bp71k5
3/4 ton status
I liked the earlier martini version better.
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)
that'll cure the diet issue.
Looks like that should about cure any issue, at least temporarily!
2017.05.16 - UPDATE!!! - !!! SPEEDHOLES !!!
aka. DRAINHOLES, but that doesn't sound as cool.
The factory cross-sills are a simple way to add strength (and lots of rust issues) to these early K5s.
The mostly sealed channel has numerous gaps to allow water and mud inside, but almost NO way to allow that debris to find it's way back out. My original floor and cross-sills were absolutely PACKED with wet mud and were just sitting there rotting away both the cross sill and the adjacent bedfloor metal. With such easy access to this area for the time being, it seemed like a shame not to take the opportunity to improve the design and build something that would be more impervious to the elements.
A 1" hole seemed like the right size for the job. It fills the width of the cross sill nicely, and with 2.5" centers there are plenty of opportunities for water and crud to escape. With some seam sealer pumped into all the bedfloor crevices and smoothed-out, there should be little opportunity for dirt to get inside, but obviously PLENTY of ways for it to escape if it did.... should also make it easy to get primers, paints and bedliner in those crevices as well as making it easy to hose out debris whenever I feel the need.
It took a while to get a "system" figured out for doing accurate layouts. But with a sharp scribe, centerpunch, a couple of drillbits and a fresh Jancy annular cutter a total of 40 holes were completed last night.
More than half-way done. The final count is 74 holes (for those who wish to keep track) Starting to look a little bit like the @JDNobodi truck build, eh? 
This should keep me busy while I wait for the UPS guy to arrive with the next couple boxes of bling.
-G
aka. DRAINHOLES, but that doesn't sound as cool.
The factory cross-sills are a simple way to add strength (and lots of rust issues) to these early K5s.
The mostly sealed channel has numerous gaps to allow water and mud inside, but almost NO way to allow that debris to find it's way back out. My original floor and cross-sills were absolutely PACKED with wet mud and were just sitting there rotting away both the cross sill and the adjacent bedfloor metal. With such easy access to this area for the time being, it seemed like a shame not to take the opportunity to improve the design and build something that would be more impervious to the elements.
A 1" hole seemed like the right size for the job. It fills the width of the cross sill nicely, and with 2.5" centers there are plenty of opportunities for water and crud to escape. With some seam sealer pumped into all the bedfloor crevices and smoothed-out, there should be little opportunity for dirt to get inside, but obviously PLENTY of ways for it to escape if it did.... should also make it easy to get primers, paints and bedliner in those crevices as well as making it easy to hose out debris whenever I feel the need.
It took a while to get a "system" figured out for doing accurate layouts. But with a sharp scribe, centerpunch, a couple of drillbits and a fresh Jancy annular cutter a total of 40 holes were completed last night.
More than half-way done. The final count is 74 holes (for those who wish to keep track)
Starting to look a little bit like the @JDNobodi truck build, eh?
This should keep me busy while I wait for the UPS guy to arrive with the next couple boxes of bling.
-G
Am I the only one who looks at this picture and see's the corner of the next garage rug?Same Night..... High Octane Version!
-G
What? You didn't weigh the speed holes to see how much weight you lost, you must be slacking. Looks good.
I saved all the slugs... will report back once I have all 74 collected.
.... then I'll take them to a vending machine and buy a bunch of free sodas!!!!
-G
superbuickguy
1/2 ton status
no dimples? all you'd have to do is just drill out the spot welds, then dimple the holes.... 'just' you know, that word in the english language that has caused more wars then the words "this means war"
Here, let me use in a sentence to illustrate "honey, why don't you just paint the deck" it is not adviseable to respond with "why don't you just go to hell" and then "already there" and then "now you know how hard it is to deal with your suggestions" bad things happen after that..
Here, let me use in a sentence to illustrate "honey, why don't you just paint the deck" it is not adviseable to respond with "why don't you just go to hell" and then "already there" and then "now you know how hard it is to deal with your suggestions" bad things happen after that..
superbuickguy
1/2 ton status
I saved all the slugs... will report back once I have all 74 collected.
.... then I'll take them to a vending machine and buy a bunch of free sodas!!!!
-G
did I ever mention the time when I was prosecuting people who were plugging vending machines? don't know why that came up, but for some reason it seemed appropriate.
If all I had to do was cut the spotwelds, it would be done already.
The other problem is that the forming dies for a 1" flare hole are about 2" diameter, so they wouldn't fit inside that channel at all.... I suppose I could grind the crap out of them on two sides to give them the necessary clearance but I don't feel like destroying my tools for this one simple project.
Come to think of it.... maybe if @A1971Blazer felt like machining a special die that could be inserted into the channel from the side and had a treaded hole that would allow me to run a bolt from the outside to draw the two halves of the die together to do the flaring......
I might be willing to reconsider my intractable position on this matter.-G
superbuickguy
1/2 ton status
You know there's this guy whose motto is "why don't I just" - if this was his project, he'd already be working on the custom, one-use-only die. If there isn't a solution, then I understand not doing it - but you're already 90% of the way there with the solution.
