The Shop Truck

[r3dd0g]

Now for the real reason I dug up this thread. I finally made the decision to start working on the suspension. I've had plans for quite some time to lower the truck so this is the beginning of the project. The first step was removal of the old front suspension including the crossmember.

The previous owner never missed his greasing intervals and also never cleaned off any of the old grease so this part was messy, but think of the weight savings!

With all the parts removed, I cleaned the 5 decades of grime off of the crossmember and gave it a nice coat of paint. To ease installation/removal I made some plates to hold all the bolts in place for the crossmember and suspension.

I had originally planned on just rebuilding the front suspension and installing airbags, however my wife thought we should go a different route so we bought this (you may have noticed that the crossmember was modified a bit).

I'll update again soon, I promise!

 

[ktmoutfront]

The auto cross flatbed shop truck. Nice.

 

[r3dd0g]

The auto cross flatbed shop truck. Nice.

Should I leave the crane on for that?

 

[ktmoutfront]

Should I leave the crane on for that?

leave the boom loose, so it swings in the corners.

 

[r3dd0g]

Like this?View attachment VID_20230122_165340401 - Trim.mp4

 

[ktmoutfront]

At least give her a helmet at the track.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Safety first!

 

[fastazz81]

But will it get nitrous?

 

[Babaganoosh]

Although this is a cool update I’m holding out to see turbos.

 

[Chevy305]

Those fan blades are so skinny. Do they move more air?

 

[r3dd0g]

Those fan blades are so skinny. Do they move more air?

Each one moves more air than both the old ones combined.

 

[r3dd0g]

But will it get nitrous?

Probably at some point.

 

[JoshHefnerX]

Hey, what's the weight limit on that boom? I may have a job for you. Seriously.

 

[r3dd0g]

Those fan blades are so skinny. Do they move more air?

Here's the specs on the fans, 2600 CFM each.
https://deltapag.com/products/14-brushless-fan-kit-1

 

[r3dd0g]

Hey, what's the weight limit on that boom? I may have a job for you. Seriously.

Sorry, I missed this one yesterday. It's basically just an engine hoist with a pivoting base, 1000lb limit extended, 2000lb retracted. The winch on it is rated for 500lbs. I've picked up things that were heavy enough that I thought the truck was going to fall over, it's part of the reason I wanted to bag the rear so the suspension is no longer in play when I'm using the crane.

 

[r3dd0g]

The front went together pretty quickly, the QA1 kit was very easy to work with, but I did have a few issues. The drivers side went together with no issues.

Unfortunately when I went to install the drivers side I realized there was a defect on my front crossmember. At some point the lower arm pivot was installed incorrectly, there is a hole in the pivot bar that keys into the special rivet that holds the cradle to the crossmember. You can see the hole in the bar here and what the rivet looked like when I removed the stock lower arm.

You can see the head of the rivet is worn down and follows the same curve of the cradle making it not effective. I broke out the welder and added some steel back to the rivet and shaped it with a die grinder to fix the issue.

This was the first time setting the truck down on the new suspension, not low enough...

I had always intended on running airbags on the truck so I ordered a Universal Air conversion kit for my QA1 coilovers.

Unfortunately the bags hit the crossmember so I had to order extended upper shock mounts, which of course made the shocks too long so I had to fabricate new lower shock mounts.

 

[Babaganoosh]

When good parts are not good enough we make them gooder.

 

[ktmoutfront]

Nothing is ever bolt in.

 

[JoshHefnerX]

Sorry, I missed this one yesterday. It's basically just an engine hoist with a pivoting base, 1000lb limit extended, 2000lb retracted. The winch on it is rated for 500lbs. I've picked up things that were heavy enough that I thought the truck was going to fall over, it's part of the reason I wanted to bag the rear so the suspension is no longer in play when I'm using the crane.

Thanks, you mind a couple of pics of how it's supported underneath? Trying to decide if I want to just use an engine hoist or mount one of these - got about a 1k lb lathe to pick up and move here soon.

 

[r3dd0g]

It's nothing special. The base is just bolted to the 1/4" diamond plate in the corner. There is a 2x3" c-channel that runs under the bed a few inches from the front of the mounting plate as well so it's fairly well supported on 3 sides.
I have definitely lifted more than 1000lbs with it fully extended. The original ram was a 3 ton ram, but HF only had 2 ton or 8 ton so of course I grabbed the 8 ton.

I will say the hardware it shipped with was sub-par. I think all the bolts holding the top together were grade 1.5 or less, I actually caught the winch handle on my 2 post lift and it broke the pivot bolt at the top, the bolt for the winch spool, the ram and both bolts holding the ram while barely bending the handle for the winch... It's all been replaced with grade 8 hardware up top now along with the new ram.