GeoTracker90
Adventurer
I went out last night and made the roof rack bars but forgot to take the camera.
Mike
Mike
TheGillz Explo Off-Road Trailer via Geotracker90 Build!
- Thread starter TheGillz
- Start date
StumpXJ
SE Expedition Society
GeoTracker90 said:I went out last night and made the roof rack bars but forgot to take the camera.
Mike
You should be beaten. Pics please
I have been enjoying the build! Edit #1: I think someone else asked also, but do you just use a shop press with the dimple dies? What kind of tonnage (not even sure if this is a word) do you need? Got a good line on a place that has them for a decent price?
Edit #2, ok, I somehow missed your last post explaining the shop press thing, thanks for the info.
~James
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M.Bas
Adventurer
Am I the only that had a ****** moment when seeing the shock mounted this way?GeoTracker90 said:
I'm not an expert in fabrication, mechanics and stuff....
My guess would be that one of your shock mounts is going to break/bend, really really fast.
When the axle moves up the shock is going to rotate counter clockwise a bit, and I don't think the lower shock mount would allow the shock to do that and therefor the upper or lower mount will either bend or break. Or something else is going to fail.
Some ASCI art to show what I mean:
Code:
Frame
-------------------------
/ <-- Upper shockmount
\
\
\
\
/O <-- AxleBut as I said, I'm not an expert in mechanics and fabrication.
Did I mention that something is going to break?
GeoTracker90
Adventurer
M.Bas said:Am I the only that had a ****** moment when seeing the shock mounted this way?
I'm not an expert in fabrication, mechanics and stuff....
My guess would be that one of your shock mounts is going to break/bend, really really fast.
When the axle moves up the shock is going to rotate counter clockwise a bit, and I don't think the lower shock mount would allow the shock to do that and therefor the upper or lower mount will either bend or break. Or something else is going to fail.
Some ASCI art to show what I mean:
As you can see when the Axle (O) moves up the shock will be compressed but therefor will also rotate slightly counter clockwise, something is going to break when mounted this way. Rotate the shock 90degrees so that the eye of the shock is parallel to the axle, that way the shock can rotate counter clockwise.Code:Frame ------------------------- / <-- Upper shockmount \ \ \ \ /O <-- Axle
But as I said, I'm not an expert in mechanics and fabrication.
Did I mention that something is going to break?
If you go to a parking lot and start looking at the shock mounts on a number of vehicles, that is if you can find enough that have shocks and not struts, you will find that the OEM manufactures have used both styles of mounts. With this trailer arrangement the amount that the axle would rotate as the suspension cycles is negligable. Any rotation that is experienced will be compensated for by the shock bushings. The lower shock mount has about 3/8" rubber between the bolt sleeve and the loop that is welded to the shock body. The upper mount hole os larger than the diameter of the upper shock stud. The upper bushings have a rubber shoulder that then makes up the differance in diameters, thus allowing for additional deflection as needed.
Now for the short answer:
I do not believe that it will be a problem.
M.Bas
Adventurer
I personally think it is better to mount them the way I would mount them and not rely on the rubbers to compensate.
BTW, how much travel does the axle have?
Since you mounted the shock when the axle was at its lowest point and therefore will maximise the stress on the rubbers when the axle is at its highest point. Might have been a better idea to mount them when the axle was at normal hight. That way you had stress on the rubbers both ways, now you have maximum stress when going up and no stress when fully dropped. That way you probably had some stress both ways.
But as I said in my previous post, all this is just based on my common sense.
BTW, how much travel does the axle have?
Since you mounted the shock when the axle was at its lowest point and therefore will maximise the stress on the rubbers when the axle is at its highest point. Might have been a better idea to mount them when the axle was at normal hight. That way you had stress on the rubbers both ways, now you have maximum stress when going up and no stress when fully dropped. That way you probably had some stress both ways.
But as I said in my previous post, all this is just based on my common sense.
highlandercj-7
Explorer
I don't see it as being an issue. I would have used eyes on both ends but that's usually what I have laying around the shop. If I had those shocks just laying around I would have used them too.
GeoTracker90
Adventurer
M.Bas said:
When they fail I will personally invite you out to Clark's place to re-engineer them. Until then this is a dead issue. The welds are burnt in and I am disinclined to acquiesce to your common sense.
p.s. 10 bonus points to the soul that can devine the hidden movie quote in the reply above.
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GeoTracker90
Adventurer
Update 7-19-08
At Clark's request we are changing the side boxes from 14" tall to 16" tall.
Fresh off of the brake. The main body of the box is formed with as 1" lip around the box opening. The upper corners have been mitered to accept the lip of the end piece.
With the end piece cut to size and the front lip formed I held the piece in place with a couple of clamps. Some minor twisting of the box body is required to line the body up correctly with the edges of the end piece.
After welding the three sides as well as the two mitered corners an angle grinder was used to clean up the welds. I must admit that going into this build I underestimated how welding and grinding intensive it would be.
Just as a rough example: To build the two side boxes there are 168" of welding involved in placing the end pieces on the main body of the box. For grinding the welds you have two surfaces for the same weld that you contend with. So we have 336" of linear grinding and blending to perform. Then the cutting of the pieces involves a total of an additional 264" of linear travel. So there is in essence a total of 768" or 64' of linear work involved in producing these two side boxes. Remember that only 168" of the 768" involved welding. The other 600" involved grinding and cutting with an abrassive cut-off wheel.
