Bumbles Bounce Don'tcha know.. (3 Viewers)

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See how much wood you can haul and check the mpg's to my house drop it off and check the mpg's back empty.
 
So I am trying to find an inexpensive way to get the RTT mounted on the bed of Bumble. I ordered a set of Yakima bed bar mounts, AKA BedRock, and after some research and confirmation that the Yakima bars are 1.125" diameter, i ordered 2 - 6' sections of .120 wall 1.125" DOM. Why, well the DOM is much stronger then a standard yakima load bar plus I can weld up a bracket to use the existing bars from the SSO rack for mounting, that way it is more universal.

I looked long and hard at some of the modular racks on the market, and for the price of the materials, I can build what I want for much less, but don't really want to fool with that right now, so this is my current plan. It should also be easily removed from the bed caps when not in use.

Mounts should be here Thursday, not sure when the tubing will be here, but when I get it, I will do some test fitting and post up some pics.

Also, I think the old speaker wire for the PS front door, has shorted out on something and is causing the head unit to overheat. I need to get back on my front door speaker mounts and get the amp and components in the front doors. Maybe I will piddle with that this week in the evenings.
 
FYI the best prices I have found locally on DOM is KGS steel in Nashville.
 
In the Atlanta area, the best DOM source has been Metal Supermarket. I have no data on pricing in other locations, but they have stores in Knoxville and Nashville (possibly more options as you shop around).

Good luck
 
Thanks guys. I called a few places and quickly found that 1.125"x.120 wall is a oddball. So the internets had some, but when I start looking for 1.5", 1.75" or 2" I think I'll have better luck.

Looks like UPS will deliver the sticks on Friday, so looks like I might get a chance to fiddle with the RTT over the long weekend.
 
Well, apparently the Mesquite UPS distribution center can't handle their workload and my tube was a casualty. Delay bumped them til Tuesday, so no rack work this weekend.

Maybe I will pull the front seats and work on getting the amp wired and mounting the front door speakers instead. Maybe get one of those AC pro cans and see if I can get the AC working.

Also I am starting to plan the squirrel pile for the 60 swap. Looking at the Sky RSk for SD springs. Supposed to improve the ride over the OE obs setup. I also think I may have a fuel pump going south. When I'm on the front tank I get some sparadic hesitation if I gas it from a stop or accelerate hard. I may try to pull the bed and see how hard it going to be to swap it. Also gonna start researching a bronco rear tank swap. 33 gallons to help feed that thirsty monster under the hood.
 
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@jynx I use to get my dom in Lewisburg. He was real responsible on price from what I remember. I’ll see if I can find his card. Also has any other metal/tubing you need.
 
Well we had our first D2 football game today and it was HOT and HUMID, and lucky us, they were running behind so we were there over an hour early, so after 2.5 hours in that and getting home at near 4, lets just say we decided to just watxh a littlw foosball this afternoon and call it good.

But as Notre Dame started to run away from Michigan, I decided to start digging around in my car audio stash. So tomorrow after church, I'm gonna see how much of this I can get inside the cab...

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Wish me luck.
 
Well plan "b". I started fiddling with the components and decided that getting those in along with the amp and all that wiring was way more than I wanted to fool with, especially when it is 90°+ outside, so plan "b" it was.

I had a set of Polk 6.5" DB651's in my stash, so I decided to just bolt those in the holes. I pulled new speaker wire from the head unit to each side since the old PS speaker would come and go.

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So now we have tunes all around. Hopefully the head unit is good. I believe the overtemp circuit cut out on it and since it has cooled down it has worked fine. We shall see.

While I had the driver's side apart I decided to go ahead and install the reinforcing plate and new cable for the door handle. Getting it apart wasnt bad, but getting the latch rod back in place about did me in.

So the reinforcing plate fixes just what I found when I pulled the handle off.
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If you look you can see the round hole top right is cracked.

The plate rivets in place.
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Then the handle with the new cable bolts back on.
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And, while I think I did take up some of the slack in the system, I still think I still have something out of whack. It seems like the actual bracketry is bent or stretched. @radioridge where do your handle engage the latch. I feel like I use about half the travel taking up slack before the handle actually starts pulling. I'm going to hunt around for a replacement handle pull before I pony up for a complete latch/pull/cable unit.

My bars are supposed to be delivered tomorrow, but I gotta late meeting so I won't get to do any mock up on my bed rack till Wednesday at the earliest. Also need to make sure to bring my fuel line plumbing stuff home tomorrow so I can fiddle with that when I have a fww minutes.
 
