Rebirth of Monster Mudder

[NakeDiesel]

They had a longer nose, but I love the look of the old 46 power wagon more and I picked up the body for my ff pw for 500.00 a couple of years ago. I like the old flat fenders on the truck and the narrow nose. If I was making a streetable truck, it would be a different story, but this truck will never see the street in it's present form. The biggest reason I'm reboding the truck is to reduce the weight of the truck.

 

[jlbayes]

the years i mentioned are still that body style. my dad had two a 50 and a 66. still has the 50. the longer nose was mentioned to get ya some more room up front.

 

[NakeDiesel]

I was thinking of the next body style they came out with. Thought they stopped the flat fender in the 60's I know they added a longer motor at one point and had to make a longer nose to fit it. If I'd needed the radiator and intercooler up front, I would have gone about it differently, but the intercooler will be under the dash and the radiator will be in the bed of the truck. I don't do any work on the truck at the races, so if I do need to work on it, I'll just tear the front end down and do what I need to and then reassemble it. I generally don't make changes during the race season anyway. Just wash the truck and go to the next race.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Worked quite a bit today out in the shop and accomplished a little bit. We put more plastic up on the paint bay and spread it out as far as I could get it. It's 11 feet wide now. Hopefully I'll have enough room in there to paint the my son's truck. Still need to pick up some pvc pipe and a few fittings to put the front doors on the paint bay and work on the ventilation system for it.

My son working on stripping the 93 d150 so we can get the cab off of it and roll the frame out of the shop.

I finished making the two support brackets out of the 3/8" strips of plate steel and drilled all the 1/2" holes I needed in them. I do need to pick up some shorter bolts, I'd bought those bolts when I thought I was going to be using the 2x3 rectangular tubing to make the brackets.

I cut off the front of the frame and the boxed frame is packed with mud which I figured it would be. I need to figure out how to clean it out and keep the mud out. There are a whole bunch of holes in it.

I need to figure out what I'm going to use to make the new cross brace along with the tow clevis in the center. I'm half tempted to just cut the 2x2 square tubing I was using and weld it between the frame rails.

 

[jlbayes]

I was thinking of the next body style they came out with. Thought they stopped the flat fender in the 60's I know they added a longer motor at one point and had to make a longer nose to fit it. If I'd needed the radiator and intercooler up front, I would have gone about it differently, but the intercooler will be under the dash and the radiator will be in the bed of the truck. I don't do any work on the truck at the races, so if I do need to work on it, I'll just tear the front end down and do what I need to and then reassemble it. I generally don't make changes during the race season anyway. Just wash the truck and go to the next race.

right i understand. i love the old power wagon bodies and can't wait to see this one finished.

 

[NakeDiesel]

I like the old power wagons too. I also have a 46 dodge pickup that I bought for my son, we are going to put it on a s10 blazer frame with a 4.3 liter in it and 4x4 one of these days.

Went out to feed tonight and found a new herd member

On the truck, was able to get a little accomplished, removed a few broken off bolts out of the drivers side front fender and then mounted the fenders on the front, the backs are just clamped up right now. I've got to trim the angle iron pieces to fit next to the frame and then will have to weld on something to mount the angle to the side of the frame. I think the truck is going to look pretty good

 

[NakeDiesel]

Spent the day dealing with twisted off bolts in the fenders, drilled them out, easy out the remains and retapped the threads. I finished up and hooked up the upper grill supports. I shortened up the rear fender supports, now I just need to weld them to the frame. They are going to sit right above the rear mounts for the trailing arms.

I removed the passenger side window regulator and all the broken glass. I started on the drivers side but it's full of a broken window and taking my time so I don't end up with missing fingers or some such.

Think I worked out atleast the brake part of the pedals. I've still got to figure out the gas pedal and how it's going to work. I'm having to work around the 3" pipe that will be coming into the cab in the same area that will go out from my water to air intercooler into tube intake.

