LBZ: Pro Stock Diesel Pickup Build

[Michael]

Episode 13:

One thing I forgot to add to the last update: I hadn't driven the MBRP Dirtymax in a while as I was working on this truck, but the opportunity came up to drive it at the last 2 events of 2012. We ended up winning the World Championship in NHRDA Pro Stock!

The coolest thing is that over 40 million viewers tuned in to watch the event on Fox Sports Net! While that's great for the sport, I have to remember that it's probably a small fraction of the people who watch Honey Boo Boo (and no, I never have)...

A couple more sponsorship-related items:
Would you please "Like" our ISSPRO facebook page? It will help show the bosses that sponsoring this truck is a good thing! http://www.facebook.com/IssproInc

We are happy to announce that Mahle has signed on as an Associate Sponsor, and we will be running Mahle pistons in the truck. Don't tell them, but even without sponsorship help I would have gotten their pistons anyway

After all that excitement it was back to the garage! As I started finish-welding some of the junctions of several tubes, I found that I had to extend the TIG torch's electrode so far out that I didn't get good shielding gas coverage. I had planned to pick up a "gas lens" for the torch, which is something that focuses the flow into a nice even column of gas. I ended up getting a specific version of the gas lens called a CK Gas Saver, which is designed to work well at reduced argon flow rates (saving some money in the process). It was also cool that its cup for the shielding gas is a clear pyrex-type glass, giving better visibility of the arc and puddle.

I tried it out and it was awesome! Unfortunately it was also breakable, and I set the torch down on the jig to grab more filler rod, and it slid off and broke! I ordered some spare parts and got it back together. This thing would have already paid for itself in reduced gas costs, had I started using it at the start of the project. Heck, it is worth it in reduced blood pressure from trying to make some of those long-reach welds work!!!

Next up I installed the "X" braces across the roof of the cage. The corner mounting points resulted in some weird complex angles, so the tube end fitting was difficult and cumbersome (but then again what HASN'T been on this build???).

One item on tube fitting that is worth mentioning: when you use a notcher to cut the contour in the mating tube, the farthest forward edges end up downright sharp.

As I discovered early on, if you don't "blunt" those edges with a grinder, you end up with a very thin section when you weld, and if the weld puddle is at the edge of the tubing you will end up with a hole as the thin section melts away. By blunting the edges you move the weld location to where the tubing is full thickness.

I decided to go ahead and flip the chassis over and get at all the weld spots I had skipped to this point. Once I add the front of the chassis it will be a lot harder to flip and maneuver in my little garage!

I removed a diagonal from the firewall area, as that section will be extended to give me more room for the pedals. It was nice to have my plasma cutter working well again, having replaced a worn out electrode!

With that diagonal out of the way, I found that the section of the original floor had a twist to it, and needed a little "persuasion" to get it flat:

I added a new crossmember and alignment tabs for holding the front frame rails into the jig.

One of the things I am trying to do is come up with quicker ways of doing some of the repeated tasks in this build. One of those tasks is cutting small strips or plates of metal, either for the jig or for brackets on the chassis. When I built my gasser chassis many years ago I borrowed a Whitney shear and punch from my family business, which allows me to make short work of many of those tasks. I went ahead and found used versions of the same tools on ebay to use for this build.

As I started laying out the details of the floor area, I decided it was worth it to lay it out in CAD so I had a better starting point for the measurements and angles of the tubes I was going to be cutting and notching. I was hoping to do this in a solid CAD model, but I hadn't touched a solid/3D CAD program in MANY years! I had been using a freeware 2D program for the last several years to do simple stuff like laying out the rear frame of my small block Vega, and designing the parachute mount for my big block Vega. I found a decent solid modeling program with a free demo, but was still learning it and decided to just get it done in the 2D program I was familiar with:

I discovered that the freeware version didn't allow angular dimensioning, but the "Pro" version was only $37.50, and I've gotten waaay more utility out of their package than that over the years!

As with the prior spreadsheet I had used to organize the tubes I needed, this would help me optimize the cuts so I could get the most usable tubing out of the lengths I had. Plus it was something to do while thawing my toes on the really cold mornings of working on this chassis! The drawing would also help me figure out which tubes had to go in a specific order, to avoid "painting myself into a corner" like I did in the funny car cage area. With the larger diameter tubes that make up the main floor bars, the ratchet strap trick might not work!

Armed with the CAD drawing I was able to locate and sand down all of the spots on the main tubes where there would be welds (much easier while I could tip up the chassis), then started cutting and notching the tubes for the main floor pieces.

Yes, it looks like it's snowing or smoky in my garage from all the crap in the air from the metal prep work. After seeing that photo I decided to go back to using a respirator when doing that type of work!

Another thing you learn quickly about TIG welding is that the tubing needs to be REALLY clean both inside and out at every joint. When I started this work I was only cleaning as much as I used to do with MIG welding on mild steel, and the result was a weld puddle that snapped, crackled and popped like Rice Crispies on steroids. Now I use lots of carb cleaner to degrease, then a sanding disc on an angle grinder, plus a sanding roll on a die grinder to clean up the inside, then a final cleaning with carb cleaner. I make sure to NEVER use brake-cleaner, as some blends include chemicals that will turn into poisonous gas when exposed to heat.

