Above 1200 Sq/FT Ernie's Place

[StormcrowAz]

Zanyad – Well…yeah. I hadn’t even thought about the whole snagging potential. As a general rule I typically break all sharp edges and round all corners, and in this case, I did run the flap disc across the inside and outside of the mesh to get rid of any stray welding BB’s. But I didn’t take any special care to make sure everything was super-smooth. I probably should have. Hopefully what I did will be enough to mitigate hang-ups.


Dan – Always trying to look out for my fellow man.


Scott – Hah! I’m right there with ya on the t-shirt and sometimes looking like a heroin addict. I got sleeves as well and occasionally use them. After a particularly long session of welding upside-down under the Scout and my chest looking like it took a miniature meteor shower straight on…she went and got me a full leather welding jacket thing. In the summer time it can be brutal. I don’t really bother with it for the quick things, but for those bigger jobs I use it regardless. And speaking of protective gear…I got tired of picking metal slivers out of my bare feet so starting wearing a pair of worn-out Doc Martins in the shop. They finally totally gave up the ghost and I switched to a pair of tennis shoes that I never wear. I never really appreciated the leather nature of the Doc’s until I caught a couple hot BB’s on the top of the toes. Tennis shoes offer basically no resistance to hot metal for some reason. And yeah, I did think about putting a handle on the laundry bin but time and laziness caught up to me and it didn’t happen. Might bolt something on later, we’ll see how it works out.


LXCam – Hah! Blue jeans have buttons, does that count?

 

[StormcrowAz]

Lately it’s been a mish-mash of stuff getting done in/around the shop.


Temps are starting to rise and before it gets too out of hand I figure I should probably address the dozen or so trees that have grown out of control. My buddy down the street (same one who’s garage burned down) loaned me his dump trailer, which made things exponentially easier all the way ‘round.



It’s been a minute since I fired up the chainsaw, and of course it wouldn’t run. I tore it down, cleaned it, and put it back together but still no love. I always run it dry before storing it, so it didn’t look bad or clogged. Not sure what’s going on. Fortunately, my buddy also threw his chainsaw in the trailer when I picked it up, so I had a back-up. Will figure out what’s wrong with mine later.



My faithful supervisor always nearby and on the job



So that was a full weekend of ***-kicking manual labor. Next up was a birthday present for the wife. Made her a back-lit shadow box of sorts. Plasma cut the front, sides, and back. Got one of those light diffuser panels at Home Depot and cut it to fit, that way you get the glow without looking directly at the LED’s.



Randomly wrapped the LED’s to the backing plate.



End result and she was very happy with it.




Time to change the filters for the Duramax. Air, oil, and fuel. Or at least I tried to.



The oil filter decided to fight me, and I went through 3 different styles of filter wrenches before falling back to a big pair of channel locks. It mangled the filter but came off in the end. I put this one on during the last change and didn’t think I torqued it on that tight. I can always remove the ones from the Tacoma by hand with no problems, so not sure what happened here.



Went to change the air filter and it turns out Amazon sent me the wrong style. New one on order.

Went to change the fuel filter and found out I don’t have the 36mm socket needed to pull the filter housing off. New one on order.




Did my first “service” to the Tesla. Surprise, more filters. Two cabin filters under the dash and four Hepa filters in the frunk. Fairly simple with no problems. Worked on this in the actual garage for a change. It was just easier than moving vehicles around in the shop.





This girl is never far from my side.




Now that I’ve got a few of the boring chores out of the way, maybe I’ll have some time for the Scout. Last week I went to a junk yard by work and nabbed a power steering box from a 2004(?) Suburban. I think it will work with a new pitman arm and a custom mounting solution. Had to pull the Scout out to use the lift, so here she is getting some sunshine for a change.

 

[Finallygotit]

Todd, when I occasionally have issues starting my chainsaw, I take a propane torch to the electrode end of the spark plug and heat it up. It burns off anything that might be considered foul. I put the still warm plug back in and fire it up. Works nine times out of ten for me.

YMMV

 

[StormcrowAz]

Dan – I did pull the plug just to check for anything out of the ordinary. Didn’t think about a layer of funk preventing spark. I’ll have to clean it up and give it another rip. Thanks for the advice!



