Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Looking good!

Subscribed.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

great progress..

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Last night and tonight I was able to finish drilling holes in my frame for the front upper shackle hangers, and mount the front leaf springs. Everything lines up perfect. But I did discover the 5 1/2" grade 8 spring bolts are too long. 5" should be a better fit.

Lucktruck sold me some U-bolt spacers so I am back in business. :clap: They were waiting on me when I got home and took me about an hour to get my 12 bolt mounted to the rear leaf springs. Now I can mark my 12 bolt housing where I want to mount my traction bar tabs. Nick is going to help me drill the holes tomorrow so this should come together fast.

It seems when something goes right, something always goes wrong. Unfortunately, tonight I realized the location I planned to mount the rear dual shock will be in the way of where I planned to mount my external aluminum gas tank. This has to get resolved before the frame gets painted. :dohh:

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

When I repsonded to your PM I had not read your Project Build, my error.

The spare tire brace on your frame is not on mine, so that is how I was able to run such a large tank, I went all the way up to the next crossmember.
Take the time and make sure you do not put the filler neck into a brace under the bed, but close enough to the back of the bed that you can reach it with the tailgate down.
If you have the time, also try to make the filler cap line up on one of the raised parts of the bed.
This makes it look a little better.
We beat the raised portion flat, to match the end of the bed, and mounted a flush stainless steel marine fill cap.
It looks completely stock.

If you were going to that cross member for shock mounting you could always move it up closer to the axle.

With the traction bar set-up you are building you might not really need dual shocks.
Your design will limit the arc of travel for the axle to the point I don't think another set of shocks would be required.
The traction bar has taken the twist out of the axle a dual shock was trying to control.
You have no twist now, only up and down motion.

Just my thoughts.

Also you might weld the nuts to the inside of the frame to attach the tank to.
If you notice in my picture, only a very small child's hand can reach the nuts on mine to tighten the tank and attach the rear bumper brackets.
I got her on steroids to bulk her arm up, but I doubt she will really be able to get 45 ft lbs on it.........
I may still drop the tank and weld them in.

Also as a note I made every single mistake you have made. God the memories..........

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Great post Conroe trucker. Yes, those mistakes are painful at the time but we learn so much from them. . .

What you said makes a lot of sense. Since I have the traction bars the rear shocks probably won't do anything for me. I may decide to just return them. . .

What size tank did you get from Boyd? Luckily my 8yr old son can help me with the tank but I might weld the nuts to the frame if needed. Thanks!

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Nice work man!

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I think mine worked out to about 35 gallons.
Weld the nuts.
Clamp the tank where you want it, drill the holes, then weld the nuts with a bolt through them to get it right.
I used the rubber bed pads to isolate it.

I am also an anti poly bushing guy.
I only use them where rubber is not available.
They get too hard, and do not really dampen vibrations very well.

Since a 4x4 is not an offroad race car, these comfort of rubber on the road offesets the disavantages.

I had ploy on the 4x4 before, and mostly rubber now.
The difference is amazing in how much quieter and less vibration there is.

Keep up the good work!

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Did you remove the spare tire support yourself?

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Nope.
Did not even know it was gone until I climbed under the other one.....

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Guess what - more issues. The closest size poly bushings I could find was 0.88" and the ID of my heim joint is 0.75". Needless to say grinding did not work and drilling the holes larger is not an option so I moved on to option #2. . .

3/4" OD, 1/2" ID high misalignment spacers. They arrived today from 'Barnes 4wd' and let me tell you - they work like a champ. After redrilling the holes to 1/2" I was able to put my joints together with my mount tabs and tack weld the rear mounts in place. Although they gave me more trouble than originally expected it was worth it. These traction bars will not only prevent axle wrap but they will also articulate well with my suspension. Here they are.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Yesterday's weather was perfect for working on the truck. Unfortunately, I had to use to use it to remove my faulty ABS system from my 2002 GMC Yukon. Today I get to bleed the brakes in the rain. :waah: Basically my ABS initiates at random - not a good thing. I had the repairs quoted at the dealership but the $1000 for parts and $400 for labor was absolute madness. :censored:

Luckily, I found a couple of companies on the web that will rebuild them for $150 or so. Can't beat that - I figure I'll save myself at least $1000, which means more cash for my truck! :metal:

www.modulemaster.com

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

great, one more item to watch out for on my Tahoe...

I just replaced the driver side O2 sensor @ 50K miles since it was fouling all four driver side plugs and not the pass side. had to pull the front driveshaft in order to reach the cannon plug, what a PITA..

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

According to everything I read it is not a matter of if these go bad, but when. But you probably have quite a few years left before you have to worry about it.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Finished welding my traction bar brackets and drilling holes for the driver side tonight. Everything bolted up perfect!

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

what do traction bars help with a leaf spring rear? I've seen the 4 link setups with coils but not leafs...

is it simply to keep the axle from rotating?

