Classy Shak

[Dreamweaver]

Next I moved on to finally mounting the sleeper. I was struggling with this one because I needed the sleeper to be perfectly centered and could not figure out how to assure that by drilling down through the floor and hitting the legs on the rails.

I solved this problem by making some L-brackets out of some brass angle and then attaching them to the top bolt on the cross members and then centering the sleeper to the frame and drilling up through the floor.

Now keep in mind that I am mocking this up on a stock frame, then after everything fits I will transfer the holes to the new full length rails. So as you can imagine this requires me to assemble and dis-assemble the truck several times. I put it together work on an area and then take it apart and drill the rails on the drill press. After fighting with the rear motor mounts three or four times I finally wised up and soldered the bolts to the mount, now it takes a matter of a minute or so to pull and replace the motor.

Here is the bottom of the sleeper.




Next I was assembling the truck again after drilling some holes for the rear shackles on the front end, when I made the mistake of attaching both the cab floor and the sleeper floor first. Well because I did this, and with the way the pipes are built, I could not get the **** cab back on until I removed the sleeper floor again.

So I figured I am not going to do this again, and I really wanted to get rid of the unsightly screws under the doors that hold the cab to the cab floor, so I redid the underside of the cab floor and made some L-brackets for it as well. I then drilled and tapped some holes on the front firewall and on the back of the cab in order to mount the cab to the floor.. Great idea, it works beautifully, just one thing... I still have to remove the sleeper floor to get the back screws out... Oh well at least you can't see them.







Now on to the front suspension.

After picking Master Builder Brian's brain (wow look at that same letters just different order--no wonder he is so smart) I saw how he moved his front axle forward and thought that would work for me but I could not do it exactly like him because if you remember I have the clearance issue with the oil pan.

Well what Brian did was to rotate the front of the front spring hanger up and then twist the front spring eye. The first moved it up to lower the truck and then the second moved the axle forward as well as up a little.

Now I had to figure out how to move my axle forward and keep it at stock height at the same time. I unfortunately had to accomplish this in an "un-prototypical" way.

What i did was to mount the hanger in the stock position and then I bent the eye of the spring way back and up at the same time. I was able to get the axle right where I wanted it.

Ah but this caused me a couple hours of head scratching and looking over several pictures by a bunch of you to figure out why in the heck I could not get my axle in the right place. Brian told me that he moved his back shackle forward about a half inch and that after doing his mod on the spring he was sitting at one and a half inches from the front of the frame rails to the center of the axle. I noticed that in the pictures he sent me that the rear shackle was almost straight up and down and that it was as he said about a 1/2" forward of where it was. I set my axle the same way and put the hood on and it was still to far back.

Then I noticed in the pictures Rick (Bucshott) sent me of his hood hinges on the Moving on truck, that the end of the hood was flush with the end of the frame. Well I bent the springs some more till I got them about where I needed them and moved on to making my hood hinges like Rick's.

I built the first set of hinges and installed them and WOW I got it bang on the first time. I felt real good about my self till I opened the hood and noticed that the bottom of the grill hit the bumper mount when the hood was at a 90° angle. Well I figured if they hit that that the hood would barely open with the bumper on it.

So I went surfing and found a picture of a Pete hood hinge and made a second set of hinges just like them. I got the same result. Now I'm getting ****ed I sat there for another hour trying to figure out what the crap was going on. Then like as if someone hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat, I looked at the cab and started cussing up a storm, I found my problem. See the hood sat 1/4" to far forward, because I added a 1/4" to the front of the cab.... DAHHHHH

After some thought I decided that I can easily solve the problem by having a custom front bumper made and then moving the part of the hinge that is mounted to the front spring hanger forward till it is just behind the bumper, just like on the 1:1's.


Hood Hinges:











Front Springs:




As for the oil pan clearance, from the measurements I got from one of you guy's, I figured that the clearance would be about a 16th of an inch, and that is what I turned out to be.







Now for the fenders.

I went to HD as per Brian's direction and got some 4" ABS end caps which measured out to be the same size as the piece of the black pipe street 45 that Brian said to get, but the ABS is a lot thinner than the black pipe and closer to scale. I used the end cap because it already has the end on it that I used to mount the fender so I did not have to glue one on.

I made the fender spacers by holding the hood with the front flush to a straight edge and then measuring the distance at the front and back of the fender, then made them as a box out of styrene. As Brian did with his, my fenders will be held on by three bolts so that they can come off for easier painting and can be fine tuned for placement in final assembly.

All I have to do now is figure out how to cut them down to size for width, and do it straight..







Now keep in mind that the sides of the fenders will come down to the tires like the olden day fenders.

~Mike~