'72 K5 - Greg's @MightAsWellK5 Build

[76zimmer]

Hey Greg, really liking the fender treatment you got done so far, and thanks for the "stuff" shot with the tire up....One more thing to consider that may or may not change the stuffability of the tire/fender is to raise the opposing rear tire while stuffing that front, and dam do those tires look WIDE!

 

[ChefBear]

OMG, not yet?

 

[Greg72]

OMG, not yet?

Chef, is that YOU?

Its been a while..... And yes, this build is still plodding along!



-G

 

[kellyjohn]

Progress is still progress Greg!!

I don't think you want the real answer to that question...

....it's going to be a few weeks at least. My free time is going into finishing up the "kitchen build".

-G

It may be a slow build but quality is not quick, it definitely scores very high on the Interesting Scale!!!

Am I the only one on the forum who's wife would prefer to put off home improvements for parts and upgrades for our trucks???

 

[Greg72]

Am I the only one on the forum who's wife would prefer to put off home improvements for parts and upgrades for our trucks???

....probably!

That's certainly not the way it works here. I usually get "equal time" in the shop for time spent on the house projects which is quite reasonable. At the present time we're trying to refinance and get a lower rate (before interest rates skyrocket) so we need to knock out a bunch of projects before the bank sends their assessor here to appraise the house. Once I'm over that hurdle, I can start sneaking out into the man space again.

A couple more weeks to go! The "mistress" is patient.


-G

 

[76zimmer]

The mistress Greg....I'm on that line of thought...with The Iron Maiden....a ton or two of cast Iron and steel, and I'll make it my bitch....although she's had other ideas (remember the transmission fiasco?)

I just got 2.75 for a 15 yr fixed....I say borrow and pay minimums and stoke up the 401K....we are going to be on a bull rally from what I read/hear.

 

[Greg72]

2013.05.28 - UPDATE! - NOW WHERE WAS I...???

It's been a while.

Gotta be honest, I kind of forgot where I left off on this build so it took me a while to get back into the right mindset. Fortunately, Charlie had some free time and was able to show me a few basics to refresh my memory.



This was the first time I let him into the shop to actually "touch" stuff and boy did he LOVE the toolbox and drawers full of tools! He opened each one and looked at all the cool stuff and his eyes were wide with wonder. It was a neat thing to watch and I felt like a proud papa.

During the last break, I was spending a lot of time working on the house but in that same timeframe, my in-laws sold their house and were preparing to move. There were a lot of things that they simply didn't want to deal with moving again, so they asked us to help clear it out.... as you'd imagine, there were plenty of items that nobody would want, but there was one very nice surprise buried in the basement!

Behold! Some new add-on toolboxes to augment my small original box. It was basically a smaller lower box with two stacking units for the top of it. Since I'm short there's no way I'd be able to see inside the upper drawers if I configured it that way, so I moved the middle box over to the top of my original box and that left the remaining boxes at a nice working height that I can actually SEE into! All they need now is some stickers on the outside and they will be perfect.



I ended up with a bunch of extra framing squares, long levels and a nice 4' straightedge too. So I spent a few extra minutes cleaning up the shop and building some hanging space for all of it.





Time to begin again.

......for those of you who forgot where this project stopped (like me) here is a refresher photo.



Basically, the front suspension is 90% completed and is articulating well, but there is still no steering or front struts installed. I'd been considering a bunch of different options to get the steering packaged in a way that would fit but would also support the hydro-assist setup that I want to install.... ultimately it's important to get all the linkages up as high as possible to avoid obstacles and to preserve all of the ground clearance that I've fought so hard to achieve.

The day started off with locating the steering box on the inside of the framerail....



This is about as far forward as I can comfortably go and still keep all the linkages nice and parallel to each other with adequate clearance all around. As Eric warned me, the box DOES sit slightly above the framerail so I'm going to have to go back and make adjustments to how the radiator fits into this area. Right now, it's going to be bumped up about 1" on the driver's side because of the steering box position.

To maximize the length of the draglink and to reduce the effects of bumpsteer, I decided to go with an idler-arm steering setup off the driver's side framerail. This basically allows the steering box to move the idler arm, and the idler can pull on the draglink (or push) from a longer pivot point so that the steering knuckles get full steering all the way to the stops.



You can see in this photo that the steering box pivot point as at 5-1/2" on the idler (which matches the length of the pitman arm on the steering box) and then I extended the pivot length for the draglink to 8-3/4" which more closely matches the distance of the factory steering arm on the Mog knuckles from the kingpin centerline. The theory is that by matching the pitman arm to the upper idler distance, and the steering arms to the lower idler distance everything should steer completely from steering stop to steering stop.




