Project: Recycle

[SkinnyG]

I bought a 2-post for my own shop at home so I'm not tripping over the footprint of the 4-post.

I also placed it a bit further away from the door, so I can have a car in the bay with the roll up door down, both cars doors open, and not hitting the posts.

Ideally you want both a 2-post and a 4-post - they each have their advantages and neither really "does it all." My shop is 1065sqft, and I'm not willing to have two hoists.

[Inverter]

Lotta people swear by them, and they are handy but I wont put my antiques on one. Gotta have the room for a 4 post but I feel they are more useful. You can level the runways for accurate ride height adjustment and wheel alignment. When lifting the chassis the jacks can be placed anywhere along the chassis for an optimal lifting point. And you can just park on the lift w/o being crowded by the columns n arms of the 2 posts.
I have a Challenger XFX 14k lb.

[SCOTI]

Got an early start which let me get the lift/hoist finished & tested w/the better structure. Worked much better vs. the ratchet straps. More control of where to shift the fulcrum so it lifts straight up (which it did)….

[SCOTI]

My only revision for now will be the triangulated braces. I'm going to flip them to be on top of the beams vs. under them. When I did the numbers, I knew it would be close once the bed made it to the top. The thought was to lift the bed until it contacts the beams to keep things 'steady'. By doing so, it allows me to roll the set-up over the top/front of the truck if desired. The bed clears the cab now but I would prefer it to be secured if I were to attempt to roll it around. The straps can do the job as well but I liked the idea of the top of the bed rail/side touching something fore & aft if moving it around.

It's crude but functional & relatively cheap for what it allows me to do solo now. I priced the adjustable 'bed-lift' structures you can use w/engine hoists but those were $175+ shipping up to $350. Not sure what differences there are between the price ranges I looked at. I priced steel from a local yard to make my own but just the 2 (fore/aft) beams were $110 plus transit costs. The treated 4x4's were $25 & are easy to stack in a corner along w/the main spine (that was someone's scrap) so.....

[Inverter]

Repurposed Pallet Rack for the win !! That looks good.
I think the wood lifting bracket is suitable. Cheap, strong and effective.
No need to spend 200$ on the fancy store bought kind.
Electric hoist too ? Now your just showin off...

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by Inverter

Repurposed Pallet Rack for the win !! That looks good.
I think the wood lifting bracket is suitable. Cheap, strong and effective.
No need to spend 200$ on the fancy store bought kind.
Electric hoist too ? Now your just showin off...

It's the 4800# winch for my trailer (Warn). Already bought & paid for (twice ). An added bonus? The winch & battery usually occupy space on the floor/table. Now they have a spot up & out of the way

Everything on the set-up uses 3/8" hardware so I can undo all fasteners for disassembly in under 3mins using my 18v impact.

[aggie91]

Nice work on the lift.

[TA_C10]

Fantastic man.

[SCOTI]

Still poking away @ the front C/O swap. I have brackets cut, fitted, beveled, & stripped in preparation for welding on the driver side. I have the pass side pieces cut & fitted. Still need to get the pieces sanded down & edges beveled for better weld penetration on areas where I need the surfaces FLAT.

I have the templates made for the lower mounts. I'm waiting to get the uppers tacked together so I can narrow the surface (foot-print) of the lowers & finalize their fab.

Next purchase is prob a pricy one. C/O's & shorty tilt steering column.

[TA_C10]

Ready to see all that go together. What shorty tilt you picking up? Rebuilt OE or aftermarket? Only thing I wish I would have done when I did a rebuilt/shortened was get one with wheel lock....

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by TA_C10

Ready to see all that go together. What shorty tilt you picking up? Rebuilt OE or aftermarket? Only thing I wish I would have done when I did a rebuilt/shortened was get one with wheel lock....

I have what I believe is an old van tilt column from ~30yrs back. Not sure if I'll utilize it & modify length as needed or if I'll drop the coin by hitting the EASY button for a new Ididit column. At $1k for the Ididit…. I'll need to put some thought into the decision as I'd rather use that money toward improving other stuff.

