Author Topic: SquareD Part 3: Body work, paint, roof rack, and farther off course ... (Read 165441 times)

Flyin6 · « **Reply #550 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:28:20 PM »

And slowly the process of tracing out a piece from cardboard, then tracing that part onto the steel, cutting the steel, then finally welding it into place.

Flyin6 · « **Reply #551 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:29:09 PM »

And more triangles

Flyin6 · « **Reply #552 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:30:02 PM »

I ran out of time at this point, but I think you are getting the idea.

So what was the better choice, the convoluted steel box thing from hades, or the dislocated shoulder?

Flyin6 · « **Reply #553 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:32:43 PM »

Duane came over and installed the nut-serts into the body for the hydraulic cooler (Transmission) and I worked on the beautiful Cinderella like snorkel.
Why Cinderella? Well she turned ordinary things into masterpieces of beauty, same-same with the Cinderella snorkel!

Duane wanted to complete the Frankenstein look here, so we found him a bolt!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #554 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:33:24 PM »

He worked out the trans cooler line stuff. The lines will run from under the body on the left side, up the back of the left side of the cab, then across the top of the back of the cab then turn into rubber and make the connection to the cooler which needs to get mounted on the right side of the roof rack

Flyin6 · « **Reply #555 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:34:19 PM »

He used his handy-dandy nut-sert tool which collapses a steel threaded insert inside a hole, both providing a point for threads and creating a nice secure finished look

Flyin6 · « **Reply #556 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:35:02 PM »

When the tool and Duane have done their thing, this is what you have left:

Flyin6 · « **Reply #557 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:36:20 PM »

The threads are for a 10-32 screw

Several more mount points are installed

Flyin6 · « **Reply #558 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:37:45 PM »

That all makes for a nice, secure, simple, and low clearance mounting of those coming steel lines.

I'm happy with that!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #559 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:38:51 PM »

OK back to the snorkel construction

Using a #40 grit flap wheel I smoothed out the welds first

Flyin6 · « **Reply #560 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:40:03 PM »

Same as before, adding piece by piece

Flyin6 · « **Reply #561 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:41:29 PM »

Then the long run is covered

Flyin6 · « **Reply #562 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:43:17 PM »

Now for the transition pieces:

Flyin6 · « **Reply #563 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:44:18 PM »

I tapered the front in both axes to reduce the "bulky effect" and help it plow through branches and 2 X 4's more easily

Flyin6 · « **Reply #564 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:45:45 PM »

The outside panel is thick 11 gage and a single piece which I relief cut, then bent to shape before welding it in

Flyin6 · « **Reply #565 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:47:17 PM »

Here's some views after the welding:

Flyin6 · « **Reply #566 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:48:47 PM »

A couple more:

Flyin6 · « **Reply #567 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:50:42 PM »

Quote:
Originally Posted by FBJR View Post
Just be sure t add a bolt to the other side so you can jump start it

Why run the lines up and around the back vs just up the side for the cooler? Wouldn't that protect them more?

The intake does look better built up some, but why not build it into the fender vs right on top?

It's easier to fix this way. Easier to replace the fender if I need to someday. Mostly, I was thinking that if one had to diddy-mau (Vietnamese I think, but think: Get out of dodge quick!) then thinking out of the box, why not just drive through a building? Ya know, some gang bangers or similar bonehead, future stationary target tries to jack your vehicle in an alley. Conventional thinking has you going forward and backward, right? Well, why just not drive through the warehouse or residential house beside you?

I learned that stuff in Baghdad during the war there. Going down the highway, we would "Go reverse" which meant getting into the lanes of opposing traffic, or get up on either sidewalk, or going through a warehouse or park or parking lot ;-))

The last was cool, and very good for the BMW factory!
So if one wants to drive through things like houses, the vehicle needs to be somewhat hardened. I figured I'd get dust free air to the engine and harden up the fender with one modification

and because that's just the way I decided to do it

Flyin6 · « **Reply #568 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:51:28 PM »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Higher Caliber View Post
something went awry when you whacked the hole in the plate where the tube inserts Don! Are you sure your head is alright? that's not your normal "attention to detail"... Think you oughta square that, or rather round it, away there chief!

That was freehand
It gets a plate welded on top. I figured I'd strengthen that area up anyway since the right angle transition takes place there, so I'm not sweating the slop so much
Plus, it's crap or get off the pot time. THis truck has been quite a while now in production. I need to see some results.

