Armadillon's FW Ranger D44/Ford 9"

[armadillon]

My brother came by early this morning to pick up his portion of the trade (My spare sub and amp for buying me some RuffStuff trackbar heims). The 3/4" heims are on their way.

I couldn't figure out why my Lincoln 140 wasn't welding properly and he taught me a valuable lesson: Don't use extension cords. :doh:

Since his skill far surpasses mine in welding, he ended up welding the threaded inserts up on my tierod. He wasn't proud of the welds and advised me to grind them down, preheat with a torch and reweld them. They'll work in the meantime to get it rolling at least. I have to have this thing done by August, but my goal is April 6.

 

[armadillon]

Thanks SVT, I noticed I would have to grind 4 rivets and unbolt the old radius arm bracket. I'm not a fan of rivets

 

[armadillon]

I welded up my draglink, so the draglink and tierod are now finished, but I won't post any close up photos. *shiver* But it'll work for now!

Trying to bore out my pitman so I can shove my 7/8" tapered insert in it. Either my bit has worn to nothing from doing the knuckles, or the pitman is even more hardened than I thought. I think I'm going to get another bit...

 

[armadillon]

Ok. Just found out something odd. I thought I did my research properly but check this: drilled the pitman out to 7/8" and I noticed the Chevy 1 ton TRE for the pitman, the one that's high angle, seems to be a little wider than my other TREs. Wtf?

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[AgPete139]

Get the rivers out? How's the TRE and link? I'll probably be making my way into Austin next weekend. Want a hand ? Going to meet some Ranger buddies.

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[armadillon]

In quick response to my previous post. I did have this all figured out and completely forgot about the draglink having the bigger taper.:doh:

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[armadillon]

Pete, give me a call when youre planning on coming in. Work is gonna be turribly busy with SXSW going on but I might be able to get some time in.

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[armadillon]

Purchased the X-KUT reamer a day or two ago....just waiting for the delivery :thumbs:

 

[AgPete139]

Is it a 1-1/2" taper / foot (7*) ? I have one that you could have used.

How does 2 weekends from now look for you?

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Hey how did you build your radius arm brackets? I'm thinkin about building a 18" long .25" thick bracket to strengthen the frame at the mounting point.

Here's what I have in mind. The red dots are bolts. It looks like crap I know, I had to draw it with my finger on my phone. Probably build this today.

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[armadillon]

To be honest, that looks almost exact to what mine is now. I'll draw a quick photo. I'm full width, so if you don't angle where the heims go, you'll probably end up putting a bend in the arms. It wasn't difficult, but if you don't want to bend them you'll need to make it more like BrayD's bracket, where the radius arm mount would point directly where the wedges are on the frame.

 

[armadillon]

I haven't cleaned it up or put gussets on it yet. It's done for mock-up and to get it rolling.

 

[AgPete139]

Little bit at a time! So is everything basically connected at this point? Steering is operational?

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Ok I gotchya I'm not sure if I'm going to incorporate a crossmember into my RA brackets or not. If I do it will have to be towards the back of the bracket to clear the front drive shaft. I'm going to try to make my crossmembers mount inside the frame to improve my ground clearance. Gonna build a skid plate and I want it to mount flush with the bottom of the frame.

 

[armadillon]

Having a little electrolysis fun...




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