What are you plans for the trackbar? I'm sure you are likely building your own but it would be cool if a stock or maybe an adjustable front trackbar could be repurposed?

VERY BAD A**

I hit a big milestone last weekend. The truck is finally back on all 4's!

I still needed a frame-side trackbar bracket, which wasn't too difficult to build.
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Then I took some time to remove the only bad spots I found on the frame which were behind the rear shock mounts.
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After painting the frame and suspension parts, I grabbed the end rings I made earlier and went to work getting final measurements for the trackbar.
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With measurements checked 10-12 times and weighing how I wanted the axle to sit at ride height, I took some tube to work and put a bend in it and flattened the ends with the 75 ton press. Back home I took more measurements and coped the tube and welded it to the end rings.
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After some paint, it was looking pretty good. Then I pressed in the xAxis Joint and the bushing.
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The moment of truth: The rear axle all bolted up, sitting at planned ride height
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At full compression
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View of the trackbar showing it tucked between the axle and where the gas tank will sit.
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Showing a little articulation with the floor jack. The left side was hung up on the jack stand, otherwise I could have gotten it to the floor with slack to spare. Honestly, I not sure where this thing would stop. I know it will only be limited by the shocks
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Finally! Weight on the axle! If you look close, you will notice the axle is slightly right of center. It should settle out to being 0.2" right of center at ride height. This was done so when the suspension compresses it will strike the jounce bumpers squarely due to the arc travel path of the trackbar. Not an uncommon practice done by the OEMs.
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Right now the truck is sitting 2.5" inches higher than planned, but it's missing about 700 lbs. The rear only weighs 850lbs at the moment. Gas tank, rear bumper and spare tire will leverage 550lbs alone onto the rear springs. I still need to add cage, rear seat, a pair of kids and some cargo.

Looks great! What size tube did you use to make the eyes on the track bar. Looks like 2" .25 wall?

Jealous. Wish I had that type of skill and knowledge. Oh yah- and patience!

Thanks, may hit the machine shop so i can run similar bushings.

Very nice, when is the maiden voyage around the neighborhood?

Nice rear! damn sexy....

New Year. New Toys.

I bite the bullet and purchased my own copy of SolidWorks for home. As I contemplated what still needed to be brought into CAD to finish all my projects, I quickly realized that I might as well model the whole darn thing. The only part I had not planned on building in CAD was the body itself. Given how simple the lines are, I think I can pull this off.

I found a really good scale print of the frame some time ago. Pulling the print into SW, I was able to make a very good representation of the frame:
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This weekend while the kids were sleeping I planted myself in front of the computer and banged out some more details, added brackets, and even was able to make a very good representation of the spring buckets with the 2" extensions I built.
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And a little color for effect...
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This could get pretty cool in a hurry. My main motivation for modeling the body will be to see how the tire carrier and winch bumpers look before I cut any metal.

More to come...

Wow...

That is one helluva new toy !

Sounds like a fun project.

You got some mad SW skills! Mine are far behind that, but I am learning.

Very cool.

Does this qualify as "Web Wheeling"?

So far, modeling the body has been going pretty well. Although it has high-lighted how poorly these bodies were originally constructed. For the most part, the body is square, but you can tell at certain junctions the panels didn't fit right and had to be massaged into place.

The good news is now I can accurately design the rear shock mounts and take advantage of the body lift and the extra package space that used to be occupied by the leaf springs.

The tub model should come in handy for designing the actual cage. I want to do some thing different with the front legs, similar to a Rock Hard Sports Cage, but tied to the floor and mid-body mounts to keep the cage clear of the foot well / parking brake, etc. The cage will be tied to the floor, bed rails, upper firewall, etc so the body and cage will reinforce each other, making both stronger. Then the whole mess will be tied to the frame via the normal body mounts and at least one set of extra mounts under the main hoop.

The tires/wheels are not mine. I downloaded them from GRABCAD to see what 37's would look like.

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I played around with photo-rendering my Bilstein model.

That's awesome!

Are you going to model in the fuel filler encroachment into the rear drivers side inner fender? Also how hard would it be to model a flat floor and could application show the interference points from original?

The shock render is cool.

Why yes I do, I took the easier path when I added my back doors (that sounds funny) and left all the original floor structure in place. I'd like to flat floor the entire area in the future to gain some space back. Knowing the interference points would make planning easier.

Flat floor in the passenger area? Like this guy?









I've been thinking about your rig throughout this whole process. I think I can copy off my frame model, split it and stretch it to match your frame extension. This would be useful for virtual testing the bending strength of the longer frame.

Yes, I've been following that build, I like the floor, I don't like the back door window frames.

I think I can do a similar floor, my tunnel will be longer with my doubler, but I ditched the muffler so the rest can go flat.

A stretched rig analysis would be so beneficial to many people! It'd be awesome to know just how far a frame could be stretched before lack of strength becomes an issue.

I love what you're doing with the model! Looks amazing! Probably far more sophisticated than the original design!!

Yes. I hear of crew cab long bed guys complain about that, especially on poorly made concrete roads like 225.

Got a little more done in the last 24 hours, but process is typically slow. I'm happy it is taking shape though.

The hood, fenders and grill will be difficult to model accurately, but I'm hoping to make some more progress this weekend.

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So very cool

Looks great.