I've been trying to figure out A) what the clunking feeling is when I let off the brake from stand still going forward or backward, and B) why my truck feels like it is going to drop the rear end out from underneath when it shifts going down the road. My dad finally got the "gumption" to look underneath for what was going on while I rocked the truck back and forth. We determined that with my 3 inch lift blocks, I had an insane amount on spring wrap. So, I finally go my parts together and started the project.

I went to Tractor Supply company and bought 4 3 point link ends, item numbered 0267767, a couple of 5/8 to 3/4 bushings, 0269002 and some Grade 8 bolts, nuts, washers and lock washers in 3/4 for two of the links, 5/8 for the other two and a bunch of 1/2 stuff for mounting brackets to the frame.

I got underneath the truck to see exactly how I wanted to mount the bar to the rear end; I do not want to weld on it. So I noticed that shock mount brackets use a U-bolt to attach to the housing.

Hmmm, this would work very well for mounting the traction bars, if it had a heavier U-bolt, which is shown in the pic above. So I went to the U-pull-it yard and started to get a pair off an '05 SD, when I noticed that one was significantly wider than the other. Probably not good for my intentions. I crawled out from under that truck and went to find another. These came out of a '99 and a beefier than the one that would work from the '05. I drilled the shock bolt hole to 5/8 for the rear end of the bars.


You can see the idea in the pic above.




So with the rear mounts in place, it's time for the front. My dad collects junk iron, so I have access to pieces to the nth degree plus infinity. I picked these two pieces.

The stuff circled in red is two pieces of angle with some more angle welded in between them. This stuff is 3/8 thick, so should work very well and be very stout. However the bigger piece is a 1/2 inch plate, which i really thought to be over kill, so I went looking again. Here's what I found; it has already been cut in two for the project and maybe some of the holes can be used instead of drilling more. They are 3/4 holes which is more than definitely overkill for mounting bolts.

I picked a point on the frame where I could bolt on the front mounts. Well, on a long wheel base crew cab, there's plenty of space so I picked a place that had some existing holes and enlarged them to 1/2 inch as shown below.

The bottom hole has not been drilled out yet because I was using a cheap uni-bit (stepper bit, as some call it) and it broke on the third hole. The arrows point to the fuel line brackets that will have to be taken loose to get a bit into the third hole. I intend to shim them out to leave room for the head of the bolt when I put this mount in place. After drilling the last hole out, I clampled one of the plates up on the outside of the frame and started drilling hole from the inside through those already shown. I then cut up the angle iron and drilled some 3/4 inch holes (circled in red) for the front link bolt.

I did some fancy cutting torch work and then welding one to the plate that was already drilled.

And then i started to bolt it to the frame, only to find that I had welded the left side plate to the angle that was to be on the right. After a long night of eating steak and pork chops at mom and pop's place and drilling new holes on the right side frame rail in VERY tight quarters, this is the result a few hours later:

Now, before I started to put this piece on the truck, I had gone ahead and welded the links on the pipe I had bought while in town at the junkyard. 1 1/4 schedule 40 ought to work for this. If not, I suppose I have too much truck. (Is this possible?)
I heated the end of the pipe, which apparently (I'll explain in a minute) was cut to 7 feet instead of 6, and began to hammer it to fit the end link welding tab. (Sorry for the blury pic.)

The first weld:

Now, for sure this weld might someday pull apart, so I added some more to it; actually, I put two layers of weld on it.

(If you notice that the link is a little rusty it's because I had two links from another project that had been laying outside in the junk pile. This kept me from having to buy two more.)

When I was fitting the other end on this first bar, I noticed that my welding had caused the first link to draw to one side. So I worked on angling the opposite end the other way to help with the angle the bars will run at. You can't see the other end...sorry bout that...

So now, I attached the bar to the Left rear mount because I had just welded up the left front mount.. Or so I thought. As I started to crawl under the truck to put the front mount on, I realized that I had welded the thing wrong. So now its either ruin this piece by cutting it up to redo, or just drill holes to fit this mount on the right side.
This is when I realized that the bar would not have fit where the drilled holes were on the left side anyway. I had not measures the length of the bars. I had originally intended to measure after I had the left front mount on the frame, and build the bars to fit. My dad talked me into not spending much time trying to make the bars exactly the same length, which in my forgetful conscienceness (as I worked toward completion of the project) turned into, "Aww, they're the same length, so just weld the links on and let's go." So now, with the actual length of the bars, it turns out this "left front mount" attached to the front of the bar lands beautifully against one of the rear cab mounts that are welded to the frame. With a 4" exhaust on the inside of the frame and little room on the outside due to the cab, I had to drill small pilot holes with a small drill from the outside and then come in with a 1/2 bit from inside at some crazy angles... But as you can see it got done.



And the clearance between the tire and bar is about 2 inches.


I tightened all bolts up with an impact wrench, and called it quits for the night. Now here I am at 11:23pm about to go to bed to get up at 4:45 to go to work....

More later.

 

Interesting. Waiting to see more

 

Yeah I want to see the rest. This looks like a pretty sweet install.

 

i realize that this post is sort of old, but about how much did this whole project cost?

 

probably around $100. Maybe 150. I can't really remember. I would recommend finding some kind of bushing setup. The metal to metal contact makes a lot of noise in the cab, especially with the mounting points right under the body mount.

 

I like, do you think flipping the rear bracket would do effect it at all? Just to keep the threads from hanging down and hitting things?

 

Probably couldn't hurt.