LBZ: Pro Stock Diesel Pickup Build

[Michael]

Episode 26:

I was nearing the time to order more 1" tubing to form the structure of the firewall, so I got back on the CAD system to figure out how the plates of the firewall would be positioned, so I could order that material at the same time and save on shipping.

With the amount of engine setback (necessary for good weight distribution with the heavy diesel engine), I would have the plane of the flexplate/flywheel at my shins, and my feet would be next to the rear portion of the oil pan (where connecting rods occasionally peek out like a metal groundhog on steroids). To keep from gaining the nickname 'Stumpy" I want the vertical portions of the "footbox" section to be 0.125" 4130 plate. The horizontal and angled portions will be 0.080" thick 4130, still much more protection than the required 0.024" mild steel.

The top area of that center section will be protecting me from shrapnel in the event of a high pressure turbo failure, so that part is important too!

While I have been happy with the freeware 3D CAD program (FreeCAD 13), it does have a few shortcomings and bugs in it. It is very easy to create rectangular and cylindrical shaped solids, but to get the triangular shape to fill in the opening in the above picture, I needed to cut two sections from a rectangle. Once I tried to rotate the part in space it would screw up the cuts. I finally figured out that it could rotate the part if it was part of an assembly or "union" but not by itself, so I created a little speck of dust (0.01 mm cube) that I "assembled" as a union with my desired triangle, then it allowed me to rotate it into position. I had to repeat the "union" process to rotate it about another axis, but it all worked out.

Now that I had all of the plate sections worked out, I needed to figure out how to best fit those shapes into a single plate of material, so I could minimize the material and shipping costs. I switched over to the 2D CAD program and played around with the shapes like a giant puzzle, moving them around until I had the least amount of wasted material.

I plan to use my plasma cutter for the necessary "jagged" cuts, but then use a big metal shear to make the straight cuts.

While I was doing all this CAD work I decided to go back to the seat mount design I was working on before. I had previously designed mounts for the master cylinders and brake pedals, and had placed the master cylinders as far back as possible, figuring I would want more of an open floor in front of the seat.

Unfortunately this placed the seat mounts directly over the master cylinder rear caps, and compromised the geometry of the mounts. It was a lot easier to move these in CAD than it would have been after welding! I just moved the whole assembly forward 50mm and gained the clearance I needed.

Continuing on the double rails, once I got to the intermediate vertical tubes I used a ratchet strap and clamp to squeeze the top tube down, hopefully holding everything in alignment.

I tried experimenting with that approach versus a "freehand" approach using the digital angle finder like I did the end ones, it was almost a toss up between the time spent setting up the clamps and tube versus taking a little more care with the angle finder and quickly moving from one side to the other on my tack welds (so the weld draw on each side could pull against each other).

I ran all of the truly vertical double frame rail supports (5 of them) on one side, then did the mirror image on the other side.

The "vertical" supports that coincide with the engine mount front plate and the mid plate will both be slanted back 2.9° from vertical, to match the slope of the engine/trans (so I have full engagement with these tubes when I weld brackets on at that 2.9° angle). Since the digital protractor was referencing horizontal instead of vertical, the 2.9° angle shows up as 87.1°. And you thought you would never use geometry again after school...

All of those vertical braces were much easier to insert into place with the top rails not welded in yet (as they would require separation of the bottom and top rails to "pop" into place). In this photo you can see the 2.9° tubes, where the front plate of the engine mount will eventually go.

On all of these tubes I was tacking in four opposite spots, to keep the tubes securely positioned. Due to weld draw, I will wait until the whole assembly is tacked together before finish welding it.

Before I got too far I decided to verify that I had the planned clearance between the seat and the double frame rails. While it is nice to lay this stuff out in CAD, I always feel better when I can see the clearance in the real world!

The front edge of the top double frame rails shows the weird compound angle I will have to notch next. Not looking forward to that one!

