Nice Welding

 

Thanks!

I went up on lunch and turned down the bosses for this thing and then welded them in. I also got the 1st of the 1" holes in the recovery points drilled.

I'm not sure if I'll get my night in the shop Thurs as I think I'll be putting together wedding invites, but if I do I'm thinking I can wrap this thing up!

 

^ Mason BTW

 

Nice! I almost clicked on the link in your sig but figured I'd see someone in the midwest selling stuff I already have too much of. Now that I know I clicked it just because & instead it's a guy I know selling stuff I already have too much of

Like the new name & the website. Didn't take you long at all to do that. I've needed to make one for some fenders I sell for at least 2-3 years now. Maybe we can trade cad work for website setup???

 

Sounds like a deal to me

 

I grew up in Torrance, Calif. I've lived here since 2000. I'm near Maple Valley (east of Kent, south of Issaquah). I will eventually build a nice house on my 1.3 acre lot (currently living in a double-wide manufactured home), but the first thing is to build a new shop! I'm thinking 36' wide by at least 48' deep, maybe 52'. There is no such thing as a shop that's "too big." Come to think of it, there's no such thing as too much horsepower, too much ammunition, too many tools... or a girl too pretty.
We just need In-'N-Out Burgers up here!

 

I got that "too much horsepower" and "too much ammunition" line from the rear wing on the Bill Miller Engineering Top Fuel Dragster.

Sorry, we now bring you back to your normal programming.

 

I'm glad you finally got a picture you actually like of your welds usually the camera won't focus in

 

double post - deleted...

 

yup, yup and yup! I'd go as big as you can afford on the shop as I've found no matter how big you have, you ALWAYS want more space!



Me too. New camera was a x-mas present from the fiance and it's been taking some decent weld pics since I got it.



Found out I do get to hit the shop tonight and the shorter shackles (traded the 8" ones for 6" ones) got here this morning so I can check those out! Plus I think I'm gonna hit the shop on lunch again and drill the other 1" hole. Should be some decent progress again hopefully!

 

Went up on lunch & got a bit done. Got the 2nd recovery point drilled (did the 1st on lunch yesterday) and then I sandblasted those. So now they are set to go tonight.



I also got the new to me shackles this morning. They are the 6" camburg ones i traded for the 8" ones I picked up but that ended up being too long.



Oh and this came today - my order from Allen Fastners. Thanks Philofab for the tip on that one. Ordered a bunch of stuff as you can see. Now I can do a bit more on fuel lines and brakes, etc.

 

I absolutely love it when "Brown Santa" stops at my house!

 

Me too, but this one was red, white & blue santa though. Brown Santa was yesterday for other schtuff.

Got a little bit more done last night. Not a ton, but oh well.

Got the recovery points cleaned up & welded in. I then sandblasted & got the weld washers on the shackle hangers. Should start putting paint on those today. Suns still not out though which doesn't help!

I then also spent some time thinking/designing on making this be a sturdy hitch. Got a plan figured out on that and picked up some more metal for it this morning. More to come.

Until then - here's some pics.

 

Got back in the shop for a bit this Saturday. I didn't have a ton of time as I had to change the oil in the tacoma & do some other things but I did get a little bit done.

I was a bit concerned with this thing being a hitch and having recovery points that if I left just the original mounting bolts I had that it might try & rotate forward when a load was placed on it. In a perfect world I would have liked to tie the tubes to the center of this thing, right at the receiver tube, but with the gas tank filling that space soon it wouldn't work. So I went for the next best thing, picked an existing 3/4" hole in the frame & built to use that & add some reinforcing strength to the already beefy recovery points. Everything is punched through the main 2x4 tube & ties together inside. It will also be tied to the plates I use to cap this sucker off again.

I started with this sold rod & turned it into these



I then drilled a couple holes & added some tube & presto... some extra beef!




And I also started cleaning up the camburg shackles I traded my 8" ones for. These had 2 dimple dies holes in the back of them that looked like they'd collect crap in them so I sand blasted them out & then welded plugs in them. I also added some weld washers to them for peace of mind, as trying to fix ovaled out holes on these things later on is harder than doing it right the 1st time!

 

That hitch isn't beefy enough hahaha