Hey guys! Finally updating this thread.
Ive gotten a few things done. I made my high-steer arms. They aren’t pretty but they will do the job. Here they are before paint:
The hard part was the 2” hole for the kingpin spring. After about an hour of trying to do it with the hole saw and mill (and only getting ¼” into the part) I got impatient and tried pushing a little harder. Didn’t work out to well, ended up snapping a bunch of teeth off the saw when it grabbed. After that my dad threw it on the CNC lathe and put a perfect hole in it for me in about 2 minutes.
Got the axle rebuilt after that. Heres what it looks like now:
And heres how I gusseted the axle ears. It was hard to get a good picture, came out kind of funny but this is it:
The axle still need a diff cover, brakes, hubs, tie rod, and ram mounted. I figure once I get the tie rod on I will wheel it in place under the truck because once I install the hubs the tires are going to be 100% locked.
In order to make wheeling that axle under easy, as well as making the removal of the old one easy, I decided to cut the fenders. The fenders on this truck were already trashed and I figure they will just get in the way so I took em off. After that I decided to get the core support out of the way as well. I cut the bottom corners off then “massaged” the rest of it up until I had a good curve to give a lot of space to the new 39.5” IROKS. Here’s what the new “fenders” look like:
I will probably weld some angle iron it to give the core support some of its rigidity back, but overall I think it worked out well for being just an angle grinder and sledgehammer job. I still need to do the other fender as well as some final trimming, I will post pictures of the whole frontend when I do so that you can see what this thing will look like.
Next will be taking out the front suspension and putting the new front in place, as well as diving into the 14 bolt a little bit (welded diff, truss, and disc brakes). Thanks guys!
Sam