Of course when things seem to be going well, something weird has to go wrong! This was a weird freak occurrence but something you have to be careful about when working around hot items and a roll cage! I had just finished a weld in an awkward position, went to climb out of the cage and smacked my head & welding hood on the top of the cage, which swung the hood down over my face just as the still-red-hot filler rod caught one of the double frame rail tubes, flipping its hot end right into my chin and under the hood (making it VERY hard to get out). I could hear the flesh searing as I tried to grab the damn thing, and it scooted along a nice straight line as I tried to extricate it!

Next up is the last pair of frame rail uprights, then the aforementioned nightmare notching of the top tubes, tacking them in place, then the 45° diagonals for the double rails. After that it will be on to the tubing forming the firewall, before I move the whole chassis forward on the jig to continue on the rear tubes.

 

[SmokeShow]

Nice update.


Are you by chance keeping track of your time in this build? Just amazing!

 

[Michael]

Nice update.


Are you by chance keeping track of your time in this build? Just amazing!

Thanks! I did at first, but now I don't want to know! I just plug away, a little bit each day.

 

[Michael]

Episode 27:

Remember that 4130 chrome moly sheet and plate I was ordering for the firewall last episode? Apparently someone at AircraftSpruce.com's shipping department has a sense of humor. Pretty sure even the worst UPS package manglers would have had a hard time hurting 4130 plate.

After all the vertical supports were in place I double checked their alignment. They looked like a couple of rows of little telephone poles sticking out there!

Next up was a task I had been dreading, the notching of the double frame rail tubes where they ran into a weird curve and compound angle. I started with a few rough cuts to get me close:

A little more work with an angle grinder and die grinder yielded a nice no-gap interface.

I used a piece of card stock to trace the shape from the first side, then reversed it into a mirror image and marked up the other side's tube for cutting.

Rough cutting to that traced shape got me to a near perfect fit first try!

Next up was to carefully measure then cut and notch the other end of these top tubes, where they intersect with large vertical supports that form a "box" to help transmit the extreme forces of the 4-link brackets into the rest of the chassis.

Once the notching and fitting was done in the rear, it was time to cinch the top tubes down and begin tack welding it at all of its interfaces (10 of them at this point).

Once the tack welds were in place and I had verified that everything was still in alignment, I began finish welding the end connections, going an inch or so at a time (trying to avoid weld draw from too much heating). I also finish welded the areas that would be blocked off by the diagonals which were going in next. I need to avoid painting (or welding) myself into a corner!

I cut and notched the first pair of diagonals. I would have normally used the magnetic corner clamps to hold these tubes in place, but this spot was too small for them! A couple of spring clamps did the job (but being plastic I had to be careful not to melt them)!

As with the other tubes, I initially tacked the diagonals into place.

Once they were both tacked in I started finish welding both the diagonals and all the other joints in the double frame rails.

Some of these joints were a little tricky to get to, requiring me to either lie on the floor or on the bars that form the bottom of the chassis.

I struggled with trying to press the foot pedal of the welder up against the jig or chassis, but finally dug out a long strip of velcro to help me keep the pedal tied to my knee while I used the other knee to press the pedal.

This worked pretty well, but there were a few spots where I was too contorted to even work the pedal that way! At that point I switched over and used the thumb switch on my torch head. While this was easier to do in weird positions, it meant getting my amperage set perfectly on the welder (since I couldn't modulate the amperage like I did with the foot pedal).

Joint by joint, I worked my way welding an inch at a time (usually splitting between two close together welds) until I had done all 40 of the joints.

About halfway through I finally finished burning through my first large argon bottle (after upgrading from the smaller bottles that I had been emptying too often).

Next up: the remaining double frame rail diagonals. I am beginning to see why so few race cars (and trucks) are built with true double frame rails. While they add minimal weight to the chassis while significantly increasing stiffness, they are a LOT of work!

 

[JoshH]

You have exceeded your bandwidth

 

[SmokeShow]

They were there when he first posted it. Can the powers that be grant him special limits for this thread?

