Haha.... you're first Adam. I'm a broke rancher LOL

 

Hey I'm hoping he would work for beers and Mexican carne asada.

 

I'm not sure how I should go about this, again with the not knowing of the rules around here, but I do sell a lot of this stuff. Pitman arms, traction bars, transmission crossmembers, 05+ 4 link conversions, axles trusses, and I'm even in the process of making a flatbed for a guy on PSN. But I'll hopefully catch up to the rest of my build soon.

 

Just put it in the for sale section and link it at the top of the page in the stickies.

 

Yeah, but I have so many things that I make, that it would really look like I am a "Vendor", whereas I definitely don't have the money to pay for any Vendor status, I guess I'll just leave it be for now.

 

I think it would be pretty cool to develop the files for building some of the components that you could sell rights to per unit manufactured as it would save on shipping some of the larger items and give the builder a taste of building a cool part. I am sure there are liability issues as due to the nature of the sport but offroad use only right?

 

Selling a design would be a lot more expensive than just selling a part, because if I sell a design, they could easily take it to a shop and have them mass produced, whereas its a little more difficult to reverse engineer an already complete part.

I looked into liability stuff, and our insurance agent said as long as I dont install the parts, then the liability is on the customer. How do I know what they are going to do to the part? Atleast thats how I understood it.

 

Sorry! Been slacking! So heres to pick up where I left off...


I made this hexagon shaped exhaust tip, 7" from flat to flat, came out pretty cool, I was able to bend it all out of 1 piece and weld one seem.

Forming the hexagon shaped to round shape was very interesting, took 32 individual bends, and was quite the feat to see it completed.

I was tired of the cheap *****t* exhaust u-bolt clamps, so I welded the whole system together and put a flange in at the front and back. But I kinda messed up, and put the flanged head bolt too close to the tube, so I had to weld the INSIDE of the tube to the flange. Atleast its clean and low profile though. Uses 5 bolts to get the best clamping force that I could. Using .060" Copper for a gasket, and 3/8" mild steel flanges, all cut on our laser at work, perfect fitment, and no leaks!

I used a press-in nut, (Or PEM nut, is what we call them), makes for easier installation and no wrenches required.

I installed the tip with the same flanges, worked perfect. I added 2 holes to each side of the tip so I could add another plate with some design on it. I had a nice Ford Oval designed that I was going to cut out of some brushed stainless steel, but just haven't got around to it.

 

2 months ago... Drove home from work and when I got home, I backed into my driveway and walked out to the street to get my trash can. When coming back up the driveway I saw some fluid on the ground... Damnit.

Looks like the fan just threw the coolant everywhere, so I can't tell where exactly, but its safe to say the water pump is bad. Its been on the truck for atleast the 6 years I've owned it and the 3 years the P/O had it, but has atleast 100,000 miles on it since me and the previous owner has owned it, so I can't blame it, especially after I got it up to 280*...






So I ordered a DieselSite water pump, with a built in filter, I also ordered a new serpentine belt, and the TSB Replacement Dual Tensioner, and a new upper idler pulley while I was at it.


Old belt, easy 10 years old and 150,000 miles!

New pump in, new filter, dual tensioner (which is ridiculously strong!!)

Nice green gatorback belt (which is now worn all the green off in 2 months...)

I did do a little more in depth review and how-to on all of it, you can read it all here:
https://www.powerstrokenation.com/fo...build-124.html

 

Then, finally, the new front end. A gift from my wife for our anniversary!


All taken apart

New grille

All installed, (and needing a wash!

Old headlight was totally broken!

*****t* old grill!

Flaking paint and peeling chrome!

Nice and washed, out in the dirt! haha

 

About a month ago, I finished the siderails, and storage boxes...


All 1/8" aluminum, formed to match the headache rack. 3 separate pieces, 2 sides and one back. The back piece is removeable and allows me to put it all the way to the front to open up bed space, but still keep roughly 24" of storage.

Company logo had to go somewhere!

All held together with 1/4 Turn Dzus fasteners! Quick to remove/install, and still plenty sturdy!



Then got to sanding down all the seams on the bed so that the siderails/rack will sit flush on everything, then welded up all the seams on the siderails/rack.


Started installin the storage boxes.

Fully welded almost 360*, so should be fairly sealed and out of the elements. I might want to put my batteries in here in the future (I made sure there was enough room when designing)

From the underside.

I forgot to get pictures with the door on and everything, I'll have to snap on tomorrow to post up the finished product.

 

Then, about 2 weeks ago, my turbo started going south fast... So I ordered the DieselSite Wicked 66mm Turbo and had it shipped out. 1 week later and I had it!

In the mean time of waiting on shipping, I got to play with a new toy at work. We bought a 3D Scanner! So I HAD to scan my 10.5 before I installed it!


The colorful part is the actual scan. Looking at the front

Looking at the back.

With the scan hidden.

Cut out, formed up, and set on there, it was a damn perfect fitment! FIRST TRY! It was pretty incredible for all of us to see that happen!







But alas, I ran out of welding gas. So I picked up a new bottle today, I'll be welding it together soon!

 

Got the turbo assembled on the bench!! Then installed it that night. Took about 3 hours. 2 1/2 hours of it was just getting the old turbo out!







After install, I fired it up only to find a huge oil leak coming from the pedestal area, I thought it was a pedestal o-ring. Well I pulled the pedestal only to find there was a casting imperfection from manufacture, i tried to weld it, but the oil seems like it's just permeating through the weld, so I let Dan know and hes sending me out a new one.

Other than that, I got to drive it around, and theres a few other bugs I have to work out. I have a boost leak at the compressor outlet, and when you pressure test the system, the leak shows up even with just 1 psi, so its gotta be pretty good. Because of that, I'm only building 25psi of boost. The turbo is suppose to be roughly a 1.4-1.2:1 as far as drive pressure to boost pressure, and my drive pressure is up in the high 40s, so Bob Riley says I should be seeing boost in the mid-high 30s. I had to basically bury the wastegate adjustment all the way to prevent the wastegate from opening, as I'm not spinning it fast enough to need it to open...

Tonight I actually got the new pedestal (An OEM E99 Garrett pedestal), and it looks to be a much better fit!

And now I'm all caught up, so I'll keep this thread updated as I go, thanks for following along guys!

 

I gotta say that's the best looking OBS front grille I have ever seen. Gotta love a wife that does that sort of thing and these girls that support our addictions Nice work. Man, the precision on the cutting after the scanner on the axle was just mind blowing. Every nook and cranny was matched perfectly, or so it looked from over here.

 

This is great. I love builds like this!