nssj2's SAS 5.0 Build

Here goes nothing. Time to get rid of the IFS and go soild. Just picked up the Dana 44 yesterday, so I guess I'm allowed to start my thread. The planning thread is here. I'm hoping to have this wrapped up in a month or so, and I'm sorry in advance for the newbie questions lol.

So this is what's going down.
97 Mountaineer 5.0 w/ 4406

Front:
79 HP Dana 44 FW, 4.56 gears, Superior chrome moly axles and soild ujoints, warn premium hubs, tbird calipers
Wild Horses 12" Extended radius arms, 4* bushings (need 7*)
6" Deaver Coils
12" travel procomp 9000 shocks
93 Toyota IFS Steering box
79 Bronco tie rods
Track bar from BC broncos
2010 Jeep Wrangler drag link
mystery pitman arm
94 aerostar steering intermediate shaft, lengthened 4"

Rear:
94 Ford 8.8, 4.56, aussie locked
SOA
4" superlift springs
explorer disc brakes
87 jeep cj7 rotors


Tires: 35x12.5 Goodyear MTR's
Wheels: American racing black classic
And a couple pics, of course.

Stay tuned!

 

[turboexplorer]

Looks great! Can't wait to check it out when we go wheeling next weekend! With two SASed mounty's

 

[turboexplorer]

Went wheeling with nssj2 this last weekend and what a beautiful truck. Loved it, well built and very clean just like I roll. Got some great ideas for my SAS off his rig. Good work nssj2, glad I got to put a face with the rig.

 

[gmanpaint]

Jim,
I am going to be doing the same full width set up as you did.

Trying to decide on using the F-150 arms & bushings I already have, or saving for a set of extended arms and BF joints with brackets. I really would like to use the RA's I have and save much needed $$ for other stuff tho. I already have a new set of bushings and a new set of 7* wedge bushings. (Plus I have the removable wedges on my 76 axle, if that helps any.)

My concern is with the bracket mounting on the 2nd gen frame. Was told it would not work on the 2nd gen.

You managed to make it work, but how? Details?

 

[nssj2]

Jim,
I am going to be doing the same full width set up as you did.

Trying to decide on using the F-150 arms & bushings I already have, or saving for a set of extended arms and BF joints with brackets. I really would like to use the RA's I have and save much needed $$ for other stuff tho. I already have a new set of bushings and a new set of 7* wedge bushings. (Plus I have the removable wedges on my 76 axle, if that helps any.)

My concern is with the bracket mounting on the 2nd gen frame. Was told it would not work on the 2nd gen.

You managed to make it work, but how? Details?

Good hearing from you, and right on for adding another SAS to the list! To stay cheap, the factory RA brackets work just fine. The heim setup will give you more flex, but less road manners. All I did was swap the sides of the full size brackets and everything bolted up too perfectly. Now, I am using extended arms from an Early Bronco, so they might have a different "kick" or bend than the full size arms. As soon as they start producing them again, These are the arms I'm upgrading to, but until then these are the ones that I'm running. Feel free to ask anything else!

 

[gmanpaint]

Yeah. the stock F-150 RA's are straight. I am welding on new wedges (james duff) to the axle to line it up.

I guess what I am asking is where the mounts end up on the frame for them, what is in the way and what needs to be done to be able to use the stock F-150 mounts. But if you used wildhorse arms, I don't know the length diff between them, so the mount location you used might be diff then the location I will be at.

I was checking out the wild horse link and stumbled upon these mounts they offer.

I have also seen a set of adjustable mounts offered by JD. Just not sure if they will work or not.

 

[nssj2]

The problem with the first set is since it's not a full boxed frame, you will have one bolt holding on your RAs. The JD ones are nice, and I thought about using them (just didn't want to spend the extra $). If you want to spend a little extra money and get them, the adjust-ability might just be a worthwhile payoff!

 

[turboexplorer]

In relation to where the original torsion bar keys sat at the end of where the frame is fully boxed where are your RA's mounted? Right where the keys where? Behind or in front of there?

More or less did you move the axle centerline forward any and how long are your arms from center of axle tubes to center of your bushings.

 

[Kirby N.]

I had the old style jd ttb radius arms with the adjustments in them and it was a gimick. not really useful for sure.

The nice thing about the raduis arms is that there is a good amount of give in the c bushings and the radius arm bushings so that they will tweak and conform to variance in frame with at radius arm mounts. If I remember right, when I did mine I bolted the arms up to the axle, then bolted the mounts to the frame, then wrestled with the arms trying to get them into the mounts. Finally, I loosened the radius arms from the axle, bolted the radius arms to the mounts, then tightened up the axle. Be sure to track down new radius arm bolts. The stock ford ones are old and break. IT sucks when you are in the middle of nowhere and realize your radius arms are only bolted on with 1 bolt on top and one on bottom- because the stock bolts broke! It ruined my arm too because the bolt was broke off inside. After that they all got new grade 8 bolts and that was the last. It was an odd size. 3/4" w/ 14tpi I think??

 

[bronchole]

Oops!

I am the happy new owner of this Mounty thought I have not taken delivery of it yet. I asked my friend who picked it up for me to drive it as much as possible to work out any bugs in it. I will be going up at the end of the month to pick it up and drive it back a thousand miles to California.

Well he was cruising it in to town the other day when he got the worst death wobble he has ever experienced. He pulled it over and found this:

It appears that Jim didn’t know that there is supposed to be a washer under the head of the bolt that holds the trac bar to the axle. This allowed the outer bushing to work its way over the bolt head and drop out. Then the trac bar slid off over the bolt head.

Luckily nobody got hurt and this is easy to fix. Glad this is going to be resolved befor my trip rather than during my trip.