My dana 60 is painted up and hung under the truck. My 3" Tuff Countrys from ORD came with a Superlift U-bolt set, that has bolts and studs for the pumpkin side of the spring, all of which are too long for anything but the thickest of leaf springs. Maybe with an EZ inch the bolts will work. If not, the few posts I saw here basically said to go buy shorter bolts.
My High steer stuff is going out for powder coat this next week, and then I'll be finishing up the front end.
In the meantime I started my front winch bumper. The plan was to use a .25" wall 2"x6" and bury a Warn XD9000 in it. While the winch has a 10"x4"x5" mounting pad, the drum brings it out to about 6.25" and it will in no way fit within the 2"x6".
In come a 2"x8"
A thousand measurements later I've got this:
I'm using the Milwaukee 8" circular steel saw for all of my big cuts. It is completely badass. I read that it would cut quarter inch, and it plows through it like butter. Noisy and lots of flying chips, but as clean as the cuts are, who cares. I was cutting some 1/8" wall 2"x3" tubing with a bandsaw, and I tried the Circular on it, absolutely awesome. A speed square about 3-9/16" from where you need the cut and you're done in no time.
4 cuts later I had this:
That center section sagged on its own. It came out that warped after I nipped the corners with a cutoff on an angle grinder. I guess that's what it looks like without any tension on it.
In goes the winch:
It started out fairly centered:
And here I've had to move it all to the right to center the drum. I had to clearance the right side about 3/16" to clear the case.
Front view:
Next up is to open up the front for the cable to pass through.
I spend a few hours at a friend's shop last week. He has a new Ironworker and we were bending up some plate for my bumper brackets. It is the most badass machine I have ever used. Bending plate was great, but using the punch to put holes in 1/4" plate was ridiculous. It takes about 10-15 seconds per hole.
After the fairlead is wrapped up, I'll be working on the brackets and clevis mounts. The bumper will get a Dremu bend on each side, and I plan to taper it a bit as it gets to the outer edges.
