Front 60 Install Begins!

[SC74]

Got the rear truss welded in today - lots of welding! The first piece has 3 passes on the inside and outside of each side. I drilled some holes in the top piece to do some plug welds, plus it's welding around the perimeter. This truss is not going anywhere! The pics don't show it, but I also put on my RuffStuff 60 cover to get rid of that old and rusty stock one that was on it.

We welded an insert in both of the upper links - now waiting on some reducer bushings for the lowers to do the final measurements and cut the uppers to the right length and do some more welding on the brackets.

Here are a few pics...

[SC74]

Oh yea - got a new rear cross member tacked in. Haven't cut the old one out yet, but that'll be the next thing before welding the upper link tabs on the truss.

[66bronco]

looks good. it is coming along.
bryan

[johnpaulgolf]

hock: I am definetly jealous of your skills...I will learn how to weld and fab one day soon...looks awesome keep us posted 8)

[SC74]

hock: I am definetly jealous of your skills...I will learn how to weld and fab one day soon...looks awesome keep us posted 8)

I can't take all of the credit. Keith Forest (744x4 - he's the one in the pic with the clamps) teaches me A LOT and has helped me on this project from day 1.

I have learned that the sky is the limit when it comes to fab. There's several things that we have said "how are we going to do this" and boom - a few brackets/tabs and some welding it's done!

[SC74]

We got the rear crossmember cut out, new one welded in, and half of the 4 Link tacked in today. Here are some pics.

[cuz1]

Nice looking fab work. The set up looks very similar to mine. I do not think I got the geometry on my rear correct. Once we had it all together we could sway the rear end from side to side with great ease. The upper link mounts are suppose to eliminate that problem. I do no think we had them far enough apart at the upper mounts. I left them alone and added a rear track bar like the one in the front. I would get all tacked in place and test it before you complete everything.

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[SC74]

Got the 4 Link all tacked up and everything put together and then took it all back apart to weld it for good. Here are some pics of it while it was all put together.

[fdezone]

That looks NICE! Keep 'em coming. Great work.

[SC74]

fdezone - Thank you! I will definitely keep the pics coming as it goes back together. We got all of the brackets first bead welded last night and plan on going over it at least one more time if not twice. After that it'll all get painted and go back together.

Carl - Thanks for the pic. It does look like we have very similar set-ups. It wouldn't move while it was all tacked, but I didn't give a lot of pressure either for fear it would break the tacks and I'd be taking a step backwards. How are your lowers positioned? My LCA are a solid mount - bolt/bushing at the frame, not a heim. Plus they are spaced way out on the axle so I hope that will prevent any side to side movement, but the geometry confuses the heck out of me. I can't take any credit for the massive LCA's - Jack Covert did those! 744x4 and I have done the rest though.

This set-up is also designed to run the coilover from the LCA instead of the axle - I've seen it done on other rigs but still seems like a different concept to me. Again, it's another one of those geometry things I don't even want to start to figure out.

We've also moved the rear axle back 10.5" from the stock position. The white line through the oblong hole in the top of the frame is the stock axle center line. If we had not moved it at all, the frame brackets would overlap the CAGE arm brackets.