"Who ever said necessity breeds innovation was a smart man."
Day 10
Getting over the frustration of Day 9 was a large hurdle to jump. But apparently a day at work to take my mind off (sort of, I do work with trucks everyday, just not my own) the truck paid off. I got home with a fresh idea in my head and made it happen.
You see the problem with the upper link mounts were three fold. (I kind of touched on this yesterday, but let's recap anyway shall we) First the upper link mounts are actually made to work with a bushing, which is a full inch wider than the heim and misalignment spacers that I am working with. And second the mount is off, not by much, only about an inch to be exact. Lastly with the frame that I have being different than previous models and the heim/jam nut combo being physically taller than a bushing and the nut being wider than the tube I ran into clearance issues with the frame. Solution, build a stand off.
I used the inside pivots and the frame "plug" that was provided with the kit, but instead of putting the "plug" through the frame I welded it to the end of a piece of tube that I had cut to the proper length and angle (about a 25degree angle and about 1 1/2" tall at the center, incase you were wondering). I first made the mockup pieces out of mild steel and once everything was correct I made the finished pieces out of 1 1/2" .120 wall DOM tubing.
This standoff is going to be welded to the frame and I am going to add a tube as a gusset to it like is shown in the illustration below. And just to prove to you all that I did in fact learn something in elementary school, I used MS Paint for the illustration. I could just as easily used Illustrator but where would the fun be in that!
Now I know some of you "webricators" out there are going to want to say "That heim is too far off the frame" or "I wouldn't have done it that way I would have... bla bla bla", yea don't want to hear it. This way should work just fine and I am going to run it to find out. If something is amiss I will revisit this later.
So check back tomorrow to see if I have yet to get the links mounted... I sure hope I will.
Jason Gonderman
Online Editor
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