitRacing. The clamp that holds the gold tube was a scope mount I got from Ebay for $5 shipped. The heim is a 5/8" shank, 1/2" eye aluminum heim with misalignment spacers. And the univeral joint part was a steering shaft, also from Ebay.

shifter_overall.jpg



shifter_front.jpg


shifter_back.jpg


shifter_heim.jpg


A video:
 



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ummm wow looking at the pictures i initially thought that ain't gonna work until i watched the video and see how well it does work .

nicely Done :D
 






Now that is a work of art.
I want it framed and hanging in my dining room. :p
 






nicely done:notworthy
 












Battery mount.

Front:
battmount_front.jpg


Back:
battmount_back.jpg


Located right behind the passenger's side seat (seat removed for pix) and in front of the radiator:
battmount_tacked.jpg


Battery is a Deka Intimidator AGM group 48:
battmount_intimidator.jpg


Close up of the "rocker" clamp which goes over the battery handle and applies an equal amount of force over the two "pads" at the front and back of the battery. All of the rocker's plates are 3/16" thick alum. The center pivot will be replaced with a solid 1/2" alum rod (currently a tube cauz that's what I had at the time).
battmount_rocker.jpg
 






I like the shifter, but be careful with the scope mount. Its not designed to take any kind of side torque. As long as you have a light touch with it, it should be fine. If you are like me and slam gears, it might break.
 






Thanks Mr. Kennedy, will keep that in mind!
 






wow i cant believe i never read through this yet... just did and i want to see an overview shot!!!
 






wow i cant believe i never read through this yet... just did and i want to see an overview shot!!!

Can you imagine a time lapse video of the past few years?!? That would be great. Maybe some one will take all the pics from this thread, and make a video from them, and post to youtube for us all to see!
 






Can you imagine a time lapse video of the past few years?!? That would be great. Maybe some one will take all the pics from this thread, and make a video from them, and post to youtube for us all to see!

ooOOOooo now that would be awesome... :confused:
 






Minor things done..

Had to redo the coolant tubes to clear the battery and finally made tabs for the hydraulic cooler:
coolantlinesredone.jpg


Converted the fuel rail to -6 AN (first time TIG welding stainless). The other rail was capped off ("dead head") since the FPR will be mounted close to the fuel tank:
convertedfuelrail.jpg


Mounted the electric brake booster low:
brakebooster.jpg


And now for the most controversial part, the hand throttle. It's modeled after Alex Zanardi's design (a quadriplegic race car driver -- CART, F1, etc..). Anyways, it's obviously not done yet but it'll sit somewhere behind the steering wheel and you pull to increase RPM. It'll become more obvious once its near completion but here's where the ring is going to sit:
throttlering_wheel2.jpg


The ring was made by wrapping it around an 8" baking pan - annealed with a propane torch and hand bent:
throttlering_formed.jpg


throttlering_wheel.jpg
 






Why is the hand throttle controversial?
 






Why is the hand throttle controversial?
Oh cauz its been swimming in my head for weeks now, spent a ton of pages sketching a design, how to fabricate it (steel, aluminum, composites?), and I'm not 100% sure yet of the execution but I'm just going to go with this design and hope for the best. It'll also "stick" (doesnt return to idle) so it's going to interface with the transmission's neutral safety switch to kick it back to idle every time the shifter is put into Neutral.
 






why not get one of them springs everybody is using for the c clip eliminator dealio and use it for a return spring, ??, they don't require that much force to depress.
throttle could be on a sliding sleeve with a setup like a rotor for bmx brakes on the headset
 

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why not get one of them springs everybody is using for the c clip eliminator dealio and use it for a return spring, ??, they don't require that much force to depress.

Here is the info about that spring. At least what I got when I measured it.
Echo spring # 69621655730

Here are the #'s I got while measuring....

28 PPI
1.447 OD
1.213 ID
coil wire thickness .113

I did try a couple other springs before that echo spring and found some other ones from the center of the string head of some other weed wackers were shorter and softer. IIRC, the ones I tried at first were only 10 PPI. I might even still have them lying around if you want to try them.

~Mark
 






...I am really digging the use of a rasp for the hand throttle...:biggthump
 






Sometimes I wonder if IZ is building something for space travel or off roading :scratch:
 






Sometimes I wonder if IZ is building something for space travel or off roading :scratch:

Both, what you don't know is in his other garage is the delivey vehicle for the current Mars rover we're seseing being built.
 



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Made a fuel filler, but waiting for some parts from my brother so I only got this far:
fuel_filler.jpg


Inside of the fuel filler - big hole for filling, with two smaller drain holes at the bottom, and three holes at the top for vent during the filling process:
fuelfiller2.JPG


Started the electronics package thingy - the computer and megasquirt. I'm also waiting for a small audio amplifier board to arrive just for some audio feedback or easy listening. The motherboard is on top (not mounted yet), hard drive on the left held by a stainless steel bracket, megasquirt sits under the motherboard, and to the right of megasquirt is the power supply for the motherboard:
computer01.jpg


Also tested out the LCD, 1500 nits of wholesome photons arriving at my face. Max native resolution is 800x600 - not bad but not great either, but it'll have to do:
lcdfiredup.jpg
 






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