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'72 K5 - Greg's @MightAsWellK5 Build

This is the build description. I will improve this later. (GB)
Overview Gallery Discussion
Stein said:
Do you prefer the Ketel One to Grey Goose? I haven't tried it. I just finished my last bottle of Grey Goose coincidentally on Thursday. Dirty martinis FTW.
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It's been a while since I've had Grey Goose. I recall it adding a little bit of a different "flavor" to the martini... whereas the KetelOne is pretty flavorless. The taste is much more influenced by the Olives (and the juice) with the KetelOne. Last night I had to resort to Jalepeno-stuffed olives because I'd run out of the Habenero-stuffed that I prefer.

Hardcore Tech! :waytogo::haha:

-G
 
Without really gerring into it, your never gonna break an aluminum center section. If you decide to go that way.

Picking the third member is a little weird because there is really not a ton of difference in alot of them. Pick your favorite brand at your price point. Nodular or aluminum not really a big performance difference for you.
 
Greg your tungsten length should be as close as you can get it before the arc starts to get that greenish/blueish hue to it that happens, normally right before you stick or dip it lol.

The thicker the material the further you can pull back from the work within reason because the more material the less heat soak you'll get. You're starting in the worst case scenario here with stainless tubing for sure.
 
The last posting from Greg was 10 days ago and he was talking about alcohol, that amount of time should be just enough for him to have finished these headers already so we expect more pics. :thumb:
 
4X4HIGH said:
The last posting from Greg was 10 days ago and he was talking about alcohol, that amount of time should be just enough for him to have finished these headers already so we expect more pics. :thumb:
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I'm still drinkin' :haha:














Project is on hold for a few more days. Those who follow me on FaceBook know that we just got a new 8-week old Golden Retriever puppy this weekend (Murphy) and THAT'S just about the same as having a new baby in the house.... lots of chaos, lots of pee and poop, lots of hiding chewable and tempting things up high. :D

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A couple weeks ago, I started tearing up the old splintered deck boards out back.... anticipating that I would just lay down some fresh pressure-treated 5/4" x 6" lumber to replace what was installed originally...... That quickly escalated into a series of wookworking "Might As Wells" and the scope of the project grew and grew... Fortunately NorCal69 was texting me every step of the way with insults and suggestions to make the project harder... :haha:

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It's been a REAL pain not being able to take Murphy right out the back door for his "business" every hour... so I am thrashing as many hours as I can to get the deck finished ASAP.


I did get the nice new Pyrex TIG cups via USPS, so I'm looking forward to getting into the garage as soon as I can put the deck project behind me. Also, it turns out that my #8 primary tube is 33" long (target was 36" per tube)... so I think that is pretty good after all.... still trying to decide if I can ignore the fact that it's 3" shorter than "ideal" and just move on to other tubes or if I'm going to be completely crippled with OCD and cut it apart to sneak in a couple 1.5" sections!!! :dunno:


-G
 
Better not cripple yourself with OCD till the whole header is done.

If it hurts I can just make up some formulas to prove your length with your bends are ideal. :whistle:
 
Greg72 said:
Those who follow me on FaceBook know that we just got a new 8-week old Golden Retriever puppy this weekend (Murphy) and THAT'S just about the same as having a new baby in the house.... lots of chaos, lots of pee and poop, lots of hiding chewable and tempting things up high. :D

IMG_6241.png


-G
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We got a Golden puppy this year too. He's 4 months old now. I can tell you if ours is any indication, they are super easy to potty train and he was kept outside until we got him. They are awesome dogs! I'm sure you'll have lots of fun with Murphy!
 
Greg72 said:
Fortunately NorCal69 was texting me every step of the way with insults and suggestions to make the project harder... :haha:



-G
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Lol, those weren't insults.......they were texts that included constructive criticism.:waytogo:


They might have just had heavy on the criticism part. :haha:


Ps....that pic hurts my brain. :doah: :D
 
Greg72 said:
I'm not sure yet about the center sections...

The 2.47s were not that easy to find, and I really just wanted to buy the completed 3rds from a reputable vendor, but since none of them had used 2.47s to build with it made the whole process complicated.

I seem to recall reading that the Ford 9" 3rds are one of the easiest to setup... so at this point I will probably just give it a try myself. I bought a dial indicator about a year ago, and I don't think there are any other tools needed (case spreader, etc). :dunno: I figure if I can get them assembled and get a couple photos of the gear pattern with that yellow paste someone on here will be able to tell me what needs changing / adjusting.

From what I've learned, the stock case is the worst... the aluminum cases are stronger than stock, and the aftermarket iron 3rds (with extra ribbing) are stronger still.... the Nodular Iron ones are supposed to be the strongest? I'm not sure how much real weight savings is available by going to alumnum vs. iron, and if the weight savings is worth the risk of using a lighter duty part in such a heavy truck.

The other recent breaking news was the release of the Yukon Gear "Zip Locker" for the Ford 9".... it's basically an ARB Air-Locker, but the internals look to be a lot beefier, and the air pressure is used to "UNLOCK" the device intead of locking it.... so if you were on the trail and blew an airline, or lost a compressor, the axles would actually stay fully-locked. That might be the difference between driving out and walking home! :)

It only comes in a 35-spline version, so that might change the bearing size on the 3rd member (3.062" vs. 3.25"?). I know there are two sizes, and it seems like the larger one gets used on the high-spline count axle shaft stuff.

