94 Crawler's sas thread #1 | Page 4 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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94 Crawler's sas thread #1

Ok the plan is to go to d44/ 9 inch. This will give me a base to work from for further mods including 3/4 ton front hubs and breaks and a full floating 9". Eventualy the 609/ true Hi9 front I'm daydreaming of. But we must walk befor flight.

So here is the plan. Since I have the d44 and it is a 79 Bronco with cast in wedges, I will be staying with radius arms (extended and thinking of using Johnny Joints rather than hymes). 5.5 wild horses rock crawler springs. 1 ton chevy tre's. Posibly hydro assist. Of corse 4.56 gears and depending on what is in this 9" I'm suposed to look at, choice of locker to come.

I will pull the 35 this weekend and get started .

Here are some pics.
DSC02060.JPG


DSC02061.JPG


DSC02062.JPG


eek :eek:
DSC02069.JPG
 



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Another unexpected problem. My carrier will not except the aussie due to the aussie needs a 4 pin 31 spline open carrier. Dose anyone have one they will sell me.

whats the problem with yours
 



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Mine is a 28 spline case with 2 spider gears. The problem is the rear came out of a two wheel drive truck and not a bronco. Big bronco parts are like hens teath and with the price of metal going up they are getting harder to find.
 












Ahaha oh woops!
 






Its ok I have 3 9" carriers and they are all 28 spline 2 spider cases.
 






Another unexpected problem. My carrier will not except the aussie due to the aussie needs a 4 pin 31 spline open carrier. Dose anyone have one they will sell me.

I have one, but it already has a mini-spool installed in it. It's super easy to remove though in favor of the Aussie Locker. I'll Pm you and see what we can work out.
 






Getting in here to see how this goes!

Looks good so far!
 












Well some updates. No real progress :(. Got the carrier for the nine inch built cake:thumbsup:. I'm convenced that the 44 is not suposed to ever get a good pattern, i've spent around 12-15 hours trying to get a good pattern. I finaly bought a pinion depth checker set it to the depth etched on the pinion and too deep just like with the origional shim pack thickness. I moved it .005 away still too deep. So I moved it .005 more. The cost is probably close to- to far away and the drive pattern still looks to close. I have never had this much problem setting up gears and i have done several sets probably in the hunderds. But I will carry on maby some pics soon:salute:
 






I have a HF tube kinker. I had planed on bending the arm in a vice with help from a rosebud. I may still go that route.

Your HF kinker should do fine. Mine did this to DOM (without kinking- DOM holds up way better to it):

P1011056-1.jpg


I would build them like diggers and bend the DOM like me. I don't know how the frame will line up if you bend them though. Those that I built went on a fullsize bronc and when the arms were extended 15", they ended up way inboard of the frame so part of why we bent them was so we would end up on the frame and not in the center. I pictured it driving like crap if the links were mounted in the middle, not at the outside.

I would imagine it would bend the stock arms no problem.
 






1. Most of us with the 5.5 WH springs have a coil height of 18" with the truck sitting at ride height. That's also an explorer with a 4.0. I'm not sure how a ranger with a 5.0 compares in weight.

2. Everyone has done different numbers when it comes to moving the axle forward. Off the top of my head:
Mine - 0"
Stic-o - 3"
IZwack - 4"
section525 - ~2"
rockranger - ~3"
DB_1 - ~1" (having the same truck as you he runs 37s too.)
So that all depends on what you need to do for clearance really.

3. I'll look through some of my pics, I'm sure I have some of a few of these trucks.


I moved mine forward 3.5". My reasoning was that this was as far forward as I could go with out extending the front driveshaft. It doesn't matter now because of my doubler, but when I built it I was concerned about that extra $80 to extend a shaft everytime I demo'd one. (I haven't demo'd any). I wanted mine as far forward as possible to help my approach angle. My coil buckets are around 2" to 2.5" forward. May axle is 3.5"
 






I have a couple of questions.