[TA_C10]

I absolutely love my rebuilt tilt column. It started life as a van column as well. Shortened 2" was just enough at 6'5 along with lowered seat brackets. I will eventually do bucket seats and cut into that back sheet metal just below the rear window to slide them back as far as possible, but for now it's pretty decent.

The column was completely rebuilt with all new internals like stock. Tilt. Hazards. Column shift. Gear indicator. Turn signals. All new. And I added the turn signal indicator from a newer model GM for cruise control. And of course, no mods required to connect to steering gear. But you don't care about that lol. It looks good. Works great. OE safety and stability from OE parts was my biggest concern. A member on here did all this for me for half the cost of IDIDIT. Painted it for me too. But like I said, only thing I don't like is there isn't a steering column lock. But I will live without it. There are other measures I can take.

Maybe you can look into figuring out if you can add a lock to these OE units...

.

[Inverter]

Scot, here are the units we were discussing. The assembled pair are the correct sized 14” +/- Mounted and 750 lb 10”

[aggie91]

Nice!

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by TA_C10

I absolutely love my rebuilt tilt column. It started life as a van column as well. Shortened 2" was just enough at 6'5 along with lowered seat brackets. I will eventually do bucket seats and cut into that back sheet metal just below the rear window to slide them back as far as possible, but for now it's pretty decent.

The column was completely rebuilt with all new internals like stock. Tilt. Hazards. Column shift. Gear indicator. Turn signals. All new. And I added the turn signal indicator from a newer model GM for cruise control. And of course, no mods required to connect to steering gear. But you don't care about that lol. It looks good. Works great. OE safety and stability from OE parts was my biggest concern. A member on here did all this for me for half the cost of IDIDIT. Painted it for me too. But like I said, only thing I don't like is there isn't a steering column lock. But I will live without it. There are other measures I can take.

Maybe you can look into figuring out if you can add a lock to these OE units...

.

If you would, please PM me the forum member that did your rebuild if you don't mind. I do like having options especially when it allows using recycled parts

[SCOTI]

So.... I have updates but not much advancement. I am getting much better @ the 2-steps forward, 1-step back thing though

I pulled the Pass side apart to prep the brackets for welding & got them tacked together. At that point I decided to go ahead & weld the inner portion of the vertical/horizontal attachment points of the bracket base. I pulled the tacked bracket off & in-turn tacked that to a steel platform set-up so things wouldn't move w/the heat.

Due to the vertical portion of the brackets reducing height (it's taller @ the front of the a-arm vs. @ the rear), I had to spacing things to keep everything as aligned as possible. I welded short-ish sections (2-3") & waited for each section to cool to the touch to keep things from wanting to move around.

I cleaned up & put the bracket back in place. All good.
Test fit the horizontal hardware. It fit like before.
Slapped on the hardware & cinched it up. Then I went to slide the upper arm shaft studs through & it was a no go. It seems I made my template for locating & drilling the holes w/the pieces just sitting in place vs. locked-in. This required going back through & clearancing the holes slightly.

I continued ahead on that side & worked toward minimizing the footprint of the lower brackets base plate. The idea was to utilize the existing hole (for securing the lower end of a bag) & add two more so they're in a pyramid arrangement. Because of the arms shape & the location of the C/O's center-line, that base plate is an odd shape. It took a couple of in/out, in/out maneuvers trimming away each time. Once that was finalized, the plate & the arm got reference marks to easily align until the other holes were drilled.

This is where I swapped in the temporary C/O jig to align the top & bottom mounts. I got things together w/o much fuss & was happy so I tacked the upper/lower shock mounts in place onto the base plates. I then went to remove the hardware so I could plot out the additional holes on the bottom plate & found ANOTHER issue. It seems I had not attempted to remove/install the hardware w/the new & different lower arms. The hardware would not clear the tube portion of the new arms

PIC1 = Original RideTech bracket/s used for the lower mount
PIC2 = Tweaked bracket on the lower base-plate
PIC3 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (RideTech arm)
PIC4 = Dimension of the flat portion of the a-arm & top of the tube (Porterbuilt narrowed arm)

[SCOTI]

So, Plan-B. I decided to add height to the lower & see if that would work. Nope...

