I have been working on this thing for a couple months now and figured it was time to start a thread to document the progress. This is a truck I am building for myself to have fun in and possibly race at some point. I picked the truck up for $400 and went to work. The current plans are 6-8" over equal length beams up front with 2.5"x12" Radflo coil-overs, fully caged front bumper to rear bumper with 1.75" DOM, 33" Toyo MT's, prolly stay leafed in the rear till winter time then it will get 3 linked. The truck currently has a 2.3l but I plan to swap in a 4.0 ohv with a c4 trans equipped with a full manual valve body and art carr shifter.

here is the truck when I picked it up

 

first thing I did was start tearing it down and getting the interior stripped for the cage.






then I started figuring out how I wanted the cage using bend-tech


got her pulled in the shop and started tearing everything else down




then I got started on the front bumper as I already had it designed and tubing here waiting to build it.

 

built some boxed mounts for the bumper


got it welded on to the truck



put some tubes up front as gussets and something to mount the skid plate to

 

Looks good when you build the cage could you please take a lot of pics as im going to cage my truck this summer hopefully and i like the bendtech design you have so far also pics of how it ties into the frame would be nice. Are you going to put the factory dash back in or fab your own?

 

Sweet build man im going to be racing next season in 1450. Guess ill see you out there!

 

cage is build just trying to get it all posted up... I have tons of pics to get in order then they will be posted... thanks for checking it out guys!

 

Moar pics!

Suspension time!
I built all my brackets out of cardboard first


Then cut them from 3/16" cold rolled steel


punched some holes in them and welded them up


capped off my D35 beam ends and bent some tubes up for the beams (1 3/4" USA DOM)




and whipped up some radius arms as well


the beams about ready for some plating


heims, tube adapters and mis-alignments showed up from ruff stuff


mocked everything up and got the radius arms tacked to the beams and caster set (j-beam setup)



cycled it to check clearances



pulled everything back off to plate beams and get brackets welded to frame

 

You do some great work. That thing is beast!

 

got the beams all plated and painted



plated the frame with 3/16" cold rolled plate and welded the beam pivots on





got everything bolted back up



picked up a set of Radflo 2.5"x12" coil-overs


tore the shocks down to fix a leaky seal and replace oil



then I got started on the engine cage/shock mounts





got the shocks bolted up and cycled the suspension. (17.5" travel bumped and strapped)

 

thanks man I appreciate the kind words... it should be a fun truck when finished

 

HOLY CRAP BATMAN!! What a build!

 

damn those are some nice welds

 

thanks guys

got the radius arm pivots painted, drilled and bolted up



got my eibach springs and put them on my shocks



also got limit straps, resi mounts and some cromo tabs for the straps


mounted the coil-overs up


got the straps mounted too

 

You've done a lot of work for only 5 hours lol

 

Why the 12" coilovers on equal length beams? I would have at least gone with a 14" way more travel you could have pulled. Also will you be running crossover steering?

 

for one I got a good deal on the 12's and Radflo shocks have a slightly larger body than king, SAW etc. so if I would have went with a 14 I would have been much more limited on bump travel. as of now I am about 50% bump/droop travel which is where I wanted to be. it is strapped at 17.5" travel which should be plenty. and yes the truck will be running crossover steering soon.

 

Looks sick! You seem to do great work.

 

thank you! I do my best

 

damn good build man, im looking forward to this one! oh wow your like 10 min a way form me. i may have to come see this in person!

 

haha ya you are close by. ya come check it out sometime man....

 

Nice build and beautiful welds!

 

thank you!

 

wow men love it! great build i wana see this thing done and jumping!

 

wow this is so sweet!

 

MOAR!