Chassis is back from the Hazzard Fab!
The chassis is back from Hazzard Fabworx, 38" longer, axle is 9" wider and 14" further back. Now I will be finalizing the design for the floor so we can get the body attached to the chassis. The basic idea is to build aluminum trusses or beam assemblies to span the chassis, attached to the stock body mounts, using stock body mount bushings. I'll add several mounts on the rear of the chassis to support the back half of the body. The trusses will be 2 identical (each truss unique based on its location) cut aluminum sheets bolted or riveted together with about a 4" gap between them. The rim of the new floor frame will attach to the ends of the truss and will align with the perimeter of the body. Flooring panels will attach to beams running parallel to the frame and supported by the trusses. The firewall will be a large aluminum cutout that's similar to the trusses in design, though thinner and obviously larger, and will support the front of the body. One thing I could use some advice on is the steering gear. The input shaft points rearward at a shallow angle, but with the new location of my steering column this poses a problem. My steering shaft from the steering wheel is in front of and quite a bit above the steering gear. Does anybody know of a heavy duty gear that has the input shaft on the top and the output shaft pointing out the bottom? Or a right hand driver side box so I could spin it 180, mount it on the left side frame rail resulting on the input shaft facing forward with the output still facing down? Input shaft linkage would be simpler that way...
