Crusty Rusty Leaky Squeaky 67 Step

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by knomadd

You could go with Porterbuilt arms! I'm running their lowers with a 1" forward offset. The set moves the wheels forward in the wheel opening by an inch if you do both upper and lower, but about 1/2"-3/4" with just the lowers. Stock arms would be cheaper though.

I'd send you mine, but one is beat up. If you feel like straightening one of the bushing mounts, and replacing the ball joints/bushings, I'll let you have them for the cost of shipping. Let me know if you're interested and I'll take some pics.

Thanks for the offer, Duane. There's a specialty yard over in Lenexa that keeps tons of the stuff. Just need to get off my butt and go over there. As heavy as the arms are, they can be expensive to ship. Plus, it's useful to wait just a bit sometimes. Never know when someone local will pop up and holler, "I got some that were just rebuilt!" The sad part is I let a completely rebuilt, powder coated set of uppers and lowers go for cheap at a swap meet about a year ago. Being a neat freak, anti-hoarder has it's drawbacks.

[snipescastle2]

Vic,
I have a set of lower control arms for a drum brake front end, sont know if these will help, but I'm willing to give them to you if you want them......

I only have the lowers, I can shot blast these and powder coat them black for you as well.......
let me know.
Ben

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by snipescastle2

Vic,
I have a set of lower control arms for a drum brake front end, sont know if these will help, but I'm willing to give them to you if you want them......

I only have the lowers, I can shot blast these and powder coat them black for you as well.......
let me know.
Ben

Thanks, Ben, the lower arms are all I need. I started modifying the DJM arms that came off of it yesterday to see if I can make them work. I think it may be possible. However, I'll PM you if these don't work out and arrange to get yours. Should know something today. Thanks again!

[snipescastle2]

No Worries Vic!
have a great Day!
Ben

[Xeen]

Vic you could just make a new set and sell those.
No but seriously you will figure it out, I wouldn't stress over it too much.

[Elliot949]

I finally got to meet Vic and his Bride Kathy Yesterday... what a wonderful couple... They made my wife and I feel like old friends... Now for the truck.. Guys if you haven't seen Vic's work in person you truly don't know how AWESOME this truck is... Picture really do not do this truck Justice...

His other project is just as awesome...

Dan

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by Elliot949

I finally got to meet Vic and his Bride Kathy Yesterday... what a wonderful couple... They made my wife and I feel like old friends... Now for the truck.. Guys if you haven't seen Vic's work in person you truly don't know how AWESOME this truck is... Picture really do not do this truck Justice...

His other project is just as awesome...

Dan

Hey Dan, thanks for the comps! You all can drop by anytime if you're gonna say nice stuff.
We really enjoyed your visit as well. Hope you got all your errand running done, sounded like you had a full schedule. Looking forward to seeing the "Class Act" come together.

[Vic1947]

I think I've come up with a solution to the control arm situation. It finally occurred to me that the key to making this work had to start with the position of the airbag in the lower control arm. Get it where you want it, then reinstall the control arm and mark where the top lands on the upper plate. Remove the plate and relocate the hole pattern as needed. There's a ton of room where the coil spring goes up thru the crossmember, so I can't see there being any interference with the bolt heads or the 90* air fitting.

So I removed the bottom spring retainer cup, cut off the ledge where the sway bar bolted up and removed one of the reinforcement bars that was in the way. I'll relocate it so I have plenty of clearance around the entire bag. I'll also build a 1.25" spacer to weld on the bottom plate, then mill a window below it for access to the mounting bolts.

After cleaning up the surrounding area, I mocked up the bag where it would sit if I were to mount it in the stock location. You can see from the photo it's hard up against the tubing. So I'll move it over and toward the ball joint slightly. That will give me plenty of clearance all around. When Dan was here yesterday he told me about a guy who had a bag blow out going down the road at highway speed. Truck immediately went down all the way and suffered major damage before it stopped. I don't need anything like that to happen, so I'm going to do whatever's necessary to insure none of the bags is even close to rubbing on anything.

[Elliot949]

Man that sounds like a great solution...