So here's the final shot of the evening with things as close to final position as I could make them for a photo. The PHB is definitely NOT at the same angle as the draglink, but I feel confident that I can lift the passenger side up a bit to address that (which should also raise my front roll center a bit more which is also a good thing!). The pitman arm would probably work better if I pulled it off and flipped it so that the "drop" in the arm went the opposite way.... ultimately it might make more sense to try to locate a simple flat arm with the correct Chevy spline setup and a 5-1/2" hole center spacing.

It was a bit of a tough time in the shop trying to clear the cobwebs (both literal and figurative) on this steering setup, but it feels good to be back out there experimenting and figuring things out.


-G

 

[ktmoutfront]

Looks good as always. Just one suggestion. The idler arm mount will need a lot of reinforcement. I know this from experience. And I'm only running a 10 bolt and 35's. It will rip the frame appart.

 

[Greg72]

Couple new photos from tonight's effort......

Got both the PHB and the draglink set to the same angle from the front view (7.0*)

Next up is finding a good place to run the tie rod across to the drivers side.


-G

 

[Z71paramedic]

Ridiculous as usual Greg. Always glad to see this show up in my email with your name as the person who replied.

 

[Greg72]

Looks good as always. Just one suggestion. The idler arm mount will need a lot of reinforcement. I know this from experience. And I'm only running a 10 bolt and 35's. It will rip the frame appart.

What did you end up using for the uppermost pivot on your idler arm?

For the majority of the steering system, I'm thinking of a combination of tierod ends and heims from EMF (formerly known as Evolution Machine) since they've got some really impressive stuff... but the uppermost idler pivot doesn't really need to be a heim since it only needs to swing in a single-dimension, and a standard rubber bushing with a steel sleeve seems like the wrong choice. (Too compliant and might make the steering feel sloppy)

Any ideas?


-G

 

[ktmoutfront]

I used this bushing http://www.kartek.com/Product/1167/Delrin-Bushings.aspx

Went with chromoly inner and outer sleeves purchased longer. Then shortened to leave an 1/8" gap between the bushings. Machined small groves the length of the inner sleeve then tapered the edges of those groves. Installed a grease zerk into the outer sleeve.

Did this the second time around. Steering was a little stiff. This solved the problem. That was 7 years ago. Have not replaced it. Just had to gusset the frame a year ago.

 

[BAJA_BLAZER]

I finally got current with your journey... WOW!

Instead of bushings, opposing tapered bearings in the tube is the best solution, but spherical bearings in the tube can also be used. This concept: Steering Column Kit.

What did you end up using for the uppermost pivot on your idler arm?

For the majority of the steering system, I'm thinking of a combination of tierod ends and heims from EMF (formerly known as Evolution Machine) since they've got some really impressive stuff... but the uppermost idler pivot doesn't really need to be a heim since it only needs to swing in a single-dimension, and a standard rubber bushing with a steel sleeve seems like the wrong choice. (Too compliant and might make the steering feel sloppy)

Any ideas?


-G

 

[FrostBite]

Why not two heims side by side, similar to a tiny control arm off a desert truck?

 

[ktmoutfront]

I built a custom short pitman arm for the box. More torque? Heim there.

Went to the passenger side to a vertical idler arm. With a Deleon bushing setup. Then lower on that arm to the tie rod. Heim on idler arm end, Deleon bushing on the tie rod.

The distance between the horizontal bar and the drag link makes up for the lost travel due to the short pitman arm.

 

[Greg72]

2013.06.16 - UPDATE! - STICKERS AND STEERING ARMS...

The last couple of weeks have been spent mostly on work-related travel so the patient mistress has been sitting idle, waiting for my return. Father's Day seemed like the perfect opportunity to sneak out into the shop for a little relaxation and forward progress.

First up.... a few decorations on the new toolboxes.



Time to dig in.....

The last big item that has been lacking on the front axle, were the steering arms. The factory UniMog setup used a draglink in front of the axle, and a tie rod behind the axle. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room to tuck the tie rod on the backside of the Mog-9, so I needed to come up with a setup that would accommodate the panhard bar, draglink AND tie-rod.....all on the front side of the axle.

The initial challenge was trying to get the tie rod up high enough that it wouldn't hang below the axletube. Ideally, a "high steer" steering arm setup would be used, but with the portal axle there just isn't room to mount the steering arms in line with the upper kingpins... the best I could imagine was more of a "mid steer" configuration. Unfortunately, since there are no factory indexes for a setup like that I decided to just lay a large flat plate across the upper kingpin areas, and start establishing some reference points.

I wanted to set the steering arms at 8" from the upper kingpin centerline, and I wanted the Ackermann to be correct. Based on my calculations, that meant that I needed to move the mounting holes about 1" wider (per side) than the kingpin spacing....



