2009.08.24 - UPDATE! - OPTIMUS PRIME CONTINUES TO TRANSFORM...
As of my last update, I knew that the design of my cage was temporarily delayed due to the inability to place the spare tire behind the rear seat. I decided that before I spend much more time trying to create a solution it would make sense to have an ACTUAL tire/wheel combo to use for the mock-ups. I ordered exactly ONE tire (which is still on backorder).....the new BFG KM2 in a 38"x 14.50 x 17" size. I'm excited to see one in person, especially in the wider width. I think it will have a nice substantial look with the wider tread. Not quite as crazy as the 16" width of my current Swampers, but it should be a LOT better on the highway and this is one of those "compromise" areas that have to be made to build a true dual-purpose rig. I had better luck finding a cheap 17" wheel.....eBay to the rescue.
Just a nice simple H2 takeoff wheel....$51. Plus it's got about 5.5" of backspacing which will be nice when I start trying to deal with the crazy offset issues of the portal axles.
Another thing I decided to at least start working on was adding structure to the torson box area where I'd removed the factory boxes. A piece of 2x4" square tube lays up nicely behind the inner rocker, and I was able to cut a little notch at the end so that it would dovetail into the front factory cab support (this will eventually be capped to keep water and mud out).
I used a 6' length of tube for this, and when I went to cut the other end to length, I realized that I didn't really know the best place to make the cut since the rear quarter panel was already hacked up and has quite a bit of rust and missing metal.
There was nothing left to do but to dive in and find out what was going on...
I cut the factory spotwelds up the sides, and then cursed myself for welding and smoothing all the welds across the bedrail ( about 5 years ago)....it made my job a lot harder than it should have been.
After about an hour, I had the payoff.....
In this shot you can easily see the way that box tube is just hanging out in space. Once I get more of the rear exo-tubework figured out, I will tie it into that, I'm sure.
The rust looks bad in those pics, and didn't look all that good in person either. No through-holes, but there was some scaly rust so I decided to hit the whole thing with a Roloc disc just to see what I was dealing with underneath...
This is the image that inspired me to buy a pressurized media blaster from the Eastwood company last week. This interior bedside panel will eventually become an "exterior" panel when the vehicle transforms for wheeling. It will need to be finished nicely, and painted the color of the rest of the truck since it will be completely visible. The blaster will get me down to perfect metal again, so that I can seal it back up...glaze over the areas where there is some surface texture then get it into primer and paint. There will be some cagework across the outside of this panel as well (think: rub rail for tree or rock), but it will be completely hidden when I attach the outer panels for street driving. It shouldn't be too hard to tie those bars into the interior cage for extra strength. I might even make them bolt-on so that they can be removed and replaced if they ever get really beat up and twisted.
Finally, since I'm kind of stalled waiting for my new tire, and the media blaster....I decided to at least work on the pivot for the rear swing-out carrier. I built a 3/16" plate that follows the contours of the rear bedside area and reinforced it with another 3/16" plate at a 90* angle. For the pivot, I'm using a 1.5" DOM tube sleeved into a larger 1.75" outer tube. This effectively creates a hinge that's almost 21" long and will be the first step in dealing with the massive stresses that a swing out carrier places on the mounting hinge.
If everything goes according to plan the tire will sit flat across the floor, the swinggate will have a kickout to give me the room I need to get the tire behind the stock seat location. Ideally the tire will actually swing out wtih the tailgate, but if the weight is too massive it might not. Functionally, it probably doesn't matter much either way, but there is more "cool factor" if I can make it work the way I want.
Now the waiting game for the UPS and Fed-Ex drivers begins....
So for now you'll have to wait, and you'll get a larger update when the gallery comes back online.