Hey, gun guy, Duane wants me to get this: Dammed near has me talked into buying one:

Ruger SR 762

Flyin6 · « **Reply #569 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:52:37 PM »

Quote:
Originally Posted by KensAuto View Post
Gotta love those threadserts, I've been using those forever.....very professional. The intake on the other hand...........
jk Big D, definitely one of a kind and that's why I like it!

BK, comment on your comment

You really made a cultural reference and didn't know it.

You were saying my snorkel is a one of a kind, and of course you are correct. More to the point, there was a time when every snorkel was a one of a kind.

These days, a build is nothing more than adding parts that one purchases. After bantying it about on some forum the builder purchases his well thought out star mags. He never once considered taking a "Lincoln 18" wheel, and welding in a chevy truck center to make something unique. Nope, today's kids, and they are mostly that, simply buy parts.

One climbs up the social ladder as it were based on how many of these parts he can purchase. SO the measure of a build and to the extent his peers give him credit, his personal esteem is based on nothing deeper than his pockets.

See where I'm going with this?

After WW2 Hot rodding took off in a big way and out of California, the home of these big dry lake beds. There, car crafters would take aircraft drop tanks and build them into a car. Stuffing in anything from flathead ford V8's to more exotic stuff. They would create suspensions and drive systems from parts that had seen no such connection before the incredibly inventive car nut got a sewer pipe and turned it into a drive shaft.

We have lost that as a culture and all the proof you need is to read backwards here on this thread about the snorkel I just built.
Folks find it unfamiliar. It doesn't exist in any parts catalog. I didn't take an ARB Safari land cruiser snorkel and adapt it.
Get what I'm saying here. This current 20's-40's generation has lost a LOT of creativity. Normal truck building amounts to little more than what one can purchase or by painting a Chevy emblem black. Inventive is little more than a creative or clever recombination of parts.

Guys now cover their M4 carbines up with parts they looked all over the internet to find. Does anyone get a lathe and a mill and create a new barrel, or other accessory?

It seems to me that someone who gets to bolt on the first of a new part such as the second injection pump is thought of as some sort of an oracle. He is nothing more than a guy who happened to have the cash to buy something.

Car crafting, and the imaginative forces that drive it in America is nearly dead. I can see a manifold change having lived nearly 60 years. (Turn that magic number in April). I see imagination nearly gone from what I knew from my youth. Men of half my age have seen less than half that change so it is not as pronounced.

Franken snorkel was a product of my imagination and inventiveness. I thought of a purpose, well more of a problem actually, and just crafted up something to solve the problem.

Does that make me something special? Here's the scary part...I know me pretty well. And knowing me, I can say, I am a pretty average guy. I am not special...I am the middle ground. Folks should be distributed up and down from me trending upward toward brilliant and downward toward moron.

We have lost so-so much and we don't even realize it!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #570 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:53:46 PM »

Quote:
Originally Posted by flyin6 View Post
BK, comment on your comment

You really made a cultural reference and didn't know it.

You were saying my snorkel is a one of a kind, and of course you are correct. More to the point, there was a time when every snorkel was a one of a kind.

These days, a build is nothing more than adding parts that one purchases. After bantying it about on some forum the builder purchases his well thought out star mags. He never once considered taking a "Lincoln 18" wheel, and welding in a chevy truck center to make something unique. Nope, today's kids, and they are mostly that, simply buy parts.

One climbs up the social ladder as it were based on how many of these parts he can purchase. SO the measure of a build and to the extent his peers give him credit, his personal esteem is based on nothing deeper than his pockets.

See where I'm going with this?

After WW2 Hot rodding took off in a big way and out of California, the home of these big dry lake beds. There, car crafters would take aircraft drop tanks and build them into a car. Stuffing in anything from flathead ford V8's to more exotic stuff. They would create suspensions and drive systems from parts that had seen no such connection before the incredibly inventive car nut got a sewer pipe and turned it into a drive shaft.

We have lost that as a culture and all the proof you need is to read backwards here on this thread about the snorkel I just built.
Folks find it unfamiliar. It doesn't exist in any parts catalog. I didn't take an ARB Safari land cruiser snorkel and adapt it.
Get what I'm saying here. This current 20's-40's generation has lost a LOT of creativity. Normal truck building amounts to little more than what one can purchase or by painting a Chevy emblem black. Inventive is little more than a creative or clever recombination of parts.

Guys now cover their M4 carbines up with parts they looked all over the internet to find. Does anyone get a lathe and a mill and create a new barrel, or other accessory?

It seems to me that someone who gets to bolt on the first of a new part such as the second injection pump is thought of as some sort of an oracle. He is nothing more than a guy who happened to have the cash to buy something.

