A pair of 74's...

[ChaseTruck754]

I've heard nothing but good things about Ruff Stuff which is why I was fine with ordering MORE parts from them when I got the explanation on my 1st parts. My issue was that I personally spoke with their sales/shipping guy twice and had him verify the shipping address, etc. and then the parts didn't go there.

Again my situation seems to be out of the norm but it is definitely frustrating. Will I order from them again - probably. Will I look around at other vendors more before I do so next time - for sure.

Luckily (not sure that's the right word) I haven't been spending a ton of time in the shop recently and when I'm there I've got plenty of other stuff to work on to keep me distracted so it's not like I'm sitting idle waiting o parts for my only project.

Oh and speaking of that - I worked for about an hour or so on the crew tonight. Unfortunately that's the most shop time I've seen in a week or more and I head back out of town tomorrow so it'll that way again for a week...

UGH! So much for posting pics of the slight progress I made. Photobucket is fighting me right now and won't load. Well, it loads any album EXCEPT the crew one so I can't add new pics. Nothing great to see - just the front axle is finally mostly back under the truck!

[ChaseTruck754]

So I think my Ruff Stuff parts got here today. I really hope so. I did talk with a buddy yesterday who orders from them a lot and I guess he has had the same problem. So much so that he has mentioned to Dan that they need to get their shipping department in order or they won't do near as much business with him anymore...

And now back onto more "fun" topics.

If it's not one thing it's another... I did get a bit done on Muttly (the crew) again last night - even with another BS setback!!! About 3 months ago I was working and all of a sudden lost power in 1/2 the shop - like a breaker had been blown. Well, no breaker was blown so it must have been in the wall. Annoying, but now a huge ordeal. I ran some ex. cords and got on with life. Well last night same thing happened again on the other side of the shop. No breakers blown, etc. I looked at it again for a while and it must be crappy wiring in the walls so I can't get to it to fix it. I now have only 2, yes two 110v plugs/sockets in the shop that work. 1 at the VERY front by the tv and the other by the VERY back at the big door. I've got ex. cords going everywhere now and it is SO annoying. Need to plug along as is for a bit and press myself to make my goal of having Muttly and SB both running by December so I can move outta this shop!

Spring plates got drilled last night and test fit. They just now got their coat of self etching primer and will be getting their top coats of paint soon. Tonight I'll cut the excess off the U-bolts and decide whether I want to cad plate them or not before putting them on.

[ChaseTruck754]

So I thought today was going to be good...

A box from Ruff Stuff finally got here so that was 1 good thing.

Then, after talking with a buddy and him mentioning that maybe a breaker in my shop crapped out and that's why I was having power issues I rushed to the shop to have a look. A little fiddling with my multi meter and I found the culprit. Grabbed a spare breaker I have and viola - all power issues gone. Man I wish I would have figured that out before, but it was good to at least get it fixed now.

Next I grabbed the aluminum sheet I bought a while ago and started cutting. That went well so the fuel cell can will begin soon...


And then I opened the box from Ruff Stuff... They sent the same wrong part that they had originally sent almost 2 months ago. So yeah I gotta call AGAIN tomorrow. Sooooo over this!

[Dust]

So I thought today was going to be good...

A box from Ruff Stuff finally got here so that was 1 good thing.

SNIP<

And then I opened the box from Ruff Stuff... They sent the same wrong part that they had originally sent almost 2 months ago. So yeah I gotta call AGAIN tomorrow. Sooooo over this!

WOW!
In many past dealings with RS I have never had a single problem ~ but it certainly appears that things have changed and frankly I'm building a large parts order for a couple rigs and I'm reconsidering using RS for any of it!

[ChaseTruck754]

Called again this morning and they are supposedly sending the remaining parts along (they have a parial kit and full kit of what I ordered - they sent partial even though I ordered the full). Hopefully they will be here before weeks end and I can get this thing back on it's wheels.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Sorry to hear that, I'd be going nuts. I can't wait to see the truck on its wheels though. I've been following the build, I like what you've done. Definately another one off truck on this forum thats for sure.

