Builds Ziplock's revival

[Behemoth60]

Transmissions!
Up front is a ZF S5-42 from behind d a 1988 7.3 Ford diesel. i will use the factory ford manual clutch master and slave, connected to the factoey BJ74 vacuum booster.
transfer case is an early vintage Atlas 4 speed with 3.8:1 low range (plus the 2.73 planetary) for a 10. ultimate low range.
Using the original ford transmission mount, as well as a TMR atlas tail housing support.
Tcase is clocked down using a NWF clock ring.

 

[Behemoth60]

Driveshafts!
I purchased some DIY driveshaft kits from Busted Knuckle off road. The provide spicer yolks and slip joint, and you provide the 2.4x0.25 wall DOM tubing. I built these to suit, then had a local shop, DSI do the final welding & balancing on the shaft for me.
shaft all use Spicer 1410 shaft and mount to rockwell pattern 1480 drive flanges. These drive shafts are size large!
a bit of die grinder work to clearance a few of the yolks yields no binding and full spline engagement at the worst case drop out extension (which is how the photo’s were taken)
Front shaft is a two piece shaft, using a Busted Knuckle idler bearing. Clearances on that front shaft are tight, i was able to thread that needle over the cross bar, under the atarter, beside the upper link and above the lower. Several compromises were involved including limiting front axle droop to ensure the front ahaft neither bound at the u joint nor crashed into the lower link.

 

[Behemoth60]

Rollers!

That should hold up to 33's just fine

I’m going out on a limb here, but figure 42” minimum

You guys are joking of course. Can you imagine a 33" wide tire? Heck, Grave Digger runs, 43's. Alas,, I am only running 14's.

Tires are 14/42-17 Irok Bias ply tires.
Rims started out as H2 wheels, and were converted to custom one-off bead locks a 17 years ago as documented on this thread over on that 'other' forum.
Not much else to say about that.

 

[Behemoth60]

Rolling Chassis!

Some spray paint, a few fasteners and a week of assembly, and I have, for the first time, a rolling chassis!
Put a big bar on the crank bolt and gave this whole contraption a turn by hand to verify that now that everything is together and torqued, all these disparate parts play nice together. Nothing is bound up or grinding, i can shift the gears, engage the clutch. It passed its initial system integration test!

 

[Behemoth60]

... that overhead lifting thingy is called a Gantry

in the course of building my crane, I got a schooling on proper Crane terminology. Allow me to mud-splain this to y'all.

A Gantry crane rolls around on the ground, with at least two 'legs' on wheels or rails on the aforementioned ground.
A Jib crane rotates about on a pole
A Bridge Crane rolls on rails up at the ceiling level.
A Tower crane is the really tall ones that fall down on construction sites when it's windy.
A Mobile crane drives itself around from job site to job site where it can tip over when lifting something expensive.
A Crane Kick was the illegal head kick move that the demon-sorcerer Mr Miagi trained Daniel to use to steal the legitimate victory from Johnny.

 

[cruiserpilot]

You guys are joking of course. Can you imagine a 33" wide tire? Heck, Grave Digger runs, 43's. Alas,, I am only running 14's.

I meant TALL. I must have missed something there, but what else is new.

 

[Behemoth60]

It's alive! So many updates:

At long last, this contraption has been assembled sufficiently to undergo what I am calling "chassis testing". Ultimate outcome of the chassis test is to answer some critical questions:
Does everything work?
Are the springs right?
Is the suspension geometry ok?
Does it need sway bars?

After some driving about, the answers are: Yes, No, Yes, Yes.

Even though it is sitting ~7-10cm too tall, the cushy coil springs are so.much.better than leaf springs. I put a 2x4 board across my driveway, and drover over it as fast as I dared to simulate a pothole test. Broke the board into three pieces, didn't really feel it in the driver's seat. But, they soft coils do not resist turns and sway, or even torque twist of accelerating. Definitely need sway bars.

The hydraulic steering is.... weird. Good, incredible power, tons of steering left to right, but just feels different. I don't trust it. Will take some getting used to.
The Cummins 5.9 flywheel that I have on the back of the 13BT is 25kg. I notice the mass of this flywheel as the 13BT is no where as 'Revvvy' as it used to be. Contemplating removing some material from the back side to make it lighter.

