Class 6 Off Road Race Truck D-50 build out. Chevy. 4.3L V6

[camoit]

Well, I now have a rear end. It’s out of 1995 Isuzu Rodeo. It has disk brakes. The gear ratio is 4.10 Dana 44. I put in a Limited Slip carrier in the unit. It’s an Auburn Gear unit. Part # 542083. Apparently the Rodeo came with an option for several types of gear ratios. One was a limited slip. These are quite rare to find. The brakes use a disk / drum design. The parking brake is a small drum brake inside the disk rotor. This is now pretty much a standard design for most cars now. Some other cars rear disk brakes had a mechanical lever on the caliper for parking. This type takes a special tool to “un wind” the caliper cup. Those suck to work on.

[camoit]

I found a good local place to supply nearly all of the custom parts I need. They are called http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com I went to there shop and picked up a couple of tabs that I needed to start to put the rear end together. I also changed the pictures of the front end page so you can get a better idea of how that works. And my bell housing arrived today. The correct one. Now I can put together my mock up block and build mounts. If you get a chance check out ruff stuff web site. They have adaptors that can be used to put disk brakes on a rear end. To make it fit a MM or D-50 there might be some additional work. But I would bet there is a smart guy on this board that can make the parts work. For all you “Air Bag” lovers out there, they have a large selection of trick tabs and weld on things for 3-link suspension. Including Heim joints of all size. They even have the parts to build tie rods with Heim joints.





I put on the bell housing today. In the process of starting the job I took the bolts out of the package and found out that they are to short. Yes they are cool allen head bolts but they are ½ inch short. They only came out of the trany by 3 threads. I also discovered that the steel housing was tapped with worn taps. So when I check the bolt holes with the bolts that came in the package it was like putting a pipe plug in the hole. Sloppy until the bolt reached the last thread but to short to bottom out. So to over come this problem I used longer bolts. And to insure that they wont pull the threads I used blue LocTite and backed it up with a jam nut. Problem solved. Sorry about the fuzzy pictures it's a cell phone.

[camoit]

Rear trailing arm up date. I was able to finish up the trailing arms today. I installed the new 1-inch Uniballs. Then I worked on the bushings. The new ones were to long by about 1/8 inch. So I needed to cut them down. After marking them with a black pen, I used a bolt and a nut as a clamp, then placed it in the drill press and spun it up and held a hack saw up to the bushing. This worked great. I was able to cut them down with in a whisker of what I need them to be. After cutting them I touched them up with a grinder and was ready to make the bushing center shaft. The shaft is made of .095 tubing cut to 3 inch. I used a square to true the ends up. Now it was time for the axel Uniball mounts. The Uniballs go down on the rear end. The brackets came from a local builder, Rough Stuff. So far all I had to do was make the hole into a ¾ inch. I will need to cut down the long one to get the correct angel for the 3-link suspension.

[camoit]

Ok here is the new rear end. It’s a 1997 Isuzu Rodeo with a Dana 44. The first thing I did was to send it over to the stripers and put in limited slip. Then I cut off the spring perches.




Next it was tine to build the truss for the 3-link suspension. When building a 3-link suspension you must keep in mind what the pumpkin is made of. If it was forged steel you could weld right on to it. But if it’s cast you had better stay away form trying to weld on it. Cast iron is pours. This means that there is little tiny air pockets throughout the casting, and you can’t weld anything structural to it. Because it will crack along the weld. So in order to build a rear end that will hold up to the riggers of off road, you can go out and spend $800 to $1000 bucks on a housing or just bridge over a stock rear end. Here is the 2X6 tube truss being fitted. I used a peace of cardboard, and cut a pattern that I used as a template to clear the pumpkin. Keep in mind that the under side of the tubing needs to be boxed back together, so leave some clearance around the dif.




After getting it to where you like it be careful not to weld too much at one time or you will bend the housing. First tack it together above the dif. Wile it's clamped down to the housing. Then fully weld it off the rear end on the bench.




Box in the underside of the truss over the differential. Once cool you can place it on the rear end. Now you will need to have a bucket of water and a rag. Put on some heavy tack welds to connect it to the housing. You only want to weld 1.5 inches at a time working around the housing in a diagonal pattern to keep twisting to a minimum. After welding each area, cool the weld with water until you can grab it and hang on. You want to keep things as cool as possible.
Here is a picture of the new fabricated differential cover next to the stock one and a picture of the finished rear end.

[DarthWookie]

Cam I've never said this to another man but your rear looks sweet! that thing looks and I'm sure is strong as hell after that little operation lol

[camoit]

It’s been a busy week. It seems like every time I take one step forward missing or wrong parts take me back one step. Only one E brake cable came in. Then Nissan ordered the wrong bushings. They orderd front lower “A” arm not the rear. That’s even after I pointed to the correct one on his computer screen. Even after the problems I was able to get some things finished. The engine and trany is place and the body is centered on the frame.
Here is the trany mount and the 2 X 4 square box tubing I made it out of.



Now it was time to place the engine and center the body on the frame. But how do you figure where to place the body in relation to the “A” arm mounts, or even the engine and trany? Where or how do you start? Well here is what I did. First I would need to find the centerline of the front spindles. To do this I placed the upper “A” arms in the frame then ran a string between the two. I then marked the frame with a pen then used a peace of tape and used silver paint to make a permanent mark. You can see it in the picture below.



