Ascinder's 1-Ton VX... Cont'd

[Ascinder]

After the stories you've told me about the neighborhood, I can't believe the city would crack down on you of all people. Crazy Mormons...... That sucks about the tree too, life always seems to have ways of kicking you in the nuts when you least expect it. At least now you have a good reason to liquidate some of your excess inventory so who's up on the chopping block first?

[pbkid]

ya, i could take the $1200 the local shop wants to build a rear bumper with swing arm for my Runner and drive to Reno

......ill bring beer........

[ZEUS]

After the stories you've told me about the neighborhood, I can't believe the city would crack down on you of all people. Crazy Mormons...... That sucks about the tree too, life always seems to have ways of kicking you in the nuts when you least expect it. At least now you have a good reason to liquidate some of your excess inventory so who's up on the chopping block first?

Well interestingly enough, all 3 trucks were in regards to ONE project! The Army truck I bought for $600 (no title or A/C or anything comfortable) so I got the 2wd donor truck for the body, title, comforts, 12v system, stronger motor. Then later, I got the '94 for the 6.5 turbo and NV4500; failing to realize I got the 1st year of electronic injection - which was CRAP! All 3 trucks died shortly after buying them and diesel parts are expensive so now I hate diesels! No idea what to do yet... other than toss the motor and trans in the Blazer quickly so I can take the trailer out of the garage and try to figure out how to slide the Blazer to the left side of the garage so AWOL can go back where it was on the right side of the garage. I could throw the extra VX plate on the green truck for now and just let the 2wd go to a pick 'n pull or tow it to a friend's house till the city is off my back. They just want to raise property taxes.

[Ascinder]

......ill bring beer........

SOLD!

They just want to raise property taxes.

There's a shocker. So You just need to get all the parts you need together and ditch those other trucks. Have you looked into govliquidation.com at all for those diesel parts? It seems like they always have 6.2 and 6.5 diesels on there for cheap.

[pbkid]

justin- you know that a 350 will drop right into those SCEV's or whatever their called (if your talking about the military blazer/1.5 ton trucks)

my dad just got done getting a 350 into ours.... runs like a champ now

[Ascinder]

Plastic tube for the inserts came back from the plastics place and other than trying to charge me an outrageous amount and failing(I had a friendly "chat"), the quality was fantastic. They cut a 30 degree bevel into the edges to help form the tire bead into the rim lip.



I spent the better part of that morning looking for the 50 year old jigsaw my dad brought over on the Ark, only to not find it(probably crumbled into dust) and having to go get a new one. The beadlock inserts I had made needed to be cut so that they locked together like puzzle pieces, but could be broken down to be able to fit inside the tire(inserts=18" diameter vs. 16" tires). Following pics are an example. Mine are black and don't show up nearly as well.





So, that's when I spent the better part of an afternoon/evening cutting out one(1)-yes one insert and getting it completely installed in the wheel/tire combo. I had to do five passes of the 16 nuts that hold the rim halves together followed by two torque passes. Thats tightening down 112 times for, again, one wheel. Not fun. To my credit, when aired up, the only thing that leaked air was the valve core that wasn't all the way seated in. Couple twists, now we're good. Only four more wheels to go



Also, the Longevity plasma cutter/TIG welder showed up. I haven't cut anything yet-been busy playing catch up with everything else going lately.



I did go out and grab 20 ft. of seamless stainless tubing for the fuel system since the coil of stainless I had on hand kinked like a cheap coat hanger. After struggling with some of the first flares I attempted, I got some help from the pros over at the Ridgid pipefitting forums. Everything's looking smooth now. I also picked up a 32 gallon oilless compressor for running the plasma cutter. I rigged up an oil/water separator to an industrial air filter which goes to another oil/water separator which feeds into a dessicant based air dryer and then into the plasma cutter/Tig unit.



Yes, I like overkill. What I don't like is having to replace expensive plasma consumables, which are consumed much quicker if moisture is present in the air supply. They way the plasma/tig is set up, the compressed air supply and the Argon/helium supply share a common connection to the unit and you just switch over to whichever system you are using at the time. Kind of a PITA, but it is what it is. I also picked up a 50-50 mix of argon and helium and a ton of welding paraphernalia to get used to the TIG side of the system and practice on some of the unlimited supply of scrap aluminum I have access to(thank you aviation sheetmetal shop). Aluminum is great to learn on because it requires little to no prep between each weld unlike steel. I also got some 2% lanthanated tungsten electrodes since they are the non equivalent to the 2% thoriated electrodes. They also work really well on both aluminum and steel. But with quality TIG, you have to use a dedicated grinding wheel so you don't contaminate your tungstens so I grabbed an 8" wet/6" dry grinder specifically for that purpose. I also picked up a little wheel type attachment that lets you do perfect straight plasma cuts by keeping your torch from touching the metal and guiding it along rollers along the line. Somehow that last weekend, I also ended up with a hydraulic press whose ram can only be described as: "ridiculously huge" (See the tape measure in the following pic for size reference)I really want to turn it into a plate bender to make brackets and tabs with.


Aside from buying a bunch of shop toys, I was able to source a complete A/C setup including the corvette compressor, lines, fitting, air dryer, bracket, hardware, and some idlers and tensioners. Got that all installed save for the upper tensioner which was missing two bolts to mounts it. GM doesn't have them in stock, so there's one more loose end for me to chase-good thing, I was running out of important stuff to do .




