Belafonte Reboot....Ambulance to 4x4 Camper Conversion

[350outrage]

Cheap Bumper

+1 on not willing to shell major $ for a bumper. Built mine out of a piece of C-Purlin; Less than $100 including consumables (rod, grinder wheels, and yes, your favorite, drill bits!). This is the 3rd Bumper I've built, as I did a front and rear for a TJ I used to have. They were both more elaborate and nicer, but I keep this van so busy, I needed something "quick". Still took about 3 days to get done, which was abt 2x as long as I estimated. BTW, you can buy hardware like tow hooks, D-rings, receivers, and hitches at Harbour freight really cheap-- $10 vs $40+ at the 4wd shops. Build the bumper. you'll love saving the $!

 

[tgreening]

Yesterday I was at the point of cutting the holes for the shackle bushings up front, but something didn't seem to be quite right between my frame and the jig. The outside part of the hole guide lays flat against the outside of the frame, but the inside part of the guide has a big gap at the top. It doesn't lay flat against the frame at all. It's the same on driver and passenger side. I started on the passenger side and noticed that inside gap, so moved the whole thing over to the drivers side, and still an inside gap at the top. I'd say about 3/4" at the top. It's like the hole jig is too narrow for the frame and it's being spread open, leaving a gap at the top.


Front hanger on the drivers side....

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Outside rear on the drivers side...

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Inside rear over view...

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Close up rear...

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[tgreening]

In any case I went out today to give her a go and there was just no way that was going to work. The way the hole-jig was setting the bottom of the hole on the inside of the frame was about a 1/2" lower than where the hole was landing on the outside of the frame. What I ended up doing was clamping it up tight and burning the outside hole. Then I split the whole jig in half (like how it ships) and let it twist around so the inside of the hole-jig lay flat, and burned the inside. Of course that turned out to be something of a waste of time because I had to bust out the blue tip torch anyway and wash away the slugs I'd just plasma cut. Turns out that brace inside the frame was attached to those slugs and they wouldn't come out. Plasma is great for making a cut, but not so great for washing away metal.

And my not quite ready for prime time air compressor is not quite up to the task of running a die grinder continuously so that was slow going, and reminiscent of my drilling troubles, this frame just ate up my die grinder cutters. Fut the whuck is the deal with this frame? I used those cutters on freakin tool steel at my shop, and this thing sent 'em to the scrap bin. Anyway, after a couple hours of work I've got one shackle bushing hole about 85% complete. Smokin!!!

 

[tgreening]

I will tell you from experience, the 'A' post is the worse possible place on a vehicle to mount them from an operational standpoint, even though those mounts were designed for that. You will find there are dead spots, and no matter how much you turn and twist the handle, the light will not point in that direction. Mounting on the roof is probably the best location as far as coverage range goes.

Truth be told they're mostly going to be there for the cool factor. If I REALLY need to see something I'd probably just grab the hand held spot that sits to the side of my seat.

 

[patoz]

I hear ya, but just wanted to point that out because if can be very frustrating, especially after you spend half a day getting one installed and then find out it won't point in the direction you need it to.

And speaking of frustrating, the forum is not sending me all of the notifications for thread post I should be getting. I wounder what's up with that?

 

[tgreening]

Hey hey! Got a spring hung. Need to drop it and spray some paint back there, but it's in.

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I need to talk to Chris though because something just doesnt seem right about how these are lining up. I remember when I hooked up the cutting jig to the front bracket, and then swung it up to the frame, it didnt line up right. I cant remember which direction as I sit here, but I had to push it either inboard or outboard to get it to slip up onto the frame, and I had to push it pretty good. It seems like the front brackets are either pushing the front of the springs wide, or narrow. Like I said I cant remember which way I had to push things.

I have to ask Chris if those front adapters offset the front of the spring one direction or the other in order to make it line up with the rear shackle mount. Does any of this make sense? I know the front hangers are each on the proper side, because the drivers side bracket has a notch in it for clearance at the steering box, but I'm wondering if they do offset that somehow the assembly got messed up and the offset reversed. Grasping at straws here, but I can't figure out why the binding.


The Tools!

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Go Blue or go home! Hehe. It's a 110 unit and pretty close to it's limit for this job, but I couldn't wait. Tomorrow I'll head to the hardware to pick up a plug I need so I can use this on the other side.

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This is not cutting the mustard. It's a great garage unit I guess but I'm used to something heavier. I have a few industrial sized units I can bring in and once it gets a bit warmer I'm going to get that done. This one can quite keep up with a little 1/4" die grinder.

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Dinner with a Japanese wife!

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Wrecked it. Hehe.

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And saw this in Bed, Bath, & Beyond (hey, I was there for the wife). Does anybody besides me find this a bit...odd? I mean, it's a knife holder ok, but still.