You're welcome - I also do bar mitzpahs, weddings, and funerals.
and in seriousness. I've actually done that where you slide the die down the inside of the tube and form out (it was for a pickle machine of all things - because without the flare, the pickle would get damaged, and one cannot have damaged pickles). And for completeness the die is still in the tube. I forgot that if I started in one direction, I wouldn't be able to get it back out... you get one guess as to which direction I started from....
Juxtaposed with a BB2018 event in 472 days.......
It's not always a question of "wanting to" do something new and cool... this might just be one of those things that's just not going to be worth the effort (and time taken away from other tasks) to make it happen.
-G
superbuickguy
1/2 ton status
You're talking to someone who's going to be sleeping on a mattress pad in his Suburban because he just added a few things....
Good idea Greg, I've maintained that a huge part of rust issues comes down to lack of drainage. Question, did you deburr the inside of the holes to allow for thorough drainage? I know that's a deburr X 74, but otherwise you could end up with a nice layer of wet against the burr on the inside...
Greg, just an fyi for next time you need to drill one bajillion holes in a first gen floor crossmember thingy...
These are amazing for hole layout purposes. I do all of my rivet layouts with them and they save SO much time and are very accurate.
https://www.aircraft-tool.com/shop/detail.aspx?id=FS01
These are amazing for hole layout purposes. I do all of my rivet layouts with them and they save SO much time and are very accurate.
https://www.aircraft-tool.com/shop/detail.aspx?id=FS01
Hey now, I didn't drill holes in my cross stills. I did however thought about.2017.05.16 - UPDATE!!! - !!! SPEEDHOLES !!!
aka. DRAINHOLES, but that doesn't sound as cool.
The factory cross-sills are a simple way to add strength (and lots of rust issues) to these early K5s.
The mostly sealed channel has numerous gaps to allow water and mud inside, but almost NO way to allow that debris to find it's way back out. My original floor and cross-sills were absolutely PACKED with wet mud and were just sitting there rotting away both the cross sill and the adjacent bedfloor metal. With such easy access to this area for the time being, it seemed like a shame not to take the opportunity to improve the design and build something that would be more impervious to the elements.
A 1" hole seemed like the right size for the job. It fills the width of the cross sill nicely, and with 2.5" centers there are plenty of opportunities for water and crud to escape. With some seam sealer pumped into all the bedfloor crevices and smoothed-out, there should be little opportunity for dirt to get inside, but obviously PLENTY of ways for it to escape if it did.... should also make it easy to get primers, paints and bedliner in those crevices as well as making it easy to hose out debris whenever I feel the need.
It took a while to get a "system" figured out for doing accurate layouts. But with a sharp scribe, centerpunch, a couple of drillbits and a fresh Jancy annular cutter a total of 40 holes were completed last night.
More than half-way done. The final count is 74 holes (for those who wish to keep track)
This should keep me busy while I wait for the UPS guy to arrive with the next couple boxes of bling.
-G
@tRustyK5 : I have done a quick deburring already... which is to say, enough that it doesn't cut my fingers open when I run them around the holes to check!
It's not an easy holesize to deburr, I used those small cartridge-style sanding rolls and tried to lay them over at a 45-degree angle to hit the sharp inside edge. Ideally, I'd love to use one of those Walter flap-style drum sanding wheels... but I didn't see anything on Amazon that was small enough diameter... my previous ones were either 1" or 1.25" diameter. They work great though for putting a nice radius on holes and really making them look amazing.@Deuling: Looks cool!
How tight are those hingepoints? I'd be concerned about any sloppiness or "sagging" of that tool when trying to lay out holes over a long distance. I carefully scribed my target line, then centerpunched all my holes perfectly.... but still, the first drillbit I ran into the cross-sills walked around slightly, and a few of my holes are off by as much as 1/16"!!!!! I'm going to try to ignore it... which isn't easy to do.@JDNobodi: I loved going through your thread and seeing all of the opportunistic speedhole work that you did. IIRC you speedholed the inner bedsides, and any bracing that you exposed along the way.... probably just ounces of weight saved, but ultimately who knows? That might have been the difference that allowed you to hang those front tires six feet in the air and get the epic photo that cemented your internet immortality!!
-G
2017.05.17 - !!UPDATE!! - STRANGE DEVELOPMENTS.....!!!
Oh Boy!!!
Like a kid at Christmas... two 40Lbs boxes were sitting on my porch last night when I finally arrived home. Lots of goodies to open and enjoy, so let's get started:
There were 2 of these.... Aluminum HD 3rd members:
Here's the back showing the bearing caps and cool machining. The front pinion support has all sorts of oiling holes which makes me feel reassured about using these "flipped":
The Chromoly 1350-style yokes with a cool set of billet caps. They have a nice retaining lip on both sides to keep the U-joint caps from spitting out.
It was just too tempting.... with the pinion support quickly slapped into place, it just HAD to go over to the axle to see how it would look...
The housing studs weren't installed yet (more on that in a second) so it was just held in place (one-handed) while the camera took the shot. Probably can't pull that off with a nodular iron version!!!