Also need to get a pinion oiler from Currie since I'm running the axle upside down... so it doesn't starve for oil. And I heard that they make a solid spacer kit that replaces the crush sleeve so maybe that will make the setup a little easier (even if it costs a few dollars extra).

Anyway... lots of unanswered questions remain, but I guess that I will figure it all out eventually. Setting up gears is kind of like another "TIG skills" thing to me.... I've wanted to do it myself for a long time, but never had an opportunity to learn it.


-G
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I got to see the yukon locker, its dead sexy!

I can get you a price on it through letzroll if you like as well.
 
NorCal69 said:
Lol, those weren't insults.......they were texts that included constructive criticism.:waytogo:


They might have just had heavy on the criticism part. :haha:


Ps....that pic hurts my brain. :doah: :D
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I hope one part of the constructive criticism was to rip it all off, import 40yds of class 6 and pour a slab on grade.

I hate decks, never seen a slab on grade rot!
 
miniwally said:
I hope one part of the constructive criticism was to rip it all off, import 40yds of class 6 and pour a slab on grade.

I hate decks, never seen a slab on grade rot!
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God no. You being a field guy know better than that. :thumb:


Decks are the gift to contractors that keep on giving year after year. Fun and easy to build. :waytogo:

Build deck, collect money, come back in 15 years, destroy deck, build new deck, collect money, rinse repeat. :waytogo: :D

I wish everyone in the US would build a deck this year. That way in 15 or so years I can re-build a ton and retire. :woot:



And to keep this thread on track.

Greg is getting closer to the header project. :popcorn:

 
happy belated bday old man...wahahahaaa (says the senior citizen)!
 
2015.09.08 - UPDATE! - !!! THE D-RING RECEIVER FLARE TOOL...!!!​


Birthday....schmirthday. :rolleyes: Once you get past 21 years old, it's nothing to celebrate... :haha:

The deck project isn't finished yet, but it's not my fault. The wood that was delivered was SO wet that I really can't do any of the precise mitering of angles and edge banding yet. I tried once already and the wood shrank so badly after a few days that all my nice, tight fitments opened up and look like total crap now.... probably almost a 1/2" gap where there used to be none! :doah: So I've got the wood stacked up with spacers between them to let them dry out for a week or two as the air circulates around and through the pile... then I'll go back and do the perimeter banding and the steps too.

In the meantime, I figured it was a good excuse to get back into the garage after almost 3 weeks away. As usual, when I take a break that long... it's hard to remember where I was, and it takes a while just to get back "in the groove" of building again.

I started with the easy stuff, cleaning up the shop and opening up boxes that arrived. The Pyrex TIG cup and diffuser got installed (along with a stubbier tungsten cap), and it looks pretty cool. I can run HUGE stickouts now, and I pushed the Argon flow to 30CFH just to be sure I had good coverage.

IMG_6435.jpg


Next up was to get a few more "segments" in place on the exhaust project.... so I moved to primary #2, since it sits closest to the framerail and directly above the #8 that I'd previously finished.

The head flange is a large 1-7/8" x 1-7/8" square hole, and obviuously the tubing is round so at some point the tubing that passes into the flange needs to be swaged to fit the exact shape before it can be finish welded. I'd made a few attempts to hammer/dolly the tubing to fit the shape but SS is pretty hard so the results weren't all that good. Looking around the shop I found an old 2" front receiver D-Ring insert and thought it might make a good forming die for the 1-7/8" tubing to convert it gently from round to square.

After some time with the cutoff wheels, flapdisc and 20" grinding wheel I had a shape that looked good...

IMG_6438.jpg



I threw a small scrap of 304SS in the press to test it out, and the results were really good! :waytogo:


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....and the fitment inside the head flange was just about as perfect as you could possibly hope for!


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It was certainly a LOT better than what I came up with a few weeks ago when I was working on the #8 primary tube! :haha:

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So, with my new beautifully swaged part in place, I continued to build-out the #2 exhaust primary. Slowly, it started to take shape and as of last night I was within striking distance of getting both ends to meet up tightly in the middle.


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Hopefully tonight I can get into the shop again so I can get that one fully dialed-in!!! :waytogo:


-G
 
Looks great Greg! Nice job on the homemade swage tool. :waytogo:

How do you like that pyrex cup? I was thinking about trying one too. How is the quality of the orifice plate inside?

FYI, keep an eye on the gas lens stuff. I had one of my gas lens go bad on me, looks just fine, but started directing the gas flow toward one side when I was trying to weld stuff. I battled it for 30 minutes thinking it was me or my settings or the gas flow rate (i tried from 15 up t0 40 in 5 cfh increments) and it turned out it was the gas lens started flowing funny. The little orifice disc was not quit sealed on the edges and all the gas was flowing out one side. Left the tungsten half clean and half black.

From me learning the hard dumb way, if you ever see your tungsten turning black on half of it, don't notice it and then think you are doing something wrong and keep trying to do it better, fix the gas coverage! :doah:
 
Hot damn you look like you're burning in chromo with that tungsten! Ive never used that style cup. We use Toxic Fab cups like these at work when it comes time to stick out like crazy.


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