 

[DAVe3283]

You have exceeded your bandwidth

They were there when he first posted it. Can the powers that be grant him special limits for this thread?

He is hosting them on another website, and that is what is limiting his bandwidth. He could probably upload them all to this site, but I don't know what the storage limit is here.

 

[56taskforce]

Just my luck late to the game and now haven't gotten to see a single picture of what maybe one of the coolest builds I have ever followed.
This sounds amazing I hope to see it at the PNW Nationals:thumb:

 

[Michael]

Sorry about the bandwidth issues, I may have to step back up to Photobucket Pro (although I wanted to find another option since their upload function is very glitchy and crashes too often).

Episode 28:

I had a little bit of a side project to complete, as racing season was here and my Vega was no longer making the noise limits at our local track (they got a new sensor system which is apparently more sensitive). I had been running two Dynomax Bullet mufflers per side, but switched to a single large Magnaflow stainless muffler per side, with mounts and 90° ends turned to face each other under the car.

With some crude testing in my garage using a newly acquired noise meter, it appeared to drop my noise by around 3 - 5 dB, hopefully that is enough!

Next it was time to start the first of many diagonals in the double frame rails:

After the first couple of diagonals I started "mass producing" them:

Welding the diagonals in was a bit of a challenge, as I had to have my head way too close to the weld. I tried some reader glasses to help me focus on such close-up items, but they were more hassle than it was worth.

After way too many hours with my body folded up to where it would fit between tubes, I finally had all of the diagonals fully welded.

Next up was the start of the firewall support tubing. The "base" for all of this is a big diagonal on the passenger's side firewall, to help counter the torque of the drivetrain as it is transmitted through the mid-plate. This tube intersects a point with several tubes converging, so the notching was a bit difficult:

This picture doesn't quite do justice to all of the weird contours I had to cut in that tube to eliminate gaps:

The top side was a more conventional (and much easier) notch, aside from being a pretty steep angle.

And finally I could weld the other end in with its weird contours:

Next up was the first of many triangulating tubes coming off this main diagonal:

Unfortunately as I had tacked this one in I realized that I forgot to drill pressure relief holes! Fortunately another tube would connect across from it, so I was able to drill the pressure relief hole from that point and through both walls of the large diagonal.

At one point in this notching I realized that my notcher was allowing the notched tube to rotate, despite having the clamp screw so tight that it was deflecting. My solution was to carve a few longitudinal ridges in the clamp, which helped a bunch.

In the immortal words of Britney Spears, "Oops, I did it again", I managed to forget another set of pressure bleed holes, but fortunately was able to drill across.

After many more tubing cuts, notches, tack welds, and finish welds I had the passenger's firewall structure complete:

Now it was time to do the driver's side firewall structure, which has a much different shape due to the opening for the recessed "foot box". This required the first tube to just cantilever out from the upper frame rail at a 90° angle. This was tougher than it looked, getting it positioned just right then holding it while tack welding it (and fighting against the weld draw as the weld cools).

Now it's starting to get more exciting for me, as I build the area that will surround me as a driver. Needless to say, I'm taking my time and not cutting any corners when it comes to protecting me!

 

[SmokeShow]

With the total linear feet of welding really beginning to add up with this build, do you feel your welding and overall fab. skills have improved over the course of this project?

It really is remarkable to see this come to life in such detail that commoners like me just never could have even imagined. As always, thanks for sharing so much detail. It has been the most fascinating thing to observe. :thumb:

 

[Robby Avery]

Subd

 

[Michael]

With the total linear feet of welding really beginning to add up with this build, do you feel your welding and overall fab. skills have improved over the course of this project?

It really is remarkable to see this come to life in such detail that commoners like me just never could have even imagined. As always, thanks for sharing so much detail. It has been the most fascinating thing to observe. :thumb:

I think my TIG welding skills have definitely improved, it is obvious looking closely at the chassis which were the earliest welds! I thought I had it down reasonably well from building the jig and practicing on scraps, but I wasn't prepared for the thin walled tubing AND trying to weld around weird shapes and awkward positions. I definitely got better at that part as time went on!