I have now received written "blessing" from the NHRA on the photos of the previously disputed areas, as well as my CAD drawings of the remaining fabrication before the chassis certification (which should happen in just over a week when the certification tech comes to our local track). It's tough to get a lot of work done while still spending "quality time" with my daughter (and she's going through a "girlie girl" phase where she doesn't want to get dirty in the garage), so I've been mostly working after 9:30 pm and between 4:00 am and 6:30 am. I do my best to always keep the doors closed when doing something noisy, but my neighbors probably still hate me!

 

[Michael]

Episode 14:

At my last update I had finished the roof structure of the cage, next up was the floor.

I decided to build a generous "footbox" area, allowing me to have the pedals forward of the main firewall area. I wanted to be able to use brake pedals with a very long stroke, to allow me a lot of leverage to create very high brake pressure. This is to hold the truck while building boost before bumping into the staging beams and engaging the transmission brake. I also needed extra width on this footbox since I planned to use two separate braking systems on the truck, both for functionality and redundancy in case of a failure. One system will be pretty much a typical race car braking system, with one master cylinder actuating a pair of calipers on the front wheels and one pair on the rear wheels. My secondary system will consist of a second master cylinder, with a separate pedal positioned right next to the other one, and it will actuate a second set of rear wheel calipers, with these ones equipped with brake pads with very aggressive cold temperature friction. I will be able to center my foot over both pedals while building boost, then just use the "regular" pedal when slowing down after a pass, and if something fails in the main braking system I can use the secondary system to slow down. I was hoping to run a system like this, but until a few months ago the NHRA had banned secondary braking systems (yeah, I know, it seems ridiculous to ban a backup safety item).

Since I would have my feet beyond the "protection" of the main cage, I needed an additional tube that far forward:

As I started on the various braces across the floor, I ended up with a sharper angle than could be cut with my notcher. To make things even more difficult, I decided to offset these tubes so the tops were flush with the larger main floor tubes.

I would be duplicating the same angle 8 different times, so I knew there was a better way to do this than trial and error. I ended up hand-shaping the first one, then making a paper template for it:

I used the template to draw the contour on the tube, then used my plasma cutter to rough cut the shape and a die grinder with a carbide burr to do the finishing. For the spots with the mirror image of that contour I just turned the paper pattern inside out.

Another mini-challenge was a spot where I needed to notch both ends of a very short piece of tubing, and it was too short to be retained by the notcher clamp. I just stuck a smaller tube inside it, and a short section of the same diameter tube as a spacer, and clamped the whole mess in the notcher:

As I placed the floor diagonals I was bound and determined to weld things gradually and slowly to avoid warping the chassis again (starting with all of the pieces tacked in, then moving around and welding small sections in different areas, stopping frequently to let things cool).

I decided to spend some of that cool-down time unpacking the Fab9 rearend housing from Chris Alston's Chassisworks. I had previously noted that they packed the entire box full of spray foam, meaning I literally had to dig out chunks of spray foam to get the rearend out:

It was a fun but messy time for me and my daughter. We made a huge mess and filled up 3 garbage bags with the spray foam chunks!!!

One "gray" area in the spec was whether or not I needed an additional helmet bar on the side of the funny car cage (as my helmet would not fit through the opening, but it came close). I decided to err on the side of safety and add that bar:

It was also time to start adding a bunch of little gusssets as required by the spec:

While welding these areas and "skip welding" around I found myself having to put my torch hand onto areas where I had recently welded. I have seen advertisements for a device called a "TIG Finger" to protect that finger while dragging it along. I recognized the material as being the same as spark plug boot heat shields. My diesel friends might be asking what a spark plug is, but it is a contraption necesssary for gasoline engines to run I had a set of those heat shields tucked into the trailer, so I grabbed one and kept welding:

After finish welding all of those tubes I decided to mock up the engine & trans in the chassis, to figure out their positions and how much clearance I would need:

I ended up deciding to move it back 2" more than I had in these photos, to match up with my prior calculations for front end weight percentage. It will be interesting to see the final product and if the numbers match up with the theoretical values in my design!

 

[Burn Down]

Looks good Michael. Toying with picking up a ex race car chassis for a d-max swap... I will keep the issues you had in mind if I decide to go that direction.

 

[SmokeShow]

where are you targeting to debut this beast??? Looking so good its ridiculous. :thumb:

 

[Michael]

I was hoping to make it for the ISSPRO sponsored race at the end of June (with a non-built engine), but I'm running into too many roadblocks. Will probably regroup and plan for a built-engine version to debut at the NHRDA World Finals (hopefully with some local testing before then).

 

[Michael]

Episode 15:

As I was welding the angled floor bars together I found it hard to get decent shielding gas coverage when I had to extend the electrode well past the torch cup. I came across an online tip that worked well here - adding aluminum foil as a gas shield to create a little "pocket" of gas. It also helped to remember that Argon is more dense than air and will "fall" from the torch.