So after trying to figure out how this was overlooked & then getting the measurements of the two different arms I realized where the over-site occurred. I based everything starting w/the RideTech arms. I then switched to the narrower PB arms & just swapped the parts over as assembled & everything fit. With each validation after, I was able to pull/install the entire set-up (upper brackets, mock-up C/O, & lower bracket) as a unit. I never thought to test the hardware on the bottom w/the new arms.

I already had parts enroute & I really, REALLY, wanted to have the entire set-up mocked-up w/the actual shocks in place this weekend. I did some on-line searching & found some brackets by QA1 that were the exact dimension I needed. Laser cut. Ready to go. I checked & Summit Racing in Arlington had them in house. I purchased a set-up & picked them up on my lunch break so that when the C/O's arrived Friday, I would be ready to go....

[SCOTI]

Friday. FRIDAY. FRIDAY!!. Tracking said the package would be delivered Friday. Since they left Austin area on Tuesday night the 22nd @ 9pm & were only going to Dallas, seemed legit.

I worked getting the new lower mounts aligned & verified. They worked well. I even verified I could get the hardware out as suggested by more than one person close to me

Once that was done, I yanked the lower mounts base plate from the Pass side for another round of clean-up/footprint reduction & then used it as the template for the Driver side bracket. With both now made, I was able to make some nicer appearing borders & get them both uniform.

I got the drivers side apart & went through the same steps as the Pass side. Things went much easier on the Driver side. Base plates installed. Mock-up shocks installed. Dialed in the placement & shock angle. Tacked the lower mounts in place. Removed & installed the hardware on both sides for validation. Everything comes apart & assembles w/no fuss.

7pm Friday night (the 24th), still no shocks.
I check tracking again & it still shows the 24th as the delivery date but says it's still just running late. I notice however there is no update as far as location since the 9pm 7/22 log-in???

I check again this morning. At 6am they showed to get logged-in @ the main Dallas center only to be transferred over to the Coppell distribution center. I'm guessing (hoping?) to maybe have them by Monday night.

Oh well.... I ready for them @ least.

[SCOTI]

The shocks finally arrived on Tuesday. That was frustrating for both of us as we clearly both did our job & did exactly as we said we would. In the end, all is good & the quality packaging job ensured there was almost no possibility for damages LoL….

I didn't have much time Tues night but when parts you've been waiting for arrive, you 'gotta take a quick peek right?

[SCOTI]

When I opened up the upper bag mounting plate for C/O clearance, I only removed the bare minimum of material. My plan was to remove the minimum & creep-up on what was necessary so I didn't remove more than what is required leaving as much structure as possible.

With the quick install, I needed to start the trimming. I had previously marked out where I anticipated the end of the bracket would be. I took a grease pencil & sketched out the rough shape I had planned for the remaining edges of the bracket once trimmed. For this initial C/O install, I cut half-way to that anticipated point. This allowed the C/O to physically bolt-in to the mounts for alignment validations.

[SCOTI]

With the alignment verified, I needed to run the a-arm through the compression/extension cycles to check/watch for binding. This required removing the coil from the set-up.

With the one C/O removed so I could pop just the shock in place, I removed both upper & lower brackets to re-tack them since I wanted to ensure shock pressure wouldn't tweak anything. *When I did the initial set-up tacks, it was in some funky angles which were not conducive to proper weld penetration. Good enough for getting alignment though.

With the brackets re-tacked on the bench, I installed them & a shock. I compressed the shock to the limits of it's travel w/no issues. I wish there was a way to test w/some sort of meter on resistance but I couldn't think of a set-up that might allow it. Visually, the shock didn't shift or move so I'm calling that good.

