A pair of 74's...

[PaulW]

Any truck that runs and drives will go through the whoops better than one that you have to push...

I'm not sure why everyone hates leaves so much... they can work 80% as well as a link setup.

=========
I don't hate them. I just think they are like carb engines, stick shifts, &
emulsion shocks. They had their time and are now just old stuff to be replaced by up to date stuff.
My experience with all the extra travel results is fast fatigue. Every year when I had leafs they had to be either re arched or replaced due to broken leafs. This all comes about from using the Bronco like it was designed in the whoops and washboard roads of Baja. With long travel leafs if you don't use them for the use you designed for they will last a long time.
With coils you will have adjustment for ride height and significantly less breakage or none at all. The improvement is spectaular, so I do not agree that that leafs are 80% as good as coils.
Got long travel leafs just jack the thing up from the frame and see if the thing will droop allthe way or do you have to stand on it to get full droop? Lots of friction on the leaf packs. That is the reason with leafs no sway bar is needed.
These comments apply equally to the trail/rock rigs. When was the last time youi saw a competitive rock rig with leafs? Same comment about racers with no restictions. Coils rule. The price to play with good stuff is substantal and lots of fun. All 3 of my off road rigs are now coils.
Paul

[ChaseTruck754]

Don't mount the seats to low... lol.

uhhh... I kinda succeeded at that... They aren't as low as yours, but I think I am modifying the cad file so as to raise the rear of the seats about 1"

And that leads us to the update after this weekend. Of course I am overly optimistic in my time estimation on this stuff, so not as much as I thought got done on Saturday. I did hit the shop for about an hour and a half last night though so I did at least look at everything I wanted to this weekend.

1st - seat mounts. In and done. I even looked at how realistic I am in my goal of making this a 4 seater. It's close - only time will tell







I think I may set it up to go back and forth from a 3 seater (3 adults) to a 4 seater (2 adults/2 kids). Not positive yet.

Last I started making the mounts for my side mirrors. These are somewhat easy so hopefully they will go quickly.



I also looked at and kind of figure out how I will do my art carr shifter mount - but I need to get the tranny linkage setup 1st to make sure the cable will reach how I want it to - so that is on hold for now.

[BajaBronco13]

Looking good Steve. Looks like a lot more room for the rear seats then I originally thought.

[tcm glx]

Looking good Steve. Looks like a lot more room for the rear seats then I originally thought.

x2 I agree with Chris.... plenty of room for smaller folks and kids, that is awesome!

[ChaseTruck754]

It will get tighter with a whole lot of 2" tube in thew cab - but I think it is doable!

[BajaBronco13]

Front seats PRPs or Beards? Are you getting those recovered as well?

[philofab]

Keeping suspension seat bases at the same angle as the factory mounts seems to lean them too far back. I figured about 1.5" higher in the rear to make them feel right. That is one of the problems of my setup. As an added bonus it gives more knee room to rear passengers.

If you need room for rear seats I think I would put the cage on the outside of the cab to create more room. Very similar to how regular cab mini trucks are done.

[ChaseTruck754]

Front seats PRPs or Beards? Are you getting those recovered as well?

Those are beards. They are a buddies that I have been storing for him. He will get them covered when he frees up some cash, but until then they are being used for mock up.

Keeping suspension seat bases at the same angle as the factory mounts seems to lean them too far back. I figured about 1.5" higher in the rear to make them feel right. That is one of the problems of my setup. As an added bonus it gives more knee room to rear passengers.

If you need room for rear seats I think I would put the cage on the outside of the cab to create more room. Very similar to how regular cab mini trucks are done.

I thought I added enough "lift" to the back of the seat - but it was only about .5". I'm adding another 1" or so - and that puts me right at your recommended 1.5".

I have thought about running the rear of the cage outside the cab, but I'm not usually a fan of that so I've been going back and forth on it.

The reality of it is - the thing will probably go inside, but will get tucked up tight against the body once I remove the inner skins. Kind of like I did on the ranger. And yup - that's a seamed tube on the ranger. The only one in the truck as it was in before the thing really snowballed...

[Dust]

Put the hoop behind the cab, running the standard cab I will be doing exactly that!
Still trying to sort out what I am doing with the bed it self, but the "B" hoop in my case is going behind the cab wall.

[tcm glx]

Put the hoop behind the cab, running the standard cab I will be doing exactly that!
Still trying to sort out what I am doing with the bed it self, but the "B" hoop in my case is going behind the cab wall.

x2, on the B hoop outside... gives a ton more room inside!

[ChaseTruck754]

Not really that much more room from what I've seen. Well, let me re-phrase that. Not really much more room from the way I do them...

If I weren't going to cut out the inner sheet metal of the cab then I would tend to agree there would be SOME more room. BUT, with the way I cut out the inner skins of the cab - I could pretty much put them back in on top of the tubes and you'd never know the tubed were behind them. Therefore the tubes only stick into the cab as much as the inner sheet metal that most people are too lazy to remove anyways.

Next time you're at the shop Tony I'll show you on the ranger and supercab. It's amazing how tight you can tuck a cage if you try!

[Dust]

It is absolutely true that a cage can be tucked super tight, or one could even set it through the back wall as was done on a few C7's many years ago.
The thing that bothers me is from a design/function stand point setting the rigid tube structure inside the interior sheetmetal structure, or closer to the exterior skin eliminates a crumple zone. Where, setting the tubes on the inside of the structure and tying to the interior structure particularly on the B-hoop adds several inches of what amounts to padding on the weakest point of the tube: the bend. Further that pad allows a significant slower deceleration during real world destructive testing.
Setting the tube behind the cab maintains that crumple zone though it is certainly compromised.

Just my opinion.

[convoy]

IMO if he locates the cage behind the cab, he still needs a tube behind the rear seats to attach the seat belts.

[300]

Trust me, it will crumple right to the tubing regardless of the distance from tube to sheet metal! 3 tons of truck will do that, even on an easy over, no problem. If you want something else to crush, put some light bars or racks up there.

[philofab]

IMO if he locates the cage behind the cab, he still needs a tube behind the rear seats to attach the seat belts.

Or a notch and rubber grommet in the rear firewall.

[Dust]

Trust me, it will crumple right to the tubing regardless of the distance from tube to sheet metal! 3 tons of truck will do that, even on an easy over, no problem. If you want something else to crush, put some light bars or racks up there.

Agree on the crunch part.

[ChaseTruck754]

Slowly but surely gets the job done.

Man I wish I worked faster though...

[Dust]

Slowly but surely gets the job done.
Man I wish I worked faster though...

Hey, I've done nothing on my rides... Building hand rails for our house instead.
Keep going you'll get it.

[ChaseTruck754]

Slowly but surely gets the job done.
Man I wish I worked faster though...

Hey, I've done nothing on my rides... Building hand rails for our house instead.
Keep going you'll get it.

Unfortunately that type of stuff happens all the time too. It used to be working on the house, but now it's more like making new stands or whatever for tools in the shop.

Nothing done but got my "new" lathe on a stand last night and re-organized the tools to make room for it. Oh - I did get my tranny down off the upper level of the pallet rack so I can take it to culhane tomorrow. That is progress I guess.

These came in the mail yesterday. I got them for cheaper than I could build them They are MIG unfortunately and I'm tempted to run a TIG weave over them - hahaha



Now I'm just waiting on one more package and a little more rivet grinding (which will hopefully be done tonight) and I can start cycling the deavers!

[SteveG]

Oh no, not MIG! Hahaha!

It looks like you've got a fire under you, Steve. Even if it's small, having even a little bit of drive helps. Keep it up.