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That's it for today. Really hoping to get the spring hanger deal figured out quick. Maybe I'm over-thinking it, and I hope so, but I'd like to know one way or the other.

 

[patoz]

Me thinks that knife holder would be a great addition to the Ambo Camp Kitchen! You know, to give the Trunk Monkey something to play with! :agree:

 

[tgreening]

I'd be concerned it might give the Trunk Monkey some bad ideas.

 

[tgreening]

I got the passenger side spring temp hung today, which is to say I got the rear shackle bushing welded in. Man that Miller 252 is so much better on the thicker steel. The little 135 will get it done but you really have to work at it. I would recommend to anyone buying a hobby welder to forego the 115V only units and step right up to the 220-240s. They aren't near as portable, but will get it done on anything you're liable to work on in your garage/shop a whole lot easier than the 115V. The little ones are great for portability and minor maintenance/sheet metal stuff, but once it starts to get thick the difficulty level goes up.

I also think I've got it figured why my spring hangers and jig didn't seem to be working out the way it should. The front frame horns on the van are both rotated just a bit. Drivers side is rotated CCW and passenger side CW. But in addition to that the front spring hangers are tweaked as well. Not sure how to explain that but I'll give it a shot. The hangers are basically two rectangular-ish plates joined together by a couple of small filler plates to form what amounts to an open box channel. The main vertical plates each have a dog leg in them to offset the spring a bit out board. The portions of the plates below the dog leg are not square with the portion of the plate above the dog leg. ===........=== If these dash marks represented an end view of the driver and passenger springs that is what they should look like, parallel to the ground, but they aren't. The outboard side of each spring is tipped up.

Pretty sure I can slot the holes a bit in the frame and muscle the hangers down into a parallel position and crank it all down. Worst case scenario I'll grind off a bit of powder coat in a few spots, muscle them down, and then given them a few solid stitches withe welder to make sure they don't walk during use.

I've got to get a lift in my shop. I forgot how much it sucks rolling around on the concrete and banging my freaking head on every single frackin thing attached to the bottom of the Ambo. I had a pair of lifts in my last garage and miss the snot out of those, along with the 16' ceiling, and the infrared heaters, and the bathroom, and and and.

Anyway, no pictures of todays festivities since it's just a repeat of the drivers side. Tomorrow I'm going to pull the front shocks, weld on the new front shock mounts, trim the crossmember pieces that need to come out, and stare really hard at the transmission that needs to go back in.

Muscling this crap around by myself blows great big goats.

 

[patoz]

This is one of Chris' pictures I saved, maybe it will help...



Tom, have you considered that rig has possibility sustained some front end damage at some point in its history? Have you used a tape measure and checked it for 'square' by measuring diagonally from one side to the other and then doing the other side and comparing the measurements?

Our weather has finally warmed up and the rain has stopped, so I hope to get back on mine real soon. Of course now all of the spring projects, including cleaning are popping up also.

 

[cjken]

There was some weirdness on the back part of my frame that we found when we welded the back 2 feet of the donor frame in place. I think we chalked it up to ford quality control. At first I thought the frame might have been tweaked in an accident, but it seemed that locating holes for the rear springs were actually drilled about 3/4 of an inch off on one side.

 

[tgreening]

Not surprised. Tolerances on frames from the manufacturers are fairly wide I think. I had given thought to the ambo being hit but there is really no evidence. Its a pretty rare shop that can put a frame bent wreck back into shape and leave no trace of their work. Theres no sign that I can see. Panels line up right, no bolts that look like they've been r&r'd, no color mismatches or over spray in places it shouldnt be, etc etc. I think the frame rails just have a slight rotation to them that is noticable at the front. Combining this with the tweak in the spring hangers adds up to some spring misalignment back where the rear shackle bshing needs to be.

It wouldnt just be Ford either. I hesitate to call the man or machine that put my Taco frame together a welder. Bad bad welds on that thing. Same on my early 80s Jeep. And my fifth wheel camper. I swear its the area given the least thought, by anybody.

 

[Bikersmurf]

It's hard to say, Ambos do see some hard use... And a small tweak in the frame horn may have been ignored by someone bolting on a new bumper or fender. If it wouldn't affect the drive ability they might skip having it straightened. If the private companies maintaining it could pay a guy less to bolt a new part on and get it back on the road, they would.

 

[tgreening]

Belafonte Reboot....

Who knows. I'm past that at the moment. Now it's fight to get the shocks out. You have to have octopus fingers to get a wrench on the top nut. Farked with that about 15 min and dug out the blue tip wrench. Done both sides in about 3 minutes. Got the buckets prepped for welding on the new mounts, but I'm doing doggy daycare till the wife gets back from the store. Big baby has separation issues.

 

[patoz]

Are you starting to rethink that, 'satisfaction of doing it yourself' thing yet?