2000 Mercury Mountaineer Build

mounty71

Observer
Going well so far:


Dual sump Mustang oil pan is in (not sure I like the green that the previous owner painted it), and I notched the inside of the frame and inset the steering box for clearance for hydro-assist lines.





Crossmember is close to ready for final installation. A few more things to finish up like some welding, rerouting some electrical, drill and tap the steering box for hydro assist, and then mount the crossmember and mock up the fully assembled beams so I can build radius arms!
 

poorboy1964

New member
Mounty71
All I can say is wow wow wow
great to read along with ya on this when I got to your rock sliders I was hooked they are what I was thinking about only better you have a talent
 

mounty71

Observer
Thanks for the compliments.

Spent most of Saturday resealing my steering box and drilling and tapping it for hydro-assist. I just plugged the ports for now and will tackle that later. Also finished up a bunch of welding. Today got the crossmember in its final position and tacked into place, got a wheel and 35" tire on and set the wheelbase at 113". Started on the radius arms too! Tire-to-body position is approximately what ride height will be.



 

mounty71

Observer
After a lot of test-fitting this what I ended up with remaining from the original TTB crossmember. Looking back now I could probably have saved a little more of it.


I have the radius arms built and did a bunch of plating on the beams, in addition to welding in the uniballs.




Crossmember is fully welded in now too and the steering box has a perfect amount of clearance over that gusset luckily.




Gusseted the driver's beam mount


Drilled out the spindle steering arm taper and TIG welded some sleeves into the steering arms to be through-bolted


Beams and radius arms hung


Cut out the shock hoops and put a coilover in position. I'm guessing this will be about where the coilovers will be at droop. I need to mount a tire and bump out both sides equally and then compress the shocks to actually know where full bump will be, and built shock hoops and steering from there.


Decided to switch to King everything so I got some new 2.5x12" coilovers from Downsouth Motorsports for a great price. I think I'm just going to go for the secondary shock up front now too. I'll keep the 12" Swayaways in the back for now but my plan is to do a cantilever setup in the future. I feel like there is so much more that I've done but that's the gist of it.
 

mounty71

Observer
Setup swing steering this weekend. Still need to double shear the pitman arm and set up the hydraulic assist ram.






Double sheared the knuckles



And added an overlay plate to strengthen the radius arm mounts on the back of the beams, and a place for the hydraulic bumpstops to land. Decided to TIG weld them since the other plating on the beams was TIG welded by Solo.
 

Jim Oaks

Observer
Replacing the SLA with a TTB. Love it. I love those suspensions. It doesn't take much to get a lot of wheel travel out of them, unlike the SLA. It doesn't have to be a rock crawler or prerunner to appreciate wheel travel. It's all about maintaining traction and keeping the tires on the ground.
 

mounty71

Observer
Modified my pitman arm today. Drilled out the taper to 3/4" and sleeved it with tubing so I can run a 5/8" bolt. Then double sheared the heim joints and plated it all in. I'm fairly new to TIG welding so I'm loving how I'm finally seeing real improvement being made and being able to actually apply it to certain areas where MIG would be more difficult.










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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