Hellwig 68 Bronco Project (1 Viewer)

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bknaus said:
The body looks a lot nicer in pics than in person, between all the rust under the front clip and the janky cut fenders on the rear (along with all the broken welds on the frame and the backfiring engine with a ton of miles) there really wasn't much worth saving. And we're not tearing it up, we're improving it :clap:
Click to expand...

Well now that you said that, sawzawl away!
 
We finished all our steering/suspension on Saturday and I drove our axles down to Currie Enterprises in Corona yesterday to get fully welded and set up. They have an impressive set up down there! I have some halfway pictures but forgot to take pictures of everything fully bolted up before we tore it apart again for paint and weld :meh:

Here's our Tom Woods Driveshaft. They do some beautiful work with an amazing turn around time (that we loved with SEMA coming up). We're running 1350 joints and our front and rear driveshafts are within 1.5" of each other so we should be able to use one spare for both. You can see our driver side header dumps right into the shaft so we're thinking we're going to use these cast manifolds from Ford Racing to dump a lot higher and actually run the exhaust outside the frame where there's tons of room.


Here's our final location of our PSC hydro assist ram.


Here's the beginnings of our front panhard with the frame mount. This is full bump plus 1" for safety and you can see the top of our diff is actually a hair higher than the bottom of our oil pan, just offset enough for it to work. This made the panhard a little tricky but we bent one up on our CNC tube bender out of some scrap solid, then tweaked it with a torch and cutting out little sections to get it perfect. That's what this pic is of, but we then measured it with our CMM and bent a perfect one out of 1.375x250w DOM (no pic of that).


The flat arm worked the best for us, here's the box and pitman arm. We have the drag link using the same 1.625x250w material as the tie rod and the same CurrectLync ends. No pics of that either, oops


Here's our rear axle with all the link tabs, shock tabs, sway bar tabs and our 7/8" rear sway bar.
 
Damn nice work
 
Dusty said:
is that swaybar going to let that axle articulate to all of its potential??
are its arms too short?
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It should be pretty close to the full potential. They're about 14" arms which is longer than the majority of our sway bars and with the smaller 7/8" diameter we'll be able to get close to full flex. This is about the same as the rear sway bar we sell for Early Broncos and a bunch of Jeeps (JK, TJ, LJ, XJ, etc) and it works well for them. It is set up to be able to swap in a quick disconnect down the road if we want but for now we think it's unnecessary.
 
Here's how she looked before I took the axles down to Currie on Monday. This is full bump +1". The rear clears but the front edge doesn't (unless we always only drive in a perfectly straight line). This is the third time with the body on and off and we have it down to a 15 minute science now.
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-1-2012 Finished Tabs/IMAG0554.jpg

Here's how it looks now, pretty much the same as before we started except for a few extra tabs. A little depressing to tear it all apart but that means we're on the final stretch to SEMA! We took the frame over to Visalia Powdercoat to get sandblasted and powdercoated today. We're going to sandblast and powdercoat the rest of the suspension in house, we just don't have a big enough sandblaster to do a whole frame. And yes, it is upside down.
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-1-2012 Finished Tabs/IMAG0600.jpg

The only other slightly exciting thing besides a lot of paint prep and million little fine details is we got our power steering pump figured out on the engine after trying a couple different options.
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-1-2012 Finished Tabs/IMAG0599.jpg
 
That saleen in the background has been around for a while. I think I know who the original owner was

Back on topic: check out 5 star tuning for tuning the engine but more specifically the transmission. With the 6r80, you will want to delay the shift points or it will definitely shift too quick on the trail. How are you going to incorporate the select shift?
 
Hottrod81 said:
That saleen in the background has been around for a while. I think I know who the original owner was

Back on topic: check out 5 star tuning for tuning the engine but more specifically the transmission. With the 6r80, you will want to delay the shift points or it will definitely shift too quick on the trail. How are you going to incorporate the select shift?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a sweet Saleen with barely any miles on it. Definitely has the late 80s, early 90s feel with the white wheels and yellow highlights. It's just getting stored at the shop for a friend.

We're getting our controller and the tune from Tumblin Automotive who has been working directly with Ford Racing to get it developed. With their tune/controller and just swapping in a floor shifter from an F150/Mustang we should be able to have all the shift abilities.
 
I guess I have been slacking on updates, we've progressed. Everything is all powdercoated and back. We went through a couple different colors and ended on a basic chassis black for the frame and suspension. We are getting the axles back tomorrow and then the real final assembly push begins (in a week I will be on the road to Vegas/SEMA). Otherwise, we've just been trying to catch up on some new sway bars and leaf springs and get the rest of the booth together while stuff has been at paint.

