Got the knuckles put on my Eaton/60. Installed the new kingpin hardware, made a couple tools to do it, one was a grade 8 bolt with 2 nuts threaded onto it and welded, broke it about 3 times, the other I made from one of the stub shafts I cut up to make my inner shafts, it worked good. Used red Loctite and a 6 foot cheater bar, and torqued them down as much as I could, plus took the impact to them for about 5 minutes each, I don't think they'll back out.
Drilled and tapped the knuckle for 9/16-12 thread and using these ARP studs -
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ARP-AQ3475-1LB/ - they are 9/16-12 on one end and 9/16-18 on the other, so I can use regular lug nuts to hold the crossover arm down since 9/16-18 lug nuts are easy to get. Also drilled it for 1/2'' dowel pins, using oil pump push rods for the pins since they are hardened.
Did more work on my crossover steering arm. Cut it with a plain jane Victor cutting torch, took a while but it cut through it at 1.5'' thick with no problem.
Then I cleaned it up and ground both sides to a 10* angle to match the hole for the drag link. Also made a kingpin spring cap for it and put a 70* taper on the holes for the lug nuts. To do that I ground an old 3/4'' drill bit to the proper angle. A quick word of caution, I tacked that cap on and bolted the arm to the knuckle with the KP spring installed, left it overnight, went out the next morning and the cap was no where to be found. About 3 hours later I found it laying in the dirt about 35 feet away, glad I wasn't around when it let go and went flying. I should have put bigger tacks on it.
The cap and dowel pins are all getting TIG welded to it soon.
Ground out between the two halves all the way around to weld it together.
The drill bit I modified for a 70* taper.
Welded together and cleaned up....
I had to make the hole for the drag link attachment point 7/8'' in diameter because I'm going to weld in a tapered insert, but I had already drilled it out to 11/16'' and didn't have a 7/8'' drill bit, so I had to use a hole saw. Well hole saws need a pilot bit, and without one they just walk all over the place, but a pilot bit wouldn't do me any good in this case since the hole was already very large. So I found a washer that had a hole slightly bigger than 7/8'' and tacked it onto the arm. This kept the hole saw from walking around and allowed me to cut clean through it without a pilot bit, and it started nice and smooth and straight with no chatter/walking.
Hoping to get some more work done on the frame this week if the wind will stop around here. Going to finish boxing the front of the frame, and box it back to just behind the front shackles. Then maybe check out the trans and see if it needs a rebuild, and if not I'll go ahead and swap it to the 2wd output shaft and rear cover. Next up will be the transfer case, although I may do that before the trans. Stay tuned for more updates soon!