It looks really cool.... the pinion centerline sits 26" off the ground which is insane. The chassis is sitting at "full bump" right now, but the rear driveline angle last night was only 6.5*... obviously at right height (7" higher) that angle will get steeper, but it's going to be really tucked-up high and the u-joints should last forever at those kind of operating angles.
Finally... the mounting studs. I wanted to use a stud mount setup because it makes it SO much easier to line-up the 3rd (and the gasket). With this particular housing, it may actually be REQUIRED since there doesn't seem to be adequate room with all the reinforcement ribs to even get a conventional bolt in from the front side of the housing.
In any event. The Spidertrax housing is already drilled / tapped with 10 fine-thread 3/8" holes... the studs are 3/8" (fine thread) but have a slightly larger knurled area that needs to be pressed into the housing (from inside the axle housing) to hold them in place... here are the dimensions.
It looks like the 3/8" threaded area is slightly smaller than .375" (by design) to allow it to pass through a true 3/8" hole. The knurled area is slightly LARGER than a true 3/8" hole which makes me think that ARP intends for the installer to drill a standard 3/8" hole and when the bolt is drawn-in to the hole, the knurled area is JUST BARELY larger (.021" oversize) and will effectively broach itself into position until it's fully seated? Does that seem correct?
Anyway, I might just give ARP a call today. Once I drill the axle housing, it's kind of too late to turn back... .so I'd like to know for sure that I'm on the right path here.
-G
Oh Boy!!!
Like a kid at Christmas... two 40Lbs boxes were sitting on my porch last night when I finally arrived home. Lots of goodies to open and enjoy, so let's get started:
There were 2 of these.... Aluminum HD 3rd members:
Here's the back showing the bearing caps and cool machining. The front pinion support has all sorts of oiling holes which makes me feel reassured about using these "flipped":
The Chromoly 1350-style yokes with a cool set of billet caps. They have a nice retaining lip on both sides to keep the U-joint caps from spitting out.
It was just too tempting.... with the pinion support quickly slapped into place, it just HAD to go over to the axle to see how it would look...
The housing studs weren't installed yet (more on that in a second) so it was just held in place (one-handed) while the camera took the shot. Probably can't pull that off with a nodular iron version!!!
It looks really cool.... the pinion centerline sits 26" off the ground which is insane.
The chassis is sitting at "full bump" right now, but the rear driveline angle last night was only 6.5*... obviously at right height (7" higher) that angle will get steeper, but it's going to be really tucked-up high and the u-joints should last forever at those kind of operating angles. Finally... the mounting studs. I wanted to use a stud mount setup because it makes it SO much easier to line-up the 3rd (and the gasket). With this particular housing, it may actually be REQUIRED since there doesn't seem to be adequate room with all the reinforcement ribs to even get a conventional bolt in from the front side of the housing.
In any event. The Spidertrax housing is already drilled / tapped with 10 fine-thread 3/8" holes... the studs are 3/8" (fine thread) but have a slightly larger knurled area that needs to be pressed into the housing (from inside the axle housing) to hold them in place... here are the dimensions.
It looks like the 3/8" threaded area is slightly smaller than .375" (by design) to allow it to pass through a true 3/8" hole. The knurled area is slightly LARGER than a true 3/8" hole which makes me think that ARP intends for the installer to drill a standard 3/8" hole and when the bolt is drawn-in to the hole, the knurled area is JUST BARELY larger (.021" oversize) and will effectively broach itself into position until it's fully seated? Does that seem correct?
Anyway, I might just give ARP a call today. Once I drill the axle housing, it's kind of too late to turn back... .so I'd like to know for sure that I'm on the right path here.
-G
You should not have to do anything to the holes in the housing, you simply install the stud from inside the housing and use a stack of washers and draw it into the hole. The knurl on the stud will lock itself into the housing. If you were to drill the holes larger then you could potentially have a big problem of the stud spinning and never be able to tighten or remove the 3rd member.
Scotty,
Even with the existing holes being tapped to 3/8-25 (UNF) thread instead of a standard 3/8 through-hole? I'd have to literally screw the studs in from the back side... they are the exact same size/threads as the housing.
I was looking up some specs and the current threaded holes in the housing have a major diameter of 0.3750" and a minor diameter of 0.3228"
My concern is trying to pull that knurled area into the existing holes. At the root of those threads... the difference between the knurled part of the stud is only 0.073"... but at the peaks it's 0.021"
I just don't know how much metal I can expect to "smoosh" out of the way of the studs when I'm drawing them in. The last thing I want is to snap off a stud in the housing.
At the very least, I need to figure out how I'm supposed to get the studs in from the backside if I'm not supposed to screw them into the existing threads....
EDIT:
I decided to stop being so stubborn (and lazy) and just called ARP Tech Support.
The correct hole interference on the stud should be around .003" - .004"
They recommended around a .394" hole.
The suggestion was to drill the existing threaded holes with a 25/64" bit (0.390") and ream from there if needed to get it perfect.
-G
