When you weld up all the plating and truss do you leave the 3rd bolted up in place to keep the sealing surface and beam from distorting?
Hoopdee 94.0 Bronco
- Thread starter Brett_408
- Start date
Giant Geoff
Well-known member
Put a chain with bottle jack just to the right of the 3rd opening and preload 1/8” before welding.
Thanks for the help!
Giant Geoff
Well-known member
Make sure you put the chain and bottle jack on the back side of the beam where the third member bolts from and not on the front.
Thats what I was assuming same way you'd preload a 9" housing to truss it.
Giant Geoff
Well-known member
A little less than 9 inch. Just a little, to hold it in place.
Mocked up the beams under the truck. Set ride height, wheel base, caster and camber then tacked some scrap to the Rame to hold them. Next I will cut and extend the axle shafts ( I know it sucks to be poor) but custom axles are expensive. Then mock up the front drive line.
Giant Geoff
Well-known member
Looking good. Use something bigger then .120 wall. It’s been 15 years or so since I lengthen axles but I remember either using .188 or .250.
I checked with a dial caliper looks like the axle shafts are 1 3/8" diameter where they need to be sliced. Iv got 1 3/8" solid bar for the extension piece and 1 3/4" x .188 DOM for the sleeve.
Any one have any tips on how to keep the axles strait when extending? I'm all ears haha. My plan was to use 1/4" thick angle iron and hose clamps across all the pieces.
Side note for anyone in the future searching for a base line on how much to (cut n turn) extend the lower ball joint it took 7/8" on both beams to get the camber back to 0* at ride height. Ride height being set at 23 1/2" bottom fender to center of snout *roughly*
How much higher over stock ride height are you shooting for? 4"?
Looks good dude. Clean.
the bodj
Well-known member
I have d35 beams from an explorer and d44 bronco knuckles. I extended my beams 4.5”, so I used the explorer inner axles, cut them, and set the bronco axles where they needed to be to get the extension I needed. I did what you said, using the angle iron, but I used c clamps to hold each piece firmly into the corner of the angle iron. I cut large bevels in each axle piece, so they were just touching at one point. I did a lot of tig passes to fill it in, and I don’t have any noticeable runout with the tools I have to measure (straight edge lol). I can spin my axles easily and don’t see any wobble, but I don’t even have a driveshaft yet, so I can’t tell if I’ll feel anything when using it.
About 4" lift
the bodj
Well-known member
No problem. When the time comes for me to actually get my 4x4 working (I need new manual locking hub internals) I’ll pull the axles and straighten in my press if needed
Got the axle shafts extended. 2 3/8" passenger axle and 2 1/4" driver axle. 2" beam extensions. The additional length is to compensate for the lower BJ being pulled out. Testing fit the axles with the 3rd bolted up in the beams and everything spins freely from lock to lock. Also test fitted the new tires with the beams welded in place at approximate ride height.
Nice! Looks good.
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