The Lone Ranger – Kage’s ’94 X-Cab Leaf SAS and Bed Bob

[Josh40601]

I’ve gone through your build thread (and just about every SAS thread I could find as well) prior to pulling this thing in the garage. And you’re right, I will most likely windup hacking off a bigger chunk of the K member, later on. I guess I was just feeling a bit gun shy about hacking more off than I did last night . Comments are always welcome, especially from people that have gone down the SAS road before.

I know what you mean. When my buddy took out the plasma and just HACKED it way down, i was like

 

[Kage]

I know what you mean. When my buddy took out the plasma and just HACKED it way down, i was like

Well we're both right. It looks like I hacked off enough to clear things as it sits now..... But then I realized "Hey Dummy, where you going to put that hydro ram when you get to that point?". So after a :homer: moment, I'm going to need to cut the tar out of that thing to make room for the ram. Unless I decide to the ram lower on the axle. Time will tell.

Detail work allways seems to take forever, so there hasn't been many things to share as there isn't much to see. I do have an "offical" update post that I'll get up here in a bit as well as some updates to do to the other prior posts.

The truck is ready to trun around at this point, as soon as poly gets me the arm I need to get the steering giong. If it doesn't show up soon, I'll just rig something up to make the turn.

The "Done" list
-44 is under the truck and located correctly
-Shackles are done (I'll post those in a bit)
-Had some rust repair to do on the rad core support (not bad enough to replace the support, but annoying) also had to fix one of the front body mounts.
-The cab is now 2/3's bolted on right now, and is currently lined up correctly (that took way to long to make it right).
- Front corss member is done
- Started on my winch mount

Front Punch List
- Brakes
- Shocks
- Some sort of steering
- Front DS (after doublers go together).
- Need to order the correct lug nuts for the H2's

We're getting there! Heck, I even started the thing for the first time since 2/15/11 today. Has the same stutter it had when I parked it (dang IAC )

here's something to look at:

Body Mount fix:

Core support Rust Repair:

I jacked up the Rear of the truck to get some measurements off of it:

Frame rails should be 22 - 1/4"
Front Frame rail looks to be 27 -1/4" (1/4 too high)
Rear Frame Rails 30" (1" too high)

So I'm really close, and not doing too bad seeing as how I started on 2/15 with this, and I'm working alone.

 

[Kage]

Front SAS – Shackles and Cross member

The front shackles wound up being a bit overkill. I used 1.5 x ½” thick material to make them. The holes are at 5” center to center, and I milled out 1/8” per side to get the correct offset (Waggy bushing measures 2.75” and the YJ bushing measures right at 3”). There was some .120” 1 ¼” Tube laying around that I made the middle spacer out of.

Parts:

Welded up:

With the shackles done, I slapped a piece of 2x2x1/4” wall in for my cross member. This will also be used in my winch mount here shortly.

At this point, I can wheel the thing around the garage some, which is awesome, as I’ve been working with this much space in the rear:

And this much space in the front:

Needless to say, I’m itching to get on with the bed bob just so that I can easily walk around the thing with the garage door closed (its been cold and wet here lately).

So we’re sitting like this as of right now:

I jacked up the rear to take a few measurements (see above one post) to see if this thing is going to be close to legal when I’m done. Thankfully, I’m pretty dang close.

I should have a few more updates coming here in the next day or two. Stay tuned!

I’ve got the itch to go wheeling so bad right now its not even funny….

 

[Josh40601]

love me some H2 rims....

 

[Bennybooster]

No joke, one of the best jobs on a SAS I have seen on this site, and fast too

 

[Downey]

damn nice man do mine?

 

[84stealthranger]

nice work on the sas man. it seems a little bit easyer to do with leafs from what i can see

 

[Kage]

love me some H2 rims....

Not going to lie, I was a wee bit excited when they showed up in my price range

No joke, one of the best jobs on a SAS I have seen on this site, and fast too

Thanks! I'm rocking through it as fast as I can, but there's a ton of detail work coming up that's going to slow me down.

damn nice man do mine?

Its a thought, but I think picking up another SAS project might make the wife divorce me

nice work on the sas man. it seems a little bit easyer to do with leafs from what i can see

Thanks! I think the quickest path is going RA's and not moving the axle location from the stock position. But where's the fun in that

It really hasn't been that difficult so far, and the detail work hasn't been overwhelming. Which is cool as it allows me to get it done quicker.

Thanks again for the comments guys!

 

[Andres629]

Yeehaw! Looks like it's going to be fun!

 

[Kage]

Yeehaw! Looks like it's going to be fun!

I hope so

Not an official update, but it looks like the truck is going to get turned around tomorrow That means I'll start pulling the bed off and get to work on the other end for awhile.

Things started out pretty good tonight, but started going down hill, so I figured drinking might be a better alternative to messing more things up.

I got my winch mount drilled, and partially thrown in (Welding upside down still sucks)

Then things started going down hill. I cut my Drag link and got it welded up. Unfortunately I cut the dang thing shorter than I wanted to So that's $40 worth of wasted parts and material. At least the angle looks good

With the drag link in place, I cycled the steering around some. It looks like I might have some interference between the Drag link and how I was planning on running the tie rod. Not real sure what I'm going to do about that just yet. I need to do a little more looking.

It also looks like I fat fingered my order from Poly Preformance, as they shipped me the wrong steering arm for the 44. Not a big deal as I can still move the truck around, but just another annoyance.

I know :baby:

 

[Josh40601]

are you going to move the tirod up top once you figure the draglink/tirod interference issue out?

 

[Kage]

are you going to move the tirod up top once you figure the draglink/tirod interference issue out?

That's the plan. The tie rod that's on there now came with the 44 when I bought it. Its scary flimsy. The tubeing is thin enough that I can literally bend it over my knee. But it'll work well enough to spin it around.

 

[Josh40601]

i figured you were, just wanted to be sure. It does look a little skinny lol

 

[Kage]

Bed Removal and quick mock up for the Rear:

Turns out pulling the bed off these trucks really is as easy as everyone says. I’m shocked at how light the thing is (If it wasn’t so awkward, I’m betting I could pick it up myself).

Before pulling the bed, I took some measurements to try to figure out where I want the rear axle to wind up sitting, as well as what my final wheel base would be. Ideally, I’m shooting for 110-115” WB when I’m done, time will tell what it winds up being. Note that the truck isn’t sitting level in these photos so that screws up the perspective some.

115” puts me here:

110” puts me here:

I’m still really hoping 110 will work, but I’m not sure if the rear cab corner is going to play nice.

After I got done zoning out while looking at my pretty tires/wheels, I kicked the wife’s car out of the garage to pull the bed off. With some help from a good friend, we managed to rip off the bed without much effort..

I’m hoping to have the rear cleaned up and mocked up by the end of this weekend. Might be a tad ambitions, but it’ll be fun!

 

[kris97ranger]

why not do 112" or somthing that way its as close to the 110 you want but then theres no problem if the cab corner doesnt want to play nice