Guess what I got for Xmas? I have the most wonderful Wife.

 

Hmm looks serious

 

A piece of channel iron and a hack saw? A black glove?

 

EBear, Very serious. LOL. My Wife has let me spend pretty much every day from Xmas Eve in the garage to work on the truck. Yes I did spend time with family Xmas day etc. but for the most part I have been uninterrupted and unharassed in the garage. I could not have asked for a better gift. I'll post a few pictures tomorrow. I've been too busy to take pictures.

Ray, that's a slice of F3 frame.

 

Cool your wife must still like you , there are some of us who's wives would have no objection to us being in the garage Hope your time is very productive .

 

Never thought of it that way . I even get visits, sometimes with coffee and snacks.

 

Here's a before photo.





And here where I left off yesterday. Didn't get out to the garage today so the coil overs are yet to be mounted.

 

I don't understand all I know about it, BUT it sure looks impressive! Nice neat quality job.

 

Can hardly tell . Looks like a good install on the 4 link and new rear end. You going to be going with bags?

 

That's a really nice looking setup with the watts link. Did you put it all together yourself or is it a kit that you bought?

 

The design is a 3 link. Two lower links that attach to the frame rails and a single upper link that attaches to the top of the differential housing. The lateral axle control is via a watts couple. I used this design on my Cobra replica and it works extremely well so with a few small changes I decided to use the same configuration on the truck.

The overall geometry was worked out on CAD but could have been done as scaled or full size lay outs on paper or cardboard. Most of the brackets were mocked up in cardboard first and fine tuned before being whittled out of steel. Apart from the axle housing and Watts propeller all the brackets etc were made using basic tools in my shop. The housing is from Strange and the Watts propeller is my design made by a local machinist out of 6061 T6 aluminum.

I plan on running coil over shocks and airbags with the airbags only being used if I want to carry a load in the truck. So they are just load helpers. I might set them up with ride height sensors so that even when towing the rear will maintain a consistent height.

I still have a few hours of welding left as well as some other details but what you see is the final configuration.

This results in a ride height 9 inches lower than stock.

 

Thanks for correcting me mike, this is the first 3 link I have seen. Looks fantastic though!

 

What hack saw? LOL

Later!
Mr. Ed

 

Wow you have been a busy little boy. I'm not up on the geometry but looks like some box bed mods down the road ?

 

Yes I am planning on raising the bed floor to sit on top of the C notch. The bed will still be very usable. I saw another build where the space behind the C notch below the new bed and above the frame was used to house a slide out 'drawer'. I am going to try to do something similar for lockable storage. The truck has the express bed and I am not 'tubbing' the bed sides so it will still take a full 4 x 8 sheet laying flat. I plan on using the truck as a truck not a show vehicle so everything is focused on being practical.

Storage something like this.