Also got the new smaller, more powerful starter installed along with 95% of the convoluted tubing for the wiring harness. Also got the huge 90mm MAF sensor. All in all the engine is starting to be a done deal. I have very few things still to get to complete it.





I began the mod of grinding down the shift rail on the NP205 transfer case to allow separate shifting of the front and rear axles. So now I should be able to run 4HI, 4LO, 2HI, 2LO or Neutral in any combination front and rear. Normally it is only possible to disconnect the front(2 wheel drive).



Disconnecting the rear allows you to run a FWD vehicle which is good in some circumstances. When used in conjunction with cutting brakes(individual wheel brakes) you can pivot around corners unlike anything else. So yes, I'm totally doing that. Here's a LINK that explains them a little better.

I also grabbed these cool little black chrome LED lights to run as rock lights on the bottom of the rig.




But enough for now, time to get back to work. This thing's not going to build itself.


.

[ZEUS]

WOOHOO! Progress. That motor is looking stellar! Still not sold on the batwing tho. I can't keep my compressor in that location due to frame interference which is part of why I don't like the batwing I guess... can't wait to see what that thing looks like dropped into place however! The rollers... AWESOME! Watch your back.

[nfpgasmask]

Awesome dude, the wheels/tires look sickgnar.

Bart

[JHarris1385]

unreal

[vt_maverick]

I have a feeling that if I was good enough with mechanical stuff to actually own a plasma cutter, my project would go seriously off schedule while I tried using it on everything I could think of. Phone books, spiral hams, my friend's plasma cutter (images of light saber battles dancing in my head)... nothing would be safe.

Nice work (even if I don't understand it all), can't wait to see pics of everything put back together!

[Triathlete]

Disconnecting the rear allows you to run a FWD vehicle which is good in some circumstances. When used in conjunction with cutting brakes(individual wheel brakes) you can pivot around corners unlike anything else. So yes, I'm totally doing that.

"Front digs" anyone?

[Ascinder]

So, a little progress update. My belt for the A/C compressor got here and was installed-yay. Also the shift rail mod to the transfer case is completed and everything reinstalled. On a side note, the transfer case guts look brand new inside with no signs of wear.
Anyways, for the purpose of this post, I thought I'd shoot out this little tidbit about some wheel tech. In assembling the Hutchinson double beadlocks, I wanted to look into the options to air the tires up and down quickly. Being bigger, they hold more air and therefor take longer to air up and down when you offroad. I had a set of caps on a keychain that attached to the valvestems and basically held down the schrader valve to air all four tires down at once. They worked ok, but were fairly slow. Another option is to pull the valvestems to let the air out even faster. Problems with that is that occasionally the tiny stems get launched into the abyss that is the great outdoors never to be seen again. So, I started looking into alternatives. There are a lot, but the one I chose was to use tractor valve stems. Reason being that they were the most effective out of any option and the most available anywhere in the US should replacement parts be needed. They were also the cheapest at a measly $4.50 each. Tractor valvestems have a removable core that is used to add either water or Calcium chloride as a ballast. Needless to say it would take a long time to fill up a tractor tire with either through the small hole that removing a valvestem provides so the removable section on a tractor valve is pretty big. People say these stems can drop a max air pressure 42" tire to zero psi in 20-30 seconds. The removable core of a tractor valve gets taken off by hand instead of a special valvecore tool, so when the air pressure decides to try and launch it, you have a much better chance of holding onto it. In the following pics I have three valves which demonstrate the size differences of the air passages. The small one is your standard size opening on a tire valve. It comes in at a whopping .010 square inch of airflow. The next size up is only slightly better at .027 square inches of throughput. The tractor valve however is .075 square inches which still sounds small, but is 750% bigger than stock. When has anyone ever done a mod that increased that much over stock levels of anything-no really, I don't need smartguy followup answers to that statement(you know who you are) Another thing to note is that the valves(all three) seal differently than your typical stock wheel valve. These valves are all metal with a rubber seal that sits inside the rim so it isn't exposed to sunlight or the elements. After seeing several rubber valvestems deteriorate and crack and leak air, I'm really liking this all metal design. The rims' valvestem openings had to be reamed out only slightly to accept the larger threaded portion of the tractor valves. The tractor valves also had to be turned down at their base from 7/8"(0.875) to 0.800" to fit in internal slot inside the rim itself. Without furter ado, Here's the pics:

The three different size air passage holes:



Side by side size comparison:




The tractor valve showing the core removed. As an additional note, the core contains a normal valvestem so these are still servicable at any location you would air a tire up at.



And that concludes this segment of Ascinder's fun yet boring facts about stuff you never knew or cared about. Tune in next week for my segment on tire doilies.....

[ZEUS]

BRAVO CHAP!! BRAVO!!! At least on the Hutch's you can tuck them out of the way enough to protect them from trail hazards.

[Marlin]

Over the weekend at Uwharrie, some Jeepers next to us showed me a neat toy. It was an ARB deflator, he said it was 40 bucks at a 4x4 shop in colorado. The way it works was like a normal chuck with a gage. It clipped onto the vavle stem, and had an adjustment screw that actually pulled the valve core out without the risk of losing the core!! Very cool and it monitored pressure in real time. I have a set of trailhead deflators and a set of smittybilt deflators, which work pretty good, but those tractor stems look awesome!!!

[ZEUS]

Psst... what's going on... ?