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A low slung old chevy on rockwells... it can be done

and look at what the harbor freight kinker done made me...



It's just tacked in there right now, I am still awaiting an install of a 220v outlet in the garage so I can get my 220v mig. Definitely not going to finish it with the spackler, that's for sure.

 
a small finishing job, covering up the back, I want to mount up some led brake lights and maybe some reverse led lights, stickers, etc. I think some dimpled holes would look cool too but I don't have any dies.

Made some tabs myself





and some sheetmetal

 
Now that I run rockwells I hit stuff harder, that means my seats and locking up/not retracting seatbelt had to go.

On comes some summit racing suspension sport seats. They come with tracks, recline, and have release levers for getting in the back. Are made with some fake leather. $150 a piece to my door. Boo-ya.



after trying and trying I ditched the sliding tracks because fabbing this up and having these work with my current setup was going to take too much time.



tying these into the cage. Made the tabs myself, just me and my grinder. All this is only tacked in right now.





I will eventually get a nice battery box and mount that thing up more ridgid, also these tubes provide a good spot for me to get a good shifter.





I am debating what to do for the shoulder harnesses, I have 3 young kids that I throw in and out of the back and a down tube behind the seat would really make things difficult. It's really nice how these seats flip forward.





 
These 63's should be what kicks my rear axle back about 6". Going to ditch the 4" lift 52's and the revolvers for some diy4x shackle reversal brackets, welded where I want. That way I can set my shackle angle exactly how I want. Now I will be able to redo my shock setup and get some good shocks.

These are 5 leaves plus overload 3/4 ton springs, they should handle the rockwells pretty good, and yes an anti wrap bar is in the future.

 
Ok, update time. Been busy and working on it when I can. First things first, I bought a new 220V mig welder. I went with the Eastwood mig 175. It has some great reviews, a standard 3 year warranty, and at $500 with an extra aluminum wire spool gun, I thought it was a good deal. I understand that it is not for industrial purposes or every day use but for me to be welding on stuff no more often than once a week it should work great. I think the quality is good and have been impressed with the product. And seeing how I am totally setup with a bottle, hookup, and welder for much less than the miller equivalent it works for me.

The only problem I had was the 8" spool adapter cracked and broke on the first install but an email to their customer service department and they sent me a new one, was at my house 3 days later. So good service in my opinion.

Here is a pic of my work/welding cart as it sits now. Starting to get more functional.



I booty fabbed a stand off the side of this cart for the bottle I bought. It sits in the stand and is ziptied up top. Actually is a very sturdy setup.



This is the broken piece. Don't know why it broke, maybe it was too cold. But the new one they sent a few days later is working fine.



Welder came with this spool. So now I can weld aluminum with the right gas setup. I don't plan on using that much but at least I can.

 
So last time I wheeled I bashed the door and shattered the window inside. Both doors are bashed, so I made them half doors.

Bashed door.



cut bashed door.



door guts.



Door plated up. Of course I just had to make a cup holder out of some 3" exhaust tubing. Man that flux core smoke looks nasty, this pic was taken before the mig.



crappy pic with a phone in the dark garage.





eventually I will get some paint on this rig.



 
So the front tubes never really had that finished look so I added some to finish it off. I know some of these don't really strengthen anything but I just think it looks better.





 
Ok so onto my rear suspension redo. I took off the super stiff 4" lift 52's and teraflex revolver shackles in replacement of some 3/4 ton 63's, diy4x shackle flip brackets, diy4x 6" cross tied shackles and some ez inches. I left the front bracket and just wanted to move the rear to kick my axle back. Doing so would move the axle back 6", I ended up moving it back 2 more inches because of the ez inch and the 3 holes on my perches for a total of 8. Now I am running a wheel base of around 120-121" which is much better for 44's in my opinion. My best guess is this setup has me at about 7" of lift or so for those interested in doing the same.

Right where I wanted to put the shackle flip brackets there were 2 bumps in the frame shown below.



to flatten it i made some relief cuts.



some sledge hammer work.



all welded up and ground down.