[ChaseTruck754]

Well it's been about another week and not much got done again...

I did get the remainder of the order from Ruff Stuff, along with another box that is a duplicate of the order I made in between the original order and now. Another quick call to Dan and he took care of postage to send it back. good guy - just seems like he's got waaay too much going on now to keep his shipping dept. in order!

Anyways, on Thursday I started cutting the stock shock mounts and spring perches off the corporate 14 I decided I'm going to use on the rear of this thing. I must say I HATE whoever decided to use these stupid, cast, spring mounts. They take FOREVER to grind off! I was at it for an hour or more on Thurs and then a few hours again on Sunday afternoon. I got the thing cleaned up but these are NOT fun at all!




I also picked this monster up this weekend...


Now as soon as I can get the rear end back together I can start messing with fitting the motor and this!

[johncharlesb]

Holy Moly, look at that. The torque convertor and driveshaft are in different zip codes!

[Dust]

never could figure out why they made them things 8' long...

[ChaseTruck754]

They (meaning trans w/ gearvendors in general) normally aren't that long. It's just the 3' long tailshaft on the 2wd c6 that makes the setup so damned big.

So I got to the shop tonight and started messing a bit. I finally have a starting point for the leaf hangers figured out. It seems to work at bump. Now I gotta see where it puts the wheel at ride height.

[ChaseTruck754]

Getting slightly closer, although I only got 1 side buttoned up last night.



This is taking a lot longer than I had planned, but I think that's partially because I'm getting burned out on being in the shop and partially because I'm there by myself trying to do stuff that would be much easier with 2 people.

I'll be back at it tonight and should have the thing set on its own weight to check how the wheel sits in the wheel arch and also ride height.
Hopefully there aren't too many more sessions of take it apart, move slightly, put back together, cycle again, take back apart, etc., etc...

[Dust]

...in a couple hours while I'm laying on the sub-floor sheeting building a EMT conduit run that I have been forced to run exposed across the balcony rail by an imbecile inducted building code that requires electrical outlets where no semi-intelligent person would ever dream of thinking they would ever plug anything in to... In the custom built FOR ME house I am trying to complete to MY SPECIFICATIONS while meeting some doumazz code writers incredibly stupidly bad ideas for building codes... I'll stop and stand facing to the south, and raise a drink and wish I was there to help!
May not be much but it is what I got at the moment.

[Silverslk]

Dude, I am not far from you. I am always (well ALMOST always) willing to come down and give you a hand.....especially fri, sat or sunday (days off). haha

[ChaseTruck754]

Thanks for the offer Andy. I actually have a few buddies who have made the same offer, but unfortunately I usually I don't find out I need help until I'm right in the middle of it at like 10 PM and I'm not about to start calling people at that time. I pretty much always seem to find a way to get it done by myself, it just takes a bit longer.

And on that note - I'm off to the shop for a bit. Hopefully I'll get some decent work done as I'm gone all weekend again so I can't get anything done then.

[tcm glx]

sooooo, what was done last night Steve?

[Dust]

Hey Steve, when you get the rear springs done I need the dimensions and all the part specifications sure would save a bunch of work when I do the back of mine! ACAD, SW, ProE, whatever

[ChaseTruck754]

Hey Steve, when you get the rear springs done I need the dimensions and all the part specifications sure would save a bunch of work when I do the back of mine! ACAD, SW, ProE, whatever

We'll see... Funny thing is everybody said how cool Geoff at Giant is and that he'll always help you out on stuff, etc. He hit me up via email for parts a couple times and each time I replied and added I had his 64" springs and asked for a general idea of how much forward and down the front pivot moved. No reply - either time.
I've also asked a couple guys on this board and got nothing.
All I was hoping for was a general idea of where the front pivot is to make sure I got mine in the right ball park. I guess I'll just take a bit more time and figure it out the long way.