My progress was briefly interrupted by some necessary work on my gasser race car. I had a starter hang up near the end of last season, which chewed up a brand new SFI flexplate:

This necessitated a quick engine removal and replacement. The mid-plate flexplate shield prevents me from removing the flexplate without removing the engine. I had a busy time as I headed home from work with the engine still hanging from the engine hoist, but managed to get to the track in time to race and even win a few rounds!

I also had to completely revamp the drivetrain of my daughter's Jr Dragster. She turned 10 just as the tracks were shutting down for the winter. As an 8 & 9 year old she was restricted to 12.90 1/8-mile ET, but they make a huge jump to 8.90 ETs when they turn 10. The original engine should have gone about a 10.50 with the restrictor plate removed. We found an end of year race running Jrs and headed out of town for it. I had just fired up the Jr to warm it up, and the throttle seemed a little bit lazy to respond. I went to rev it up a few hundred RPM and had the connecting rod blast through the block!

I had previously bought an 8.90 engine for the car, and had a decent clutch on order. As I discovered, our ancient chassis meant that none of the "off the shelf" parts would be a simple bolt-up. I had to fabricate a lot of the mounting brackets, to achieve the proper belt tension and engine angle.

After all that I switched back to working on the race truck. I actually liked the distraction to give me a chance to mull over the 4-link mounting brackets, as this is one of the most important sections of the chassis. I decided to use lengths of threaded rod to space the brackets out perfectly. I even sorted through an entire box of nuts to find the ones with the closest measurements to stack together and automatically hit my desired gap in the brackets.

I clamped the whole mess together and spent a BUNCH of time making sure everything was aligned perfectly, then tack welded it and proceeded to weld it in place a little bit at a time!

I decided to let gravity augment my welding skills while adding reinforcing plates to the 4-link brackets:

It would have been a better appearing weld if I could have done it in a single pass, but there would have been way too much weld draw, leaving the brackets crooked in the chassis.

One of the SFI rules requires that you have an official "builder" identification plate on the chassis. I was able to bring it to work and have it done on a CNC engraver:

At that point in time there was a National Open event where the whole NHRA tech crew would be in attendance, so I headed up there to race my Vega and to get this chassis (hopefully) certified. The cert tech spent a while looking over the prior correspondence between me and the division tech director, then looked over my chassis. We had the whole big issue of trying to meet the letter of the specification but accommodate a stronger design for my main hoop tying into my main crossmember. The tech looked it over and asked why I didn't just put a bend in each end of the main crossmember and move the junction point to where I needed it. Crap!!! Why didn't I think of that!!! That change would have saved me a bunch of time and headaches, but it is water under the bridge at this point! After MANY hours and hassles I finally got my chassis certification!

After realizing how often I was refilling the 83 CF argon bottles while welding all this stuff, I traded up to a 150 CF bottle (which barely costs more than the 83's to fill):

I kept my second bottle as the smaller 83 CF one, I only use it to finish up if I run dry on the big bottle, and I'll keep it in the trailer when we head to out of town races.

As I started working on the remaining design aspects of the chassis (strut mounts, rear frame including shock, anti-roll-bar and parachute mounts), the need for a 3D CAD model seemed more critical then ever. After being disappointed with lower cost commercial packages I came across the latest version of Freecad, an open source software package (and FREE!). I tried the then-current version when I started this project, but it had way too many unfinished features. This one really impressed me. It still has a few glitches but works really well otherwise. Here is my model (with some items represented in rough form, like the strut top mounts are just as cylinders, and the engine only shows the balancer and mid-mount plate). I also left out sections that are already done and don't really need any more design work (top of cage, floor diagonals).

I suppose things were seeming like they were going too well, so something had to happen!

We headed up to Canda for the BD Diesel event at Mission Raceway. It was a chance for my daughter to get in two separate races in her Jr, and it was also a big bracket race that I would run my Vega in (as well as my dually in Sportsman ET). I was excited for Caitlyn as we finally had all the issues ironed out in her car, it was running VERY consistently and she was cutting killer lights. One issue she has with unfamiliar tracks is seeing where the 1/8-mile finish line is. At our home track they only run 1/8 mile for the weekly bracket program, so that finish line is well marked with a big white stripe, and no more cones past the finish line. At other tracks you are lucky if there is any stripe at all, and there are cones at the 1000', 1254' and 1320' marks. To compound matters they expect the Jrs at this track to make a U-turn on the track in order to make the return road. I took her down to the return road area before we ran, and she said she had a good look at it. On her 1st time run we derailed the chain (the tensioner had vibrated loose on the long tow there). On the next pass she cut a good light and make a perfect pass, but stayed in the throttle way past the finish line, then tried to turn into the "switchback" return road entrance before deciding to try to go back onto the track (which is what I always told her to do if she misses the turnoff). She ended up hitting the wall at a 45° angle, smashed up the car pretty well and gave herself a mild concussion and severe leg bruise.

The left front wheel was mangled and torn from the chassis (hanging on by the now-bent steering linkage), the rear axle broke on the impact sending the left rear tire hundreds of feet away in the motocross track, and the cage got flattened from the impact. The front section of the chassis is also pretty bent.

