Wynona the wagon's resurrection!

[HRH]

So the outrigger project: I welded quarter inch tabs onto the top of the axle. The dimension I wanted was .436 to be exactly the same centerline to centerline of the respective axles. However I measured pinion flange center to top of axle approximately. I figured .25 inch down from .436 would be better for keeping the opinion relatively far away from the driveline housing. It actually comes out to .186, but .25 will be close enough. Basically I'm moving the axle down a quarter of an inch from its original location to give me a little extra clearance for the diff.

Next, I'll make the outrigger mounting guides line up with those pads.

The welder is working better after I switched to a new spool of wire and I tightened the stinger it was a bit loose. Devil is in the details.

Kitteh says hi!

[HRH]

Got the outriggers made. The one side tweaked a little, it was angled .030 off so I cut it and rewelded it and threw some heat at the forward side to shrink it towards the goal. The good news is now I'm finished and I can resume cutting the mounts all the way loose.

[HRH]

Success!! And now, lunch! the important part is I have the front side jig so as I trim these more to fit just so on the new axle I can make sure they're really where they are supposed to be.

[DRIVEN]

This all seems really complicated.

[HRH]

I'm not going to lie. It is rather complicated. Which is why having someone do this for me would be a $1000 bill at a professional fab shop. (If you leave it off at your buddy shop who does good Fab work but hasn't done a lot of axles there you go, you'll pay less but you may not get what you want.)

However, it's within anyone's skill set if they're mechanically inclined and have the right tools. After I complete this, it will make the next axle setup much easier. Hopefully not for this car. This should be the last axle I need unless I go for really big hp.

Also I wouldn't have the balls to start this project and finish it if I hadn't been screwing with Datsuns for the last 20 years and slowly building up my abilities with torch and plasma cutter and welding.

Here's how it is now. I'll have to cut off more than I want to put the axle around the tube because it wraps around the tube on the upper and lower mounts. what I plan to do is cut some sheet material and overlap the existing mount after I get everything situated. That will be plenty strong and will fill in the pieces I have to remove.

The other way to do this is to cut off the mounts replicate them and take a bunch of measurements and mount them the way you see fit or with just the front side jig. However I'm going for complete overkill and no possible way of having axle mounts shift or be wrong like they were before. Much less I don't understand the mathematics required to make the appropriate measurements. if these were just lease spring mounts and straight it'd be easy enough to just measure and get the angle correct and weld them on. The 45 degree uppers are the tricky part, especially because the 8.8 housing is so huge comparitively.

Once I get the amounts cut enough to get the whole assembly on the new axle I'll put the front side jig in place as well tighten up the bolts, and then carefully tack weld making sure the mounts aren't stressed.

Here's where it sits now.

[HRH]

Slivers slivers slivers. I love the plasma cutter!! Getting closer to fitting on the giant Ford diff.

[HRH]

Quite a bit more cut off it's getting closer to sitting on the outriggers. And we got some oingo boingo going on for that appropriate fall music!

[HRH]

So here's the problem. It's centered right? Wrong! It needs to go a 1/16 right. Which means I'm running out of material to cut. So I'll put an old control arm in the top, and then weld a strap across the top of the mount so I can cut off the corner and get it where it needs to be. Then I can start cleaning up stuff in preparation for welding after I check fore and aft location.

[HRH]

[BLUE]

Any plans for incorporating a minimal panhard bar ?

[HRH]

Fing sweet! Got this sucker dead nuts and tacked on! It's within .5 degrees on the angles. Measured ten times on side to side, should be within 1/32! Going to call it quits for tonight, shut down the welder and plasma. Cranked the stereo to max for Airborne All For Rock N Roll!!

EDIT: I didn't clean up the mounts from the plasma cutter, so I'll have to do that tomorrow, which will be more of a pain, but oh well. I'm going to clean them up and then make plates out of sheet steel I have that I'll cut nicely on the bench and then put over the outside of the original hacked mounts and weld them on for prettiness and much better strength as well. Have to measure my sheet but I'm pretty sure it's the same thickness as the original. If not I'll find something at CDA Metals on Monday. Either way, I got a lot done this weekend, much happier!

[HRH]

Any plans for incorporating a minimal panhard bar ?

Nope! I want it running and soon! It really doesn't need it with the 45 degree upper arms. If it was four link with 4 straight arms, then definitely. As it is, for the suspension design, I think it's better without it.

[HRH]

So I realize after examining the bottom mounts I cut off that were incorrect that it would have been better to cut off the existing mounts without the backside jig and transfer them to the new axle using the front side jig only. That would have allowed for more precise cutting of the mounts so they'd be closer to fitting the axle tube and I wouldn't have to trim to fit both around the tube as the jig goes on. Not a huge deal, it certainly works both ways. I'm actually still happy I did it this way because it leaves zero room for error.

I think if I were to do it again, I'd use the front side jig, and then weld the mounts to the front side jig so they couldn't move. Then I could transfer and check angles and be okay. I'm about ready to go out to the garage now and finish the job. I found my sheet steel is about .050" less thick than the original mount material. Fortunately I have the other mounts I cut off, so I'll probably section those and use the side pieces for my filler where the axle tube doesn't quite meet up to the side of the mount. I'll make it work, it'll be fine. Just a few things I'm thinking about.

[HRH]

Overly complicated? Yes! But it's going to be correct when I'm done!

[HRH]

I had to bust out the snap mics to get a good measurement on the mount side to axle flange clearance. you think the points for measuring these would be equal but if you measure the rear 90° stick outs where the shock mounts are they're actually off by about an 1/8 inch on the regular mount. So it's actually you have to measure from the mount side to the axle flange because the backing plate isn't quite the same and it's just a real pain in the ass to get a correct measurement. So far it looks like I'm within 30,000 of correct though.

[HRH]

If you go from that 90° flange next to the straight rectangle out from the mount to the edge of the actual flange you'll be off an 1/8 inch. but if you go from the head of the bolt on the flange to the far side of the edge of the mount, it's just under 8 in dead nuts both sides. Weird huh? Supposed to be mirror image, apparently not.

[HRH]

Finally cut off the back jig so I can trim and weld stuff easier. Getting there!

[HRH]

Have I mentioned a plasma cutter is super nice to have?!

[HRH]

And now I can trim this and then put it in there and weld it up to the mount. I got to thinking it wouldn't have mattered if I had only done a front side jig versus the back side the orientation would still be the same. So basically what I would have had to do is make two separate jigs one for the lower amounts that I could put on and weld and one for the upper mounts that I can put on and weld. that would have alleviated the problem of having to cut more of the mount to get it to fit on the tube. As it is it's a little more of a pain in the ass but it's working.

[HRH]

Last sliver for the bottom mount. On the side with a knot I decided to make it flush as opposed to overlapping and plate on the other side where the bolt head is.