2011.06.21 - UPDATE! - FIRST DAY OF SUMMER & SOME PROGRESS...
It's been so long since I've posted some actual progress photos, that I almost forgot where I left off on this project.
As a refresher, here's where the truck sits now:
With the arrival of the long-awaited Mog-404 rear axle adapter plates, it was finally time to set the rear axle track width permanently and cut those Spidertrax housings down to their final dimensions.
Since I knew that I wanted no more than 2" of tread "stickout" beyond the rear fenders, the first step was to accurately determine what that dimension was. I dropped a couple of plumblines off the outer fenderlips to get an actual measurement to start from...
That turned out to be 78.625".... adding in the tire stickout, my overall track width target was set at 82.625"
The next step was to get some accurate measurements of the complete wheel/portal/tire combinations. Here's where those new plates fit into the overall portal assembly...
From the front face of the tire (outward facing side) to the end of the new adapter plates was 15.875". This measurement was confirmed by measuring in this photo from the shop floor to the underside of that 4' level...
To make sure that I didn't screw up (and I came close a couple of times!) I took detailed notes....
More.....
I checked, and double-checked everything until I was SURE that the measurements were correct. There was nothing left to do but cut the axletubes down to size.
After getting both sides cut down, I spend some time CAREFULLY dressing-down the axletube diameters to get them to fit nice and snugly into the new adapters.
My final target based on my calculations was in inside-to-inside plate dimension of 50.875"....as you can see, I missed the mark by quite a bit!

(I will shorten each side by 1/16" later on to make it perfect)
It felt good to get back out into the shop and especially to make such a large step forward on the axle build. I'm a little concerned about how tight the packaging of the shock/strut is going to be now that I can really see how much space exists on the axle housing, but I'll make it work somehow.
The Exaxt 8-Lug conversion kit included 1" thick wheel spacers to help with caliper clearance. With the H2 wheels, I only really need a .375" spacer so I will probably have a new set made to keep the wheels tucked-in as far as possible. This will ultimately help the scrub radius up front, so it's worth fighting for those extra fractions of an inch.
I spoke to a few different people and vendors about centering the pumpkin vs. shifting it 0.94" to account for the offset pinion of the Ford 9". Everyone I spoke with said that there was no valid reason to bother, and driveline vibrations would not be an issue. I like the "symmetrical" look for the rear pumpkin anyway.