A good friend of mine (Dan Soran) builds race cars and has done a complete Jr for his sons to race, as well as a bunch of updates on area Jrs. He had previously suggested that we borrow their car and run it, as it is a nice state-of-the-art chassis (and ours is quite outdated), and it would be a chance for exposure for him to sell it. I decided to take him up on that, and also spent a few hours bending up tubes for rebuilding our car, as well as some tubes for the brake assembly for the race truck. I was originally planning to take my dually, but since it is a 800+ mile round trip I decided to see if I could successfully tow with my TDI Jetta. It towed great once I took the slop out of the hitch receiver. Nothing like getting 38+ mpg while towing!

As we get closer to the annual ISSPRO Pacific Coast Diesel Nationals (June 29th in Woodburn, OR), it is painfully obvious I won't have my truck running for it. I will have it on display though, hopefully rolling on its own rather than on a hand-truck like last year! Please come out and join us for this event. It will be quite an event, with the $6500 purse for Super-Street, plus the sled pulls, and a big "Top Comp" fast gasser race to fill in the time between the diesel passes. Of course the complimentary ISSPRO BBQ will be back as well. Hope to see you there!

 

[JoshH]

I'm really enjoying your build thread, Michael. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[SmokeShow]

x2 So cool seeing every detail of it come together. :thumb:

 

[Michael]

Episode 16:
First off I would like to thank everyone who came out to the ISSPRO Pacific Coast Diesel Nationals! Despite sweltering heat we had an awesome turnout of fans and racers, and got to see some awesome racing and sled pulling. We fed the most people yet at our BBQ (despite this being the 1st year of not running gassers at the same time). They did have a gasser "Top Comp" shootout with a limited field, just to serve as filler between the diesel classes. I hoped the big purse would bring even more Super-Street trucks out of the woodwork, but I know a few teams had problems and couldn't make the race, while others broke at the event before eliminations! I was forunate enough to come out with a runner-up again in Sportsman ET, regaining the lead in National points by a single round! I was also foolish enough to tackle singing the National Anthem for the event, doing it acapella and with almost no sleep!

Between that event and other recent events, I have been pleasantly surprised by how many people (many of them not directly involved in the diesel performance industry) approached me to say they are following this build (and a few of you gave me some well-deserved grief for the length of time since my last update)!

Back to the race truck!

Next step was to build the lower control arm mounts. These were at strange angles in 3D space, and despite creating them in my 3D CAD model I decided to hand-fit them to minimze gaps. I carefully built jig "extensions" which positioned tubes in the same location as the strut control arms will be.

After that I made cardboard mockups of the brackets to test-fit the shapes on the tubing. You know those annoying subscription cards that come falling out of your new Diesel Power magazine as soon as you open it? I finally figured out a use for them in this step!

After the first piece I actually switched over to used gift cards as my test mockup models for the brackets, as they were a little less flimsy than the subscription cards. Once I had the shape nailed down I traced it onto a piece of 3/16" thick 4130 plate (previously sheared into appropriate width strips on my dad's big ironworker press), then rough cut the shape using my plasma cutter. After drilling the holes and finish shaping with a carbide burr or grinding wheel, I had my perfectly-fitted brackets.

I carefully tack-welded these in, then skip-welded (short beads in alternating locations) while still anchored in the jig.


Next up it became evident that I really needed to get some better paint on this thing for the upcoming ISSPRO event. I started going over the cab and checking out various imperfections and cracks. I was surprised to find many voids in the original fiberglass surface, where they left a large air pocket when laying it into the mold.

A few of those were significant and also showed up as cracks, needing some repair work. I used an old trick of laying a sheet of plastic (like from a heavy plastic bag) over the repair to smooth it out while it cured. This helped me force the resin into the recesses from the voids in the surface.

I also found cracks in a really cheezy patch job, where they had filled in from prior roll cage rear bars.

I patched these and filled in with resin and mat, knowing that my rear bars will be at a different width anyway.

The driver's A-pillar on the cab turned out to be really bad, with huge voids in it that turned into a complete break.

I had to use a piece of flat stock to reinforce that area, and fully glassed-in the piece as part of the repair.

Next up was shortening the bed from 7' to 6', to match my shorter wheelbase, After trying a couple of methods, the cleanest cut was with a cutoff wheel in an angle grinder.

I also had to remove all traces of old stickers from the panels, this was quite a chore requiring a heat gun, scraping, a couple of chemicals, and maybe a cuss word or two...


At this point I hauled the whole mess over to the ISSPRO factory and set up shop outside the paint booth. We have a professional-quality paint booth for spraying industrial coatings, so it was nice to not have to do this in my garage!

I shot several coats of primer and sanded between coats.

After the primer and finish sanding I was ready to shoot some color and clear.

I assembled things (including getting the grille in upside down for this photo) and hauled them out to the track for display at our race. As of 1:00 Saturday morning I had been running on about 4 hours of sleep since Tuesday morning!

Of course I put a ton of scratches in my fancy new paint hauling it back and forth from the track, but at least it is starting out looking reasonably nice (compared to my Vega that still has the same primer and damage from 1988)!

 

[SmokeShow]

Lovin the blue!!