Obviously, it's missing the front clip, the body work looks like this rig has been rolled over, several times (actually, it's been rolled over many times). But the point of this chassis test was to make sure everything is mechanically working. Which it is:
My custom axles are excelling and lockers are locking.
Hydraulic steering is steering.
My custom 13BT to ZF S5 tranny adapter is adapting.
My suspension is suspending.
My ported hydro boosting master is providing staggering amounts of braking.
Nothing grinds, binds, rubs, knocks, rattles, or scrapes.
The biggest mechanical problem so far is that the clutch is out of adjustment.. the friction point is right on the floor. I have some knobs to turn, but this is another unknown... a manually actuated Ford 7.3 hydraulic clutch on a the BJ74 clutch vacuum booster... I wonder if the BJ74 booster does not have sufficient length of throw to fully actuate the ford hydraulics. It worked enough to drive it around, and I will look at this later.

I call this a major successful milestone. Now I can move onto the final phase of the project - making it pretty. Body work, is up next.

Some interesting factoids.
Weight as it sits right now is 2250kgs. 56/44 front to rear split
Clearance under the diffs is 34cm
Got the new Madman EMS3 gauge. It is pretty awesome. Highly recommended
13BT engine, fully dressed with accessories, but no flywheel or fluids weighs 311 kg
A bare BJ74 tub, less parts that have rusted away weighs only 140 kg. (Did I mention that I bought a crane scale, in addition to corner scales)

 

[lumpy70]

Very nice

 

[Behemoth60]

Door skins. I've not seen too much about this process on this forum, so here goes.
Outer door skins are wrapped around and crimped to the inner door panel. Outer skin is cut off by sanding/grinding away around the edge of the door.
On the 70 series doors, the skin is braised to the uprights which hold the window frame. I tried melting away the braise, but ended up just grinding it off.
What is not on the internet anywhere that I could find, is proof that the upper window frame skin is attached in the same way... cutting around the edges.

The window frame on my door was bent pretty badly form the 2014 roll over.
The bottom of my innner door skin was pretty badly rusted out, and will need some new metal inserted.
You can buy new door skins for about $450, but I got fiberglass door skins which included the window frame skin all in one part.

So far, I've diassembled the disfigured and rusty door. It needs some love, but you get the idea where this is going.

 

[NM Frontier]

Just getting caught up on this tonight and, oh man this is awesome in so many ways! Nice work! This is very inspiring to go in more of a "wheeler" direction for my 74.

 

[cruisermatt]

update?

 

[Behemoth60]

update?

I just posted 512 days ago. You guys are so impatient.

 

[Behemoth60]

OK, quick recap. I've been (VERY) slowly working on the body work.

Before I started on that though, here's a gratuitous flex picture. I was testing for clearance at max flex (before anti-sway bars go in) I think I measured 46 degrees of rear axle twist with 24 degrees of body tilt. Everything clears.

 

[Behemoth60]

Then I took the body off again, put it on the rotisserie for it's fixups. Cut out the bent and rusty rockers and rear panels.

 

[Behemoth60]

Welded in some beefy new rockers. These are welded right to the A, B, pillar bases and floor pan. Totally replacing the rocker. In this pic, it is also integrated and welded into the base plate for the roll cage mount in the front.

 

[Behemoth60]

Test fitting new side steel. Awlteq bent up some 16 guage panels for me. They are over-sized, and I need to cut to fit my needs. I got 8 of them made, I figure I can use them for 1/2 door skins, rear tailgate skin when the roof is off, or fixing any of the other BJ74's I got waiting for their turn in the shop.

 

[Behemoth60]

Panel tacked in, with cutout for the wheel. The wheel is located further back than stock, and much larger. I tried to retain the overall spirit of the factory cut-outs. You can see I ran the rockers all the way back to the wheel opening. And further forward... the front axle is way out in front now (in front of the engine in fact, technically, making this truck a 'Mid-Engine' configuration) .

 

[Behemoth60]

Lots of body work. Fixing the many an numerous dents all over this tub. I tired to source a replacement tub, but between the pandemic, and their rareity and the distance. PilotCruiser had one for me, but between distance, pandemics, and ferry rides, I decided that I was cutting out the worst of it anyway, and could deal with the remainder. In this pic, I have restored the crushed tail light bucket to put the factory light back in there. I cut out the factory tab, and spliced that into some new sheet metal. Tail lights fit now.

<Not shown> I've been working on building inner tubs now for a very long time. Body work is not really my thing and interest has dwindled as a result. New projects have been taking my time. So... it's just waiting on renewed inspiration.

 

[cruisermatt]

This is so cool

 

[Ragnaroek]

Awesome!

Any updates?