Eventually, I cut-down the 1/4" plate to a more manageable size (so that the tire/wheel could be reinstalled) and then dropped a long piece of threaded rod down through it so I could experiment with different vertical link heights.



Here's a shot of the draglink coming into the new steering arm, and the heim that will turn into a complete tie rod. The challenge is to build a steering arm that can survive the massive forces of the steering box (and hydro assist) without bending into a pretzel. It would be nearly impossible to build the entire thing off an upper-mount on the steering knuckle. A better solution would be to support it from both the upper kingpin area AND the lower kingpin area as well. As you can see in this photo, the links are basically centered between the upper and lower KPs.

...and here is a shot to show the relative position of the PHB, the draglink and tierod.



I retained the factory Mog steering arms since they bolt-on to the lower kingpin area, and have the steering stops cast into them. As it turns out, the original steering arm hole ends up pretty close to the area where I landed the heims in my new design, so I am tempted to build a small bracket off it to put my steering setup into a solid double-shear configuration. I just need to think it through a bit more.



The same stuff, from a little different angle....




Just as Brandon predicted, each new part I add is causing my to "fine tune" other items that are in the way..... parts are moving 1/2" here, 1" there.... as I slowly negotiate for clearance for the items that are being dropped into place. The panhard bar got a little shorter, then the frame side mount dropped a little bit lower than before. It's all part of the process, and it's almost guaranteed that some of these components will be shifting around a few more times before it's all said and done.



-G

 

[Z71paramedic]

Good to see you back in the man cave I'm glad you're making some progress too!

 

[blazinzuk]

A little bit of bracing on those arms and I would run them there. It seems to be the simplest solution. If simple works go with it.

Don't you just love working with clearances that require you to move things just a tiny bit LOL

Sometimes that can be the most frustrating thing.

 

[Greg72]

A little bit of bracing on those arms and I would run them there. It seems to be the simplest solution. If simple works go with it.

Don't you just love working with clearances that require you to move things just a tiny bit LOL

Sometimes that can be the most frustrating thing.

Hey Eric,

Yeah, it's definitely getting to that point in the design but I suppose that's just an indication that I'm almost done packing all of the neccesary parts into the solution. It's amazing that when I built the rear 4-link it seemed SO hard to package the links and mounts and get everything to cycle properly. Now that I've been struggling to build a front multi-link suspension, it gives me a new appreciation for just how simple building the rear 4-link actually was!

I am also learning that my progress is best when I work for a solid 8-hours on the truck, then take some time away from it. During that time, I usually think about the remaining issues and can often come up with a clever way to solve it... if I try to work too fast and force the solution, it doesn't seem to work as well and I end up building a few revisions that are lousy before my mind finally comes up with something elegant and functional.

It's also becoming obvious that there is such a thing as TOO MUCH time away from the project, especially when it comes to complex problem-solving stuff. After 3-4 weeks away from it, I was really struggling to get my head wrapped-around the steering arm solution yesterday... I spent quite a bit of time reading the Oracle notebook and reviewing my previous process steps, then spent a good bit of time lying on the ground underneath the truck just staring up at the front axle and suspension....looking for inspiration and available space to utilize for the build.

As I hinted at in my post last night, the hardest part about the steering arms is that there is no real fixed starting point to build from. I'm truly trying to locate those tie-rod ends in a 3D (x,y,z) coordinate space with no easy way to get a bracket where I wanted it. The huge flat plate that I used yesterday was at least a starting point, and it allowed me to figure out my (x,y) locations, and with the long piece of threaded rod I was able to set the height (z) and play with some different ideas. Ultimately, the fact that the upper plate is flat is a major design limitation because as it swings on a hard left turn, it hits the axle-side PHB heim or at least gets awfully close. A better solution might be to angle that plate down toward where the 2 heims attach so that there is more clearance above it for the PHB... Having the steering arm angled down (from the upper KP area) and angled UP (from the lower KP area) will also help it look a bit more tapered and "refined" and not so clunky. Right now it definitely looks like a big blob bolted up to the PS knuckle but I'm trying very hard to ignore my OCD and just get things installed so I can cycle the suspension and steering to make sure it all works..... later on I will go back and rebuild a lot of these mounts and hangers so that they look nicer and simpler. Unfortunately, this crude mock-up phase just makes the "Might As Well" build look pretty ugly for the time being... hopefully everyone understands that it's not going to look like this forever.


-G

 

[blazinzuk]

When you are working with clearances like you are. It is good to take time off. But like you said best to put in several hours at a time on the truck. I have sat and stared at trucks before sometimes for hours trying to figure out what I was going to do.

As long as it all works out in the end that is what matters right?