I cut off some of the unneeded stuff from the 96's pedal assembly to make it easier to mount. I've still got to pickup the hydro boost setup sometime.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Wasn't able to accomplish much out in the shop, ended up working half a day for work even though I'm on vacation. I hate dumb arses that schedule releases during the holidays.

Anyway, we picked up some pvc pipe and fitting and starting laying out the doors for the paint bay. I also picked up two new boxed fans, and filters for the fans and some smaller filters for the air to exit out on the other side of the booth.

On the truck, we did some measurements for the bed, trying to figure out what to do with it. Here is what we came up with. I need to shorten the bed up to fit the frame both length and height wise since my frame is shorter and the mounting point for the frame is higher than the cab of the truck. This well get rid of the worst areas of the bed sides that I have rotted away or were screwed up from years of abuse.

After I cut it down, I'm going to pick up some thin wall rectangular tubing to recreate the ends of the bed and then close off the steak pockets to keep mud from coming in. I'm also going to pick up some thin wall tubing to continue on the rolled bed where the spare tire carrier would have been if I was building a street truck. I'll use some steel or aluminum sheet to tie the bed rails together and act as a header and tail.

Happy new years to everyone that's been following my builds

 

[NakeDiesel]

Today I spent some time out in the shop and figured out the bed height and length I needed for the truck. The bed is a long bed, and I needed it a short bed. So I found center on my frame and center on the bed and started measuring.

The front half of the bed is 44" from center to front and 39" from center to the back of the bed. Since the 96's frame is higher and I didn't want the top of the bed higher than the line on the cab, I set the height of the bed to be 21" tall. I worked on the passenger side of the bed today and got it cut down and remove a poorly welded piece of metal someone put on both bed sides. I spent forever grinding on the welds to get it off, now I just need to finish getting the welds ground down and beat the few dents out of the fender that are in it from trying to get that plate off.
Markings on the bed where to cut.

The bed cut down. I cut the bed right at the steak pockets front and back so that I have about an inch and a half on each end so that I can bend them in and use them to attach the front and back panels/braces to them.

Here's my son holding up the bed side to see how it's going to look

 

[NakeDiesel]

We had high winds yesterday afternoon and into evening, and it knocked out power out for about 7 hours. When it went out my son and I heard a loud noise, but we couldn't figure out what it. This morning I went out to my wife's and I's trucks and happened to look over at our meter pole, and saw that the meter had been blown up. Must have been one hell of a surge to blow the meter out like that.

This evening I had to work on my 05 CC 3500 as it wouldn't shift out of 1st gear. I had checked the codes and it said it was the transmission speed sensor, so I picked one of those up today and went to swap them out when I got home from work and found that the wiring side was dislocated from the actual sensor. No wonder it wasn't working.

So after fixing my dually, getting my neighbors calf back through the fence to it's momma, feeding the cows and test driving the dually, grabbing a bit to eat, I didn't spend a lot of time working on the mud truck, but I did manage to finish getting the welds ground down and the dents beat out of the bed side. I also took measurements of the bed area so I can hopefully get in town tomorrow and pick up the angle iron I will need to build the bed frame

Tomorrow I plan on cutting down the other bed side and the bed header and cutting the strip of metal off of the other side and making the bends, guess I'll see just how far I can get with the time I have.

 

[WickedSmoke]

Nice build. It should be pretty sick when your done.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Thanks, I hope it all works out in the end and I get it finished before mid April when race season starts.

Work got in my way today of getting much done on the truck, but I did pick up the angle iron to build the bed base and we have the cab of my son's truck loose and tilted up onto some blankets so he can get the underside cleaned and coated with undercoating.

On the truck, I was able to take the front stake pocket, get it apart from the backside that I don't need and get it welded back onto the fender in it's new location. I do still need to weld up a couple of rust holes in it and to make a cap for the bottom to finish sealing it up.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Spent the afternoon out in the shop working on the passenger side bed side. I made a run to town and picked of a piece of 1 1/4" diameter thin wall pipe so I could continue that rolled edge on the passenger side where the spare tire would have been if I'd been building a street truck. I fixed all of the rust holes on the front box and have it fully welded in place with the welds cleaned up.