Been eeking out some time on the Scout here and there. Pulled the pitman arm off the steering box. Considering it’s probably been on there 20 years, it wasn’t too bad. Did need to heat it up a bit, though.



Used the gantry to suspend the box next to the frame while figuring out how and where it’s going to fit. I’m not lazy, just energy-efficient.



Going to sleeve the frame for the three mounting bolts and got some 1” DOM tubing with .250 wall thickness. The bolts for the steering box are 14mm, so need to ream out the I.D. a skosh for them to pass through.


While that’s being pondered, I worked on some of the link mounts. Made a spacer the same overall width of the johnny joints, that way I’m not thrashing on an expensive rod end during the welding process.


Cleaned up, beveled, and ready to weld up. This is one of the rear truss mounts.



Burned in





Evidently my spacer was just a tad too small, and/or I got my welds out of sequence, as the spacer got stuck between the bracket walls and the rod end wouldn't fit. Used an improvised expansion device to remedy that.



Added a little bit of width to the spacer to compensate.



Truss mounts done



Lower link mounts for the front the axle done



We’ve got this lathe at work, and it’s what my freebie Cadillac was cloned off of. Mine is almost identical. One of the fab shop guys was nice enough to get me set up and give me some pointers in reaming out the frame sleeves for the steering box. It’s got me motivated to do some more research on setting mine up with a VFD and trying to wire in the existing forward/reverse/stop switches.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Did a bunch of plasma cutting this past weekend. But first cleaned out the pan a bit.



More link mounts plus I also made these frame stiffeners. It occurred to me that the middle section of the frame will be having a lot of forces being applied to it with the three link mounts for the front end, the transmission cross-member, another cross-member supporting the triangulated 4 link for the rear, and I was also planning on mounting rock sliders to that area of the frame as well. Glock 19X for size reference.



Switching gears back to steering box…with the sleeves now made and appropriate hardware acquired, it’s time to find its home.



I’ve read/seen where these set-ups are riddled with compromises due to packaging constraints and this build is certainly no exception to that. I got the knuckles machined for a high-steer kit and the original plan was to utilize the first set of holes on the high steer arms (closest to the axle) for the tie rod and then the other hole of the arm on the passenger side for the drag link end coming from the steering box. Seemed pretty standard. After messing with it a bit, when the wheels are turned full passenger, the tie rod will not leave enough room for the pan hard bracket to be in place where it’s needed for the pan hard bar to clear the differential cover. Using the furthest set of holes on the arms for the tie rod should give me the clearance, but will then need to figure out where to attach the drag link arm and also means I’ll need to push the steering box a little bit further towards the front of the frame for the pitman arm to clear.


Anyways, a lot of stuff going on and I hope it all works without having to cut brackets off and re-arrange it too many times.



Steering box bottom sleeves are tacked in place. The DOM is actually butted up against the bottom of the frame instead of truly being sleeved through it. Another compromise for height considerations and drag link angles, plus wanting to be able to have enough room to squeeze a decent radiator in there.



Had to notch out the temporary front frame cross-member to push the box further forward. Will figure out the bumper situation at another time.



Surgery to the top of the frame.



Sleeve tacked in place. Both the top and bottom sleeves will get additional gussets/supports after everything has been deemed functional and final-welded in.



Trying out some ideas for attaching the other drag link end. Plasma cut a sample pattern. Thinking of cutting up some 1” stock in this shape and welding this to the tie rod tubing.





And lastly, I had cut two sets of these axle tower brackets out a long time ago. I don’t remember why two of them, considering they are meant to be the single upper link on the front axle. Regardless, I cleaned one up and put it together. Woke up this morning and realized that I wasn’t supposed to weld in that front plate as now I don’t have access to being able to weld the axle tube to the inside of the tower bracket. Cover plate should get burned in after that happens. So yeah, I made two because past-me knew future-me was going to screw this one up.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Made a minor alteration to the filing cabinet swarf-catcher for the belt sander. Was getting a little too much bypass ending up on the floor so added another little piece of material (filing cabinet remanent) to hopefully catch the majority of it.