Here's the frame back from PC, we have some tape on the front because we were test fitting a bumper/winch that'll be on it for the show
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-17-2012 Assembly/GOPR1809.jpg

The engine and tranny are back in.
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-17-2012 Assembly/IMAG0625.jpg


http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-17-2012 Assembly/IMAG0624.jpg

We also got the wheels in, we went with the Hutchinson beadlocks and as soon as the tires come in we can put them all together! Just from checking them out they look like awesome construction and since Hutchinson makes wheels for the military that stand up to IEDs, they should be strong. They're also DOT approved which is rare for a beadlock.
http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg576/HellwigProducts/10-17-2012 Assembly/IMAG0602.jpg
 
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We got the axles back from Currie on Friday after they finished welding everything.







Saturday we put together the whole front end and welded on the axle panhard mount (the only thing missing) and then tore it all apart and painted the rear axle. We were busy and it was a weekend so no pics of any of this...

Today we did the rear end. This included putting the Currie 9 inch, Fox 2.5 coil overs, Eiback coils, hooking up the 4 link with the Johnny Joints, putting on the Hellwig sway bar, Tom Woods driveshaft and other stuff I'm forgetting. The only thing missing is sway bar end links because without the body, cage, fuel weight, etc the ones I had made were too short. Luckily, that's our stuff so we can easily make a couple longer ones tomorrow.







And she's holding up her own weight (in the back). We threw on the awesome Hutchinson wheels with 37x12.50 Mickey Thompson Baja Claws. It was a good feeling to see that happen.





Tomorrow the front axle should be dry enough to install after paint, so we'll get that and the fuel tank in and work on the little details. We leave for SEMA Friday and looks like we'll make it (knock on wood)!
 
Are you guys going to have the wiring and plumbing all done by then?
 
Hey, if I come by on Wednesday, can I take a look at it? Who do I ask for?
 
Today we got the Bronco fully off the stands! This means finished front suspension (other than sway bar end links again). We have the Currie axle with radius arms and a panhard using Johnny Joints, tie rod and drag link using Currie's Currectlyncs, Fox 2.5 coilovers with Eibach coils, PSC steering box and hydraulic assist, Hellwig 1.25" sway bar, brakes, etc.

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums...ront Suspension Done/IMG_2737_zps8c3d000e.jpg

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums...ront Suspension Done/IMG_2743_zpsaef8e003.jpg

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums...ront Suspension Done/IMG_2739_zps475ba746.jpg

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums...ront Suspension Done/IMG_2738_zps857b481f.jpg

http://i1244.photobucket.com/albums...ront Suspension Done/IMG_2741_zpsa762e8c5.jpg

So that put a smile on our faces. Tomorrow we're throwing on the end links (they were in powdercoat today), front bumper, winch and then just double check everything and get to finishing the rest of our booth stuff for SEMA. The end's in sight (until we get back and start body, plumbing, electrical and all that nonsense :eek: )
 
Here's the final way it stands right now, just added a bumper and winch along with end links for the sway bars. The Winch is a Warn 9.5cti and seems pretty sweet. I'm really happy with how the overall thing turned out, can't wait to get it back from the show and get it driveable. Off to SEMA tomorrow morning!







If you're at the show, come by the Hellwig booth in the Racing and Performance Hall and check it out
 
The SEMA show was awesome and exhausting. We had a ton of good feedback on the chassis and the company. Out of all the stuff we did, the most impressive thing that we got the most comments/questions on was using a CV in the rear driveshaft (actually double cardan, but whatevs). All the car guys had never seen one and were totally blown away. I can't count the number of times I explained how it worked, that is was able to pull over 5 degrees of angle, etc. I had multiple people ask if it was a new thing and were shocked when I said it comes stock on most trucks, including my 85 Toyota. Weird since out of everything on the Bronco I thought that was the least interesting thing, haha.

It's amazing how many people are building EBs right now. They're definitely the new cool thing (again). Now that we're back from the show, we're going to catch up on R&D work that's be on hold for Bronco/SEMA and then keep going on the build.

Here's some pics:

BenatBooth.jpg


IMG_2944.jpg


IMG_2949.jpg


IMG_2948.jpg


IMG_2945.jpg


IMG_2940.jpg


IMG_2938.jpg


And thanks to these guys we're not sitting around staring at a bunch of rusty parts with a confused look on our faces
SponsorSign.jpg
 
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