This was my mock up with the overloads. I decided to ditch them and just run the ez inches because I still wanted the axle back further. I wish the shackle angle was a little less steep but those brackets are literally as far back as could be without cutting out rivets on the back crossmember. I could have swapped them to the other side but then the diy4x insignia would have been backwards and with that shackle more strait up and down it would have been taller which I don't want. The weight was on the springs in this picture.





and I still have good clearance above the rockwell. Doing this wouldn't work with the tank in stock position, that's for sure.

 
Now that I need to redo my rear shock setup i want to put the shocks strait up and down outside of the springs, which that old drum brake bracket is in the way of.



and here is the almost end result of cutting that brake bracket off. So much grinding my fingers were tingly.



So here is how I put my springs back together. You can see the center bolt comming out of a new 3/4" hole I drilled on that spring plate. With the ez inch one inch to the rear, and into the front hole on the ruffstuff spring perches. If you think this would cause a little more axle wrap I would agree, but I am building an axle wrap bar.





and here is how my rear shock setup will be like, just with some 14" shocks instead.

 
And here is a pic of it on the new rear springs. Sits more level, and is a lot more balanced with the longer wheel base.

 
#1, the driveshaft.

Here is 3" sch 40 pipe. Inner diameter measured out to 2.9" according to me. The yokes had a little play in them so not a precise fit, but holy cow is it beef. Probably unecessarily heavy.



1350 on the t case, 1410 on the rockwell.



The stock rockwell uses 1480 u joints, this is a 1410 spicer pinion flange yoke with a 1.5" 16 spline slip shaft. This is the way I should have done it originally but was a little out of my budget at the time.



Making this is in the garage and not having horrible vibrations is tough. I worked really hard to ensure that my cuts on the tube were as strait as I could get it and that the slip yoke shaft was as strait as possible. It took multiple times to get that thing on there strait and to make sure the yokes were in phase. It runs much smoother than the square it replaced and weighs about the same.

 
And this is why I call them my boner bumpstops.



Originally, when I made these bumpstops I made the driver side one shorter because I figured there was no chunk to worry about on that side so a shorter one would give me more stuff up. Well that is true, I had more stuff on the driver side but the 44" bogger was getting up into my fender/cab and was getting a little cut up. This longer boner bumpstop prevents that now. It took me all of about 5 minutes to make.
 
So, I randomly found this... if you look close the boot is tore.



I have no clue how this happened. The cut is so clean that it doesn't look like it happened on the trail. Maybe somehow I did this in the garage with a grinder, or jack or something. Since my hubs are flipped in, the boots are pretty protected by the tires but I guess that wasn't good enough. So these were in order...





DIY4x boot guards. 3/8" thick
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These are the best boot guards for the price. He even has 1/4 wall dom guarding the grease fitting. Good attention to detail, fits like a glove. And of course I had to put my green paint on them...



When I replaced the boot, and tore down the outer I got a good reminder why I run rockwells. That axleshaft is so damn big, I am still not used to it. For those who care my counter sink spindle bolt setup with threadlocker is working like a charm. Multiple trails and they all stayed really tight. Plus I have dunked these axles in mud/water about 50x now and the grease/oil was clean as a whistle so this front axle is sealed up really good.



The above picture reminds me I replaced my standard bolt with a 3/4" grade 8 at the heim joint tie rod end. Since I am just running single shear I started to worry with the 44's. I don't think that will be what breaks if anything does.
 
Onto rear shocks. I had always questioned getting a nice shock on a leaf sprung rig. Granted the benefit during crawling isn't as good as some high speed whoops (which this rig does not do), but I was definitely wrong. I bought some 14" fox 2.0 ipf monotube shocks on sale for $100 a piece from poly performance. A good deal imo. And let me tell you they work great. The rear leaf springs are definitely more flexible than my old stiff skyjacker springs, but the dampening of the rear shock is about 1000x better than the ghetto pro comps I have on the front right now. The front is bouncing around like a mother and the rear is planted. I will get the same ones for the front when the time comes.