I’ve learned that tennis shoes are bad shop shoes. Especially when welding on things. Either I just naturally tend to stand in the flight path of those red-hot BB’s, or my left big toe has a magnet imbedded in it. After seeing the latest hole burned into my toe, the wife went out and got me a new pair of leather boots. No more tennis shoes.



Threw the Scout on the lift and started working on the frame reinforcements





Started with the sides as the lift pads were in the way for getting the bottoms pieces on.



Also, I’m really liking these baseball cap inserts for saving myself some head trauma when working under the lift. I inevitably end up ringing my bell on a lift arm or catching some other sharp-cornered object protruding from below the vehicle. This has saved me from a corresponding headache a bunch of times now.



Anywho…in order to weld in the inner frame reinforcements I had to cut out the transmission crossmember brackets I had previously tacked in there. I wasn’t 100% happy with the design so decided to change it up when putting it back in. Using DOM tubing with poly inserts and then cut the mounting brackets out on the plasma table.


Much happier with how this set-up functions.





Got all the frame reinforcements burned in and even managed to assemble some more link brackets. Just need to do a little clean-up on the welds and it will be time to start mocking up the links.

 

[Finallygotit]

I’ve learned that tennis shoes are bad shop shoes. Especially when welding on things. Either I just naturally tend to stand in the flight path of those red-hot BB’s, or my left big toe has a magnet imbedded in it. After seeing the latest hole burned into my toe, the wife went out and got me a new pair of leather boots. No more tennis shoes.

I kinda have the same problem but with me it's watching a hot chip come off the mill only to land on my shoes as I watch it melt in. And I really don't have a good excuse. I own a pair of boots!

Nice progress on the Scout!

 

[SilverJimmy]

What cap insert is that? Looked on Amazon and there’s a bunch of different ones. Trying to decide if I have a $5 head or a $21 head! And if I wear a X-Large flex fit hat do I need a xxl with the insert?

 

[StormcrowAz]

Dan - Hot metal is hot metal. Protective leather clothing seems to be the ticket all around. And thanks! For me, getting the links squared away will a big milestone in the build.

SilverJimmy - Here's the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09D16Q74W?tag=atomicindus08-20

I've found that "Universal fit" generally translates to: "will fit some things, but fits most things not very well.", so the typical Your Mileage May Vary does apply. Fits my dome just fine and the random cap I stuffed it into. It doesn't conform to your head or hat like a skull-cap beanie, but hey...it is a piece of hard plastic so I suppose that's to be expected. For $7 it's way worth giving it, or something like it, a try.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Been fairly busy lately. Took a work trip to Ohio and had some time before the flight back home. When you Google “Things to do in Ohio”, this popped up, so I had to go.



Turns out the place is full of old guitars. Go figure.


Lots of cool music history there and it was definitely worth the time to stroll through and check it out.



Anyways, back to the important stuff. Working on the Scout.
Now that I’m getting into the suspension portion of the program, I thought I’d better bite the bullet and get the tires I wanted to run. Didn’t want to build everything around a set of junker rollers. Went with BFG KO3’s, 285/75 R17.





Broke out the rod ends and fitted them to the link brackets.



Set up the laptop in the shop with the 3 link calculator spreadsheet running. Took a lot of measurements and figured out what I think the optimal set-up will be with the room available.



The Scout 2 front axle is a passenger side drop, and the available tube space in between the differential and “C” was just barely too short to fit the link brackets there. So I used the death wheel and chopped about a half inch of the casting off. Fortunately, this was just an overhang portion of the casting and none of this was actually welded to the tube. Somehow, I even managed to cut it close enough without digging into the axle tube.





This let me tack the pan hard bar and lower link brackets in that spot.



Using the PVC trick to check for fitment before cutting up expensive DOM tube. Plus, it would probably help if I went and got some actual DOM tubing. It’s on the to-do list.



Upper 3 link axle bracket and frame-side pan hard bracket tacked in. I’ll need to cut the pan hard bracket out and raise it up about a half inch to put it in-line with the drag link. From what I’ve read that’s fairly important to combat bump steer and such.



Upper and lower frame-side brackets just clamped in place to get a good feel of what’s going on. Forgot about the proper separation between upper and lower links at the axle, so I’ll have to cut the lowers off and rotate them down an inch or so to get the right numbers. So far my only concern seems to be the lower link arm hitting the frame at full axle up-travel. Will find out when I cut the temporary supports out and do some articulation testing.



