Anybody have thoughts on the components in this?  Looks like I would just need a stripped lower to go with this?

https://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-18-rifle-length-223-wylde-1-7-stainless-steel-15-lightweight-m-lok-moe-ept-rifle-kit-w-mbus-sight-set3.html

Look at a place like palmetto state armory for a different take.  The last one looks like a good price until you read down and see that there is no bolt or bolt carrier group (BCG) or charging handle.

Midway USA has some great assembly video's.  They work for what ever caliber of the ar15 platform.  These things are like legos.  Something that looks like a good deal can be but you also need to know what to look for.  Getting a complete one is faster but it is nice to build one as well.  With some video instruction from a reliable place like Midway USA you can build one from a pile of parts in a couple hours with only a couple special tools.  Ask away.

I've looked at varying combinations from PSA before also.  I'm not concerned about building one up if I determine that is the best route to go.  I missed the lack of BCG and charging handle on that one.

So I was perusing the local Armslist postings to see if anything caught my eye.

Tell me what you all think of these:

This one would basically be ready to shoot, I think.  I don't know what a "bad lever" is.

http://www.armslist.com/posts/9287028/appleton-wisconsin-rifles-for-sale--18-inch-ar-15

Or just pick myself up a stripped lower to complete this one I think:

http://www.armslist.com/posts/8323932/green-bay-wisconsin-rifles-for-sale--new-ar15-complete-kit--5-56-223--16--1-7--twist-rate--15--keymod-handguard--minimalist-stock


Then I got side tracked with 6.5 grendal stuff.  If/when I get one of these I would want it to be a fairly accurate gun so I could shoot it on the 600 yard range.

http://www.armslist.com/posts/9311001/green-bay-wisconsin-rifles-for-sale--new-16--ar-15-6-5-grendel-complete-kit-minus-stripped-lower-receiver-

And then side tracked with 9mm stuff.  Hmm. starting to think maybe I should get one of these instead of the 223 wylde.  In an ammo shortage I would think 9mm may be one of the easiest to find.

http://www.armslist.com/posts/9617478/milwaukee-wisconsin-handguns-for-sale-trade--9mm-ar15-pistol

And then I found this complete upper in 223 Wylde.  This one would need a complete lower assembly.

http://www.armslist.com/posts/9520367/madison-wisconsin-rifles-for-sale--6-5-creedmoor-ar10--6-5-grendels-ar15--ar15-barrels


And that is when I decided I needed help.

And then this rolls across my news feed.

https://davidsondefense.com/Davidson-Defense-Barbarian-AR-15-Upper-Receiver-20-Ultra-Match-65-Grendel-4150-CMV-H-BAR-1-8T-Barrel-17-M-Lok-Handguard-Assembled-or-Unassembled_p_3964.html

Started tacking up the rear bumper last night.  Generally the first step is sorting and stacking parts as I unload from the pallet.  After building a lot of these, I can generally just look at a piece and know what it is for and where it goes.  I am sure it would just be a really confusing puzzle to most other people at the start.  Once you get the pieces sorted and figured out it goes together quick.

Here is where I start with the rear bumper. 



I start out by building the "step section" up and placing the top on.  Here you can see where the pieces are notched and tabbed to fit together.



I actually missed a few notches on the top section here.  Normally there would be a few more notches coming through the top to locate the top piece better.  Missing stuff like that is always one of my worries when doing one-off stuff like this.  So I just cut the tabs off the vertical pieces and located the top on what I had.



Then I flip it over and tack in the rest of the framing pieces. I do these right away to give it some structure so it doesn't deform as badly when welding.



Again you can see that this pieces are notched so they fit together and are located perfectly. 



I could already tell that thinner piece of 10 gauge on top was starting to bow more than usual so I tacked a piece of angle to the top to try and help keep it straight.  I will remove this after the bumper shell is welded and cooled down.



Then I just start filling in pieces.  On a rear bumper I start at the center and work my way down and out.  Because everything is laser cut I just place everything line on line and tack in place.



And just keep working my way along until all the pieces are used up.



