Link Build - Day's 7, 8, & 9

Man oh man that was a rough weekend!

"Cutting plate with plasma is like carving a turkey with a battle axe. It's fast and it works, but it sure is messy."  

"Big drill bits sure are expensive!"

Day's 7, 8, & 9

For having three days to work on the truck it sure doesn't seem like I got a lot accomplished. Friday was a waste, Saturday was the best of the three and Sunday, after taking the morning to take my Mom out for Mother's Day and spending the evening in bewilderment at how the links were actually going to mount, it was pretty much a waste too.

I'll just start with the good part, Saturday. Saturday began with one big goal in mind, finish the frame and get the axle under the truck. I spent the first portion of the day finishing the driver side frame rail notch then moved onto the passenger side. A few of the templates from the driver side matched up with the passenger side and I had to make a few new ones. After taking a couple hours off for lunch and to load my old 8.8 axle into a co-workers truck I went back to work on the passenger notch. Saturday afternoon was the only time I had help so while I was working on the notch my friend Jon set to work building the hitch frame kickers and battery mounts. These were the first tubes added to the chassis as part of this build, only 100 more feet to go. Anyway, back to the build.

With the frame notch's now complete and the battery mounts in place it was time to turn our attention to the axle. To be sure everything lined up correctly and the pinion angle was set correctly I needed to have the driveshaft on the truck, which meant the 3rd member needed to be in the housing. While installing the 3rd member is a simple job in and of its self, with the third member weighing in at over 70lbs and the housing about the same, it turns into a two person task when it comes time to line the heavy center chunk with the studs in the housing. It was a tight fit but with a little persuasion it went into its hole. I got the third member from West Coast Differentials (www.differentials.com) and it is loaded with Sierra Gears and a Detroit Locker inside of a Strange Nodular housing. It should do the job. With the upper links attached to housing it was time to call it a night.

Sunday started late (remember, Mother's Day). First things first I grabbed a couple tape measures and made sure that my axle was sitting where it was supposed to be (correct wheel base that is). Once the axle was located I set to work on mounting the upper link mounts which would in turn locate the lower link mounts. This is where the fun began. First I find out my frame ('98+ model year from '97 and prior) is different than what the mounts were built around, not much, but just enough to throw a wrench into things. Then since I am using Heims instead of Bushings for the inner upper link pivots the spacing is off. So now I have to custom fabricate some sort of addition to this mount. I have an idea of what I am going to do, but you are going to have to stay tuned to find out. So I left off Sunday night with one side half mounted and the other still sitting on the ground.

I sure hope things pick up in the coming days...

  Jason Gonderman
    Online Editor

Photo Captions:

1. Passenger Side Notch Being Built
2. Passenger Side Notch Plating
   
3. Driver Side Notch Finished
4. Batter Mount Tubes
5. Optima Battery Boxes
   
6. Optima Battery Boxes
7. Axle Being Positioned
8. Links Mocked Up/Mounting Uppers