Let's just bump this to Page 47 in anticipation of tonight's progress pics...
-G
-G
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CK5
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'72 K5 - Greg's @MightAsWellK5 Build
- Thread starter Greg72
- Start date
This is the build description. I will improve this later. (GB)
I see the Cookie Monster has been giving you some inspiration on this build..
Gonna need specs on that cookie, screw it just do a build thread on it...
Dude, specs would be mo betta.... I'd like to see the cookie done before 2020..
This has got to be one of the best comments ever
Dude, specs would be mo betta.... I'd like to see the cookie done before 2020..
Dood, don't even Tri to start with me tonight!!!
-G
Dood, don't even Tri to start with me tonight!!!
-G
Get back in your garage and keep sending me pics. "Y" are you lacking..
Ok that cookie was just a straight up dick move, a serious dick move Greg!
NOW I WANT A COOKIE!!!!!
NOW I WANT A COOKIE!!!!!
Mike insists that cookie pics get more attention than actual tech....
Thought I'd give it a try, and you know what? It seems to be working....
-G
I saw Tri Y amidst the cookie pads
Now I also has cookie!!!
Greg, when you get around to your purge gas setup check out diffusion stones. I grabbed mine from a homebrew beer store. Something like this http://www.morebeer.com/products/di...enation.html?gclid=CLv6iLSUsMYCFUOCfgodhooCIg
I can run a lower purge gas flow rate and get a little more torch time out of the tank. I am still pretty bad at tig but its a really fun way to weld once you kinda know what your doing
I can run a lower purge gas flow rate and get a little more torch time out of the tank. I am still pretty bad at tig but its a really fun way to weld once you kinda know what your doing
Since you are (rightly imho) not overly worried about equal tube lengths, simple, practical, and buildable headers that are functional should be your targets. I've TIG'd stainless exhaust systems, and to me TIG is like golf. I know it is an unlikely comparison, but the guys that do great TIG work are like professional golfers that hit one bad shot every few rounds. The rest of us mere mortals can hit the same shots (or lay the same beads), but we screw up a lot more. Make it easier for yourself by putting yourself on the Par 3 course, not Augusta National. My great looking welds are done on the bench with good support, and room to work. Odd angles, like welding around inside and outside curves where it is hard to get the tubes to match perfectly, and things go to hell in a hurry.
My point is that great TIG welded headers are ARTWORK, mistakes will make all the work look like crap. I'm sure yours will look great, but don't spend months and months on them, go simple when possible.
Nothing Greg has done up to this point has been simple so what makes you think he's going to start now?
Besides, it might have been me that started his craziness by telling him late one night when his waterpump was leaking and he wanted to have it towed home to just change it where it was broken down at, that it's an adventure.
Nothing Greg has done up to this point has been simple so what makes you think he's going to start now?
I believe that water pump was the very first (and original) "Might As Well".
So it turns out that this entire build is all Scotty's fault!
-G
Sooo.........
Cookies?
Cookies?
Mike insists that cookie pics get more attention than actual tech....
Thought I'd give it a try, and you know what? It seems to be working....
-G
See, it really, really works well on the fluffy type people. Watch your views jump by thousands if you post up some double stuff Oreos.
2015.06.29 - UPDATE! - DODGED A BULLET...!!!
You know how sometimes you can get SO focused on certain details that you completely forget to do something REALLY basic?
Well... as I've been noodling around with the new exhaust system and my "white wheels and hubcaps" initiative it occurred to me that I've never actually bothered to check to see if those 17" wheel hoops I bought would clear the enormous Ford F250 brake calipers and hangers!!!
Oooops.
I finally got around to ordering up a nice set of brass tire valves, so I took out the innertube that I has previously using (in a failed attempt to inflate the tire temporarily) and did things the right way. With the tire remounted and aired up I got a fun photo that I doubt many of you have ever seen.... A fully inflated tire mounted to a blank wheel hoop.
That allowed me to take the OEM pressed center and bolt it up to the front wheel.... after I'd spent a couple of hours modifying and hanging the brake components on the wheel for the first time.
As you recall, I was trying to pull the wheel in as close to the steering arms as possible and with the enormous amount of backspacing of the drop-valley 17" hoops I knew that I was going to end up using a MUCH thicker wheel spacer than before. Previously, I was able to get the fitment I wanted with a 3/8" spacer. This time around I was fighting REALLY hard to keep the spacer at 1" thick... but there was just too much interference on the steering arm plate, and if I was willing to accept a 1.25" spacer instead.... the fitment was 100% perfect. Convenience wins.
Ultimately, I think this still ends up pulling the tires a bit more "inboard" than they were with the H2 wheels so the scrub radius should get a bit better.