Looks like this link mount will be lowest spot on the rig. Clearance still doesn’t seem too shabby, though.

 

[Finallygotit]

Todd, suspension is coming along nicely. And if I ever get back to Ohio, I definitely need to check out the museum.

 

[SilverJimmy]

I’m not preaching or telling you what to do, but…
Please consider dressing up the striking end of your cold chisel. I know of two people blinded by a piece of chisel coming off when struck with a hammer while doing exactly what you were doing there, splitting steel! It’s equivalent to being shot in the eye with a firearm, sometimes even safety glasses won’t save you from the ricochet the velocity is so great. Another guy went to the hospital to have a chunk of chisel removed from his forehead, lodged into his skull less than an inch above his eye!
BTW, Nice Scout!

 

[rattle_snake]

Todd,
For the arm hitting the frame, can you put the frame side mount outboard instead of under? Compromise is tire hitting the tube when turning. Plan B could be a bend in the DOM.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Dan – Thanks! Not sure it’s something I would specifically plan a vacation around, but certainly well worth the visit if you’re already in the area.


SilverJimmy – Huh. You live and you learn. That’s not something I had heard or seen, but to avoid leaving (more of) my DNA in the shop, I think it’s well worth the 30 seconds it took to clean it up on the belt sander. Thanks for the tip!



Justin – Good idea, but I think that’s more of a compromise than I’m willing to make. I plan driving this more than rock crawling, so I’ll take a little loss of clearance versus having the turning radius of a cruise ship. Even without putting it outboard, it looks like the tires will already be rubbing the lower link some. At this point I’m not sure how much, but I don’t want to make it any worse.







The battery died (again) in the Can Am, so I’m ditching the little 18ah battery and upgrading to a 30ah. From what I’ve read it’s the biggest that will fit, which is under the driver’s seat. It is a tight squeeze.



Of course, the battery hold-down is plastic and non-adjustable. Time to make a new one.



Going with a single piece of 2” flat strap. Put a slot at one end and it’s sure nice to have the mill for this. No more drilling multiple holes and grinding the spaces in between.



Bent it on the press and cut a piece of ¼” rubber to put between it and the battery for some cushion.



Painted



Installed



The original hold-down bracket had the positive terminal protective cover built into it and didn’t look I would be able to salvage and re-use, so went a different route. I had this left-over piece of Kydex from the Bridgeport table covers. Had mis-drilled a couple holes on it, but should just fine for this. Took a heat gun and did a little bit of forming to it. Now it covers the battery and all the wiring.




Not much to visibly show for on the Scout. I did pick up the DOM tubing. This stuff is expensive. The company my buddy recommended provided certs for the material, which is kinda nice. And it was cheaper than the place just down the road from work.



I pretty much cut all the brackets out I had previously tacked in, did some tweaking and re-aligning, and tacked them back into place. Driver’s side was done, or so I’d thought. Somehow the lower link axle bracket got a 6° lean to it. Guess I’ll cut it out and rework it. Again. Leaf springs would probably have been a whole lot easier.



And finally…I sold off the old Rockwell vertical saw. Had to go back to the archives, and it’s been 5 years since I first picked that thing up. Dang, where does time go?

 

[zmotorsports]

Todd, nice job on the battery hold down. Looks like it was meant for it.

Glad to see you dress that chisel. I did a video about a year ago specifically addressing the dangers and how quickly it can happen plus how little time it takes to kiss these on the disc sander and prevent injury.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Mike – Cool video, thanks for sharing! I should make some time to watch more of them.




More progress on the Scout this weekend. Cut the DOM for the front end links and tacked the rod ends in place.



Also cut the tube for the pan hard bar, tacked it in place, and installed. Sits perfectly in-line with the steering box arm.





Installed the other links and used the lift to support the frame and cut out the temporary pipe I had put in there to keep everything in place.
\


Lowered the front end until there were clearance issues. The first thing to hit was the pan hard bar on the front diff cover.



The frame hitting tie rod is the next limiting factor.



