Pigpen

[uglyota]

looks good robert, but those bolts are gonna rip through the firewall unless you have some serious reinforcement on the back. And it's too long
have you tried clamping a piece of angle iron to the metal you're torching to use as a guide?

[Sharpe]

Screw straight cuts, the ragged edge is part of the vehicle's motif, kinda like, "Yah, thats right *****, I'm on the ragged edge...of falling apart..." Here's the york brackets pics.

[Sharpe]

One more.

[Sharpe]

This weekend prety much all I got done was mount the battery tray and build the steering box braces. The tray is attached to the firewall with 5 3/8" G5 bolts and 10 large sheetmetal screws. I put the batteries on and it seems to be fine so we'll see. The steering braces turned out badass! I'll get some better pics when I take them off to paint because they are deffinately worth taking lots of pictures. I stole the basic design from the offroad design brace that I had for the burban, but had to get creative because of the 2wd frame and crossmember.

[Sharpe]

Here are some crappy close ups of the braces. Also, the gas tank mount and I added a couple more leafs to the front spring packs and now it sits just right.

[uglyota]

have you tried clamping a piece of angle iron to the metal you're torching to use as a guide?

he already didn't like that idea.
Now replace that stock crossmember that you painted with some tube. It looks way out of place.
and start boxing in your frame

[Graystroke]

those braces look like they could be some abstract piece displayed at the local civic center

[agjohn02]

you must be joking


ive seen those somewhere before

[Sharpe]

I know. Maybe I can sell em for like $500 each on ebay, that would be badass. See my problem is I've gotten prety good at welding, but I am still lacking in the cutting torch and fitting departments, so most of my projects come out looking like the wavy brace. Oh well, they'll do the job and no one will ever see them.

[agjohn02]

dont try to free hand it so much. use your other arm to brace against. lay your left hand down on what you are cutting, then lay the torch across your left hand.

[mudtoy67]

You can also take a piece of angle iron and lay it like an upside down v. then rest your hand lightly on the edge slide to help with long straight cuts.

Project is lookin good!

[Sharpe]

I do use the angle iron trick for longer cuts but the wavy bracket started out as a rectangle and i didnt cut it into the angled shape until I had the tubes welded on the end so I couldnt have used the angle iron. I thought about building a new crossmember, but decided not too because after I built the engine and tranny crossmember, I was crossmembered out. At this point, I'm gonna see how well the normal frame holds up and if there are issues, I'll box it.

[Sharpe]

The big day is getting so close I can taste it! The only major hurdle left is the brake system, and I am waiting on my linelock and proportioning valve to do it. Today, I got a bnuch of little stuff done. Got the fuel tank bracket mounted and the tank set in place. I got the fuel filter bracket, power distribution block and glow plug solenoid mounted on the firewall and the hydroboost system bolted on. Plumbed most of the fuel system, only thing left is fuel return line to the tank. I also put the steering brackets in for good. Tomorow I will be pickin up my cross over steering system so look for that excitement soon!

[uglyota]

is this thing gonna have a bed? Got your tool/spare storage figured out yet? What's the cage gonna look like? Also, I only see one tank. Where's the veggie oil gonna go?

[Sharpe]

No bed. I was thinking a couple of ammo cans like yours for storage, but I need to find some big enough first. The cage is gonna look like an exo. No veggie oil, since its just a trail truck, I wont be driving it often enough to justify the trouble of the veggie. Plus I want to see all the ways you **** stuff up doing it before I try it.