Quote:
Originally Posted by 28TudorAZ
That bondo needs a nice coat of brown over it.  |
so one thing i didnt do when i made the kit adjustable was change the front bumper mount. the original brackets have a good range of adjustment by flipping over but i got the occasional questions that made me think i needed something different. my thumbnail requirements were to have full adjustment for all cab heights, support tucked or untucked applications, fit bent original stuff, and most importantly not change the cost or the packaging of the kit. the last one is a doozy, not so much the cost part because i am a rockstar on budgets, but the packaging part because I knew from my experience making bumper brackets that they were all longer than the 12" of the boxes i use.
I started by making a folding mount for the end of the frame, i dont like combining this mount with the front clip mount like every other kit maker because even though its easier to iinstall, it also locks the bumper parts to the front clip (other kits also reuse the bolts in the steering box!) and thats a recipe for disaster, if you hit something with the bumper like a parking block you can throw the alignment of your front end out of whack.
they reuse two (or three) existing bolt holes to mount solidly to the frame, of course i welded them though. the slotted holes allow the up/down for different cab heights.
next the legs, they are only 8" and 10.5" long so they fit in the box but there are two each, so you can get the needed 12-18" in length by bolting them together. this also provides the adjustment for in out, left right, and tilting for bent parts. dont mind my 4" long bolts haha they are made to use 1/2" long 1/2" carriage bolts to lock them in but I didnt have any on hand.
the slots in the frame mount are made for a 1/2 carriage bolt too. easy peasy, no wrench needed on the back side!
alles güt! well except the passenger leg, I ran out of bolts even 4" ones and it was raining in the fourseasongarage™
so tomorrow i will get the right bolts and weld up my bend solts and that is one more box checked on the old gypsum 54.