 

[Michael]

I was actually hoping for a slightly lighter/brighter blue (as this paint appeared in the selection chart), but this is actually closer to the "official" ISSPRO blue. Still trying to dream up some graphics that will result in white over the roof of the truck, to keep the driver cooler on hot days!

 

[Michael]

Episode 17:
Sorry for the lack of posts in recent months. I am absolutely humbled at the number of you who have asked me (via emails, PMs, phone calls & in person) for updates on the truck build. Unfortunately the rate of progress had slowed significantly, as some family matters had to be given higher priority. Following the last update I had to devote significant time & resources to a child custody hearing (which dragged out into multiple dates). After that the main tasks were finding a new school for my daughter & lots of attention helping her get settled in (she is now with me 85% of the time).

Another distraction was preparing for the annual SEMA show in November, where we debuted our new datalogger (with built in 3-axis accelerometer and RPM & vehicle speed sensor inputs).

We also debuted the EV2 output module (which allows EV2 gauges to control external devices based on the value of whatever the gauge is measuring). I plan to put both of these products to good use in the race truck, using the datalogger of course to monitor all of the passes, and the output module to control things like cooling fans and potentially water/methanol injection.

While at the show I met up with an old friend (Steve Darnell) who is about to star in his own reality show building rat rods (coming in April on Discovery).

Coincidentally I met a guy who is also starting a reality show building rat rods, Aaron Hagar. Yes, of THAT Hagar family (he is Sammy's oldest son). His show will be coming soon on the History Channel.

Getting back to the race truck: Continuing on the front suspension. Part of my plan to achieve desired front/rear weight distribution is to stretch the front suspension out as far as I reasonably can. This is a concept that doesn't really make sense intuitively unless you really think about it, but with a given relationship between the main masses (engine/trans) and the rear tires, the farther forward you can put the front wheels, the more static load goes on the rear tires. I will eventually stretch the fiberglass nose to improve the appearance, but mocked things up to make sure they physically fit now (even if it looks a bit goofy).

I researched the ways various chassis builders position the front strut upper mounts for welding. Some have fixtures for positioning the top strut cup, while others focused on the wheel hub position, then set the strut at the correct alignment and position the mounting brackets around that. In the prior post I had already positioned the lower control arm mounts, so I figured it would be a good "base" to use with the wheel hub positioning method. As a bonus I could reuse the wheel hub fixtures to position the rearend once I get to that step.

I drew up the bolt pattern on CAD, then used that to mark up a couple of pieces of steel. For the big hole with the hub I stole my daughter's compass to draw it, then marked over the pencil with a paint pen so I could see it while cutting.

I used a plasma cutter to rough cut the circles, and eventually cleaned up the cut with a die grinder.

I clamped, measured, nudged, remeasured, etc. several times to get the hub mounting plates in precisely the right position on the Jig.

I welded it in place, and was very proud of myself when confirming that it had not moved from the proper location.

Then I thought about it and realized that I needed to be able to move the hub up and down in order to check for bump steer! I punched a couple of holes in the plate and mount (using my Whitney punch I mentioned in a prior post), then enlarged the holes to be a near-interference fit with the bolts. After cutting the welds I was able to get it bolted back into the proper location.


Now it was time to assemble the strut top mounts. They come as flat plates which must be notched to match the tube contour, then welded to some machined cups which hold the sperical top strut bearings.

I made the mistake of trying to tack weld the 1st one with just gravity holding it.

As it cooled of course the weld draw caused the other side to pop up! I tried clamping it down (using a piece of scrap aluminum to try to let it clamp tight despite the lip on the edge).

I forgot to take a picture of it, but this was a disaster as the metal tore at the thin section while it was heated for welding. I needed something to clamp it together while leaving me room to tack weld. A quick glance through my rollaway found a front hub wrench which worked perfectly, allowing me to force the wayward bent/torn piece into shape for final welding.

I proceeded to "skip" weld around the perimeter on both sides, being careful not to overheat the thin edges. With the skip welding the beads don't look as nice as they would otherwise (you can see where I stopped to move to another area), but it is necessary to prevent warping!

Next up is the assembly of the struts themselves.

 

[Michael]

Episode 18:
Starting with a pile of parts, the strut bases need to be pressed on with dowel pins, then the steering arm is secured with a stud which passes all the way into the strut body. There are also two 3/8" bolts which thread into the base and prevent the steering arm from turning (and also give it some support from bending). As I followed the instructions of adding Loc-Tite and torquing both the stud and the bolts, I ran into a couple of issues.

First up, the stud was too deep to use even my deepest sockets to reach the 7/8" hex. Fortunately I had a 7/8" crowfoot flare nut wrench which I bought for changing the fuel bowl heater on my Powerstroke! When torquing with a crowfoot, remember to take the extra leverage into consideration. For example, if the crowfoot moves your pivot point 2.0", you multiply the required torque by 12/(12+2). As I went to torque the smaller bolts I discovered they had 5/16" 12-point heads, which isn't one of the options in most socket sets! Fortunately my Powerstroke specialty tools saved the day again, as I had purchased one (and had it stashed with my "special" sockets) to use on the 8mm 12-point bolts holding the downpipe to the turbo. I did discover that the bolts were too long for the holes, and they actually bottomed out about 0.080" before becoming tight. Be sure to check little details like that when building a race car/truck, at a glance it might have gone unnoticed! I was going to add washers, but decided to make lemonade out of the lemons, I will space them up with a separate bracket I will add later to anchor a front suspension travel limiter. I was trying to decide where to mount such a bracket anyway, so this made the perfect solution!

