'91 Dodge Ram 50: A Frankenstein Story

Saw this on Speedhunters today and the setback made me think of your truck

Also, I think you would enjoy the 3D scanning they did on it as well

http://www.speedhunters.com/2020/03/making-barn-door-fly-meet-targa-truck/

In reply to OjaiM5 :

That truck is pretty wild, I've talked with the owner a few times on Instagram. There's a whole cult of autocross-like truck builds on there, a lot of sick minded individuals like myself.

Made some progress on the driver's side yesterday.  The foot well is tight but I don't want to take a step back and try and redo.  Power through it and figure out how to mount the pedals.  I think a change in shoes will help a lot too.  This is not going to be a steel toe boots sorta truck.  It's been a while since I sat in a small tight car so I think I'm just being a little hypersensitive.  I could never drive the Fiesta with boots on and I sat pretty goofy in that car.

Could you go through floor pedals like a 40s truck? They always seemed to maximize footroom.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Lateral space is more of the concern than depth of travel.   But I'm not too worried about it, this shouldn't be too bad to figure out.  I really just need to finish boxing this in so I have my design contraints for the pedals set.

Been doing some sciencing with the science machines to play with some pedal mounting ideas.  Pedals and steering column mounting is probably the last big engineering exercise I need to do for a while on this thing.

Got the last big piece of the bellhousing area cut and tacked in.  There's a couple little cracks and holes that need to be patched and the whole thing needs to be seam welded.  Trans tunnel is pretty small potatoes compared to rest of what I already have done.

Also, right angle die grinders and these little 2" flap wheels are freaking awesome for cleaning up edges and booger welds.

I have no clue how some of you guys complete these elaborate builds without using CAD and 3D printers.  This tech makes this stuff so easy sometimes.  A little bit of work up front and I have a plastic bracket for mockups and then I can use it as a template to transfer to steel.

Because I like this build so much, late night beer sketch!

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Dude!, You should start a thread of all your sketches. Or make a calendar. 

Also, Ron, Keep it coming. Almost makes me sad this isn't a Mighty Max. Mightier Max just has the right sound to it.

In reply to OjaiM5 :

I am speechless.  Dude, you're a legend. That is so bitchin!

I have a new background on my laptop now. 

Haha Rad, keep up the good work!

I have been trying to figure out fine tuning the shifter linkage with a bunch of McMaster hardware. A couple more parts showed up.

These are mufflers. They are small.

Had a good day in the garage the yesterday.  I had to out two new holes in the firewall to mount the master cylinders and it took a couple times to get them tacked in and aligned to the pedals how I wanted.  I'm using a mustang hydroboost, unsure of the exact year and model, for the brakes and an Afco 7/8" master cylinder for the clutch.

When I was making the linkage between the clutch master I realized I didn't have any small diameter steel stock that would be able to bridge the gap between the rod end on the pedal and the threads on the master. I did have a bunch of old, stock LS pushrods though. Chopped the end off of one of those and welded it to the rodend. We'll see how it holds up, it's steel and pretty thick walls. Brake pedal linkage is up next, then gas pedal and steering. After that is done I'm pulling then engine and trans out to final weld and paint the engine bay. Swap the 4.8 for the L33 on the stand and then wiring and plumbing.  It's starting to fall into place.

I don't know that it matters much, but that looks like the later hydroboost(99-04). May be helpful for sourcing lines, or fittings if you are going -AN 

In reply to gumby :

I bought it from a guy that parts out mustangs a couple years ago. I forgot what he said it came off of. I might need to google some casting numbers. I'm just winging it at this point honestly.

I knocked out the last few panels on the trans tunnel last night.  I need to do some welding and a little bit of trimming and hammering yet but most of it is done.  Now that this is pretty much figured out it's time to finalize the steering and gas pedal.

I've been working on a couple side projects while I'm in the printer farm/office working from home.  I have a junk 350z gearbox that was stuck in 5th gear torn apart.  I have been rethinking the alibaba shifter a lot recently.  I think I might have a solution for a toploader shifter that replaces the inspection plate.  This is exactly where I want the shifter anyways so I have been using this junk trans as a test bed for some printed parts. Trying to iron out the details with printed prototypes and then I might have Alibaba shifter Rev2 made.

And a little weld repair to the broken 5-6 shift fork. It will need to be filed down some to fit  but it was previously two separate pieces.  A couple of the synchros look a bit worn in this gear stack but not surprising for an early trans out of some craiglist dudes drift missle.  It might be a good learning excercise to rebuild this trans at some point but the cost of synchros is about half of a brand new CD009 from Nissan.  I have a couple more ideas that involve 3d printed hydraulic press dies but I want to test those out first so I can do a start to finish write up on those projects.

OjaiM5 said:

Because I like this build so much, late night beer sketch!

Quoting because this is awesome and gave me some inpiration for the exhaust. I decided to try and make my own exhaust tips since I really like the squished square look.  That's a parallelogram for you geometry buffs out there.  Anyways here's the idea, 2 tips coming out the same location but on the passenger side. The fuel system runs on the the driver's side so I'm trying to avoid running exhaust in close proximity to that.  Starting with some eBay 4" stainless that is .050" wall I drew up a parallelogram that would have the same perimeter as the original circle to minimize stress when reshaping the tube since it's stainless and this is being done with plastic dies.

The top die which was only used to try and hold the shape of the original circle. It also took most of the force from the press and only lasted one shot.

The plug die worked out really well right up until I realized that the die had an undercut in it. So as the tube is pressed farther down onto the die the metal would stretch and trap part of the die from being able to be pulled out easily. I resorted to carefuly cutting the tube off of the die and welding it back together.

Concept vs end product.  I think I could do this a little bit better if I did it it multiple hits. Multiiple hits could potentially be easier to remove and the forces would be lower so the dies would last longer.

I did a bit of spring cleaning yesterday there was a lot of oil dry, metal scraps, weld spatter and sound insulation from the truck all over the cab and underneath the truck.  It's like a brand new garage.

What is your plan for "heat control" of the transmission tunnel?  The header next to your leg is going to be an issue.  Been their.

In reply to jr02518 :

Lava wrapped headers, dynamat on the interior and a thin metal heat shield between the headers and the tunnel to create an air gap. The last of which is low on the priority list.

Moving along on the gas pedal and steering column.  More 3d printed templates, press tooling and sheet metal pics below.

Transferred to steel, I designed and printed a 1-1/4" PLA dimple die to make the flares. Trying to add some strength to this so I can get away with using 16 gauge steel.

I tried an idea for the steering column but forgot to account for the centerline offset that the giant heim bearing mount adds and the shaft ended up sitting lower than I wanted it to.  I have another 3d printed variation to try. I might end up having to trim the dash a little bit but I'm trying to avoid that.

All tacked in. Calling that a win for today.

Glad you are making progress! Looking awesome! 

In reply to RacetruckRon :

How long did you sit in that new cockpit and make racecar sounds?

artur1808 said:

In reply to RacetruckRon :

How long did you sit in that new cockpit and make racecar sounds?

It was a solid beer and a half, almost two beers.

Amazing build, really enjoying this.  You have a nice hammer.