Redneck Rebuild

[Loanranger]

Man, that thing looks awsome and sounds like you're acheiving you cheap but capable goal. That's gonna be one sweet rig. Where did you get the washers to go under the front coils and how many did you use? I wanna do this to my truck. Keep up the awsome work!

Thanks, the washers are used to hold rooftop heating units down, my dad works in commercial hvac, so he brought them home from work. They are a 1/4 inch thick, and we used 5 iirc. Something similar would be foundation plates found at your local building place.

 

[ItsA5Spd]

ok, thanks. Did you have plenty of threads left in the spring bolt after 5 washers?

 

[Loanranger]

yeah, it was right at the top, with full thread engagement. I wouldn't have put that many in if it wasn't.


A little more progress, we're closing in on the end. Well, for now.

We've been plugging away at the exo, and I got the rear lower shockmounts made tonight, I just gotta weld them to the axle tomorrow, and the suspension will be done. We got the three spreader bars bent and welded in, tonight we made some down bars which come off the back, down through the bed, and mount to the frame. I also bent up two bars to cover the tops and front of the fenders, they will get tied together in the front with a short stinger.

 

[dogboy]

That cage is looking awsome!! You're doin a good job of making it follow the body lines/ shape.

Just curious, where do you get all your tubing?

So far, all the tubing me and my dad have gotten as come from Floyd's Metal (or something like that) in Tacoma. They have mostly all used metal.

I still need to get the tubing for my bumper

 

[Loanranger]

Just as a downer sidenote.

When I was designing this exo cage there were two things in mind. Safety, of course, was #1, and function was #2. The function is to keep trees, brush, rocks, the ground, and whatever else might get in my dads way, from beating the living piss out of this poor little ranger, again....
The safety came into play in two areas. Driver safety, and innocent bystander safety. If you've ever worked on a unibody car, you'll see some of the resemblance between the inner structures of a unibody car, and the exo. I did this for a reason. IF this truck ever gets in a collision, whether on road or off, I want it to react the same way it would if it didn't have the exo attached. Basically creating structural zones, and crumple zones. For example, if you look at the fender bars, the cluster of bars at the front of the door is a structural area. Ideally, in a front end impact, the majority of the force should be absorbed by this point, and beyond should be untouched as far as crushing or bending...MUCH. This is to keep the occupants safe in a "safety box". Now if you look forward of this point, you'll see the bottom bar, which wraps the wheel opening. This bar has multiple bends in it, not only to contour to the wheel opening, but also has a kick out in it right above the tire. This not only helps in function, where it covers more of the tire than the fender did, so it becomes somewhat of a flare, but it also gives the tube a crumple zone. If you look at the top fender bar, aside from the bend downward at the front, it is straight. Now in a front end collision, these three points, the cluster at the front of the door, the bottom fender bar, and the top fender bar, will all work together to absorb the impact and keep the driver safe. The cluster should act as a pivot, while the bottom bar collapses it's arch, drawing the top bar downward, creating progressive resistance against the bottom bar.

Anyway, just a little insight into the design.

 

[danger88ranger]

Well thought of, how much tubing have you used so far on the exo?

 

[Loanranger]

Well thought of, how much tubing have you used so far on the exo?

we're in it about 90 feet of 2" and 8 feet of 3" for the sliders.

 

[84projectFORD]

if your doin crunch zones i would recommend moving this bar to the a-pillar bar ( teh bar this following the contour of your door). I say this because its a shear point, if you hit something hard enough in a bad crash that point could shear and cause it to possibly come in at the driver. i have seen points like those fail alot in desert racing and hurt some people. i know you wont be doin 100 mph off road but if your drivin downthe street and t-bone or do a head on colision it will shear there. the cage looks great though and please dont think im tryin to nip pick or anything, you may have a differnt idea behind it i didnt know. I just saw you were concerned for safety and crumple zones so i figured i give you a recommendation from my experience

 

[94RangerMike]

~now that's a short bed...

 

[Loanranger]

some stuff about the above picture....

The camera angles don't quite show that area well, There is a kickout in the A pillar that I bent to somewhat protect the mirrors. This makes a nice path for the upper fender bar to pass through IF it should peel loose from the cowl bar. I may add a gusset between the upper and lower fender bars right in that area to help hold things together. Thanks for the insight, it's always nice to hear others views on designs. That's what keeps us all innovative and helps our designs progress.

~now that's a short bed...

It's the same length as the bobbed long bed. Just shy of six feet, or iirc 4 inches shorter than a short bed. In the future I'd like to cut about 12 inches out of the rear corners.

I didn't make much progress this weekend, but I did get the hubs done. I pulled one apart thursday night, and after looking at it, I thought I had it figured out where to weld the two collars together. Well, in trying to better the design and get the collar closer to the wheel, I ended up welding it in too far to one direction, and it was basically only engaging about an 1/8th inch of the outer hub body.
I basically had the position right, it was just upside down from the way it should have been, but hey, this was my first time tearing into an auto hub, so oh well.
Luckily, Ben (Dogboy) had some spare collars, so I ran up there today, and got to play on the snow/icey roads in the burb,

Heres the first one.

First attempt on the left, the right way on the right.

I welded up the other side too, they probably could have been cleaned up, but I just wanted to KNOW they were locked. I took the ranger out for a little fun in the ditches, and the field across the street, and even with an inch of snow on the ground, it was hard to get it to break loose, it just took off. It did pretty well in the ditches, drove right through, but it seems like I need more weight on the rear so the suspension will work a little better. We still have about a hundred pounds of tube, a fullsize spare, and a toolbox, plus another 100+ lbs of steel going on the deck. Once all this is done, I think this thing is going to float and slide over most everything.

Pretty much all I have left is some tube here and there, decking for the bed, a spare mount, and cap the ends of the sliders.



And I bent this up today.

Still needs some upper tie bars.

 

[84projectFORD]

sounds damn good to me!!

 

[johnsislandranger]

lookin good

 

[crawlin91]

hell of a build up. very raw, functional rig

 

[ItsA5Spd]

looks awsome, can't wait to see more!

 

[Loanranger]

I told you it was redneck....