Chassis Build Up & Design

Another weekend, another seat.

Still had to modify the brackets to keep them at the stock height, but not nearly as much work as the driver side.  Basically made a double wide on the inside bracket because of the much wider distance between the rails on the RSX seats. Even with that they're still only sitting halfway on the S10 brackets.







Moved the spring mount for the passenger seat rearward 5" to line up with the RSX spring. It rubs a bit on the bracket, but I might just toss some felt tape on there or similar.  Everything works as the seat came from the factory, tilt forward included.



It is starting to look like a real vehicle again.

yay progress!!!

3 days in the shop this weekend!

Day started out loading up these beauties:



I was then distracted chasing down a rubbing sound the Long Bed has been making in the bottom of 1st and 2nd the last couple weeks. Inner front pads were almost to the backing plates, so swapped those out...

But I did get around to removing the seat tracks and finish welding the new brackets before the day was done. Wasn't too hard to get them off. Had to file off 4 small tabs for each track that are bent down to hold in and stop the bearing cages at the end of travel. After that it was a matter of massaging each of the cages out 1 by 1.

I'm getting much better with the TIG. Some of the welds turned out great. The rest turned out at least OK looking.









Tracks are now ready for powdercoat. After some research this last week I'm thinking I will tackle that myself for any of the brackets I have that will fit in the spare oven Al picked up for the workshop.

Wheels and tires will be test fit with the body before the weekend is out.

looking good! try working on the ramp in and ramp out of the pedal when starting and ending your beads. Looks like your middle-of-bead is looking pretty good but the transitions can use a little more practice
 nice tire choice!

Are they NT01's? I've been impressed with the NT05's on the firebird, those should stick!

I honestly didn't remember what tires they were haha had to go back in the thread and look it up. NT01 is correct.  100 treadware and "for competition use only" as Al kept pointing out and smiling about while he stopped by for some of his own projects at the workshop on Saturday. I'm not sure I'll be able to do a burnout without water once it's all together with these hahaha between the wheels/tires being on and seeing the T56 and oil pan underneath while I had the truck on the lift yesterday just makes it feel like a reality coming together.

I'll work on the ramp in/out more. I've been trying to ramp out already - it feels right - but obviously need to practice both still.

Sunday I started on the mill straightening and cleaning up the edges of the PCM bracket. I was shocked that I removed enough to put a 1/2" fillet in the corners from my less than straight lines. It really makes the part look more precision made. Thanks for the suggestion Al!



Got some color matched paint on all the brackets



and moved onto the pedal bracket while the paint was drying.  By the end of the night I think I was able to get about 3/4" out of it before running into the cowl on the driver side. Slotted the 4 cowl holes and had to add a slot up underneath too. I looked at slotting the bracket at the body, but with the welded in nuts that wasn't what I wanted to do. Ended up finding a ~6" long end mill that I was able to slot out the thick portion of the bracket that bolts to the body side brackets. Originally tried a typical sized end mill and attack it from both ends, but the top side didn't have enough clearance for the spindle. Sliding the steering column outboard definitely helped with steering shaft clearance.

Also had to get creative mounting this hunk on the Bridgeport table.





Called it a night after spending too much time with my mind on the mill.

Monday rolled around and got the brackets welded into the body. If I were to do it again, I'd use the TIG to get more of a spot weld appearance, but I didn't think it would reach from the welding room. The carpet should cover up the less pretty looking MIG welds.

Overall after getting the bare metal painted up I'm happy with how the brackets turned out. Wishing I would have pushed them further forward when I mocked them up originally, but this will do. The TAC module is getting relocated to the Transfer Case Module bracket under the passenger side kick panel.









Lastly started mocking up the wheels and tires. I'm not sure what was different before, but other than the bump stop mounts I've got plenty of space on the inside of the tires in the rear. The axle does seem to be offset toward the passenger side as it touched the bump stop mount on the driver side, but cleared with 5-10mm on the passenger side. I currently have the 3" drop springs on the truck and it is sitting about even with my ride height set to 7" up front. Definitely considering spindles to keep the front geometry and get it down another 2" all around, but I may wait until I have it on the road to make that decision. It would also improve UCA clearance to these wide monsters.





Not quite flush, but still should tuck.