The Chassisworks strut kit includes a 4130 Chrome Moly strut bottom piece, which holds a spherical bearing for the bottom of the strut, and the rear control arm bar welds to it (so it effectively becomes part of the lower control arm). I had to temporarily press the spherical bearing into place for fit-up, but it will be removed later for the welding on that part. The installation instructions warn you more than once: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT WELDING WITH THE SPHERICAL BEARING IN PLACE! (or words to that effect)...

I installed the hub for that side, since that is what is going to mount to my jig holders for positioning the strut assemblies.

The other ends of the control arms are threaded ends with spherical rod ends. I installed the ends at the midpoint of their usable adjustment, then measured the lengths of the tubes for the lower control arms.

This was easier said than done, as the whole mess moves around in 3 dimensions but the strut top, hub center and angle needs to be precisely positioned. I ended up just placing the overlength tubes in place and measuring the distances from the mounting holes

After cutting the tubes to length I mocked it all into place, adjusting over and over until I had everything positioned and angled correctly. I was nervous cutting the control arm tubes until I realized they were just 1" x 0.058" tubing (I had a bunch of it for other parts of the chassis in case I screwed up).

At this point I realized that the front strut support bars would be passing very close to the front control arm mount (which was just tack welded into place at this point). As I confirmed that its position and ange were perfect in positioning the strut assembly, I finish welded it and added a gusset.

I made sure to set the strut angle at 10° backwards, setting it up for a positive caster alignment.

The next detail was to hold the strut at the exact "at rest" position that I wanted. This is one of those situations where building a truck rather than a car, and picking some unusual components can lead to some variations from the "generic" component instructions. I went with the longer (4") stroke struts, and the overall geometry was a bit different being a truck. The instructions that came with the struts would have had me installing them about 3" above the fully compressed position, which would have been more appropriate for an off road racer than a drag truck! A phone discussion with the manufacturer confirmed that I should be at 1" to 1.5" above fully compressed. I went with 1.375" above the fully compressed position, and cut some sections of fence post tubing to the exact length to hold the struts at that height. I cut a slot in each piece so they could be easily slid in and out of the assembled strut.

I did not have the luxury of readily replacing a screwed up cut when it came to the main strut support tubes, which have a bend (which I already did at my friend's chassis shop) and are quite long. If I screwed these tubes up I would be buying another 20' length of tubing, then running to my friend's shop to bend another one (a big wasted of time & money). As a result I roughed the cuts and notches in initially too long, then worked it down to the correct dimensions. In other words, measure 10 times, cut 5 times...

With weld draw as a possible issue, I did several VERY small tack welds to help hold things in place (and went back and checked position several times), then proceeded to stitch weld the ends of the tubes to the chassis. Since my electric heaters could only bring my garage up to about 39°, I made sure to preheat the weld areas with a heat gun.

The upper strut cup mount could only be lightly tack welded while having the upper spherical bearing in and attached to the strut (to prevent strut and bearing damage). I measured the angle of the mounting plate to make sure it remained unchanged as I disassembled and welded on it.

After removing the strut I used some sockets and a C-clamp to press the spherical bearing out of the mount.

Of course no matter how careful I was with the C-clamp, I managed to tweak the angle of the mounting plate, but at least it was easy to bend it back to the original angle.

I tacked in one side gusset to the mounting plate to help hold it while I stitch welded the plate into place.

I then proceeded to stitch weld the strut top mount, as well as both ends of the strut bars, then added the 2nd side gusset to the strut mounting plate. I mentioned previously about drilling air holes to relieve pressure when welding on shorter sections of tubing. I figured this section of tubing was long enough to not need it, but since I was alternating my welds on both ends AND the center, it still got hot enough to blow out while I was laying a bead!

Aside from that I was able to get things anchored down pretty well, and everything was positioned exactly where it was supposed to be. I wanted to make sure to have the chassis as stable as I could, due to my next plans... Hmm, what could those be?

 

[JoshH]

Mounting the engine next? Progress looks good!

 

[SmokeShow]

Your skills are so remarkable, especially for a hobbiest. I wish I had someone around that I could learn from.

I would say the cliche thing "keep up the good work" but we all already know you will & know you're going to have one of the finest machines in all of diesel motorsports when you're done. Kudos buddy. It's obviously a lot of work but producing something very near to perfect is bound to be.

 

[Michael]

Episode 19:

After that thrilling cliffhanger I'm sure you were all wondering what was next? Okay, maybe "thrilling cliffhanger" is really "slightly more interesting than someone's Grumpy Cat Internet Meme"...

I had discussed with my employer (ISSPRO) the possibility of bringing the chassis to work. This would serve two main purposes:
1) I could sneak back on breaks and get in some work on it during the day, and
2) I could avoid the inevitable frostbite-countering warm-up breaks from working in my freezing garage, and the potential of toe amputation from said frostbite.