Keeping in mind that the truck is going to have CTIS also, the next steps are a bit trickier than usual.... That valvestem that I installed is NOT is the conventional location on the outer part of the rim... it's actually BEHIND the wheel center, making it impossible to reach with a normal air chuck.
Here's how it ends up looking with the hoop and centers mated together:
This was another area where I probably should have done a lot more checking MANY months ago when I bought my very first wheel hoop...and not after spending the money for 5 of them. Fortunately, it all worked out well.
If you look at the previous photo of the wheel center bolted up near the caliper you will see a pronounced "notch" cut into the wheel flange area. This is the spot where the brass valvestem end up being located. It is a VERY precise location that ends up barely clearing the caliper body as it rotates, and ends up aiming the valvestem up toward the wheel hub and 1.25" thick wheel spacer.
This is important because anyone who has seen a military Humvee knows... there is an airline that travels from the wheel center to the valvestem and USUALLY this is on the outside of the wheel which makes it extremely vulnerable to rocks and trees, etc. Usually, there is a large triangular "skidplate" that is mounted to protect it. But since I want to mount hubcaps and not betray the "factory" look of the wheel by having a big honkin' airline protruding from the hubcap... I needed to be more clever and sneak the lines to the backside of the wheel.
Normally this would NEVER work because there wouldn't be enough room for the airline, and there would be no space to get the line from the valvestem to the center of the hub where it needs to connect to get it's pressurized air. As soon as the wheel rotated, the airline would get snagged and tangled up in the caliper and tear it right out of the wheel!!!
However, in this case that 1.25" spacer is a Godsend... I can drill into the side of that spacer and tap it directly for the air fittings or just drill a large enough hole to pass the entire hose and fittings through to the center of the wheel. It's a bit confusing to describe, but I'll post up more photos of it later on and it will make sense.
The key point is that when you look at the truck and wheels, there is NO valvestem visible at all.... no airlines visible AT ALL.... and the hubcap hides all the "magic" underneath that makes it all possible.
Cool stuff.... and I'm glad that I didn't get burned by not checking all the clearances until this late in the game. I'd always FELT like it would work the way I'd imagined, but shame on me for not confirming it until now.
The other thing I spent some time on was trying more routing options for the outboard header design...specifically the #8 cylinder which is going to be the most challenging to find room for.
I built a "mock up" collector flange out of some scrap tubing and tack welded it where it needs to go. This gives me a fixed target to shoot for when I'm routing my tubes off the head flange.
One of the many challenges of the outboard header design is that I've got almost NO room left anywhere to pass the exhaust through... and with the large trusswork that I've built for the rocksliders, there is even less room than normal. The only remaining option was to cut up my front cab supports (which had been lovingly repaired in the early stages of this build...maybe around 2008) with a giant crescent-shaped opening that would allow the 3.5" collector to pass through it.
Seems like it's going to work OK... but I've got some valid concerns about heat transfer to the interior floorboards. I'm going to Jet-Hot the headers for sure, but I may also need to do some localized heat mitigation (gold foil or whatever) in that area too...
Here's a new version of how the #8 exhaust could end up looking. I didn't have enough straight sections to do it all in mild-steel, so I just curled up a piece of construction paper to use as my straight tube.
That's all for now. I should be able to get a few hours in the shop again tonight.
-G
You know how sometimes you can get SO focused on certain details that you completely forget to do something REALLY basic?
Well... as I've been noodling around with the new exhaust system and my "white wheels and hubcaps" initiative it occurred to me that I've never actually bothered to check to see if those 17" wheel hoops I bought would clear the enormous Ford F250 brake calipers and hangers!!!
Oooops.
I finally got around to ordering up a nice set of brass tire valves, so I took out the innertube that I has previously using (in a failed attempt to inflate the tire temporarily) and did things the right way. With the tire remounted and aired up I got a fun photo that I doubt many of you have ever seen.... A fully inflated tire mounted to a blank wheel hoop.
That allowed me to take the OEM pressed center and bolt it up to the front wheel.... after I'd spent a couple of hours modifying and hanging the brake components on the wheel for the first time.
As you recall, I was trying to pull the wheel in as close to the steering arms as possible and with the enormous amount of backspacing of the drop-valley 17" hoops I knew that I was going to end up using a MUCH thicker wheel spacer than before. Previously, I was able to get the fitment I wanted with a 3/8" spacer. This time around I was fighting REALLY hard to keep the spacer at 1" thick... but there was just too much interference on the steering arm plate, and if I was willing to accept a 1.25" spacer instead.... the fitment was 100% perfect. Convenience wins.