Today, I'll get the upper arm installed along w/slightly shorter shaft hardware & do the compression/extension cycle again. Then trim it back further & he clearance looks.

[aggie91]

Looks good Scoti. Would you mind sharing the specs you used to get your shocks? Part numbers, extended length, compressed length, etc? I am planning something similar on my next project (1975 C10) but want to work with parts I already have instead of buying a whole next coil over package deal...

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by aggie91

Looks good Scoti. Would you mind sharing the specs you used to get your shocks? Part numbers, extended length, compressed length, etc? I am planning something similar on my next project (1975 C10) but want to work with parts I already have instead of buying a whole next coil over package deal...

As for the specs.… I based things off of what's currently sold via the aftermarket.

I studied some generic weight break-downs for choosing a spring rate but that just gets me started. I understand I'll possibly need to make changes as I don't have scales so I'm guessing on some criteria for the calculations.

Since the manufacturers that offer bolt-in C/O systems base things off of the original build platform, one can use their set-up. But, Porterbuilt didn't offer a bolt-in alternative for my DM's upper mount (it is a pre-'07 version) so I was on my own as there was nothing available (he did try to help). I did get an offer for an older DM specific C/O bracket that possibly would have worked but it would have required that 3.6 stroke shock & I had already made templets for my own. I pressed forward...

Anything based on the original platform is limited to that platform when building their bolt-on kits or the costs go higher & closer to complete replacement x-members which might hurt sales. Since I wasn't limited to any original platform, I looked @ what builders used when fabbing one-off pieces as well as lots of suspension/shock/spring research. One thing I know is a longer spring/shock combo helps ride quality as long as you have room for the travel. Using that info & researching what is commonly used in a stock chassis C10 C/O set-up, I just looked to see how much I could increase the shock length. I know PB & Ridetech use a 3.6 stroke shock up front so I went from there & chose a 5" stroke shock. Based off of shock stroke, they recommend certain length springs. I did calcs & chose to start w/a 750# spring rate up front & go from there once I'm no longer guessing on certain factors.

But, I didn't just drop bucks on some C/O's only hoping they would work.... I constantly plan/try to have a Plan-B. Ironically, the C/O's shock length I chose are what PB & Ridetech both spec for the rear of their C10 kits AND it's also the same length for the Ridetech G-body rear kit. Since I based my rear shock set-up off of a G-body w/the specific idea of possibly going to a coil-over in the future, any G-body spec'd C/O would be a possible candidate AND since I mess w/G-body's, I can always utilize them there if I run into an impass on using them for the 64.

Ridetech lists the shock as a 5.2 stroke:14.5 @ ride height; 11.25" compressed; 16.75" extended. They call for a 12" spring but there are variances & a 10" seemed like a good choice (their C10 kit calls for an 8" spring w/a 1.6" shorter shock). As for the spring rate.... Weights, angles, & pivot dimensions are required to narrow it down. From the kits I noted, my shock is slightly more upright vs theirs & my dimensions are shorter (A-arm pivot to BJ C/L; A-arm pivot to shock bottom C/L). They spec an 800# & I'm trying a 750# which also happens to be what these came with.

The 2nd set of coils purchased are 12" 275# springs which is what the rears are spec'd for.

[aggie91]

I knew I could count on you to give a better backstory, reasoning for choosing a given shock and not just say its a coil over with X" compressed length, Y" extended and a Z" long spring. I have been doing research too as to what shock companies like PB, RideTech, QA1, CPP, and others use in their conversion kits for the stock crossmember. I also recall Rob (NoLimit Engineering) saying a longer stroke shock and coil is better. I was planning on using a 5" stroke shock with a 10" spring and ironically with the same 750 pound spring that you chose. Now I know that I was on the right track. I am leaning towards a QA1 shock with similar specs to your RideTech shocks. Great minds do think alike. I just need to get my '65 back together and driving before I jump to deep in to the '75 build.

[88Stanger]

Damn Scoti you are just amazing! This is like watching an artist! Nice job sir!