[Low Elco]

Seems like that'll work! Thanks again, the pan fit awesome!

[Xeen]

Attaboy Vic I knew you would getrdone.

[snipescastle2]

Vic,
Looks Great! Glad you sorted it out!
Ben

[Vic1947]

Woke up this morning with big plans for the day. Get the lower control arms ready for the mounting brackets, fabricate the brackets out of some 14ga SS tube I've had for-ever, revise the rear mounts to eliminate the angle iron and set them up like the ones you can buy. Just a little laundry list that seemed very do-able while drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. As the day progressed, however, reality set in and what I actually got done pales in comparison to the wish list. I did get the SS tube cut and turned to length as well as slots milled in the ones for the rear to allow the air line connections. I also welded a reinforcing tube back in the first control arm and began cutting on the second one. The rest of the day was spent yakking on the phone and staring into space (planning). Ahhh, there's always tomorrow...

[Low Elco]

Ain't retirement great?

[jeh]

Nice work again Vic

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Ain't retirement great?

I think I'm putting in more hours now than I ever did while working.

Originally Posted by jeh

Nice work again Vic

Thanks Jay.

I've spent the last coupla three days doing mid-course corrections. Wasn't happy with some of my previous efforts so I started over. The reinforcing tube I removed and reconfigured turned out to be unnecessary. So I cut out the tube I scabbed on and replaced it with a chromoly tube in the original location. The spacers I built move the bags up enough away from those tubes that they won't rub. Had I left the spacers out, there would have been an interference issue, but that's not the case now.

Also the more I looked at the rear spacers, the less I liked the angle iron. Angle has it's uses, but this was a bit crude, so I cut them out and revised the spacer to be more like the ones I saw for sale on a couple of sites. The main difference was that I put a cap on the top of mine with a captive nut welded in instead of a stud coming up thru the middle. Put a couple of access holes in the cap so I can attach the fasteners to the top of the bag.

[Vic1947]

I also got the upper plates trimmed, re-drilled and mounted to the front crossmember. I now need to put some access holes in the bottom plates of the lower control arms. I noticed something when marking the locations of the lower spacers. Both control arms are stamped with the end of the coil spring groove facing toward the oil pan. So on one side, there's a nice flat surface where the spacer seats. On the other side, however, part of the spacer perimeter will cross the groove. It will only be unsupported for a couple of inches, so it shouldn't matter.

[Elliot949]

Nice work as always Vic...

[sduckworth13]

Nice work Vic, I always like to see your work. It always looks brand new when your done.

[swamp rat]

School is in session!

[Low Elco]

Looks good! Always enjoy seeing Innovation in Action!

[Vic1947]

We had company from Houston, TX and Jeff City, MO at the house yesterday, so all I did was show off stuff. But today, I finished up a couple of things I've been doing in background, then got busy and put access holes in the lower control arms and tack welded the bottom spacer in. Attached the bag to the spacer and reinstalled the control arm. With the suspension set at the approximate ride height, the bag should extend to approximately 5.5" - 6" when inflated. The advertised range is 2.7" to 12" but the tech at Slam said they work best in the 5" to 8" range. It's really hard to know what I'll end up with, but I think I have enough adjustment to arrive at a decent height and stance.

I was pleased with the clearance between the bag and the lower control arms. The bag sits forward of where it probably would have if I'd used the stock or purpose built arms from Porterbuilt. I don't think it will make a big difference in the leverage the bag has on the crossmember, however, I'm open to suggestions or honest critique. This is my first airbag rodeo, so I got nuthin' to go on.

[Xeen]

Looks good to me Vic, I'm no rocket scientist but I wouldn't think it would cause a problem.
The bag angle is static so all that matters is the lower arm.
The upper mount really has no bearing as long as the bag is perfectly vertical and from what I can see it is.
At least that's what makes sense to me.
P.S. Is there any interference from the tie rods?

[Low Elco]

Looks fine, as long as the bag's supported by good meat on both ends and nothing rubs, especially at full compression. Seems to be all good sir, roll on!

[jlsanborn]

Nice and tidy and well thought out!