1 How high are you all mounting your coil buckets? A measurment from the bottem of the frame or however you did it.

2 How far forward did youall go? I am currently figuring on 3" from 125" to 128"

3 Dose anyone have pics of the pig at full stuff? I think I'm going to have problems with headder clerance.

I mounted them as high as possible. My reasoning was that in the same ride height, a longer coil will yeild more travel then a shorter one at the same ride height. I went with 7" BC broncos coils. They are linear rate. Soft, flexy and drive good on the road. I ran 5.5" WH coils and I didn't like them. The didn't flex like I wanted on the trail and felt stiff on the road. Besides, my diff hit the crossmember over speed bumps. I used f150 buckets and I left them at full height. Here is a pic or two:

Coil buckets:
http://groups.msn.com/KirbyandChuck/kirbysnavajo.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=131
http://groups.msn.com/KirbyandChuck/kirbysnavajo.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=133

Here is the passenger side at full stuff:

Navajo034.jpg

I think you will find that header clearance is not a huge issue during articulation. Mine hit the header on my driveshaft at compression of both sides, but not during articulation because during articulation the passenger side was drooped enough to keep enough clearance at the diff. ( I do realize you have a bigger y pipe/ header).

Pics of driver side, you can see I have pretty good clearance during articulation:
Navajo024.jpg

Navajo022.jpg

Navajo026.jpg


I narrowed my 44 6" so I think that will work to your benefit as well. You should have more clearance since your diff will be 3" further from center.

More on question #2, I would not more it further forward then 3.5" due to clearance on the pitman arm and upper TRE on the drag link. Mine actually makes contact with the TieRod when I become airborne. Again, not an issue in most situations (like articulation). When I built mine I was running heim steering and it clearedthe Tierod. With the 1 ton chebby TREs I am running now it doesn't clear. Probably 3" would be ideal.
 






Your HF kinker should do fine. Mine did this to DOM (without kinking- DOM holds up way better to it):

P1011056-1.jpg


I would build them like diggers and bend the DOM like me. I don't know how the frame will line up if you bend them though. Those that I built went on a fullsize bronc and when the arms were extended 15", they ended up way inboard of the frame so part of why we bent them was so we would end up on the frame and not in the center. I pictured it driving like crap if the links were mounted in the middle, not at the outside.

I would imagine it would bend the stock arms no problem.

I ended up doing something different. The arms end up outside of the frame but the bend aught to alow for more steering travel here is a pic of the arm.

DSC02214.JPG


I have also located my axle at 127" which is +2". Everything just lined up best there. Thamks for the info Kirby
 

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Ok I'm still disgusted with the d44 so i spent the afternoon working on the 9". It took quite a while to weld in the truss as i would weld 4 random 1" welds and let it cool for an hour. Also i built a knock off purple cranium weld on spider for the 9".
The trussed 9" Competition Engenering axle truss
DSC02212.JPG

My rear axle spider
DSC02211.JPG

Here is waat it will look like when it is welded on. First i need to locate the new spring pads and decide shock location. Most likely outside the frame rails.
DSC02213.JPG

Yes this is upside down
 






Ok I'm still disgusted with the d44 so i spent the afternoon working on the 9". It took quite a while to weld in the truss as i would weld 4 random 1" welds and let it cool for an hour. Also i built a knock off purple cranium weld on spider for the 9".
The trussed 9" Competition Engenering axle truss
View attachment 50887
My rear axle spider
View attachment 50888
Here is waat it will look like when it is welded on. First i need to locate the new spring pads and decide shock location. Most likely outside the frame rails.
View attachment 50889
Yes this is upside down

how much lower does it hang now?
 






how much lower does it hang now?

It will be welded directly to the bottem of the 9" housing the plate is made from 1/4" . I wont have a tremendous amount of pinion angle so the ground clearence lost should be minimal.
 






I ended up doing something different. The arms end up outside of the frame but the bend aught to alow for more steering travel here is a pic of the arm.

View attachment 50886

I have also located my axle at 127" which is +2". Everything just lined up best there. Thamks for the info Kirby

I like em. they look like diggers. Whats joint between the tubing and the cbushings look like? That is where it would be the weakest I would guess.
 






I like em. they look like diggers. Whats joint between the tubing and the cbushings look like? That is where it would be the weakest I would guess.

I have started by butting the tube to the c, which was cut down to fit inside of the tube. I am filling in the I with plate untill i get it to the size of the tubing. Then i will cover the c- tubing with plate triangulated like the Cage arms. Meanwhile I'm drilling the 1/2" holes where the shock mounts were to add bolts for strength because i dont trust the welds to cast. I'll take some pics when I get back to that part of the build.
 



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A little more work. I got the 8.8 out and did some mocking up of the 9". Here is a pic. Note the ground clearence with the spider in.

DSC02221.JPG
 






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