In addition, I would have more workspace (it was starting to get cramped as the chassis is growing to full length), I could use the forklift for lifting & rotating the chassis to weld underneath, I could use one of our Bridgeport mills for machining brackets, and I could pick my daughter up from school in the afternoons (I'm a single dad with custody) and come back to work on it in the evenings. The plan was to work while she does her homework in a nearby office and I am available to verbally help her while continuing the fabrication process. That last part hasn't worked out quite as well as planned, with Caitlyn usually wanting to hang out in my office (where she spends more time doodling on my whiteboard than actual homework).

I decided to transport the chassis & the jig clamped together, figuring the chances of both making it intact would be improved with each reinforcing the other. Of course it also meant trying to move a nearly 2000 lb bunch of steel without wheels by myself! I jacked it up in my garage and placed it on wheel dollies:

I considered transporting it in my enclosed trailer, winching it up the ramp door, but my sloping lot would require me to get it up my steep driveway first (and I was working alone on a rather cold day). I decided to use my flatbed trailer with sideboards on to help hold in all the other crap I would be bringing.

I wheeled it up to the trailer, then used the floor jack to get the 1st end onto the trailer.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but I had previously been using the trailer for hauling firewood, and hadn't cleaned out the small pieces in a while. They formed a pretty big layer on the floor of the trailer, which was now frozen solid. I ended up spending an hour in the freezing weather chipping away at the pile so I could see the floor again.

At this point I used an old trick from moving safes out of grocery stores (dismantling the stores, NOT stealing the safes ). I used a couple of pieces of tubing as rollers, between the jig and the floor of the trailer. This was why I had to get the floor cleaned up!

Once I had the 1st roller up there it was relatively easy to push it up by hand.

After tying the jig & chassis down I packed in all of the remaining tubing, plus my welder, Argon bottle (securely strapped to the chassis), and a bunch of other tools.

Of course the door to the spot where they cleared out for me to work on it was a pain to get to (one of those spots where it takes a complete jacknife of the trailer), but I did it.

Unloading was just a reverse of the loading process. I thought about using the forklift, but it would have meant effectively "painting myself into a corner" backing the lift into a spot up against some machinery.

Of course my luck with this project continued. The next morning after moving the chassis and tools, there had been a forecast for possible light flurries. Instead what we got was a 5 day "Snowpocalypse", which would have barely slowed a Northern or Midwestern city but paralyzed our city. My plan was to use my old '73 Blazer to get into work (if it got too deep for my Jetta with snow tires & chains). I verified that my Jetta could not make it on the hills around my house and turned to the formerly trustworthy Blazer. That night I parked it with its nose and windshield under the overhang of my camper, thinking I was being smart and keeping the snow off of it. When I went to fire it up in the morning it would not start, and it was so pinned in that I could barely open the hood. After pushing it back as far as I could by hand, I was able to swap a bigger battery in, and discovered that it was not getting spark. It turned out to be a failed electronic ignition module (GM HEI distributor), and with the Pontiac 400 engine swapped into the Blazer it is a VERY tight fit working on that distributor even if you can get the hood all the way open! I was able to replace it working by feel (crammed into the claustrophobic space under the barely open hood). By this point I had burned up 3 days of the Snowpocalypse, spent another day sledding with my daughter to make up for it, and finally got to work on the chassis again!

With the mounting points for the right front suspension mostly complete, I moved to the left front and started with a pair of jig support bars precisely placed and tack welded down.

From there I precisely placed and tack welded the "dummy" bars for holding the lower control arm brackets in precise 3D space and angle.

At this point I discovered that making the 1st two of those brackets from my 3D model measurements (back when I was making the ones for the other side) was not such a good idea, with minute differences between the real world and my model.

The material for the brackets (like everything else on this chassis) was 4130 CrMo, but in this case it was a strap 3/16" thick a custom width to get the optimal size to get full engagement with the tubes and angles in question. Fortunately when I custom sheared these strips from plate stock I made extra! And since the four pieces are varying lengths, I could replace the longest one and use each piece to replace the next shorter one while leaving me enough length to get a precise zero-gap fit-up.

While intermittently fitting up those pieces I also welded the remaining supports on the right front strut upper mount, just welding 3/4" at a time to avoid weld draw.

The front outside mount in this picture was the most difficult one to fit with its weird compound angles, but I just went VERY slowly with metal removal until it fit!

The rears were a little less work since the angles weren't as severe.

At this point I was ready to start tacking them in place:

Unfortunately it was also time to lose another week on the project, as ISSPRO is displaying at the ConExpo trade show all week in Las Vegas. Thankfully this show is only once every 3 years, but of course it had to fall right as I was starting to make good progress again! I guess I'd better make sure to finish the project before the next ConExpo in 2017!!!

 

[SmokeShow]

:rofl: Clearly, just kidding. Still so impressed with every update. Thanks again for the detailed progress updates. Its so cool to see all the work that goes into something like this that people like me, who have never been around such fab work, can't really imagine how in depth it is. :thumb:

 

[TheBac]

Looks good , Michael. Kudos to ISSPRO for allowing you to work on it at their facility.

