48 chevy truck

[idrivejunk]

Good thing you have multiple angels working on it, I'd hate to think you had to tackle it alone. 

[kb426]

O&S does not hold back. Those who have followed my threads for years have seen multiple repaints and redos. Here's another one. The height struts I made are square tubing so there's no side movement. I had a piece of 4" tubing around them checking for clearance when mocking up. I must not have held it centered enough. You can see in the pics that the spring is making contact with the a arm. Tomorrow I will remove the upper mounts and start over. The shock will have to be leaned forward to clear the a arm and the lower frame mount. Just another day in paradise. Chalk another one up for the blind old guy. LOL.

[WZ JUNK]

I hate redos, maybe it is because I have to do some many.  I feel your pain.

[kb426]

After having a couple hours of walk away time, I realized, I checked clearances at ride height which is 12.5" of shock travel. I had to undo the upper a arm and lower the lower a arm to install the shock at full ext. height of 14". Because of the geometry of the c4 front suspension, at full drop, the clearance went away. Now I know where the arc of travel is. LOL.

[kb426]

O&S front and center: I don't know that anybody will say this is good but I solved the problem without throwing everything away. I didn't want to reweld were the original brackets were. I used the plasma cutter to remove the bracket and then trimmed off a bunch of weld. By the time the bracket was trimmed up, it was short. I wanted thick material under it to avoid flexing. In retrospect, I should have done this in the beginning because it allowed better welding. As I went to make everything clear, I just kept making more problems. I ended up trimming the lower frame mount and redrilling the bolt hole on it. When I got close, the a arm cross bolt didn't clear the coil over mount. I have to remove the upper a arm to install the coil over as it is. 2 lbs of crap in a 1 pound box. I put in a pretty good day and have one side completed. I hope tomorrow goes faster.

[jaybee]

Doesn't help that this suspension wasn't made for coilovers in the first place. Not that converting these suspensions to coilovers hasn't been done. You're getting it done, but you're right, there isn't a lot of room for error in the dimensions.

[kb426]

O&S has completed the left side. I'm ready to move on to something next on the list. That's not quite 4 days for 2 coil over mounts. Is that a record?

[WZ JUNK]

That is fast for me.  Keep at it.  Whatever gets done is something that had to be done, and you are moving towards the end.

[kb426]

O&S moved on to mounting the drivetrain today. I used a crossmember from a Ford truck and modified it to work. I bent up some brackets and milled one for adjustment slots. I had 3 ideas for engine mounts and didn't like any of them. I took a break after 4pm and went for a cycle ride. When I returned, I had a better idea. I started cutting parts for it before I quit. O&S at his finest. LOL.

[kb426]

O&S had another day of a little progress. The right side engine mount is welded from the top. The left side needs one angle cut on the brace and more welding. The mount consists of 1x2 .125 wall layed down for the top and the same material angle cut for the brace. The round tube is 4130 3/4 .058 wall. I ran out of argon today. $173.59 with tax. My machine shop friend came over and looked at the front end. His remark was about how close everything was. He does industrial engines where space isn't much of an issue.

[kb426]

O&S has developed a new habit. 1st thing in the morning, cut off part of what you did the day before. LOL. I didn't anymore than walk in the house and I started thinking about another way to brace the engine mounts. I cut off the diagonal on the right side and started looking at what would be better. I ended up with .250 x 1.5" flat metal and cut a part for each side. The part that is on the side of the 1x2 is welded on the side of the tube. The short side should be under the most stress from the weight of the engine so I have doubled the amount of material I'm using for a brace. I removed the engine to be able to weld the lower portion on the frame. I tacked the top until I installed the engine to make sure I could control any warpage. That worked out well. I finished welding the trans mount and moved on to the rear. I spent hours aligning everything to make it as close as I could. I checked driveline angles using the Spicer calculator and can up with 2.25 degrees of angle on the ujoints. Next is to make front mounts for the rear carriage. The ride height is set so I think making brackets should be fairly simple.

[kb426]

O&S has the rear mounted except for braces on the 2 rear mounts. I'm not comfortable with using the rubber bushings for alignment by themselves. I put 2 additional brackets in the inside of the frame to add a little more rigidity. The weather may be wet tomorrow so I put the cab on so I can start cutting the floor for clearance on the driveline. Once that is done, cab mounts might be next.

[kb426]

O&S had a short day. I positioned the cab and measured for cab mounts. The original on a 48 is 2 at the front and 1 at the rear. The cab was designed to pivot with flexi frames. I'm leaning towards 4 per side. The cabs aren't really strong so maybe this will be a good idea. I used the plasma cutter and rough cut a hole for the driveshaft. I'm going to need to cut the rear of the seat frame some. The front can remain uncut. Time for thinking again.

[jaybee]

I didn't realize you were putting such a short little bed on it. That's going to be very sporty, nice.

[enjenjo]

The later truck cabs had two rear mounts. the smaller ones had a rubber bushed shackle type mount on each rear corner, and the big trucks had two mounts one on each side of a crossmember at the rear of the cab. the rear mounts were similar to the front ones.