Originally I was very worried about the clearance of the tire and this shock so I had DIY4X make me some simple wheel spacers (seen below). What I settled on was just 1, 1/4" spacer on each side. Originally I thought I needed 1/2". Although maybe the shock was ok, the tire was also rubbing on the remaining wheelwell at full stuff, now it is about as close as it gets without touching.



Hey kert, maybe you should throw these on the website...
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I also bought some cheapy harnesses from summitracing.com, nothing special. I bolted them to the cage. I debated back and forth on what to do for the shoulder straps. A cross bar, or down tube with a tab mount right behind the shoulders would definitely be best but I decided to mount them down at the bottom of the seat, mostly because I have 3 boys all under 4 years old so throwing car seats and babies in the back would have just been too tough. Now the stress is more on the seat structure, but I think it will be ok.



 
Proof I went wheeling today. The guys who said they would come, bailed. So it was just me. Obviously I just got a couple poser shots. I hit some good stuff but no pics of it. Was really a shakedown run to see how everything would run. Most important thing I learned... boy do I need an antiwrap bar. The rear axle wrap is actually much worse than I had anticipated. That will be the next upgrade. The harness seats are
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. The rear shaft is smooth. And the longer wheelbase is much much more stable. My harness seats are mounted slightly higher than stock and I think that the visibility is a lot better. I don't notice any worse steering, maybe because now the front axle has more leverage on the welded spiders rear. If i didn't have a spooled rear the steering wouldn't be bad at all.

If I want to keep wheeling in the rainy mud, I have to to find some way for those rear boggers to stop flipping mud on the back of my head.
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Just when I thought I was sitting too tall
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Just a stupid little update. I did 2 things a while back due to ignorance. The first was I gave my AIR equipped exhaust to my brother so he could pass emissions. I ripped the AIR stuff off, the exhaust manifolds, and my dual exhaust and gave it to him. Somehow in the mix I spaced the 02 sensor and haven't had one since the Rockwell swap. Interestingly enough it runs just fine without one. Maybe a little rich at times, and every once in a while the Check engine light comes on and gives code 12. So I have ordered a new 02 sensor and bung to weld on. I plan on doing it on the header collector because I guess the 02 sensor only works at super high temperatures. I hope that makes the motor run just that much better.

Second, I haven't had a working vehicle speed sensor since the doubler. I just assumed that the original speedo cable wouldn't work with my np205, which it does. A very dumb oversight on my part. In my defense the 205 didn't have a speedo gear in it and there also was a rats nest of wiring on this thing from a nonfunctioning alarm. So in one big swoop I ripped out a lot of useless wiring and caught in the mix was my speedo cable, speedometer, and vss. My torque converter has not been locking up very well. Luckily my bro from his tbi swap had an extra dash, speedo, and vss, so that is going in my rig. I am hoping that will solve the converter issue.

Also I bought a stock plastic np205 speedo gear, which was surprisingly hard to find. It looks like only 2 companies that I could find actually sell this thing online.
 
Well to follow up on the vss/02 sensor, both are in and both are working. I did not notice a difference at all with the vss working, but once I put the 02 sensor in it runs much, much better. Idle is smoother, throttle response is better, and it doesn't seem to run as rich. Interestingly enough now the torque converter is locking up much better. I don't have to rap it up to 2500 rpms just to go in 2nd gear. Now cruising is more like 1500 rpm and if finds the right gear much quicker without me having to manually shift it.

Seems odd to me, and maybe it's my imagination, but why would the 02 sensor help with shifting/torque converter. Maybe you TBI experts can chime in and teach me something.

Would both circuits be needed for the computer to function properly and not run on open loop for different systems? I am kind of an idiot when it comes to ecm's.

Well anywho, I feel like power has been restored, I would say that the seat feeling is back to where it was with the 35's and stock drivetrain.

Of course I do have a whole motor worth of 383 parts lying around so I keep debating on whether to swap them in or not. Before I do I will have to become more versed in chevy tbi.
 
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