Here you can see how the panels also lay on the mounting brackets previously tacked in place.



And the entire shell of the bumper tacked together.  You will notice a few holes in the bumper.  These will be used to locate the recovery tabs and light mounting brackets later.



I also tucked the license plate light mount in place.  This gets welded in at an angle and (2) led lights will fit into these 3/4" holes that will illuminate the license plate.






Next step here will be welding the bumper solid.  Then a bunch of grinding to clean it up before I start working on all of Don's extras.

I plan to post the larger progress points I Don's main thread, but post the actual process here.

I picked the majority of the steel up for the front and rear bumpers last week.  I did all the modeling on the computer, with a little back and forth with Don we got the designs squared away.

Front Bumper:  There is a 5" and 4" round lights facing forward and 3-1/2" light facing toward the side.  Winch will be mounted in the center with a 2" receiver beneath it.  Normally I build everything from 7 gauge (about 3/16") but Don asked me to try and put it on a diet.  Most of the center section and mounting brackets are still 7 gauge, but I changed some of the sell up to 10 gauge.





Rear Bumper:  Nothing real special on the rear bumper itself.  I built it for a set of 4" backup lights.  The tire carrier will be from 2"x4" rectangle tube with a bin for the can's Don wants to carry.  I've got an oversized 37" tire for a space claim in the model here.





The original plan was for me to do the design work, send some files over to Don and he would get the parts laser cut local.  Then we changed the plan up and Don asked me to do the fabrication also and ship the bumpers to him.  We finalized some design aspects and I started ordering material last week.

I'll do my best to document what I can.  Once i get started I'm not real great at remembering to take pics.  I will at least document the major progress points.

That's one heck of a puzzle you have there Bear. I dare you to send it like that to Don.

So that was originally kind-of the original plan, but worse.  I was going to email him the files and Don was going to have them cut out local.  Normally that doesn't work out to bad.  But between the modifications to the front bumper, the material thickness changes and all the extra stuff I was doing a lot of head scratching last night trying to figure out what was what.  I would have hated sending this out to somebody like that and trying to help them figure out what goes where over the phone.

Generally I can just look at the parts as I unload and stack them according to how I will need them as I build the bumper up.

Picked up a couple pallets of steel this afternoon.



This is basically all of the steel for the front and rear bumper.  Just need to add some tubing to this pile for the guards and swing arm.  You might not be able to tell but this pile is kind of sorted.  I know how about 95% of these will go together.



But this is the rest of the pile of steel that I picked up.  There is another front and rear bumper in there that I need to get finished up before I can get started.  Should get most of that taken care of this weekend. 

I see the 4 I missed now.

They're the quick connects for the heater core. On the Tahoe/suburban types with rear heater, they are tees instead of just one connection. Pretty sure the dmax has them up to 2010 , but can't remember for sure.

Faster assembly at the plant Charles. All about the dollar.

I would take a guess and say it actually is about $1 per vehicle.  That doesn't seem like a lot but when you build 1 million vehicles in a year it adds up to $1,000,0000 per year.  You would be surprised how many times you can validate spending thousands of dollars on testing to save $.05 per piece.

I actually had a guy that was going to paint one close to this blue.  It was a little brighter than this.  He had his flares and rockers painted with blue linex on a white truck and said he was going to have the bumper done blue to match.  I thought it sounded ridiculous and the pics were worse.  After seeing it in person it really didn't look that bad and I think if he would have color matched the bumper and a couple other things it would have looked pretty good.

I could investigate some of the rendering tools a little more in depth this evening.   

Quote from: Bigdave_185 on February 14, 2019, 08:08:11 AM

You have to swap out the grill also don’t you? Then the bumper space is of and needs lowered to fit the grill?


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I think the hood just sits higher from the same plane Dave.

Took me way to long to figure out what you were talking about. 

1500 grille should work with the HD hood.  Here is a pic of a 2001 2500HD with a 1500 grille.  The guy bought a 1500 grille and bumper not realizing that they were different.  Installed the grille with no problems and needed to makes some spacers to install the bumper.  He asked me to build him a bumper that would work with the 1500 grille.

