Me too! I am so happy to finally be making progress on this thing again.

I made a little more progress last night. First and foremost it is pupper dog approved! It's crazy that he is 3 days shy of 11 months old and is 120lbs already but he's a great shop dog.



After bolting the arms on and setting the bags there just because I wanted to see what it looked like I got the axle housing bolted on the arms and used that to mark out where my notches needed to be after removing a whole bunch more unneeded rivets and brackets. Once I had the layout marked I drilled and cut out the first notch and got it temporarily bolted in place.

No turning back now!


Then it was on to drilling and bolting




These bolts are temporary and will be replaced with grade 8 hardware along with welding the notches in place.



Overall I don't think the fitment on this one isn't to bad for cheap ebay special notches. I'll massage this spot a bit before I weld it on but I need to wait for my weldable primer to show up before I permanently weld it in place. I'd like to have a good thick layer of primer between the notch and frame rail first.



We are fostering a pitbull right now who is going to meet his potential forever family tonight and my wife has a tattoo appointment tomorrow night so I likely won't get any time on this until the weekend.

 

I'm looking to get a tattoo on sat for my bday! Lol

I love following your threads, great work

 

Tattoos are certainly addicting! I just started working on finishing my sleeve that I started 10 years ago last Friday. I’m excited to get this thing finished. Got 3 hours in last week with probably 6-9 more hours to go on top of the 8 hours I had done 10 years ago but it’ll be so worth it once it’s finished lol

Thanks for the compliments posting forum updates keeps me motivated in a weird way because I know I love seeing others updates and get bummed when progress stops so that helps me to keep going so I don’t leave others feeling the same way lol!

 

Looks like pretty good progress to me!

 

Thanks! I hope to get a few solid days in this weekend and make some more progress. My axle rebuild kit is out for delivery so with any luck I can get the axle built tomorrow morning at least to a point of being able to put the wheels on it and maybe have this thing sitting on the rear axle this weekend!

 

Well I would have loved to get more done but I was able to meet my goal of having it sitting on its own rear axle this weekend!

I got the second notch in with the exception of one bolt. This is what I get for buying cheap ebay notches I guess. One of the bolts on the side of the frame is located directly in line with two of the bolts on the bottom of the frame and the bolts they sent with it are to long so the side bolt contacts a bottom bolt. I can remedy this with a shorter bolt which isn't a big deal since I already planned on replacing the grade 5 bolts that came with it to grade 8 when it comes time for final assembly anyway but still a minor design annoyance anyway.



If you look close in this picture you can see the missing bolt on the left side notch



I got the upper holes drilled for the bag mounts and fittings and got those bolted on but somehow didn't take any pictures. Then I got the wheel studs pressed into the new axle shafts and decided to just toss the carrier in with the old bearings and not do a full setup on the axle until I have it painted or powder coated.



I needed some rollers since I don't want to use the wheels and tires that came with it and since they are brand new I didn't want to hurt resale value on them by bolting them for mockup so I hit up CL with no luck and then went to FB marketplace and found a sent of jeep wheels/tires that someone was giving away free and had the wife send them a message since I don't actually do the book of faces expect to look for stuff to spend money on and I picked them up the next morning.



They are way to big but they will work for now and for the price I won't complain!

After that I got the fuel cell mocked up and drilled all the holes in the frame for that. It was pretty uneventful but another thing to mark off the list none the less so I was excited to see it done.



Once the fuel cell was in I set it on the ground on its own rear axle for the first time in 5 years which was another milestone.



I decided it would make more sense to turn the frame around the other way to work on the front suspension so I grabbed the front and rolled it out into the street like the worlds largest wheelbarrow and had to stop on the way back in for a photo op!



Seeing this picture really makes me want to stop and take time to clean up the garage but my brain keeps saying "no screw the garage must make progress on the truck" so maybe I can talk my brain outta progress for an hour one of these days to clean stuff up.

After I got it rolled back in with about 3" to spare I started on the front crossmember. I got the bag brackets drilled and mounted and drilled out the bigger Ubolt holes for the cross shafts on the lower arms. I started putting it back on the frame and could only find 3 of the new bolts I bought for this task so I loosely put in the bolts I had and called it a night.



I'll pick up the bolts I need today and I figure within a couple hours time I should be ablt to have it sitting on the front wheels.

 

You were busy! I wish I could have made half that progress on my project this weekend!

 

Really good progress for just a few days. I'm looking forward putting my project on it's wheels. Might happen this year. We'll see.

I like the workmanship of your solid build. Nice that it comes together.

 

Thanks guys! I feel like I should have made more progress but sometime you just have to stop and hang out with your kids and remember that there are other things in life as well. I've got an amazing wife that is really patient and understanding but she said a long time ago that she wants me to go to bed with her at the same time so I have always tried to stick to that otherwise I would be out in the garage working until the sun comes up!

I had household duties and errands to attend to last night but I snuck in 10 minutes on the truck and finished getting the front crossmember bolted on so however little it was I still made some sort of forward progress! I also spent some time starring at it and taking a couple measurements and I think I have a plan for air tank and compressor locations so hopefully with my impending 5 day weekend starting tomorrow thanks to mother nature and her foot of snow she is suppose to bring me I hope I can make some more good progress and maybe with any luck I can have this thing going up and down by this Sunday but thats a long shot so I won't hold my breath!

 

oh man do I ever know what you mean by this whole part! Lol. The wife isn't so insisted of me going to bed at the same time, but I can't wake her when I come, and I need to be there if she wakes up lol. My daughter is slowly growing into my old hobbies and such, so she's going to be helping me during the summer lol. 2 birds with one stone!

And the way I see it, if you get one bolt in, thats progress! Any progress is good progress...