Lets see if I can pull this off before I leave for college

[zachbiz]

TADA!! She is 98% finished enough for me to drive to school. Ill have to do a few finishing touches like exhaust and master cylinder in the morning, but then she should be ready to take her maiden voyage.

[OldYeller]

Nice

[zachbiz]

well i did it guys, and just barely. left yesterday around 4:30 and it rode great all the way to prescott doing 70 mph.

and this wasn't at full flex.

[BlackX]

Great job!

[OldYeller]

WOW

[SteeevO]

Right on man. but i'm going to thrown out a few suggestions.

I'd really consider building a stronger truss for the front axle, I'd also consider making both the trackbar and draglink longer.

[zachbiz]

i would have made them longer but i wanted the drag link the same length as tracbar and the tracbar right now is perfectly centered on the roll center. as for the truss, the flat bar is 3/8" and i can always add some square tubing on the sides making it more of a triangle.

[gitarboyx]

lets see it in the dirt already!

[zachbiz]

man I'm busy at school already. ill see if i can get out with aaron whenever he gets back, i still need that front drive shaft too.

[SteeevO]

i would have made them longer but i wanted the drag link the same length as tracbar and the tracbar right now is perfectly centered on the roll center. as for the truss, the flat bar is 3/8" and i can always add some square tubing on the sides making it more of a triangle.

yeah beef it up one way or another. You'l really be surprised how much pressure is exerted on that upper link.

with a longer track bar things will stay a lot more linear and won't shift as much including the center of the track bar. you also need to take into consideration the roll center at all positions of the suspension travel. Thing move a lot especially with 16" travel coilovers. just by 2 cents 

[zachbiz]

oh I'm for sure no expert. I'll take all the advice i can get. I'll have to bend the drag link eventually and i might just lengthen them both then... depends on how it does up until that point. Right now the heim angle coming off the pitman arm is whats limiting my passenger side droop.

[zachbiz]

So theres not much to do up here and boredom is quite common. Me and a few friends decided to check out some local trails. The front suspension worked nothing less than flawlessly besides the lack of a drive shaft and limited up travel. However, the same could not be said for the rear suspension.



Lee, all i can say is you were right man. So i have a few options, go for heavier duty leafs, stock leafs from kenny (aarons old leafs) traded for my old h233b along with my old over load leafs again or wait until i have the money for the rear links and coil overs.

However, heres a few of the front.











anybody want to win the lottery for me?

[penski61]

why not run the chevy springs? pick and pull is having a half off everything this weekend so i may swing by there tomorrow

[zachbiz]

are they the same length? If so I'll go snag a pair at the u-pick up here in prescott

[theking]

Impressive!   I'd go with coils in the back.  Like I had on the old Pathfinder.

   

[zachbiz]

why coils over coilovers (unless thats what you meant) I like the idea of a single package with less fab hardware.


anyways, when looking for leaf springs at the junk yard today (got there and realized i forgot to measure my existing leaf springs) i stumbled across a really nice pair of warn premium locking hubs and a new horn from an 80's ish suburban to make a new chevy/nissan dual tone horn. The horn sounds nice and beefy and after i got the hubs cleaned up i slapped them on. all i need is a front driveshaft and rear leafs now.

[theking]

It's just gonna be hard to run 14" or longer coilovers without cutting into the floor. 
Nice hubs. look brand new!

[gitarboyx]

yeah dude those hubs are sweet!  dude you can do what i did,... which is a temp fix, is just find some old leafs in the yard and slap two underneath the two on there. sure maybe a little ghetto,...unsafe,...or watever u wanna call it,..but my trucks still fine! haha       ill be starting work on m y 3 link soon.

[Bobby B.]

What's the backspacing on those wheels?

Nice work so far.   

[zachbiz]

Yeah i might do that but if I find a proper length set off a chevy stock SOA I'll get those because they have a thicker band where the leaves sit on the axle so the spring rate stays the same and it resists wrap. also check out IMS for link dom inthe remnants section.

And the wheels are 4.5" bs

[theking]

let me know if you still want arrons old leafs. 

[zachbiz]

Kind of a late update but its better than nothing and it comes with photos.

Got those rear springs repacked. I saved the top leaf and through under some extra leafs of a chevy 52" spring pack. the top leafs are straight again and are holding steady.

The front drive shaft is done and all thats left for the drive train is to redo the rear shaft.
This is about 8-10 inches of droop, so not quite full droop. I do plan on redoing the tranny cross member to make it more rigid and to get the loop to angle back instead of straight down.




and heres a photo from my latest trip out to smiley rock:




This is the most i've gotten it to flex out.




and what it looks like against a stock X:

[SteeevO]

right on man.
How bad does your front driveshaft vibrate?

[zachbiz]

havent taken it up to any speed really, with the front spool i dont want to.

[theking]

Looks good bro.  It may be just the pic but it looks like the yokes on the drive shaft are out of phase.  Just make sure they are clocked in line.