I will tell you now I don't know for sure on the parts specification. The shackles (in there for now) are BMS and are 7.5" length. I already gave you the dims I think. I may go to a 6" shackle on these as I think Giant uses the 7.5" for rangers and 6" for F-150's with this setup, but that also depends on shackle hanger dims...
I believe the hangers I am using are off a 70's chevy truck but I'm not sure. They came out of my box of old hangers and they are from BEFORE I was smart enough to label what everything came off of...

sooooo, what was done last night Steve?

Not enough! As I said this stuff just takes too long. Maybe that's why no one wants to give out dims. Then again I made it clear a general idea of location would be good for me

Anyways. Last night I got the axle secured to the other leaf, threw some tires on it and set the thing down. I then took measurements of how high the rear of the frame was off the ground, etc. With the hangers in the current setup the rear of the truck came up 1/2" from where it was when I got it, which I'm pretty sure was stock ride height. I then threw 6, 35" spare tires on the back to simulate the weight of the bed, 2 35" spares, my race jack, fuel cell, and some tube. Maybe I should have made it 7 35" spares... This weight lowered the truck 2" or so, and at this ride height (with weight in back) it looks like I'd have 8" of bump travel without cutting into the frame which I don't think I want to do.

Here's a pic of the shackle angle at loaded ride height.


I then held a bedside up to the thing to try and see if the wheel was anywhere near close to being centered in the wheel well at this height. 1st I sat there and stared at how sexy it looked (for a while!), and then proceeded to get excited and take a few pics!



Ok - back to business.
At ride height the axle looks to be about +/-1" forward of what it was at the stock ride height. Then I looked at the wheel in the wheel opening though...


Now I know the bedside isn't perfect, but it seemed to be close enough to "right" to know that the wheel location wasn't.
With the hangers where I have them now the axle bumps at pretty much the center of the stock bumpstop location, but at ride height I've got +/-1.5" from the front of the wheel opening to the tire and then +/-7" from the tire to the rear of the wheel opening.

I really should throw the bed on this thing with all my stuff (jack, C02 bottle, 2 spares, etc.) in it and check wheel location for real, but the bed is up on the crew way out of the way and was put there by forklift so it didn't happen this time around.

I'm thinking I might take it all apart and move the front hangers back maybe an inch. I'll cycle it to see where it bumps and then put all the leafs back in and set it at ride height again. This time I think I'll go through the effort of putting the bed on...

Once I have that done I can decide whether or not I like the front hanger location. I can either try another, new hanger location or stick with one of the 2 and then move onto the rear hanger. I just want to find a happy medium between wheel location in the wheel well at ride height (this being off would bug me) and then where the axle hits at bump.

Also, currently I am not getting as much droop as I could because my shackle is hitting the hanger before full droop. I'll have to cut/grind on the hanger or build a new shackle to fix this, but I don't really want to mess with that until I get the front hanger location set. trying to keep the number of variables at a minimum you know!

So there it is. A VERY long winded report of last night's findings. Any input from the gurus on hanger locations?

[BDKW1]

Front spring mount pivot should be about the same height as the output shaft on the trans........ Rear shackles to make the ride hieght...........

[johncharlesb]

That looks really good. I am no guru, but you get my approval. You certainly are using all of that seven inch shackle; do you think you can get away with a six inch version? It looks like you have some shackle clearance at bump, maybe move the hangers slightly closer together to get a bit more droop. The static shackle angle looks good though. Your going to have a lot of weight back there: 250lbs for the tank and 30 gals gas aft of the axle, plus a battery, tubing, tools, jack, tires, and a box. If the springs rate is 250-300lbs (?) and you add a 1000lbs, I figure the rear is going down another 2 inches from where it is at now when the truck is complete.

My thoughts are move the front down an inch or two and use the back hanger to get the ride height perfect, but down two or three. Move them back to get the axle where you want it.

You might get a cardboard pattern off the other box or compare the bedsides to the box by holding the opposite side against the box you plan on using. My 79 had the tire forward in the flareside wheelwell.

...looks good!.

[SteveG]

Any input from the gurus on hanger locations?

I'm no help here, but don't the OEM's take anti-squat and anti-dive into consideration when placing the hangers?