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

They are supposed to help with preventing 'axle wrap' or the tendency of the leaf springs to compress when you punch it. The 383 stroker I plan on building should have around 450 HP so I wanted to be sure my lifted springs did not hinder putting power to my rear end.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

hope that 12 bolt holds...

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Me too.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Where did you get the traction bars? Kit or did you put together the parts yourself?

Looks good! Is it possible to mount to the top of the rear end so that ground clearance isn't an issue?

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

x3

great build man looking forward to seeing the end results :metal:

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I bought my traction bars from a guy on Craigslist. I liked these because they were very robust. Now that I know more about them I wish I had made them myself. All you need are 4 x heim joints, 2 x steel rods and 4 x rod ends, a little welding and you are good to go. The brackets were a little more complicated.

I'm sure you could mount on the top, but I preferred the look of keeping mine on the bottom. The bottom part of the diff housing is lower than my traction bar tabs so I wasn't concerned about clearance since it would likely hit first.

Thanks for the comments and questions guys.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

The PO on my truck had mounted them to the same bracket as the leaf spring front mount to. Not bad engineering on his part.

Of course, this truck was maybe making 150HP so what he did not have power for he overcame with speed........

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Got some stuff done this week. Finished attaching the 2nd rear traction bar and removed the spare tire cross member.

After a lot of thought and changing my mind multiple times :crazy:, I finally decided to mount dual shocks in the rear. I was conflicted how to mount them as recommended - one towards the front end - one towards to rear bumper. But as discussed earlier in the thread, this would have put the rear upper shock mount in the way of where I planned to mount my aluminum gas tank. So I decided to mount both towards the front. I considered having them side-by-side, but instead I'm going to have one mounted a little bit further forward of the second so you can see both from the side. Basically, there is a space to the rear of the current bracket where I plan to put it. The brackets I plan on making will be bolt on so if I don't like the look of this I'll have them side by side since my current upper shock bracket could handle this with just a little bit of surgery.

To make this possible I needed to build a lower shock bracket that could handle two shocks side-by-side. You can see where I took a current 1/4" thick shock brackets I bought from Barnes4WD, cut them in half and welded enough 1/4" steel to allow two shocks side-by-side with a bushing in between the two (3.7" inside width).

I hope to finish my other shock bracket today as well as beginning fabrication of the two upper shock brackets.

I also wanted to say thanks to 'Brossow' for a thread he put together back in 2008 which helped me out tremendously with a shock bushing bolt he recommended. :gi: I went to NAPA yesterday and picked them up and they worked like a champ. They even came with rubber bushings with the same bolt diameter as my lower shock brackets so I plan to use these in between two two shocks going side-by-side on the same bracket.

All-in-all yesterday was a good day even though my compressor motor died. Does anyone know of a good place to send my motor to be rebuilt? I thought about doing in myself but I need it fast so that won't work.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I like those lower shock mounts, I bought shock tabs but might modify them to look like those.. or just order a set of those...

find an electrical shop in town that might have rebuilt motors, they will probably take yours as a trade in. check the RPM's and direction CW vs CCW and keep your pulley.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Not crapping on this idea but honestly curious ... without any way for the bars to pivot at all, isn't this solid connection going to cause an incredibly jarring ride? I'm also not sure how it's going to articulate with the suspension as the bars are fixed length but when the axle moves it's not always the exact same distance from the front mount point of your traction bar setup.

Compare your setup with my Caltracs as shown in this thread. Here are a couple pics:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1252208777

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1252208791

Notice how those pivot at the front to allow the axle to move as the spring compresses and extends. Now, I'm no engineer and I could be wrong, but that setup concerns me. Thought I should at least mention it, even if I'm completely wrong.

Brent

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

superlift make off road traction bars the mount to the top of the axle houseing to the u-bolts.
http://www.rockymountainsusp.com/tractionbars.htm

here are rear upper shock mount part numbers that i bought to replace mine wornout hacked up home made that was on the truck when i bought the truck.And here is a tread thats has some pictures of them..
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...94#post3069894
15698355 LH
15698356 RH

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Bigmike - Good idea. We'll see how much I can get the other motor for and I might end up doing that.

Brossow- My traction bars use the same kind of spherical heim joint as in the picture you posted so yes it will travel with the suspension. I even used the same misalignment spacers on the heim joints under my axle. I guess you missed the earlier photos which showed the my heim joints. That Caltrac bracket is kind of slick - wish I had seen them earlier. . .

bignbad - Thanks. I was looking to see if there upper shock brackets out there I could purchase. Don't mind making them, just takes a lot of time. This helps.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

They will move up and down (and side to side to a negligible extent), but there's no forward and aft motion possible as with the Caltracs. The Heim joints are the same, yes, but there's no front pivot. As a leaf spring compresses, the distance between the spring eyes increases. With the front eye fixed relative to the frame, the center of the spring -- and therefore the axle -- moves rearward. When the spring unloads (as in going over a bump) the spring shortens (eye to eye) and the axle moves forward. Your setup would seem to prevent this movement. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think so.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Spot on. I put my traction bars on my truck to limit the movement of my axle forwards and backswards - aka axle wrap. I plan to have close to 500 hp so I was concerned my lifted springs may cause a lot of axle wrap with this kind of horsepower.