Now I can measure back from that line, the distance from the spindle to the cab on my other truck and apply this to the new build. From there I dropped in the engine and trany. Once I found the sweet spot for the shifter I raised it up to its final height in relation to the cab. Keep in mind that the cab must be raised off the frame rails. After securing the engine and trans with a jack stand and floor jack we lifted the cab back off. Now I centered the engine and trans to the frame. It came out with in 1/16 of an inch after building.



Finely it’s time to bend some tubing for the trany mount. It’s been 12 years since I last ran my tubing bender, I hope I don’t make to much scrap metal.


Now that the trany mount was welded it was time to put my helper to work. This is Nate. He is 20 years old. He is my neighbor’s son. He has been doing manual labor things off and on around my house since he was 17. I finally have him trained enough to turn off the phone, listen to what I want done, and show him once. He can normally get it done with out too much guidance. Today was his first day of fabrication and mechanic training. Righty tighty, lefty loosy is a new concept for the boy. He will get it in a couple more days.





Once Nate got the parts cleaned up with the Tiger Paw it was time to do the final fittings. The trany mount worked out just fine. It didn’t change shape, or didn’t need to be forced into place. She matched right up to the trany and mounts. Now the engine and trany are sitting in the frame.





As some of you know there is now a live video feed from my house on the build, where you can see and here what is going on. If you haven’t seen it yet go and take a look. I have worked out most of the bugs but there is still some fine-tuning left to do. I want to create a code that can load onto the board, so that when you click the link it will open an other browser or just a pop up with the player in it. You need to use Internet Explorer to see the video feed. I’ll work on that soon. You can find a link under the photos and media section. Or here. CLICK HERE FOR FULL SCREEN LIVE FEED This will open up your Windows player. This ends the problem that others were having.

Preview

[Spicoli]

Dan at ruffstuff is good guy. If he can't get it he will tell ya were ya can

[camoit]

Well the last couple of days have been real busy so I guess it’s time for an update before I get to far behind. During this time I was able to get the cab mounts done, find and set the wheelbase, square the rear end, and get the rear trailing arm mounts built. First up was the cab mount. I was thinking of reusing the stock ones but that turned out to be a waste of cutting gas and time. So I built the new ones out of 2 X 4 box tubing with a ¼ inch thick plate steel washer on top of it. I currently have the cab configured to use some ¼ inch rubber as a sandwich below and above the cab. This may change during the build to a taller designee for clearance reasons so I saved my old rubber mounts. Well part of them.





First I need the washers from the stock mounts. They will be used on the inside of the cab. If you go out and look at the stock mounting bolts, you will see that the cab is held down by some very small bolts. Lucky for us that the whole cab is only about 150 pounds. Including the front. My cab is somewhere around 120 pounds. With two guys you can lift it above your head.
Here is an easy way to remove steel parts from rubber. Just use the Propane torch.



Now I found a neat trick to drilling a hole in rubber. Everyone out there at some point has tried to drill a clean hole in some rubber with a drill bit. Just to discover that it is a pain in the ass. There are some special tools just for drilling in rubber but there hard to find and pricey. So first I used a standard whole saw to cut the large diameter. This has worked great for years. But I need to make a clean 5/8 hole in the center. My salutation was a flat wing bit for wood. The ones I used have a small tang on the outside edge. This made a nice round circle before the flat cutter removed the center mass. WOW this worked better then a Government oil well plug. And made a clean hole to boot.



Here is the rear trailing arm mounts. Now it’s time to work on the pinion and “U” Joint angles between the trany and the dif. The mounts are 2 X 6 box tubing that has been internally gusseted and top gusseted.

[joey_crandall]

either the flash is bugging him or hes blitzed, btw this is coming along nicley. cant wait to see some pics of it sailing throught the air.

[camoit]

The rear end is now finished. Here are just some of the things to keep in mind when doing a 3 or 4-link suspension. Here is a good reference to help you decide how to set up the rear end of your truck. It’s a long read but the information is put together well. Please reed some of it befor going on to the lower part of this section. Some parts from the other site will help you with the fallowing pictures.http://www.sporttruck.com/techarticles/0804st_rear_suspension_design/index.html



Now for my truck I need to keep a long travel and be able to make it drive like a raped ape on the street. So the first thing I did was square up the rear end. Then build the 3rd link. Now I need to find the Instant Center.



This is what will determine how much the truck will rise in the rear, under heavy acceleration. At first the wishbone was set to high over the frame. This put my instant point too far out in front of the truck. This meant that the back of the truck would lift during heavy throttle. So I lowered the front of the front of the wishbone by 4 inch. This moved it to the front of the engine and put it right around the camshaft at ride height. At this point it should give me a roll center right around my seat bottom. One thing to keep in mind is that you always want to put torque to the same point. I ran my upper arms to the cross member then added square box tubing to the lower trailing arm mounts.




The way to find the Instant center is to put a line through the lower trailing arm and upper link arm. Extend the line until they meet at some point. This point is the instant center.



NOTE The string lines show how torque is transferd through the frame to the instant center.




Now here I lifted the truck up to the ride height. It sits at 24 inches.




From this point I started to work on the shock angles and shock length I will need an 8-inch shock for the front. The front end gets 12 inch of wheel travel. While the rear end gets 18 inches of wheel travel while needing only a 12-inch shock.

This is the front suspension from full droop to full bump stop.




Keep in mind that when the Beer starts the work stops. So don’t let a one eye guy into your shop. You are just asking for trouble.
Ron and my dog J.D. AKA: Jane Doe