awesome!!

 

Ehem...

Thanks guys!

The compliments are what help keep me going and motivated, so lets please leave them. Thanks.

 

Thing is sweet. I have some cathcing up to do on teh reading but Looks like it has came a long long ways. Maybe you already posted but how much travel you going to get?

 

yeah... basically... it just straight looks awesome.

can't really say much else, except i look forward to seeing it work.

 

does someone need a ranger-forums sticker to be stragically placed in a picture for the magazine? hmmmm? lol

it's looking pretty fancy, jason! keep up the good work. i'm ready to see that truck jumping through the air.

 

I did say it above, but it is bumped/strapped at 28". I can, "can", get 37" of travel out of it, with both a clean pinion angle and driveshaft plunge. But that is with only a 16" coilover and no bypass. Also it wouldn't work worth an ****, anyway read above if you want to know more of why it is stopped at 28".

 

Thanks!

Actually... there are two. And yup, they may just end up in the magazine

Speaking of which, I may need two more, but thats another conversation.

 

Oh, and by the way... It's ALIVE!!!

Just fired it up for the first time in 32 days not 10 minutes ago. All the fuel cell plumbing is done! And working!

 

Thanks, I will admit I have not read it for a about a week now and need to play catch up on my reading.

Do not repsond if you already stated this but is there any plans for the front? Seems like now the front wont keep up

 

Don't worry, there were no updates for a week... lol.. its actually in todays, which I posted here too by the way..

Nope, no more plans for the front. Just new bushings, greese zirks (Aaron adds these now, but didn't when I got mine), and fix the steering. I have the front so dialed in that it should keep me happy for a long while. I do have plans though, for the distant future, but no plans of ever giving up the Dixon kit, I love it too much.

 

**** is lookn mean man. i wanna down with you guys so bad.. i wanna be building a desert truck instead of watever the hell im doing with my now lol

 

Whoo! It's running! It looks awesome!

Jason, why did you choose to mount the coilovers to one of the links? It seems to me you might run the chance of bending one of those things straight in half if you had some bad luck. Those links DO look like they're pretty well beefed up. I just don't have any real-life experience with this sort of thing to know if it'll hold up to the kinds of stresses that your truck will likely be seeing. Is it so that you can get more travel out of the axle with a shorter coilover?

Oh, and what's the damage to the wallet for this project?

 

yes your on the right track Kyle... and..cause thats where you put em der!

 

kyle, for one, where else would he put em, really? He could mount them to the axle... but then the travel would be severely limited.

& and are you worried about bending the link in half, or the shock shaft? I'm going to assume you meant the link... and yeah, they're built pretty beefy for a reason

 

Well the coilovers act as the spring to keep the frame off of the axle, and generally you see the spring mounted directly to the axle. By mounting the spring halfway between the pivot point (frame mount) and the axle (point of load), he is in effect creating a torque/moment around the spring mount. Basically, the spring is pushing down, the axle is pushing up, and the horizontal distance between the two creates a bending moment which tries to bend that link in half. If the coilover was mounted at the axle then you wouldn't have that. I know that those links are going to see tremendous forces with the jumping and everything else, so that's just something that stands out to me as a possible failure point. There's a trade-off between travel and strength and because he mentioned not needing all the travel that he could possibly get, I wonder if there is another reason why they are mounted where they are.

This is the first "desert truck" that I've seen in real detail, so I'm just trying my best to analyze it and compare it to the other trucks I see (namely rock crawlers). There are obvious differences and I'm just making sure I'm putting two and two together and still getting four.

 

You are right in thinking that, it is a high stress point.

95% of desert trucks mount the links of the trailing arm. It's better for travel, spring rate (its hard to get soft enough springs to really set up a 1:1 ratio off the axle), and packaging.

If you look at how trailing arms are made you will see how they can withstand such a load. These ones are made with 1 3/4" DOM heavy wall tubing for the base, 3/16" steel sides and 1/8" double plated top, and it has internal gussets for support. And these arn't even the most beefy arms on the market.

A couple more things to think about when looking at the load placed on these arms is the actual weight of the truck. The rear of this truck weighs nothing. We are talking maybe 1000 lbs tops. Also consider that there are only two bolts holding the weight of the truck, two 1/2" bolts. Sure they are Grade 8 but still. I think you are thinking bigger than what I actually have here. Plus the fact that the system is always moving, there is never really an end point where the force culminates. Now if something breaks, like say a bumpstop, then there could be issues because the force now has to go someplace else, someplace its not designed to go.

Basically there is not right or wrong way to mount the coilovers (in regards to placement). I have ridden in trucks linked off the axle and in trucks linked off the trailing arm, both work well. And to this point I have yet to actually see a trailing arm snap in half.

I'm sure that didn't make sense, but I hope it helps at least a little.

You really don't want to know. Think GNP of a small country.

 

Updates from Day 31 and 32 are up!

You can see them HERE

or here

http://blogs.off-roadweb.com/6209440...ild/index.html

or here

http://blogs.off-roadweb.com

 

Day 33 Updates are here at last!

You can see them HERE

or here

http://blogs.off-roadweb.com/6211212...ild/index.html

or here

http://blogs.off-roadweb.com

 

Cool idea with the wiring. Why/when would you have to remove your bedsides?

 

I think you are right. I do have a tendency to think big and DEFINITELY have a tendency to try and over-engineer stuff. It all makes good sense to me though. Thanks! I'm gonna read some more and see if I don't have any more questions for ya.

 

Oh shoot... removing the bedsides makes it easier to get to shocks for tuning, easier to get shocks off, easier to work on the rear end, easier to work on the bed, wiring, plumbing, its good for doing trails with lots of rocks, just take them off and not worry about them. There are tons of differant good reasons to want to take the bedsides off.

 

Hey Jason:

Where did you get your information about the stock fuel stats? For instance like what kind of psi is typically needed for the 4.0 OHV and the wiring of the pump and stuff.

 

Got it all right here on R-F. We have some very knowledgeable members.

 

Yer damn right we do!

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by rngprerunner

And a note to other Mods... please do not delete the "looks good" and other such posts, as I really don't mind and like to keep them. Thanks.

Ehem... thanks.