 

[Michael]

Episode 29:

Sorry for the long time between updates, I'll go into that a little more towards the end, but suffice it to say that life got in the way again!

Back to the firewall structure, I realized that the tube I was working on at the end of the last update would have an exposed end, and it would be much stronger at the joint if I capped the end so the tube would not deform so easily.

First I needed a circle cut out of 0.100" thick 4130, I used some 1" strap material, drew a circle on it, and sheared then ground it down:

It was easier to clamp it and weld it to the "stub" bar before welding that bar to the chassis. After tacking the end cap on while in the clamp, I welded it fully on, then carefully positioned, tacked, and welded the tube to the chassis.

Next up was a vertical tube, notched, positioned, tacked then welded in:

The next 3 tubes were tricky as they needed to run together at the same spot for the optimum strength. I notched them and mocked them up before welding any of them.

I ended up deciding to leave a small gap between the two that come together on the same side, so I could fully weld without too much trouble. Unfortunately once I tacked the far side the weld draw pulled the end down, requiring a little help to hold it in place for welding!

This photo gives you an idea of how tight it was in the junction with the pillar bars, there are a lot of tubes coming together there! Now I just need to figure out how to work in a cupholder

Speaking of cupholders, I started worrying about driver and steering wheel placement a little more as I finished up these areas, so I spent a bunch of time mocking pedals, seat, and steering wheel into place while seeing where everything felt the most comfortable to me. I may have even made a few "Vroom, Vroom" noises while doing so. Interestingly I found that I was most comfortable with the steering wheel centered 1" to the left of being on the same centerline of the seat. Later I checked my Vega out, and of course it is 1" to the left and seems to have trained my brain into thinking that is the most comfortable!

I took the final measurements and went back to the CAD model, to figure out the best routing of the steering column through the tubes, trying to leave room for the front tires as well as the exhaust manifolds.

Here is my first positioning, which avoided a tight space in the double frame rails but started to eat into the space for the front tires.

After a few iterations I found a position for the U-joint which would have shallower angles for the joints and more tire room, but it really "threads the needle" as it passes through a gap in the double frame rail tubes.

At this point I ended up with several competing priorities that have cut into the race truck time. Probably the most high-profile one was my appearance on the Motorhead Garage TV show, that chewed up some time making all the arrangements then flying out to do the show. That said, it was an awesome experience and it was great to work with Sam Memmolo and Dave Bowman, I've been watching those guys on TV for literally decades!

I had previously added a new exhaust system and associated mounts on my Vega. One of the first times out with it I discovered that the front crossmember had broken off the chassis, requiring a bunch of grinding out of old welds, rewelding and gusseting.

After adding all the weight of the new exhaust to my Vega, I figured it was that much closer to the 2800 lb minimum weight for the Super-Street 10.90 index class. While my car is one of the slowest in the 9.90 index class (running around 144-145 mph on the throttle stop), I could probably run 10.90 @ 142 and have the tactical advantage of being the faster car through the top end. After spending way too much time building weight bars and scrounging up lead to melt into them, I ended up missing the race with a sick kid!

Speaking of that kid, you might remember that she crashed her Jr Dragster two years ago, and we had been using a borrowed chassis. I returned that chassis at the end of last season, so the next project was rebuilding her wrecked car.

I straightened the chassis main tubes, then built a new left front spindle assembly along with an insert for mating it to the old tube, set the alignment angles and welded it back up.

The cage was damaged in the wreck, and she was getting too tall for it anyway. I left parts of the original cage in place to hold the parts of the new cage, but this shows how much taller the new cage is.

After way too many hours I had rebuilt the front end, cage, and even rebuilt the rear section of the frame so that the engine assembly mounted at the correct height and 15° angle rather than using adapter plates and spacers, and added a beefy tensioner for holding chain tension. I even added a hook for holding the helmet on the return road, and a slide-in mount for the safety flag.