Well it is dark and stupid humid outside but I couldn't stand it and had to do a little test fitting tonight.

Not the best pictures, but ya'know.
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I am either going to have to pull or modify the plastic liner cause it interfers with the placement. I ordered 6' lengths and they are just about perfect. I thought I might have to trim them off, but I think they will be just fine.

I stood in the middle of one of one of the tubes and it has some deflection, but for the diameter of the bar and span, I think it is acceptable. These pieces of DOM are .120 wall, the standard Yakima bars are only .085. Unless they have something fancy to them, I can't imagine what the deflection would be with one of those vs. these.

I'm going to get some flat bar and weld between the two tubes and drill them out to bolt to the aluminum cross bars that are on the tent now that bolt to the SSO rack on the GX. That will basically turn them into a universal mount, so we can leave them on the tent all the time and just bolt them to whatever we are putting the tent on.

I am going to work on it more this weekend and also get some better pics.

And if the deflection of the tubes bothers me, then I will look into getting some 1"x3" rectangular tube, split it and then stitch welding it to the bottom of the tubes to improve the rigidity.

Also, anyone who might be reading this, got any opinions on roll on bed liners? If/when I pull the hard plastic liner, I want to put a liner in. Monsta seems pretty popular and is currently leading in my research. Thinking either white or light grey.
 
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I would get that plastic liner out of the bed, those things do protect the bed but they will rub the hell out of paint. While not the best protection I use a rubber floor mat. Likely some type of spray in liner is best, but would be a hell of a lot of sanding I'm guessing prior to install (do-it-yourself). Linex is one of the obvious ones out on the market for the pay-install.
 
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I have use Raptor, the kit comes with a Shultz gun. Best price I found was on Amazon. No sanding required unless you have rust. I bought the nylon cup brush for angle grinder to take the gloss off the paint. I have done the bed on the IH, the out side of 60 and the inside of 40 tub.
 
Prep for first tow operation this week:
  • Rear diff fluid drain & fill
  • Oil and filter change
  • Coolant drain and fill
  • Clean out the interior
  • Clean out truck bed
Not a long haul, but should be a good measure of how he's gonna roll. Empty run out, loaded with bacon on the way back. Stay tuned
 
Pulled the plastic liner out this week and was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the bed. Going to look into having it sprayed.

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It's just dirty, needs a good cleaning.
 
Well, I drained and refilled the coolant this morning since it was just water since the water pump went back together. Now it's ready for winter.

Oil and filter change and then I started what I thought was gonna be a simple diff drain and would let me get the new CU cover installed, whelp I was wrong. All buttoned up and started filling only to discover the cover must be warped cause I got it probably 3/4 full and fluid starts leaking out the side. Dang thing would not draw down. Not sure what the issue is, but I gave up. It was cold and I need to drive it tomorrow, so the old cover got cleaned off and went back on for now.

So we are in pretty good shape for now. Next big thing is sorting the ignition out. I put in a new solenoid, but still have to jump it. Thinking it is either the ignition itself, or something in the circuit. Good times...
 
Well, I been thinking about starting to get the D60 rebuilt and sorting out the necessary bits to get it under the truck so this post is mostly just a place for me to put down the bits needed to do that.

  • Ball Joints
  • Stub shafts
  • short inner shaft
  • steering joints
  • tie-rods, drag link, etc.
  • wheel bearings and seals
  • inner axle seals
  • "V" code SD springs
  • Sky RSK
  • new u-bolts
  • panhard mount
  • panhard bar
  • rebuilt calipers and pads
  • rotors
  • shocks
I am still learning about these axles, so I am not 100% sure I have everything I will need on there, but I got to start somewhere.

Not in big hurry, but I am chasing an intermittent pop in the front end of the bumble right now and I have always said I didn't want to throw any money at this front end, so seems like a good time to start thinking thru the process.

The immediate need is for a new fuel pump in the front tank as it has gotten weak and will only pump enough fuel for a parked idle. Running on rear tank only these days, so short trips or plenty of gas stops.

Since the D50 and D60 spindles are the same from the knuckle face out, I think I will go ahead and do the rotors and wheel bearings in the near future and figure out the fuel pump replacement.
 
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No major updates, still need to get the fuel pump sorted. Thats the main thing. Other than that I need to get the key ignition sorted and we should be fairly squared away.

I still need to get the headers on and get the trailer wiring and brake controller up and running.

With this whole parts wench thing up and going, a reliable tow rig is going to be a must. So first is getting the truck sorted and then find us a good used trailer.
 
Got a new-to-me tailgate for Bumble today. Buddy in West TN located and delivered it.

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