Hello Everyone!
It's great to be back in the land of the living! In april of last year I decided to do a triagulated four link rear coil set-up from scratch in my garage. My friend Dustin wanted to learn how to fab and weld, and sice he"s still young and strong as an ox, i enlisted his help and away we went! I should stop here to mention that the economy played a huge role in the amount of time it took to get this done. Thanks Wall Street!
Dustin and I decided that we were going to make as many parts from scratch as possible so all we bought was Johnny Joints, TJ front coil springs, Urethane bushings, mounting tabs for the links and an a** load of steel, mig wire, and welding gas. All we had to work with was a good mig, chop saw, grinder, cut off wheels, and an oxy/acetelyne torch. this was a really low budget / garage build. That being said, i believe I'd commit murder for lots of money and all the cool fab tools you see on TV!
After lots of torching, grinding, chiseling, and cussing Dustin and i got everything out of the way and started fabbing it all back together. I gotta say that i forgot how much I hate math! Anyway, Dustin and I burned quite a few saturdays just making parts before we ever even started welding anything to the frame. One saturday, Dustin spent 9 hours straight on the welder while I was busy making parts. All of the big parts went together nice and easy but as they say, the devil is in the details. I think we spent more time on gussets, and detail pats than anything else.
So with hunting season looming we managed to get the toy done and of course it's first run was hunting season. The first day i managed to snap both lower shock mounts clean off because of the amount of travel the suspension has, though I'm blaming Dustin cause he built them! That was the only glitch that I had Everything works the way it's supposed to. Maybye a little too well, I had to run back into town with no shocks and I gotta say that those rear coils are soft.
The rear coils have settled about two inches now, so I'll have to correct that, and I need to relocate my upper shock mounts as well. I have a slight interference issue between the shocks and the upper links, but other than that I'm vey happy with the way it turned out. I'm gonna try to upload some build pics.
It's great to be back in the land of the living! In april of last year I decided to do a triagulated four link rear coil set-up from scratch in my garage. My friend Dustin wanted to learn how to fab and weld, and sice he"s still young and strong as an ox, i enlisted his help and away we went! I should stop here to mention that the economy played a huge role in the amount of time it took to get this done. Thanks Wall Street!
Dustin and I decided that we were going to make as many parts from scratch as possible so all we bought was Johnny Joints, TJ front coil springs, Urethane bushings, mounting tabs for the links and an a** load of steel, mig wire, and welding gas. All we had to work with was a good mig, chop saw, grinder, cut off wheels, and an oxy/acetelyne torch. this was a really low budget / garage build. That being said, i believe I'd commit murder for lots of money and all the cool fab tools you see on TV!
After lots of torching, grinding, chiseling, and cussing Dustin and i got everything out of the way and started fabbing it all back together. I gotta say that i forgot how much I hate math! Anyway, Dustin and I burned quite a few saturdays just making parts before we ever even started welding anything to the frame. One saturday, Dustin spent 9 hours straight on the welder while I was busy making parts. All of the big parts went together nice and easy but as they say, the devil is in the details. I think we spent more time on gussets, and detail pats than anything else.
So with hunting season looming we managed to get the toy done and of course it's first run was hunting season. The first day i managed to snap both lower shock mounts clean off because of the amount of travel the suspension has, though I'm blaming Dustin cause he built them! That was the only glitch that I had Everything works the way it's supposed to. Maybye a little too well, I had to run back into town with no shocks and I gotta say that those rear coils are soft.
The rear coils have settled about two inches now, so I'll have to correct that, and I need to relocate my upper shock mounts as well. I have a slight interference issue between the shocks and the upper links, but other than that I'm vey happy with the way it turned out. I'm gonna try to upload some build pics.