 

[Michael]

Mounting the engine next? Progress looks good!

Sorry, I didn't see that I had a reply! At this point you have seen the next steps! Once I finish the left front suspension, then I will do the double frame rails & associated supports, front crossmembers, engine mounts, then rear suspension mounts, then finally the remaining body mounts.

Your skills are so remarkable, especially for a hobbiest. I wish I had someone around that I could learn from.

I would say the cliche thing "keep up the good work" but we all already know you will & know you're going to have one of the finest machines in all of diesel motorsports when you're done. Kudos buddy. It's obviously a lot of work but producing something very near to perfect is bound to be.

:rofl: Clearly, just kidding. Still so impressed with every update. Thanks again for the detailed progress updates. Its so cool to see all the work that goes into something like this that people like me, who have never been around such fab work, can't really imagine how in depth it is. :thumb:

Thanks! Not doing anything anyone else couldn't do with a little bit of determination. I do enjoy the fabrication work though, so this project is almost relaxing!

Looks good , Michael. Kudos to ISSPRO for allowing you to work on it at their facility.

Yup, they want to do whatever they can to help, they are as anxious as I am to see this truck on the race track!

 

[Michael]

Episode 20:

The ConExpo show was great, except they have the show go through Saturday. At all 4 of these I have worked at, it is completely dead on Saturday. I sure would have rather been back at the shop working on the race truck!!!

Once I was back, next step was to fully weld the left strut control arm tabs (they were tacked in place before I left for the show).

After triple checking that they were positioned correctly, I removed the jig fixtures which had been holding them:

At that point I welded in between the brackets, which was time consuming as I swear that puddle would jump up and contaminate the tungsten each dang time I started an arc! I spent waaaay too much time resharpening tungsten at this point!

Next up I added gussets, and finish welded the gussets on the other side.

While contemplating whether to sharpen more tungsten or call it a night, I realized that I needed to cut off the top door hinge on this side, to make room for the main strut support bar.

At that point I had another interruption in the progress, as it was time for the NHRDA season-opening event in Bakersfield, California. I had really hoped to have this truck done in time to race there, but I wanted to at least go down and support our customers, and hopefully score some points in the Sportsman ET class in my dually. I managed to make it to the quarter-finals before hitting the brakes too hard and losing by 0.01 seconds to my friend Dustin Gullet of ATP Trucks.

That event was the start of Spring Break, and my daughter was spending the whole week at her mom's house. I looked forward to late nights filled with lots of progress, but managed to catch a really bad cold (presumably from one of the dozens of people I talked to in Bakersfield). I suppose I was due, as I had managed to avoid colds & flu for well over a year.

Next step was to add the fixture for holding the front hub in place. This is one of the critical measurements of the chassis, so I checked and adjusted many times to get it perfect. One trick I did was to make a dimple in the plate 180° out from the top bolt hole, but on the bolt circle. I could position by that dimple mark, then make sure it was exactly vertical with the centerline of the top bolt hole.

I had pre-drilled pilot holes in the angle that mounted to the jig, then clamped it firmly into place and drilled through both surfaces with a bit that would be a net fit with the 3/8" bolts to hold it together. I wanted zero slop once bolted up. Once I had that all together I assembled the strut and bolted the hub up to the plate.

I used the control arm tubes I had already precisely cut for the other side, and adjusted for slight variations with the rod ends.

At this point I suddenly realized I was kind of "painting myself into a corner", as I planned to add a front crossmember in this area, and it would be a pain to slide it past the mounts once the main strut support bar was in place. As much as I hated taking a step backwards, I disassembled the precisely positioned lower control arms and lifted the main frame tube out of the jig, so it could be flexed over to install the crossmember.

With that done I reassembled and adjusted the control arms, then added the upper strut mount:

Fitting the strut support tube was a pain, both having to be notched to clear the control arm mount, and being positioned in 3 dimensions at 3 different points (lower front, upper rear, and center with the strut upper mount).

After what seemed like a thousand test fits and adjustments I finally had it ready to tack in place. I used a clamp to help the magnetic mounts that I usually use to help hold tubes in place, so I could be sure it didn't slip wtih the repeated test fits:

While tacking the upper strut mount I remembered how much hassle I had with the other side moving around after I removed the strut and bearing from it, as the instructions were very clear to only do the smallest of tack welds before removal or risk damaging the bearing & strut. I decided to try a slightly different approach, and kept a soaking wet rag over those parts so I could put a much more robust set of tack welds:

When it was time to remove the bearing, I realized that the socket I used to press it out before was pressing on the bearing spherical portion rather than the outside race, so I needed a very precisely sized tube to do it instead. Fortunately there is a big metal lathe at ISSPRO, so it was quick work to turn down a piece and use it to press the bearing out and finish the tack welding:

Another trick I learned was to use clamps near the weld when welding around tubes otherwise "out in space", to give my hand a steady spot to rest on while welding. It made me much less likely to contaminate my tungsten, which was a welcome change since I had spent so much time sharpening it so far! Now if I could just get my daughter to sharpen my tungsten for me while I keep working...