mklotz70 project MEND

[alabama_lowlife]

Electric 521? Are there pics of that on here? I must have overlooked that one.

[mklotz70]

As far as I know, this was put up in '09 and is not currently for sale.....but there's some nice pics. :)

 

http://home.comcast.net/~damonhenry/truck.htm

[the510keeper]

WOW, very nice

[mklotz70]

Checking the CAD pattern changes. Very close, but still needs some tweaking.

 

 

[mklotz70]

These pics and the next vid are some checking I was doing on lowered ride height with the 720 arm flipped upside down. Looks like it just might work okay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

[mklotz70]

The first half of this vid shows how to pull the coupling off in the scrapyard for those guys that are getting these arms. Much easier than trying to pull the torsion bar all the way out of the coupler.

 

http://youtu.be/0v5h0ESZMbU

[mklotz70]

Since the first guy to pay is running a lowered rig, I figured I'd better look at making that work.....so I've started another test arm.

 

 

[thisismatt]

Nice work, Mike. Maybe you've already discussed this, but what are you doing for a tension rod?

[mklotz70]

Thanks. The tension rod was figured out early on. I'm going to do a custom plate to attach to the underside of the LCA and use the stock 521 rods. I wanted to use the larger 720 rods, but the location of the front cross member mount is in the wrong position and binds.

 

Started on another UCA that, hopefully, puts the travel withing the range of motion of the upper ball joint.

 

[mklotz70]

I certainly haven't forgotten about this project.....but the good weather is coming to an end soon......and I can do all this inside when it rains........

 

I did hop on the CAD this morning and create this piece.

 

[bananahamuck]

I really like the use of videos in your threads ,,seeing pictures of what ones speaking of is a fantastic tool,, but video brings it up to a whole new level of understanding..

 

:)

[mklotz70]

Thanks! :)

It's kinda funny.....I started doing the vids so I wouldn't have to spend so much time typing out all the explanations, but the vids take way longer to process. But....I can convey a whole lot more in a vid. :)

 

Oh....I added the bolt spacers, washers and bushings. The bushings look a bit off because the dimensions have been changed to account for "squish. The second pic has the start of the UCA(bushing tubes) :)

 

 

 

[]2eDeYe]

Excellent CAD work Mike.

 

I finally got a new stereo for the garage , now I can get caught back up on the vids. Way better than Powerblock. :lol:

[mklotz70]

Too funny! :)

I've been on vacation for the last week. The first part of it was spent getting loose ends outside tied up......then we went to the coast for a couple of days. I should be back in the shop tomorrow finishing up roadster parts, then back on this :)

 

Thanks!

[mklotz70]

I might make it just under the wire to fill the Powerblock time slot :)

 

I end to put up pics while I'm waiting for vids to load. Shot about 45 min of vid while fabricating the second version of the ball joint plate. This flat one is for the lowered version. First vid should be up on youtube pretty soon, but I may have to wait until the morning to load the second half.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

[mklotz70]

[mklotz70]

Got the plate finished and tacked in place. Put it on the frame and took some measurements. I'm liking it a lot. I've still got several more things to try to do or tweak, but at least it's still moving forward. If you want to skip the fab work and see how it fits/works on the frame, jump to about the last 10 min or so of the vid. I'll put pics up after the vid loads.

 

[mklotz70]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

I pulled a washer to check the camber again, but if you notice, I set the Alt Zero on the level to the wrong spot on the frame. I would have redone it, but I pulled the arm off the frame for the other pics. Oh well....I'll check it again next time I'm in the shop.

 

[mklotz70]

I managed to get started on some of the other brackets. I'm sure I'll have to go back in and tweak some design and measurements, but at least they're started. I drew the shock bracket too, but forgot to save any images of it. I'll post them up another time. This is a "potential" design. If the price quote comes back too high, I may be forced to make these parts by hand, so things like the alignment slot will not be included.

 

This is the tension control rod mount that bolt/welds up under the control arm.

 

 

 

 

[mklotz70]

I'm to the point where I want/need to merge the two plates together to see if I can get away with having one plate cut, then modifying it for one of the applications.....as opposed to having two completely different plates cut. Not sure if this is going to work, but it's worth a try.

 

So....I was thinking about how to merge the designs together and move the ball joint holes at the same time. It dawned on me that the picture tracing that I've been playing with in CAD to reverse engineer the spindle should work for the plates. I took a couple of pics of the two directly over each other.....anyway.....here's some pics. :)

 

 

The first 10 are from the CAD program. The first is the imported pic of the two arms on top of each other. I did a loose sketch on top of that to get the shape to what I thought would work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't really tell in the pic, but the surface was extruded to a thickness of .375"(3/8"). You can see it in the next one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn't show up well here either, but if you look closer, you can see the ghost of the drawn part. I measured between the same spot on both plate and moved the holes half that distance. I tweaked the shape of the plate just a bit so that it wouldn't be too thin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plate with the image turned off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When trying to create the 2D drawing for the template, I had forgotten to scale the part down. That took me a bit to figure out, but thanks to the internet, I finally got it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....and the final print of the template. I'll glue it to some tag board, cut it out, check the fit and design, then I'll probably come back and tweak the CAD art again before cutting it out in steel for the final testing.

 

 

I don't have the calipers at the right angle and there's some parallax error too.......but the print is 2.5" between the hole centers.....just like I need it to be. :)