Rebirth of Monster Mudder

Most of it is good, there are just a few placed here and there than need more applied. Where the outer skin is still on the foam, it's hard to get the por to stick, but the cut areas sticks fine. those are the areas I'm having to recoat multiple times.

Today I got the frame coated in metal prep and washed it off and then let it set all day. Started painting the frame this evening but I ran out of por15, guess I need to make a trip to tulsa to get another 2 quarts. While I had help tonight, had the boys help me get the trans on the stand and will tear it open something in the next few days to check out the direct clutches, I'm betting they are fried.

Got a call shortly after my wife lest yesterday evening for work. Said she'd been in an accident. Took out a deer with the side of her avalanche. Knocked the front fender back and smashed in both doors on the drivers side. Tried loosening up the fender bolts and moving the fender, but it wasn't budging. Ended up taking a pry bar and freeing up the drivers door so she doesn't have to crawl out the passenger side. Need to see if I can track down a fender and 2 doors in the same color as her truck.

glad your wife is ok, I had a deer hit my Subaru the exact same way and man was that scary,sucker came out of nowhere. foam looks good I'm sure itll keep the mud out,im just wondering how good the por15 will hold up on it

The por actually hardens the foam more and creates a seal where it's been cut. It melts it a little as it drys due to chemical reaction.

Yeah, she said she never even saw the deer till it was hitting her. When I get her av fixed, going to get a deer and a pig sticker with X's through them and put them on the drives side door. She's take out both with her av.

Got a new toy delivered today, it's a nitrogen pressure gauge. Still need to pick up a hose, regulator and a tank, then I will be ready to recharge my shocks once I change out hoses. I can use this gauge to test pressure and then bleed them off.

Made a run to tulsa this am and grabbed 2 more quarts of Por15 and then stopped at the parts store to get a new tensioner and belt for my dually. While in town, picked up some steel as well. Decided while I'm off over the xmas holiday, it was past time to build a covered firewood rack. Going to use the 2 7/8 8' posts for the uprights and bottom pieces and some 1/8" angle iron for the top part. Will skin it in some of the left over building tin I have.

Also picked up some 2x2x1/4 square tubing to make a hitch for the 4 wheeler to pull my welding trailer. Going to cut it in half and use the other piece to make a support and a chain clamp for the back of the welding trailer. May need just a bit more, but the focus was the hitch side.

Picked up a piece of 2x2x1/4 angle as well to make the mounting points for my shock hoop in the bed. Need to get with my brother and take the piece of DOM over there and bend it up for the hoop.

Finished the 1st coat of por on the frame from the shock towers back and waited a while and then applied a 2nd coat. Looks pretty decent, will let it dry and check it over to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Almost time to start getting cleaned up so I can go play bartender tonight and have a few beer myself at the legion.

Merry Christmas everyone...

Organized tools some and cleaned off part of the big bench before I put the cab on the truck today. Got it bolted on the mounts and new holes drilled for the rear cab direct to frame and the rear portion of the cage to the frame. Need to pickup 2 new bolts for the cage to frame mounting and then it will be fully on.

Washed the transmission off with water to get most of the dirt and mud off of it, after it's dried, will take a peek inside it.

Mocked up where I think I'm going to put the grill, the fender is held on by 2 clamps, the rear needs to drop down quite a bit upon looking at the pick.

Bolted the rear cage to the frame today and mocked up a little to see how things will fit. If I put the radiator back where I had it, all the plumbing should be the same, but then I don't have room to put my fuel pumps where I had them... May just move the radiator to the shock tower when I get it bent, that will allow me to put the fuel pump back where I had them or I can move them around a bit and see if I can come up with a way of making them fit on the truck. Got the drivers door off the cab so I can get the door pins replaced with stainless steel ones. I still need to finish getting the upper passenger side driven out. Beat on it till my arms were tired and got it to move just a tiny bit, don't want to have to drill it out but may end up having too. Been shooting it with pb blaster today and hope I can get it freed up.

Pulled my dually into the shop today and replaced the tensioner and changed the oil on it. Found a nice little suprise on the exhaust manifold. Has a huge crack in it and now where one would expect it to be. So, guess I need to get a new manifold for it at some point in time. Truck only has 367k miles or so on it. Not really positive how many since the lcd quit working this spring....

Our Christmas day started out with finding one of our furnaces not working. An ignitor went out on it. Tracked down one today and got that put in and the wife's warm again.

While out, picked up the bolts I needed and refilled some propane tanks so I can add a little heat in the shop when the temp dips down a little.

Tore into the trans today to see if the direct clutches were toasted again after one pass. They weren't, both direct and forward looked good. Put it back together and then mounted it on a pallet, so I can get it shipped out to Muldoon this week and have him go through it and test it out. Still not convinced it's right and would rather have it checked out while I'm not racing.

Think it should ship fine.

You are always at it! Good for you and thanks again for the pics. When is your first race?

Thanks, right now the first race I know of is around first part of may, but most don't get their schedules out till Jan/Feb time frame.

Not much of an update on the mud truck. Finally found a company out in Cali that can make my shock hoses with the ends that I need, they should be here this week. Ordered what I thought were 2 sets of door hinge pins and it ended up just being 2 hinge pins, so ordered another 2.