Next I took that the really beat up and twisted back box and cut all the welded backing off it and the frame bracket that was welded on the inside. Then I spent about an hour with hammers, dolly, blocks of wood and finally got it beat back pretty close to square. I hadn't realized how out of shape it was before I'd started working on it. It's not perfect now, but it will serve it's purpose to support the bed sides. I got the back piece welded on the rear of the bed and called it quits for the night. I've got to clean the welds up on it tomorrow and have a few more holes on that fender to fill in and I need to cut the bottom of the two boxes I welded back on flush with the bottom of the bed sides and then box them in with some 26 gauge steel sheet.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Been playing in Gimp with a picture of the rear frame of the truck and how I'm going to build the bed supports and lay out the things that go into the bed like the radiator, fuel cell, fuel pump, stack (if I can get the piping figured out), batteries and the new shock tower so I can run bigger shocks.

 

[NakeDiesel]

I finally finished working on the passenger bed side today. I cleaned up the welds on the back of the fender, then bent both ends in toward the inside of the bed so that I have metal to bolt to front and back.

I started on the drivers side fender today as well, I cut the ends off of it and the bottom of the fenders to make them the same size as the other side. I also spent a lot of time getting that welded strap on the side and once I got it off, I called it quits for the night. I need to clean up the end boxes and remove the backs of them by cutting the welds and trim them up to fit the new shorter bed side.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Boy it was colder than a witches tit here today. Went out to the shop this morning since I worked from home today and turned the two oil radiators I have to heat the shop with on, read -6 outside and 37 inside the shop. Ran those two radiators all day and when I shut them off and came in the house a little while ago, it was 0 outside and 42 inside the shop.

My day job got in the way today of getting much work on the truck done, but I did get one bed box torn apart and attached to the cut down bed side. I will work on the other one tomorrow and clean up the welds.

This is what the box looked like before I started on it.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Slow going on this drivers bed side. Finally got the back bed box cut apart with my 5lb shorty sledge hammer and my spot weld cutter bar. I'm going to be buff by the time I get all the dents out of this truck. Also got the welds ground down on the front of the bed after I welded that box on and ground the welds off where that metal strap was boogered on. Tomorrow night I plan on welding the last box on and fixing any holes left to weld up on it and cut the ends of the boxes off.

 

[inline6359]

Instafoam for your frame?

 

[NakeDiesel]

I'm thinking about it very seriously, but first I've got to get the mud out of the frame and not sure how I'm going to accomplish that. After I get the mud out, I'm going to shoot some paint into all of the frame opening and get it coated as well as I can on the inside and then fill it up with expanding foam. I then plan on coating the frame in POR15 and hoping the POR will harden over the exposed foam areas.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Managed to get a few hours out in the shop this evening and was able to finish welding up the drivers side of the bed and had time to get all the welds ground down. Now that I finished the fender, I was finally getting into the groove of welding again and making nice welds. Been too many years since I've played with my mig, it's nice having a shop where I can use it again.

Each bed side has been shortened a total of 13" to fit my cut down frame. I'm off tomorrow, so I plan on breaking out the chop saw and starting to lay out the bed frame and getting it welded up tomorrow.

Been trying to finalize the parts list I need for the truck to get it back together and one of the things I've been wanting to do is to change my gears. I'd been tossing around either going to 5.86 or 5.38's in the rear and finally decided on 5.38's, well you can't get 5.38's for a dana 70 apparently. Dad and I've been talking about my gearing and the 3.55's are just too low with my in low range, but too high in high range, looking at my calculations, we don't think changing to 5.86's are going to make that much of a difference on my truck since it's going to be quite a bit lighter than it was. So now I'm looking at moving to 5.13's for the dana 70 and 4.88's for the dana 60. That will put both axles moving at the same speed with my different sized tires (37's in the back and 35's in the front). Then I can use 3rd gear or not depending on the pit and how the trucks are going through it.

here's a snapshot of my spreadsheet where I've been playing with my gear options.