Pigeon-Rat - Opel gambler build

[imiceman44]

When I get back from blazerbash and have it back up on the lift I'll have to take a video of the beam cycling. The only possible bind point is the heim joint at the frame side. The axle side can stay rigid because it is free to move through the arc the same as the beam.


Yeah, I assumed I'd need to do that, but so far I haven't seen any issues with binding there at all. My guess is the uniball is more for strength and durability. I could see a lot of hard jumps and extreme cycling of the beams wearing out those bushing fairly quickly. Luckily, the change to uniballs is pretty easy to do, so I'll just keep an eye on it for now.

I never had one so all I know is what I have seen with my friends and the research I did years ago.
The fact that there's a product developed for this means there's a situation where it binds.
From the geometry side of it, the axles swing in an arc in a vertical plane inline with the housing.
The radius arms swings in an arc that is 3 dimensional because the hinge point is on the frame but it follows an arc hinged at the axle.
So there will be binding on extreme stuff and droop.
If the hinge point is rubber bushings they will squish and take it and eventually fall apart.
If it's solid like a uniball or heim something will break.
Just a heads up.
The only way there is no bind is if the housing is only attached in the middle and the axle ends can pivot back and forth or the arms are so long the arc is pretty much a straight line.
For that to happen the angle of the full swing needs to be no more than 10 degrees.
That might be the case already and if so it's all good.

 

[ashman]

1989 Land Cruiser steering box
│
│ M16×1.5 / M17×1.5
▼
PSC SF06/SF07
│
│ -6 AN male
▼
Fragola 259006
90° steel
│
│ -6 power-steering hose
│
▼
Russell 670240
-6 AN → 10mm flare
│
│ 10mm hard tube
▼
Pump

Working adapting my power steering lines. The toyota steering box uses inverted flare fittings, but evidently the flare nuts are specific to toyota. Where I have it mounted, it's fairly close to the A/C compressor so I don't have room to make the bend with my normal tubing bender, plus room to pull the flare nut back far enough to get the flare on the tube.

The above quote was what I could get out of AI. It appears that will work, but I'm going to take everything down to the local hose builder and see if they can hook me up.

One side note, I'm not completely positive which port is the supply port. Both ports take a 10mm inverted flare, but one has the nut threaded at 17mm and the other at 16mm. Normally I would assume the bigger size is supply, but I've seen info that suggests it's the other way around. I'm going to try and have the hoses made in such a way that I can easily swap them if I get it backwards.

 

[Truckman4life]

Looks like it's the fitting closer to the motor. Not sure if this is exactly the one you run.

 

[ashman]

Thanks for the video, that helped.
I got the lines made up and installed.



Unfortunately I did manage to get a slight kink in the pressure line. Hopefully it's not bad enough to be a problem.

Now on to brake lines.

 

[ashman]

I didn't get much accomplished this weekend, but I did nail down the plan for the brake lines. I ordered some -3 AN hoses so that I can run hard line to the pivot points, then use the AN hose to cross over to the beams. I'll then run hardline down the beams and connect the caliper hoses across the knuckle. That should keep me from having any issues with brake lines hanging in the way under lots of droop.
Parts don't get here until Friday, so I've got a few days to get the Blazer back into shape... Hopefully.

 

[ashman]

I finally got the axle fully plumbed! Power steering is all hooked up, and I got the brake lines finished.

I think this shot shows how the brake lines work pretty well. In the forground you can see how the brake hoses attach from the calipers to the beam and in the background you can see the opposite side where the -AN line connects across the pivot. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

With the brake lines done, it was time to put everything back together that I'd taken apart to have access to make this swap. I reinstalled a new radiator (The old one had a leak), the starter, clutch slave cylinder, and exhaust. At the start of this process, I disconnected the battery and had it on a tender the whole time, so once it was time to go, she started right up.

It's always nerve-wracking starting an engine that has been sitting for months. I always wonder if something went wrong, or I forgot to reconnect something, etc, but no issues this time.

I did see a few leaks in the power steering and brake lines, but hopefully nothing that requires more than tightening a few connections (It was late, so I didn't look into it much).

One interesting thing to note:
typically you'd see 2 1/2 or so turns of the steering wheel from lock to lock. I'm sitting at about 1 7/8 turns, so the steering is a little tougher with the bigger tires just sitting still on concrete, but that will also make the steering a little more responsive. I won't know how I feel about that until I actually drive it.

While putting the exhaust together I noticed something else that I've been worried about:

This shot is looking towards the front diff at full bump from the transfer case. As you can see, the header is where the driveshaft wants to be. For now, I'm not going to deal with it. The front and rear axles don't have matching gears yet, so pigeonrat will be 2wd for awhile yet. There is plenty of room to move the exhaust up and closer to the transmission to get it out of the way, but it does mean the long tube headers will have to go.

 

[kgblazerfive]

I like it but sad that you'd have to replace the long tube headers