2020.04.27 - UPDATE! - MOMENTUM BUILDS....!!
Came up a little short of some parts that were needed for the muffler hanging exercise, but that didn't stop the forward progress.
It was a beautiful sunny day in TX.... it always feels good to roll up the garage doors and let the sunshine in, and enjoy a hot cup of coffee while setting up for the day.
The overall goal lately is to find homes for all the remaining items that need to co-exist under the truck. That includes not only the exhaust system, but also a dual battery setup, dual Viair compressors, a 2 gallon air tank (if possible), rear driveshaft. airlines, brakelines, fuel lines, fuel filters, etc. Each piece that get installed steals space... but also reveals the clearance issues that were not fully appreciated. This was revealed in vivid detail yesterday.
Simple goal was to install the Strange 3rd Member and rear driveshaft to determine clearances with the suspension at full-compression.
The first obvious issue was that there was no hole for the driveshaft to pass through the "step-up" panel area. After the final installation of the dual exhaust, it seemed like a good idea to open up the areas around those 3" tubes as well.... there's no real value in keeping everything super tight, as it's only going to trap heat anyway. After careful measurements, the hole center was determined and the trusty HyperTherm was powered up (for the first time in YEARS!) to make quick work of things.
(There are a couple of Blue Sharpies in this photo... for those of you who like that kind of thing...)
After several mock ups, the driveshaft was in place through the new passthrough hole, but the crossmember did not allow the other end of the driveshaft to swing all the way up into position. (This is the kind of thing you'd NEVER notice at normal ride height and would be a disaster on the first big landing!). This one was a bit trickier with the plasma cutter since the new exhaust was so close to the cutting area, so the heavy welding blanket was used to protect those nice finishes during the cutting process.
By midnight, and after at least a dozen installations.... the driveshaft was in place! (see photo below) Astute viewers will notice that the pinion support was removed to allow the driveshaft to fit. It's clear that the old driveline setup (396/TH350/NP205... and factory setback) put the output substantially further forward because the old driveshaft is WAY too long for this application now!
This is a High-Angle Driveline CV shaft with integral parking brakes setup. It was pretty expensive (even back in 2003) and probably has less than 4000 total miles on it. So it's definitely going to get cleaned up, shortened and reused. Probably the simplest way will be to carefully cut the weld at the top of the tube just before it goes into the CV. A lathe would make that easy... but if the two parts can be separated with a cutoff wheel, maybe there is a local shop that can clean up the CV to give it a new factory surface to reassemble into a shortened main tube?
It would obviously need to be re-balanced but it seems like almost any decent driveline shop should be able to handle that part. Seems silly to ship this all the way to CA just to have Jesse take care of it.
@blazinzuk (Photo just for you. 100% Homer Bucket Free)
So the driveshaft is in, but now that it is... the idea of running a long, narrow 2 Gallon air tank between the mufflers is CLEARLY not going to work. There just isn't any clearance above the driveshaft at full-compression. Everything looks a lot easier when you build at "ride height".
Moving the air tank (and probably using two small 1 gallon units) will probably put them in the rearmost corners on either side of the fuel tank... which was supposed to be the location for the Viair compressors... it's a real game of musical chairs right now, but ultimately it will get sorted out.
#FORWARD
-G