Waiting till next week to ship out the trans since muldoon took some time off during the holidays.

Need to pick up a bottle of nitrogen and a regulator so I can recharge my shocks once I get the hoses, called airgas and priced an 80 cf bottle of argon to play with my spool gun and a 40 cf bottle of nitrogen and they are ridiculous on their price. Found what I want from a company in Florida, waiting to hear what kind of deal they can make on the 2 bottles and then will get them filled here.

Still waiting on my brother to get the new shock hoop tubing bent, hopefully sometime this week he will have time to let me go over to his shop and bend it up.

Decided to build a covered firewood storeage rack for my firewood. It's 16' long, 4' high in back and 16" deep. Just finished welding it up today and painted it tonight. Tomorrow going to cover it in white metal I have left over from the shop.

Main structure is built out of 8' long pieces of 2 7/8" tubing I bought at an auction for post for my corral. Have plenty for it, so used some for this as well. Then bought some angle iron and strap for the upper portion and attaching the tin on since I won't be able to put self tapping screws into the 2 7/8". Cleaned out quite a bit of my scrap pieces of angle and strap while building this too before I bought new.

Nice work on the frame and nice frame for your wood rack. That will sure be nice to keep the wood dry and the snow off it.

Just out of curiosity, how big is your shop? Looks to be nicely sized.

The shop is 40x80 with about 5" of spray foam on the walls and roof. Wish it was bigger at times. Still plan on adding a 12 to 15' overhang on the front and an 18' overhang on the back and want to enclose a 60' span of the back and make a wood working area 18' x 20' or so and as paint bay and sanding/fiberglass area in the other area.

Kinda waiting to see what happens with the power line deal and how that affects us before I start into any more long term plans.

It's colder than a well diggers butt here. Got down to 1 degree this morning. Needless to say, my old tractor wouldn't start the last 2 days I tried, even broke out the generator and tried warming up the block, no go. Ended up dragging hay out of the pen with a larriot and chain to feed the cows yesterday.... needless to say, I've broken down and ordered all the parts needed to rebuild the old pickup bale spike I have to use the working single action pump and convert it to dual action.

Finished up the wood shed over the last 2 days, but need the tractor running to move it into place with the pallet forks.

Ordered the regulator and hose for the nitrogen tank, just need to go pickup a filled nitrogen tank this week and I will be ready for the shock hoses to get here and changed.

The shop dropped 10 degrees overnight last night. Was down to 50 degrees this morning.

That's pretty nice! I built a lean-to for our wood two years ago and it made a HUGE difference in how dry the seasoned wood is now.

Dug out the ground, put in drainage and class 5. Then levels and pallets. Steel roof structure about 10ft up on the lowest part. No sides, but it really doesn't need them.

Loaded up the transmission this evening so I can drop it off tomorrow to be shipped out to have it gone through.

My new shock lines came in today as well, need to try and get to airgas tomorrow and buy a small nitrogen tank. The regulator and hose will be in Friday I believe.

Finished taking apart the pickup bale spike today and taking the top parts through the por15 process and have the first coat of paint on them. Will put another coat on tomorrow night and hopefully Thurs night I can flip them and get the other sides cleaned, prepped and painted. Not sure when the parts I ordered will be in. The diodes I ordered for it will be in Friday. But the dual solenoid valve and other parts I'm unsure of so far. Would be nice if they got in Friday, but not going to hold my breath.

Got the transmission dropped off at the shipping terminal today, should be there on Monday.

Seth called me this morning and told me how $#%@#$%#$% my pump is. 1 plunger stuck, other 5 damaged so they all have to be replaced. Tappets are messed up so they have to be replaced. And found out that my DV holders magically went from modified ones to stock ones. Lucky I didn't hork up the cam. So with that, comes a much larger bill on the pump, but know it will be done right.

Seth thinks somehow there was dirt entered into the fuel system, but really not sure how that would have happened. I change my fuel filters out at the start of each season and run 2 micron filters. I ran all new lines from the tank to the pumps and pumps to the injection pump, including return lines. Never had an issue with dirt in the fuel lines in the last 7 years of racing it.

Pretty anal about opening the fuel cell till it's been cleaned off nice and good. Hell I even blow on it to make sure there isn't any fine dust around the lip. I fill up when I get to the race and don't open it again till the next race. I plug all the orifices if I'm taking things apart to keep them clean. Still shaking my head at the damage done to the pump.

Ran out to the shop this morning to check if the paint was dry on the bale spike parts so I could flip them over and start on the other sides. They were, so thought I would get the shock flat plates painted too while at it, grab the one I had had on the truck and while searching for the other one, reached in to spin the s480 and nothing. Damned thing is seized. Made 1 full pass and a partial one... FML. Sending it back to Austin so he can deal with it and get the correct housing put on it this time as well.

oiling issue? overspeed?

never had an oiling issue before, and if I remember correctly, it had oil dripping from the lines when I pulled it. As for overspeed, I really doubt it, was having hell even getting it to spool up. Slight possibility when the rack stuck, but don't know.