Since we were talking a little bit about proud dad moments here is one from my little girl.  She got to hold the flag for the pledge this morning at "school".  Just shy of 2-1/2 years old and she can recite the majority of the the Pledge of Allegiance and sing most of God Bless America. 

Who did you buy the tunes from?  It's been a while but I the few times I had issues the tuner was always helpful.  Even went so far as to take control of my computer through a sharing session to make sure  everything was setup right and stayed in the phone with me through the flash process.
I do recall there being something about pulling a fuse on some year trucks.  Like I said it's been a few years since I have seriously spent any time in that game.

Quote from: Bear9350 on February 10, 2019, 10:47:27 AM

What weight class does the kid wrestle in.  Around 120lb?  So if they wrestled back for 4th place does that mean he moves on to the sectional tournament?

He placed, and the next meet is for the state Championship in Louisville. He wrestles 122. Last night he says, "Dad, when this wrestling is over, I want to work on the Suburban with you to get it ready for our trip." The blessing a father takes from his children is one of those priceless things that God ordered in his perfect plan.

If your state tournament is anything like WI I am sure it will be quite an experience for the kid. 

What weight class does the kid wrestle in.  Around 120lb?  So if they wrestled back for 4th place does that mean he moves on to the sectional tournament?

If it fits and you can lift/ slide it in it's not to big.

Morning Bobby.  The craziest thing was tailgating at Lambeau and walking up to the beer tub and the beer was just laying there, with no ice.  I was like “where’s the ice”. They said, dude, its -3 degrees, its plenty cold”


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When it gets down into the teens you have to put the beer in a cooler to prevent it from freezing.  On a similar note, you know its cold in WI when even the bars start closing due to weather. 

I've pushed somebody off the road before.  Coming into my hometown it says for a mile that the right lane ends.  Then it says the right lane is a turn right only lane.  Well they didn't want to slow down to merge behind me and didn't speed up to get in front of me (I continued travelling a couple of miles/ hour over the limit like I always did in that area), and we were traveling to fast for them to turn.  It was winter at the time and there was a pretty good bank of snow along the road.  I can still remember the snow chunks flying through the air when they hit that bank.

It would really bother me also.  I have an auto-immune disease.  Luckily it has been in recession for several years now, but for a while even if I looked at somebody that wasn't feeling well it seemed as if I was getting sick.  It was rare if I didn't come down with pneumonia at least once during a winter etc..  Not so long ago one of my wives friends mentioned that she didn't vaccinate her kids.  My wife asked why and basically it was just pure ignorance.  She is lucky I was not home.  I don't have a very high tolerance for ignorance.

Your to nice Dave. If they like it fine, if asked I'm tactful with my answer, but crap is still crap.

When I talk to customers about paint, I will flat out refuse to colormatch certain colors.  You can't go wrong with black, white on white always looks good too, but I'm not going to try and colormatch your pewter colored truck.  It's just not a good idea.

Thoes old bins load slow. We put this together on the other side of the road over the past couple years. Four 20,000 or so bushel bins 2 over heads and then the two 75,000 bushel bins. We don't have a dryer though. Talked about it, budgeted for it. Found out how much it would cost to hook into the natural gas line 3 miles away. Decided we didn't need it so bad after all.

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The farmer my dad and uncle work for ditched their propane tanks a few years ago and ran a natural gas line about 10 miles.  There were a quite a few houses on the route that hooked up also to drop the cost. 

My wife does the same thing.  I sometimes wonder how she can even stand comfortably.  She has been getting better about it lately.  Anytime I shoot with her it is just for fun.  She needs to get some real training from somebody other then me.

I tried to teach my older sister one time.  My dad had tried and failed so he thought I should give it a go.  I was still in high school at the time and believe I had about an hour before I needed to get to the farm for evening chores.  I believe we made it about half way around the country block, (on the third stop sign) before I needed to take over so I wasn't late for work.  My sister still doesn't know how to drive stick.