Updates....need updates...
BOOOOOOOOOYAAAAH!!!
ANYway, I got some more shizzle done to my Franken-f***in-stein... I wanted to reinforce the transmission by adding more mounting points, and I have definately accomplished that. Here's a stripped down undercarriage shot. Essentially it's the same as the prior pic, but with the diff cover removed and the differential taken out. I did this to build a cardboard template and trace around the bottom of the tranny, figure my mounting points, and cut out an access hole so the diff cover is exposed.
I wanted to have access to the differential without having to remove the entire transmission. This way I can whip out the four screws that hold the diff cover in place and do a quick lube job. Or I could keep going and unhook the bottom links of the suspension, pull the drivelines, pull apart the outdrives, and simply drop the differential. This is cool if I want to swap out the locked diff with an open diff, or even drop the front driveline and just run rear wheel drive. ROOSTER TAILS AND DRIFT, BIATCH! I also was able to use 4 more mounting points for the transmission, to help solidify things. Here it is, all buttoned up.
I put another side plate on the right side, so I could zip in a couple more mounts. All in all, I have three mounting points on the left side, four on the bottom, and two on the left side. If the transmission/motor unit comes loose, I've done something horribly wrong.
Here are a couple pics of the whole works, from the top view.
One shot:
Two shot:
Given the completed mounting of the transmission and motor, I was up against some problems regarding the drivelines. I bought some telescoping T-Maxx sliders, spent a night and a half modding everything to make them work, then found out they would NOT work. The angles were "okay" but when it was said and done, the transmission's outdrives and the nature of the sliders did not work together. So, I ended up building dogbones. No problem, right...it's all cool? Not yet... :shock: The next problem was the top links of the suspension, in the rear end. At full compression the rear driveline was hitting the crossbar that the upper links were mounted to. I ended up moving the links outward, and mounting them to the frame. They mount up nice and tight, but I ran into problems with the angles of the links from the axles. I tried "angled" links, with a nicely placed bend in them. This worked for the travel, but left the rear end all sloppy and needing a pan hard bar. I tried crossing the links (making an X) but I'd have had to bend them at their contact point to keep them from binding. After a bunch of ****in' 'round I came up with this atrocity:
This is only a temporary mock up (with a big screw and zip ties!) but it serves it's purpose. By bending the links, I lost stability, but gained clearance. By binding those links in the middle, I put that stability back and kept the clearance I needed. I figure a top and bottom plate with a couple of screws through them will sinch up the new angled upper links nicely.
Finally, I've also gotten around to playing with some different tire/rim choices. This is just a prelim, but here's a shot with some new rims inside some High Lift tires.
It gives me a little more ground clearance, obviously, and they still look like they'll tuck up inside the wheel wells when I drop the body. I'm still messing around with how to mount the body, so like I said, that shot is just conceptual. Looking at this shot makes me realize that this pig wants a mudhole so bad...I'm starting to get antsy.