Ultimately, I think this still ends up pulling the tires a bit more "inboard" than they were with the H2 wheels so the scrub radius should get a bit better.Keeping in mind that the truck is going to have CTIS also, the next steps are a bit trickier than usual.... That valvestem that I installed is NOT is the conventional location on the outer part of the rim... it's actually BEHIND the wheel center, making it impossible to reach with a normal air chuck.
Here's how it ends up looking with the hoop and centers mated together:
This was another area where I probably should have done a lot more checking MANY months ago when I bought my very first wheel hoop...and not after spending the money for 5 of them. Fortunately, it all worked out well.
If you look at the previous photo of the wheel center bolted up near the caliper you will see a pronounced "notch" cut into the wheel flange area. This is the spot where the brass valvestem end up being located. It is a VERY precise location that ends up barely clearing the caliper body as it rotates, and ends up aiming the valvestem up toward the wheel hub and 1.25" thick wheel spacer.
This is important because anyone who has seen a military Humvee knows... there is an airline that travels from the wheel center to the valvestem and USUALLY this is on the outside of the wheel which makes it extremely vulnerable to rocks and trees, etc. Usually, there is a large triangular "skidplate" that is mounted to protect it. But since I want to mount hubcaps and not betray the "factory" look of the wheel by having a big honkin' airline protruding from the hubcap... I needed to be more clever and sneak the lines to the backside of the wheel.
Normally this would NEVER work because there wouldn't be enough room for the airline, and there would be no space to get the line from the valvestem to the center of the hub where it needs to connect to get it's pressurized air. As soon as the wheel rotated, the airline would get snagged and tangled up in the caliper and tear it right out of the wheel!!!
However, in this case that 1.25" spacer is a Godsend... I can drill into the side of that spacer and tap it directly for the air fittings or just drill a large enough hole to pass the entire hose and fittings through to the center of the wheel. It's a bit confusing to describe, but I'll post up more photos of it later on and it will make sense.
The key point is that when you look at the truck and wheels, there is NO valvestem visible at all.... no airlines visible AT ALL.... and the hubcap hides all the "magic" underneath that makes it all possible.
Cool stuff.... and I'm glad that I didn't get burned by not checking all the clearances until this late in the game. I'd always FELT like it would work the way I'd imagined, but shame on me for not confirming it until now.
The other thing I spent some time on was trying more routing options for the outboard header design...specifically the #8 cylinder which is going to be the most challenging to find room for.
I built a "mock up" collector flange out of some scrap tubing and tack welded it where it needs to go. This gives me a fixed target to shoot for when I'm routing my tubes off the head flange.
One of the many challenges of the outboard header design is that I've got almost NO room left anywhere to pass the exhaust through... and with the large trusswork that I've built for the rocksliders, there is even less room than normal. The only remaining option was to cut up my front cab supports (which had been lovingly repaired in the early stages of this build...maybe around 2008) with a giant crescent-shaped opening that would allow the 3.5" collector to pass through it.
Seems like it's going to work OK... but I've got some valid concerns about heat transfer to the interior floorboards. I'm going to Jet-Hot the headers for sure, but I may also need to do some localized heat mitigation (gold foil or whatever) in that area too...
Here's a new version of how the #8 exhaust could end up looking. I didn't have enough straight sections to do it all in mild-steel, so I just curled up a piece of construction paper to use as my straight tube.
That's all for now. I should be able to get a few hours in the shop again tonight.
-G
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Cool stuff Greg (or should I say Hot stuff?). I'm assuming that the cage is providing enough support that you don't need that front cab support anymore.
I've never seen outboard headers made before or fit on our trucks. Should be interesting to watch.
I've never seen outboard headers made before or fit on our trucks. Should be interesting to watch.
Yeah, the cab supports are basically unneeded... and the torsion boxes were discarded a long time ago as well.
The rollcage A-pillar mounts go through the floor and then tie in directly to the top of those square-tube rockslider structures below....then the rocksliders are tied back into the frame just below the original cab support anyway. So much of the upper cage gets tied-in to the frame and "outrigger" areas underneath that there just isn't a reason to worry about the way the factory originally tried to create torsional strength in those areas.
The only remaining concern is that the floor may end up feeling like a big, floppy soda can when I climb into it.... that's going to require a few small sheetmetal support braces (undoubtedly with many 1" speedholes flared into them) to beef those footwell areas up.
The outboard headers are going to be crazy-fun looking I think. By the time the inner fenderwells are built and installed you probably wouldn't even notice them unless you were REALLY looking for them... but at this point, with everything wide open, it's going to be fun to see that spider-web of tubes sprawling out over the tops of the framerails and sneaking off down the sides of the truck!
-G
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