These views bring quite the smile to my face







Next weekend I'm tackling the body harness and wanting to get the front end together to test fit the 315 up there as well as work on steering stops, bump stops, and end link mounts.

Looking sick! Those tires/wheels give me inappropriate feelings.

Looking sick! Those tires/wheels give me inappropriate feelings.

I'm sure the feelings are appropriate, those tires are insane.

Nice looking bracketry Harley. Keep at it.

im not too worried about you being able to spin those tires. the rx7 had 275 nt01s as well and could spin 2nd gear.

i see the dimple dies are getting good use!

I'm definitely in the dimple die everything phase, but hoping to soon be in the powdercoat everything phase.

Brackets look good but its tough to get lower.....Since I have about zero fab skills or fab tools I bought a set of brackets for my seats & with the sliders my head was almost hitting the roof & I am not a tall guy (5.9) so I took my sliders out & mounted my seats to the brackets to loose about a inch but it is def more comfortable.

I talked to the guy about loosing some height on the brackets but I dont see how as they are almost on the floor as is.

I am gonna have my seats out this weekend & I can take a few pics of the brackets if you want.

Certainly grab those pictures. Always helps to see what other ideas are out there even if I'm not expecting to change it up again for awhile.

It's somewhat impressive how short the stock seats are. I always talk about how much headroom I have in the 2nd generation trucks, but as soon as I swap seats that goes away.

I think a lot of the 'shortness' of the factory seats comes from them being soft. The unloaded height from the floor to the top of the foam on my blazer seats and my race seats was the same but the latter are so much firmer that I sit a few inches higher. Still plenty of room with my race seats for my helmet to clear the roof with the seat pretty close to the wheel (I'm 6')

Funny you brought up firmness as I was thinking about it today...My race seats are very firm & I am gonna look at getting some softer foam.

I moved the needle this weekend. If I can get the plasma cutting kicked off this week and send large parts out for powder coating next week, final assembly will be on the horizon.

Body harness is tidied up after fighting with that for the last month or more.

Started with something like this



and progressed through this



and finally got here





After replacing the ball joints on my long bed I got the Blazer in the lift, put the front end sheet metal on the truck, and started playing around with the front suspension as I discussed in this thread. Didn't actually complete any modifications, but I know my direction better now. Bonus it is starting to look like a complete truck again and I seem to have plenty of steering angle.

Did someone say steamroller? 





My main goal for the weekend was to get the rollpan mocked up and measure a few things, so I can wrap up the brackets I designed and send everything off for plasma cutting at once.

But the frame was in the way.





I had made some templates based off some CAD work I already drew up and went to town with the drill and grinders.

Safety first!



The end result was spot on





Trimmed about 3/4 of an inch of each side of the pan I've had sitting on the shelf for almost 10 years and it went right in.



The profile isn't exactly right. My step brother has an English Wheel, so I'm hoping he can help me shape that to the end caps more. Worst case I grab a pipe and try at it myself or cut it short, but I'd rather have it cover a bit more of the underpinnings.



Lastly, goodbye bumpstop brackets and hello wide tires.





 Replaced with factory ZQ8 front bump stops underneath the frame.

Pics didn't show up for me 

Everything working from what I can tell on my end, loads up at work, on my phone, and in incognito mode. Do any of the pictures load in the thread? I use the same flickr account for everything.

pics work no problem for me.
liking the progress!!

FYI i wasn't impressed with the zq8 bumpstops.
I ruined both of mine in about a year
but then again i may be rougher on them than you will be.



I don't remember if the area of the frame where that bumpstop is is full boxed or not, but I would add a doubler plate underneath to help spread the load.
That's a pretty concentrated load there (lots of pressure!) where the original bracket thingy spread it a lot more.
don't want to ford raptor the frame!

this may not be the best example, but if you cut the roll pan a bit you will
1. be able to shape the ends easier without an english wheel
2. look more sporty (for the styling trends now)

The bumpstops are right at the location the boxing ends. I've gone back and forth on adding support there.

Option 3 is ditch the roll pan and build a diffuser to fill the entire space.

Seems all I do on this truck is grind lately.  Bye bye end link tab.



Front control arms are 80% done. Need to drill holes for the bumpstop bracket and finish welding it off the truck. The end link and steering stop brackets turned out great and I'm fairly impressed with how much steering angle I'm seeing with the wide tires.