Car crafting, and the imaginative forces that drive it in America is nearly dead. I can see a manifold change having lived nearly 60 years. (Turn that magic number in April). I see imagination nearly gone from what I knew from my youth. Men of half my age have seen less than half that change so it is not as pronounced.

Franken snorkel was a product of my imagination and inventiveness. I thought of a purpose, well more of a problem actually, and just crafted up something to solve the problem.

Does that make me something special? Here's the scary part...I know me pretty well. And knowing me, I can say, I am a pretty average guy. I am not special...I am the middle ground. Folks should be distributed up and down from me trending upward toward brilliant and downward toward moron.

We have lost so-so much and we don't even realize it!

It's sad, but very true. Most people now would rather sit inside and play on an iphone than go out into the garage and make/build something. This build is unique because its not just a bunch of premade parts bought out of a JEGS catolog. I think in some applications, today's technology is a good thing but i really think it is ruining america, especially the younger generation.

Flyin6 · « **Reply #571 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:55:08 PM »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Armalite View Post
Don, let's think about something...

Snorkel....

It's made out of metal. So it the snorkel "suction" tube...

Metal does not react well to hot/cold sways in temperature. Starts to "sweat" internally and externally. That large intake box, to me, would be a haven for moisture collection, internally. Have you considered this? Summer, Winter, no problem. Fall, maybe. Spring, definite.

Now, I would have to enlist the expertise of Duane into this situation, but, the size of that intake box should produce a lot of "sweat". How much? Internally, without insulation, how much water will it produce, that could possibly be sucked into the breather? Hopefully, and probably most definitely, the filter will catch the small amounts of liquid. I know you are running the drain, but I'm not so sure the amount of water displaced internally will filter to that drain plug, and run out.

Another issue, unless you coat the interior of that pipe, there is a potential for rust correct?

Just thinking outside the "box" if you will. I know if your humidity is anything like ours down here, that metal sauna is going to create a lot of moisture... Have you considered it?

The snorkel itself is aluminized steel...
The transfer tube/box I created is going to get the full treatment
The plenum chamber is also well protected.
Some water ingestion is good
I don't see it as being an issue.

Turbine engines have plenum chambers in some cases many times larger. They go on and on for years...no issues

It won't be any sort of a problem

Flyin6 · « **Reply #572 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:56:14 PM »

From ElTate

never could afford the expensive stuff, so I invested in benders, and welders (not great quality but got me by). my buddy and I made the lift kit, drop pittman arm, steering link, shock mounts, spring over axle conversion and mounts for my 72 wagoneer. Headers weren't available commercially so we dimpled some GM ones off a 396, worked great. had to have a plasma guy cut a mounting flange for them but I just didn't have the tools. got a lot of ridicule for the way the 74 springs sat on the 72 frame, so we cut off the perches, moved them back down to the horizontal portion of the frame and re-attached them. found f250 shocks that fit just right with the lift, fabricated seat mounts for VW Recaro buckets up front, cut diamond plate door and tailgate panels for the interior and made a spare mount inside the bed w/a fuel cell where the spare used to be.

I know they say necessity is the mother of invention, but poverty is a pretty good motivator to get creative too. That was one of the major things that drew me to this guy in the first place, ingenuity, can do attitude, make it work kind of stuff, and then I got to know him. If you have a copy of Distant thunder, go back to the section that talks about his time on the german fella's farm with a welder and the shock and awe of the farmer compared to the "this is just how it's done" demeanor of Don and his cohorts and you'll see a great example of this American spirit. I'm not holding you up on some pillar here now Don, don't worry, but I use this and you all as motivation for my boy and my daughter, and my neighbors and family, and we are almost at movement status here. Rebuilding, re-purposing, growing and farming. Sorry, that got off on a CIEMR tangent there, but where we may have lost some of "that" we have started to find more of it here, and creating more interest as well.

Flyin6 · « **Reply #573 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:57:50 PM »

Let's get this snorkel in the bag...sort of

Looking at it, I was sitting at about 75% on the design. Something about it wasn't making me happy. I think it's the big edge sticking way out. At first I thought it was OK because a triangle is very strong and that edge would be the edge that would catch everything.

THen I thought it might be better with some of that edge taken off, and perhaps even a rub strip of sorts bolted on.

So for the first order of business, I cut off a section of that edge

Flyin6 · « **Reply #574 on:** October 10, 2014, 05:59:14 PM »

I like this flat edge much better

Flyin6 · « **Reply #575 on:** October 10, 2014, 06:00:30 PM »

With the fender removed, I made the hole through which all the air will pass

Flyin6 · « **Reply #576 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:15:16 AM »

After removing the clecos I made a discovery...