The result of all of this turned out to be me waking up with my eyeballs burning in their sockets this morning. I can only surmise that while my eyes were shaded from the welding, and I used safety glasses while grinding and cutting, the long duration of looking at the grinding and cutting sparks "sunburnt" my peepers. As a result I ended up wearing my sun glasses for the duration of church services today. It was interesting to see the different responses.
Side trip over, back to the build!
With one box completed I hung it on the side of the trailer in its final resting place.
And with the other side box 3/4 completed I placed it in a temp position for comparison purposes.I ended up completing some other little things but forgot to take any meaningful pictures.
So, at this point the main things left to do before powdercoating can take place include:
Finish the tailgate along with its latch system.
Build the side boxes with their latch systems.
Mount the propane tank.
Mount the fuel cans.
Build the fender segments.
Like I said before, it seems like 20% of the work takes 80% of the time.
Mike
At Clark's request we are changing the side boxes from 14" tall to 16" tall.
Fresh off of the brake. The main body of the box is formed with as 1" lip around the box opening. The upper corners have been mitered to accept the lip of the end piece.
With the end piece cut to size and the front lip formed I held the piece in place with a couple of clamps. Some minor twisting of the box body is required to line the body up correctly with the edges of the end piece.
After welding the three sides as well as the two mitered corners an angle grinder was used to clean up the welds. I must admit that going into this build I underestimated how welding and grinding intensive it would be.
Just as a rough example: To build the two side boxes there are 168" of welding involved in placing the end pieces on the main body of the box. For grinding the welds you have two surfaces for the same weld that you contend with. So we have 336" of linear grinding and blending to perform. Then the cutting of the pieces involves a total of an additional 264" of linear travel. So there is in essence a total of 768" or 64' of linear work involved in producing these two side boxes. Remember that only 168" of the 768" involved welding. The other 600" involved grinding and cutting with an abrassive cut-off wheel.
The result of all of this turned out to be me waking up with my eyeballs burning in their sockets this morning. I can only surmise that while my eyes were shaded from the welding, and I used safety glasses while grinding and cutting, the long duration of looking at the grinding and cutting sparks "sunburnt" my peepers. As a result I ended up wearing my sun glasses for the duration of church services today. It was interesting to see the different responses.
Side trip over, back to the build!
With one box completed I hung it on the side of the trailer in its final resting place.
And with the other side box 3/4 completed I placed it in a temp position for comparison purposes.I ended up completing some other little things but forgot to take any meaningful pictures.
So, at this point the main things left to do before powdercoating can take place include:
Finish the tailgate along with its latch system.
Build the side boxes with their latch systems.
Mount the propane tank.
Mount the fuel cans.
Build the fender segments.
Like I said before, it seems like 20% of the work takes 80% of the time.
Mike
Mike, I feel your pain in the "details" department. The amount of prep work that needs to be done for just a little bit of welding, comparatively, alone makes me tired.
Its looking killer.
Also, not sure it you are aware of this, if you are using one of those auto darkening hoods there is the whatever thousandth of a second that it takes for the lens to darken that the arc light is getting to your eyes. If you are doing alot of stop start welding in any given time period, its best to use a hood with a fixed shade. I have one of the autos, and I notice after tacking down all my expanded metal everything was bright for awhile.
Its looking killer.
Also, not sure it you are aware of this, if you are using one of those auto darkening hoods there is the whatever thousandth of a second that it takes for the lens to darken that the arc light is getting to your eyes. If you are doing alot of stop start welding in any given time period, its best to use a hood with a fixed shade. I have one of the autos, and I notice after tacking down all my expanded metal everything was bright for awhile.
GeoTracker90
Adventurer
opie said:
That's funny. When I got to work today and explained what happened my co-worker asked the same thing about the auto darkening helmet. Nope, mine is just a fixed shade. I really believe that it was a product of all the grinding and cutting with untinted lens safety glasses.
Mike
GeoTracker90
Adventurer
IH8RDS said:
Dang! :yikes: I thought it would at least get you closer than that to breaking even. I'll have to put in more trivia that you can answer.
Mike
StumpXJ
SE Expedition Society
Man, sorry to hear about your eyes! When I was a kid, my father was teaching me how to weld. We had a project of replacing the floor on a flatbed trailer for a semi. Basically resheeting the whole thing. He did one side, and I did the other, a full day of welding. Somewhere along the way, I looked at a little too much of the arc, and woke up with the same arc burn you are talking about. It was probably top 3 of the worst pain I have felt ever. Couldnt close my eyes, and couldnt open them. It sucked bad!
Not sure if its worth hurting your eyesight, but the trailer looks freekin awesome. The Gillz should be proud!
~James
Not sure if its worth hurting your eyesight, but the trailer looks freekin awesome. The Gillz should be proud!
~James
TheGillz
Explorer
stumptaco said:Not sure if its worth hurting your eyesight, but the trailer looks freekin awesome. The Gillz should be proud!
~James
Definatly not. Yes it does. Yes he is!
I am obsessing something fierce over here. I love what I am seeing and will and have proudly given Mikes info to whoever asks about it.:jumping: