Yeah I am thinking the same thing. Either trying to come up into the original Tranny shifter hole or going to a cable or linkage set up on the passenger side. Thats stiff shift though at least mine is. Being 38 yrs old it still shifts nice and tight.

Thanks! Good to know I can inspire some to build. When I'm out of motivation I often find it again after reading through the forums & see other guys making progress on cool stuff.



I'm doing the twin stick deal so I'll have 2 shift levers & linkages to deal with too! Oh and based on my "clocking" of the t-case it is really tight at the shift rail connection. Things could get interesting...

Damn dude. I guess as long as your going to throw a wrench at it. Might as well make it a big one.

What can I say - it's the way I seem to do things...:o



So I had about 1/2 day in the shop on Saturday & I was productive. Not on what I wanted to be doing though.

It was a sad day...



The supercab went from all sexy like (well not quite, but still dang good looking for a patchwork truck!), to gardener status:(

It bums me out to drive up & see it back like this, but I'm hoping it's just preparing to go to a home where it will get the love it deserves much sooner than I can give it.
http://www.gofastbroncos.com/forum/d...le.php?id=8058
http://www.gofastbroncos.com/forum/d...le.php?id=8056
http://www.gofastbroncos.com/forum/d...le.php?id=8054


Some forward momentum on the crew allowed me to cheer up a bit though!
I figured out a way that should work to lift the bed FINALLY. I picked up a Harbor Freight 1 ton chain hoist off CL for $35. Grabbed it Sun. & set it up this morning. Plan to test tomorrow night.
http://www.gofastbroncos.com/forum/d...le.php?id=8060

I also had a delivery from show up Friday from brown clothes Santa. I didn't have time to go through it til this morning but when I did it got me excited. It included a lot of stuff I've been waiting on for a LONG time for this build. Stuff I was originally trying to have a buddy cut, but he never had time. The box also had some alfa parts and Christmas presents for my wife & sister in law so those will keep me busy for a little bit, but I'm excited to mess with some "new" stuff on the crew!
http://www.gofastbroncos.com/forum/d...le.php?id=8059

So I didn't spend as long in the shop last night as I wanted, and I did spend a good bit of it messing with getting some Christmas presents together, bu I was still able to get a little bit done.

1st I hooked the bed up to the chain hoist. Works well!
https://i453.photobucket.com/albums/...0swap/x287.jpg


When the bed was up I was able to mark the "tabs" on the frame that were messing with my fuel tank tucking up and in properly. A bit of time with a cut off wheel, then a sanding disk on the angle grinder, and finally some paint and the frame is back to good & read for the tank!
https://i453.photobucket.com/albums/...0swap/x288.jpg


Snapped a shot of the starting of the shock mount with the bed out of the way. The guy I traded my shocks with still hasn't given me the sock spacers back he was supposed to, so that is killing making further progress on that for now:-arrgh
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...nsion/x289.jpg


Next I welded up the gussets on the 2nd t-case mount. Pic came out crappy.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x284.jpg


Once that cooled it was t-case test fit time before I took the time to paint the mounts. T-case fits up in there tight. This 1st pic shows the upper shift rail on the thing. I've got just enough room.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...wap/x294-6.jpg


And here's an overall of the "clocked" t-case with the only decent pic of the stock t-case setup below it. Not a perfect set of pics, but it should be fairly easy to see the bit of ground clearance I gained. The time spent doing this was worth it.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...ap/x297-10.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...swap/xx102.jpg


more to come soon.

You don't really realize how much those things hang down till you see the before and after side by side. It looks good.

yeah - they hang down WAY too low for my liking in stock form. I knew that from the day I bought the truck!

and with the stock, non-reverse cut axle, the front driveshaft stands out like a sore thumb. Looking great by the way. :-X22

Hi Steve,
Sorry for going off topic, but I remember you were a big fan of hand powered hack saws, and I wondered what brand/model you would recommend? Love the new fuel tank! :-X22

Thanks!
Gavin

Thanks for the compliment on the tank Gavin. I can't wait to get it done!
As for the saws - all I've ever used are the Milwaukee ones but I LOVE them. Never had an issue with mine and I've been using it for darn near 10 years!



Ok, it's been WAY too long since I updated this thread.
We left off with my camera being in for repair & me messing with t-case mounts, fuel tank & other misc. BS. I left on a bit of a vacation so was gone for a week, but I did hit the shop a bit before I left and a few times since I got back.

So here's the update...

Not much to show picture wise as far as updates but I've gotten the t-case mounts painted, and I again looked a bit more in depth into the "fenderwell exit" exhaust stuff after talking about it a bit with a buddy. Did a bit more cutting on my downpipe due to what I saw, but then it was time for vacation so I dropped this.

While on vacation I got an idea of how to approach my pitman arm so when I got back here I pretty much jumped right back into that headache...

The looong, Scout II pitman arm I picked up previously seemed like it might work aside from being longer than I'd like (not much way around this) and then hanging the heim too low in it's stock configuration.
Based on this I cam up with the idea of welding up a plate style, double shear pitman arm based off of the dodge pitman arm I had.
Since the Scout arm is 9 3/8" from the steering shaft hole to the TRE attachment point I did a mock up to see if I could shorten this a bit - if even to 9" long CL to CL.
Here's my little cad drawing & mock up arm for this purpose
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...p/DSC05778.jpg


At 1st it seemed to work well. This design moved the attachment of the heim up so the leaf wouldn't hit the end of the bolt if the driver side suspension compressed as I was turning right.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...p/DSC05794.jpg


Unfortunately the arm was too short & the drag link hit the cross member under the motor, so back to the full length it was it seemed. I cut the plate off the mock up pitman, and then re-welded it on at 9.25" CL to CL. Cycle the suspension & steering AGAIN & it seemed to be clear. So the next step is most likely to make the real pitman arm. I don't like how long it is overall, but I'd have to move the steering box itself to fix this and this far along that would be a major PitA so I'm going to run it for a while & see how it goes...

Aside from that not much has been going on. I also spent much of one night cleaning up another batch of parts for cad plating as well, and then I just got a note earlier that mail had come for me, so I hope it is the fuel sending unit I ordered while on vacation. We'll see...

"Quote"
Unfortunately the arm was too short & the drag link hit the cross member under the motor, so back to the full length it was it seemed. I cut the plate off the mock up pitman, and then re-welded it on at 9.25" CL to CL. Cycle the suspension & steering AGAIN & it seemed to be clear. So the next step is most likely to make the real pitman arm. I don't like how long it is overall, but I'd have to move the steering box itself to fix this and this far along that would be a major PitA so I'm going to run it for a while & see how it goes...
"Quote"

So hind sight and all, and considering I am working torward the same end as you. Would you have just taken a notch out of the crossmember and moved the steering box to the rear a bit? Or would you have just taken a cut off of the back of the cross member? I am considering fabing an entire drop out cross member, then again I do like the stock ish look of yours. Either way I am going to run into the same issue with the Saginaw box and cross over steering.

I HAVE cut out the crossmember actually. Have been working on this thing, but have been too busy to re-size & post photos & an update. Maybe later today - we'll see...

But yes looking back part of me wishes I ditched the stock x-member & did a removable one. So I'd say do that - but do it at the same time as the steering so you can make sure everything cooperates!

Sweet - had some time! here we go...

So it's been a while since I posted an update again... I''ve been working on this thing a bit, just been way too busy to re-size the photos, get them in photobucket & then make a post here.

We left off with me looking at a 9.25" CL to CL pitman arm to clear the crossmember under the motor. After talking with a few buddies I trust on this stuff I decided I probably should make an effort to shorten that arm length up a bit. The arm length ratio was a bit off with a pitman that long so it would have been a lot of leverage on the sector shaft & I'm not a fan of hydro assist so this meant I would have to clearance the cross member a bunch, but that seemed to be the lesser of 2 evils.

Here's some pics that give an idea of the issue at hand - drag link hitting what's left of the stock engine cross member through the suspension & steering cycle.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x374.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x368.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x370.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x373.jpg


So I went back to the shop for more suspension & steering cycling, then some marking. Then a bit of cutting. Then some more cycling, then more cutting, marking, etc. I spend about 7 hours getting things cut out & cleaned up a bit, but I ended up with the ability to use a 7" CL to CL pitman (same as stock on the 78/79 trucks this axle came out of) and a bunch of re-plating that needs to be done.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x394.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x393.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x417.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x401.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x403.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x404.jpg
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x411.jpg

The next time in the shop I started figuring out how I was going to plate up what I had cut out. I started making some templates, etc. and looking at using a piece of round tube to weld in the crossmember gap to keep clearance on the drag link. More on this later.
The upside to doing this bit of extra work that has set me back a few days (aside from feeling more comfortable that I'm not over-taxing my steering box) is I'm also not looking at reinforcing & finishing a small corner of the engine crossmember that I had left in the past. It was something that was going to work, but wasn't totally up to my standard. I left it alone to make more forward progress a few years (did I just say that!) back and pretty much forgot about it til now.

After the templates for the cross member area were all pretty good I moved back to the rear end. I cycled the rear susp. a bit more to look back at shock mounts. I got everything figured out to where it looks like it will work & then tacked in what I could. I still need lower shock mount tabs and my limit strap tabs cut, but some cardboard templates worked to get things set up in the mean time.

The bummer here is based on the bed limiting the mounting locations for the shock I had to limit the susp. travel a bit. I'll strap and bump it at about 10" vs. the 17" or more it cycles metal to metal. The major limiting factor is the shock on bump & not being able to mount the shock high enough without cutting through the bed. Based on where I had to position the shock tabs, etc. for full bump the shock wasn't long enough for full droop.
The 10" stroke shocks I 1st had for this were long enough for the droop, but way too long at bump. These 8" stroke work better for keeping things under the bed and 10" really isn't that bad for a "stock" type truck.

Next I went back to messing with the fuel tank. I did a test fit so I could figure out what "filler" pieces I'd need to make to fill the bit of gap here from where the frame starts to kick up.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...20Cab/x416.jpg

I got this figured out & picked up some aluminum & then a round tube to use in re-plating that front x-member.

Here's the rear axle clearance on the tank at full bump while I was looking at things.
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...0swap/x418.jpg


Last night was back to messing with the shock mount a bit more. Got it back out of the truck (have to lift the bed to do this - GLAD I got that chain hoist!) and started welding
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...nsion/x425.jpg


I also got started on the "spacer" plates for the tank. Got 2 of the 4 welded on last night
http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...20Cab/x423.jpg


I need to mill a bit on the remaining 2 plates so not sure when I'll get to that. I also need to mill a bit on my pitman arm to move forward with the custom one, so maybe I'll head to my uncles soon & use his machine again.

Ok. finally caught up again.

More updates & surprises soon I'm sure...

That answered my question perfectly. After looking at your issues with the clearance. I'm pretty sure a drop out crossmember is in the works for mine. I think 2" x 4" x 3/16" tubing should acomplish that nicely.

That tank is looking great too.

that size for crossmember sounds good. I'd just make sure it goes all the way up the vertical face of the frame like the stock one does as that keeps the frame from folding/twisting inward due to the motor weight & torque.