I'm curious - if you want front to rear movement in your springs, why did you put traction bars on your truck?

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I must be missing something. I'll trust you on this for your setup. The more I think about it, essentially what you've done is created a sort of combined trailing arm and leaf spring suspension in one. Sorta. :)

As for my Caltracs, I'm not preventing fore-aft movement. That's not what a good traction control system does. My goal is the same as what you called it but not what you described: preventing spring (axle) wrap, which isn't fore-aft movement at all but rotation of the axle in place, causing the leaf springs to "wrap" into an S shape. During normal driving the axle still needs to be able to move forward and backward as I described previously and hence the need for the front pivot. Under hard acceleration, however, if the axle tries to rotate forward, the Caltracs prevent this rotation.

But like I said, I'm not an engineer and maybe I'm missing something. I'll leave it at that and hope it perfectly works for you. Sometimes I overthink things. :)

Cheers,
Brent

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Silver7, won't your rear springs be as hard as a rock now?

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I guess I won't know until I drive it, but I'm sure my traction bars will stiffen them up quite a bit. To be honest, I'm not too worried about it because my brackets and how I mounted them are nearly identical to the majority of traction bar set-ups I've seen on lifted trucks.

Before building this I looked into a lot of different traction bars and bracket set-ups and I never heard of the Caltracs or saw anything mounted like yours. But what you say makes sense and maybe yours offers an advantage over the other simpler set-ups like mine. Either way, I appreciate the discussion and will keep these in mind if my set-up gives me problems. I made my brackets myself so I wouldn't be surprised if I need to make another modification in the future.

On another note, brossow, can you send me the dimensions (height and width) on your rear upper shock brackets your showed in the build thread with the shock bushing bolt from NAPA? I may buy me a set of those if they will fit my current space.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I'd love to, but everything is literally buried in the garage until spring. It would be a full weekend of work just to get at the parts to measure. Sorry! :(

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I understand. Thanks

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I finally figured out how I am going to work my rear dual shocks. I saw some photos of a truck with Rough Country dual shocks in the rear end I really liked the look - symmetrical and side-by-side except mine will be oriented towards the front of the truck and the lower mounts will attach higher on the axle. :gi: Unfortunately, with the way the previous owner fabricated the current upper shock brackets I wouldn't be able to duplicate it without making some changes. :dohh: As a result, I decided to remove my current upper shock mounts and replace with the spare tire cross member I removed from the rear of my frame so I could mount a larger gas tank. I plan to attach the same kind of lower shock brackets to this cross member that I already fabricated for my axle housing. 5 hours of cutting, grinding, sanding and welding in the garage today allowed me to remove the old shocks mounts and replace with some new steel. :eek: I think I may be getting the hang of this welding thing. . .

Next steps are to lengthen the cross member 5 inches (the shock mount location is at a wider part in the frame than where the cross member was originally) and weld the brackets to it when they arrive from Barnes 4WD.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Is the spare tire crossmember sturdy enough to handle the stress of having shocks attached? When I removed mine, I remember it being rather flimsy -- enough to hold a spare but not much more. Yours may be completely different and in better shape than mine.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I found a gentlemen in VA to do an even swap for my tires. :metal: His tires are 35" Super Swampers and mine are 33" BF Goodrich MT and since we both have 15" rims so we'll just trade tires. I hope to do the swap within the next couple of weeks - here are some pics.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

Good question. :cool: I call it the spare tire cross member but I may have been for something else. My truck is not an original 4x4 so who knows what have been added and subtracted along the way. But it is very sturdy. :sumo: In fact, the steel is as thick as my frame.

Here are a couple of photos of it.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

He's right, and i'm afraid you're going to break your front mounting points on those bars if you beat on the truck too hard. I hope you don't, though. But yeah "axle-wrap" refers to the axle twisting, not moving forwards and backwards. It needs to move forwards and backwards, that's what the shackle is there for. Brent already described it perfectly. Not tryin to knock your build at all, just my .02 cents. Whether or not my opinion is really worth that much or not is debatable :lol: trucks looking great though, can't wait to see more.

Re: Project: Custom 71 4x4 hotrod
 

I know what the shackle is for but that described movement is exactly what I am trying to reduce. My set-up is similar if not identical to a lot of other 'homemade' traction bars out there so I like my chances. In fact, I found a lot more truck guys using my kind of traction bars versus the Caltracs. This guy '6600duramax' is on our forum board making and selling a traction bar which mounts the same way as mine.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=364788

But, if the ride happens to be a little stiffer than desired, I can always add a small shackle to my front mount to allow my springs to elongate 'a little' when compressed. Maybe that will give me the best of both worlds. Either way, I appreciate the dialogue on the subject.