The pan hard mount is adjustable, and I had it set on the lowest hole. Raised it up one notch and the bar now clears by about an 1/8”




By adjusting the frame-side of the pan hard up, I’ll have to cut the steering box out and move it upward by about an inch accordingly. I had planned on an 18” tall radiator, guess I’ll have to find a 17” one now instead.


Cut some temporary bump stops out of well pipe and welded them to the frame. Should let me at least test it and roll it around the shop without having to worry about it bottoming out on important stuff.



At full squish the lower frame link still has plenty of clearance.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Tires seem to still fit, although this is without doing any articulation.



Wheels turned. It’s close.



At full droop. I think the limiting factor here will be driveline angle.



Playing around with the floor jack. Everything looks pretty good. I hope.





The upper link clears the motor mount no problem. The exhaust is going to be a tight squeeze, though.






I’m toying with the idea of moving the lower links at the frame inward a bit more to help with the tire rub. I’ll sleep on that some more.

 

[zmotorsports]

I’m toying with the idea of moving the lower links at the frame inward a bit more to help with the tire rub. I’ll sleep on that some more.

Todd, experimenting with different angles and dangles is all part of building a system that will not only flex, but also avoid any interference issues when completed.

For the lower links, you could move the frame mounts inward slightly, but have you thought about adding a slight bend? I added a slight bend in mine to avoid the tire making contact at full turn and stuff. Like you I had to play with various iterations until I landed on my current suspension system. I now have a full suspension system that has no interferences at either full droop or full stuff yet nets me just under 10" of travel at the rear (9.875") and just over 10" (10.625") at the front corners with absolutely no rubbing of contacting of parts.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Mike – I’ll have to crawl under there and stare at it some more, but I’m starting to think that bending those arms might be the way to go. Justin had also mentioned it as an alternative. I’m not sure exactly how much turning radius I’m currently losing to tire rub, but it seems like too much. I’m guessing in order to make axle adjustments you have to remove the link and rotate the rod end, otherwise just loosening up the jam nuts and turning the whole thing would probably place the bend someplace undesirable. Once jam-nutted tight, they don’t twist out of place? Even when possibly hitting rocks and such? I’ve got some left-over 2” HREW from the roll cage build, so can use a length of that for practice and as a template before committing to tweaking the DOM.

 

[zmotorsports]

Todd, it doesn't take much of a bend to clear but does take some trial and error to get right to the point without putting too much unnecessary bend in it.

I took a few pictures of mine just to show. We ended up doing the same thing on my son's WJ when we built his suspension, but we used a Y-Link on his vs. 4-link setup on mine.

Looks like our lower connecting points at the frame are similar.


Here you can see just how shallow of a bend is all that is needed. Upon full stuff and full lock I still don't have any interferences, but it's close. I didnt' want to add any more bend than absolutely necessary.


After taking the first couple pictures I thought I'd grab the protractor and measure the bend. In my head I remembered it being 10-degrees but wanted to confirm before I made an erroneous recommendation.


Looks like it was only an 8-degree bend.



Hope these help.

 

[StormcrowAz]

Mike - Thank you for your input and taking the time to post pictures, much appreciated.

I pulled one of the links out so I could mock everything up for when the tire is at full lock. Broke out the tube bender and heat gun and did some trial runs using the PVC test link sections.



Worked well enough to give me a good idea of what it’s going to look like. The PVC shown here is a little over-bent at 15° or so. I’m thinking it will require somewhere around the neighborhood of a 12° bend to pull this off.



I’m also going with a different axle link mount. I think the tabs will be easier to get the correct angle needed for the new assembly.



Unfortunately, that’s all I’ve managed to get done on the Scout lately. Spent the better part of a week sitting on the beach being lazy. Here’s my view from sitting on the back ramp of the toy hauler.



Someone backed into one of our neighbor friends’ mailbox and knocked it over. Standard wood post set-up, so it’s toast. Had an idea for a neat replacement, metal of course. Cut a few pieces on the plasma table and started assembly.



Painted and ready to put in the ground.






While the paint is drying I’ll contact the surveyor folks to make sure I’m not digging a new hole into some sort of utility service.

 

[PugetDude]

Thanks, Todd for the thoughtful and artistic implementation of rebar into your design.
From the far reaches of the SE to the NW Valley of the Sun, symmetry has been restored.

Looks great!