Turns out I welded more than just 11 gage, and you can say the weld penetration was at the least very, very good

Yup...I welded the snorkel to the fender without even knowing it!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #577 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:17:32 AM »

Well... no worries, I guess the fender/snorkel is now permanent!

So, with that, next I drilled a whole bunch more holes and welded the snorkel from the back side all over the place

But first I did some grinding to smooth the metal and remove contamination from weld points

Flyin6 · « **Reply #578 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:18:33 AM »

Well, good time to finish the inside of the fender...So the sanding, wire brush and flap wheel started ah' smokin'

Flyin6 · « **Reply #579 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:19:52 AM »

First layer was some rubberized undercoating in all the areas I thought would be stressed with corrosion

Flyin6 · « **Reply #580 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:21:00 AM »

A bit more smoothing and it was time for some body filler.

I'm thinking this part will get sprayed with bed liner as well due to it's potential to get banged up, so All I am looking for is smooth

Flyin6 · « **Reply #581 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:21:38 AM »

Carving away excess before it completely hardens makes for a lot less work!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #582 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:22:47 AM »

Then comes what seems like forever sanding all that plastic into the shape you desire

Flyin6 · « **Reply #583 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:23:26 AM »

And just like that, it was ready for several very wet primer coats

Flyin6 · « **Reply #584 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:24:15 AM »

And that is it for another build day, number 115

Flyin6 · « **Reply #585 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:29:23 AM »

Leaving for church in a few so I post up a bit, then come back and finish
BTW anyone ever needs prayer, our prayer team meets Tuesday nights, I'm on it and we'll lift up anyone with a need or concern.

OK the focus this week is paint. I need to get this thing in paint before Saturday as a personal goal, so full speed ahead on the prep.
First up: Finish the body work

I finished this spot, although forgot to shoot a pic of the work

Flyin6 · « **Reply #586 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:31:05 AM »

Then I moved to the opposite side and did a through sanding and then a heavy primer coat

Flyin6 · « **Reply #587 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:32:32 AM »

Then the front of the bed

Flyin6 · « **Reply #588 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:33:32 AM »

I finished this spot of body work next

Flyin6 · « **Reply #589 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:34:39 AM »

Next up was the right door

Flyin6 · « **Reply #590 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:36:54 AM »

And that my fine furry friends finished the bodywork!

Now I only need to lightly sand it, clean it like the dickens, then on goes the epoxy sealer followed by Mr. Paint!

Flyin6 · « **Reply #591 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:38:27 AM »

And we can see Combat Max still lives and perhaps, even...thrives???

Flyin6 · « **Reply #592 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:39:41 AM »

Let's play parts for a moment

Speaking of the roof rack thing, here's some of the lights:

Flyin6 · « **Reply #593 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:40:35 AM »

Those round things are dirt floor simple. Old school 100W halogen lights made from nothing special. But after an EMP effect, they will still be working, unlike these units which I selected to be "Scene illumination" flood lights.

The flood lights which will face in all directions are LED because I wanted a very low amp draw if I was down to a battery alone

Flyin6 · « **Reply #594 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:41:30 AM »

Here's the one over the world view of the parts situation. Dunno, but I think I am winning...you may differ in opinion, and that's fine as long as you don't ever publically disagree!
Bad news is that I had to start a parts room in the basement, so I'm sorta cheatin'
Ya see, the leaves on that jap maple I like so much are about to show themselves once again, and I want to gaze upon them between sparks, torquin' and assemblin'

Flyin6 · « **Reply #595 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:43:33 AM »

It was a long laborious day, but I have the body work completed and the whole vehicle minus the tailgate is all sanded

While sanding the primer coat with 320 grit, I found a whole bunch of new minor divets, so all of them had to be corrected as well.

Before we look at all that, let's play "tools" first.
Went to Harbor Freight and picked up this cool metal saw which I am going to use to cur an access in the bed floor for the electrical panel located below for servicing.
I also picked up another orbital sander. Now I have one set up with 240 grit and another with #40 grit for knocking down the body filler quickly

Flyin6 · « **Reply #596 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:44:24 AM »

Now is the time to really pay attention to what's going on with the body work. Deep scratches need to be filled with something such as this skimming putty

Flyin6 · « **Reply #597 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:45:03 AM »

During all that hand sanding (Hours) I found some dents that didn't show up before, but I certainly felt then, so back to the body filler

Flyin6 · « **Reply #598 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:45:38 AM »

And more putty

Flyin6 · « **Reply #599 on:** October 11, 2014, 09:46:17 AM »

And in between waiting for the various materials to set or dry, more detail sanding. THe firewall took forever