When I finally did some racing myself this year I was fortunate enough to win a few races, including the Siskyou Diesel Fest, and the highest payout portion of the Woodburn Night of Fire event.

With racing at a slight profit for the year I decided to enter my first NHRA national event since 1993, running in the 9.90 Super-Gas class. I was mostly going so I could see the event as a spectator (and better yet, one with a restricted area pass and on-site camping). My daughter had voted for this choice since she had a longtime online friend that lived 2 hours North of the track, figuring we could work out a way so they could visit while we were up there.

I surprised myself and got the car sorted out to a 9.906 within our two qualifying passes, but first round I managed to forget something I had long ago learned about racing Super-Gas: Most of the cars in Super-Gas are very low with long overhanging body panels, which trip the finish line beams instead of the tire. My car is very low BUT the body panels in front of the tire curve upward, so the tire is always what trips the beams. I haven't raced Super-Gas all season, and none of the cars I run against in bracket races are built like that, so I was used to cutting the finish line close compared to the other car's front tires. I managed to take what works out to about a 0.004 sec (9.2") margin in front of the other guy's front tires, but since his body panels tripped it he crossed by 0.002 in front of me, and adding up the incremental timing results and datalogger info it appears I would have run another near-perfect 9.906 if I would have just stayed on the throttle!

After all that, at least I was "visible" in many of the TV shots, showing up in the background as I hung out in the restricted area (see me just over the right shoulder of the guy with the white beard):

Unfortunately the race also added even more delays to the race truck construction, courtesy of a spectator in an F250 apparently trying to "Roll Coal" as he passed by my pit spot. He ended up showering me with gravel, and some metal fragments that were in the gravel ended up embedded in my cornea, requiring surgery to remove them and the associated rust. This has cost me another two weeks of productivity, and nearly cost me my rare 20/10 vision (at least in that eye). Ironically I am a real stickler for eye protection for myself and anyone around me, as I'm known as the "Safety Glasses Nazi" at work. Only 30 seconds before that truck passed I had been wearing safety glasses since I was working on the race car, but I had just put them away to go pick up my daughter. While much has been written about the negative effects of diesel owners "Rolling Coal", here is yet another reason to disapprove of the practice. With my eye healing up I should be back out in the shop in the next few days, resuming work on the race truck.

 

[Burn Down]

Sorry about your eye. What happened to the Jerk off in the Ford?

 

[matt78]

No kidding, what an idiot

 

[bubbaburger911]

best of luck with your eye. the build is amazing though, there is so much more to it than I could have imagined. sub'd

 

[SmokeShow]

Another great update! I'd have thrown the nearest thing I could grab at that and hoped he stopped for more.

 

[JoshH]

One of my all-time favorite threads. I always get excited when I see updates. I'm sorry to hear about all your delays, but I'm glad to see you still plugging away at it. I know the final result will be well worth all the hurdles you've had to deal with. I'm looking forward to seeing it out on the track making rounds.

 

[Awenta]

What an asshat.

Looking great!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

[Michael]

Sorry about your eye. What happened to the Jerk off in the Ford?

Not sure, I was too busy trying to clean my eyes out! He's probably still out there rolling coal and posting on internet forums from his mom's basement... Not that I have anything against Fords (I am a longtime Powerstroke owner, which I tow with and bracket race). However, I swear the dark colored, lifted F250 with a huge exhaust tip and smoke tune seems to be the official vehicle of douchebaggery. The week before someone in a nearly identical truck went around me and a semi at a road construction lane closure (going across the cones into the construction area), almost hit three construction workers. Unfortunately it was too dark for me to see his plates (compounded by his smoke tune), but I hope someone got his plate number! Right after my incident with the gravel spray into my eyes, while I was waiting in line to get out of the track, a guy in a similar F250 (but gray instead of dark brown) pulled a similar "around the cones" move and almost hit a track worker.

Thanks for the kind words, I wish I had more progress to post up, but I'll be getting back into it next week!