Well I got around to a test drive yesterday. Overall im pretty pleased. Heres what the truck looks like free from the side of the house:
And here are the results of the test drive:
PROS
-Doubler works perfectly (and thanks to JB Water Weld, doesn’t leak)
-tracks nice and straight down the road
-steering is effortless
-it stops on a dime (couldn’t test completely though, see the last CON)
-the ball valves as line locks work perfectly
CONS
-had difficulty getting the drivers side shaft in on the 14 bolt. Im thinking that welding the truss on brought it out of alignment. Im gonna try to straighten it out by cutting the truss on the top and shimming it with another thin piece of 2x2x.25” wall tubing.
-when in high range on the transfer cases, the engine can hardly get the truck going. Eventually I will get new gears for the axles, but for now I can just keep the D300 in low. Also, I could build myself a nice 302/np435 combo and call it good haha
-when steering, the pump whines
-if I try turning without revving the engine or I hit the limits I put in the cylinder, the engine usually dies
-when I slam the brakes, there was a really bad (and LOUD) grinding noise. Turns out that my driveshaft didn’t have enough clearance from my passenger side radius arm. When the suspension compressed from braking, it hit in a few places. Here are the pictures:
and this
which did this:
the heim and bolt are supposed to be perpendicular… The frame bent up about ½”. My weld held up just fine though. Also reminds me that I MUST box the frame haha.
Fixing the frame shouldn’t be hard, and figuring out how to give the driveshaft more clearance should be pretty easy. I do need to start searching for how to fix the steering though. I have a video of it driving that I will post up when I can. Thanks for checking it out guys!
Sam