Local Legend Vital Designs Regular Cab Ranger

[Chancegoodman]

Looking at this makes me just want to chop my truck in half and just start building it even though I’d have no clue what I’m doing

 

[ChristianEwing]

Once the beam kit was on the truck, it was time to start thinking about engine and trans. I knew with having the beam kit bump out where I wanted it too, the factory engine crossmember was 100% gone, and then Ryan and I talked about the possibility of the firewall getting cut out as well if tire clearance at full lock/bump got bad. Once I got the kit on the truck, I knew right away the firewall was gone. I pushed the wheelbase 1.5-2” forward from factory in the front, enough to still look proper in the fiberglass, and at full bump/lock the tire was all in the firewall.

I knew as well from the previous kit that was running 33’s that it was rubbing the firewall and the computer wiring (typically ranger stuff) so I knew it was gonna need to be cut but the amount it needed for the new setup was more than just a little patch panel. Instead of having a fugly looking hagardly patched up factory firewall with a bunch of factory holes in it, I just ripped it all out. Which was a blessing in disguise for multiple reasons.

After I cut the whole firewall out, I bumped the truck out on both sides, and just roughly mocked up the engine and trans in the truck and realized the clearance I had for the oil pan to the top of the beam was really close to keep everything under the hood still. Sooooo, I built the most low profile, stout, engine crossmember I could between the beams and oil pan. I was originally thinking a plate work crossmember but once I saw what I was working with I opted for some 1.75” .120 tubing between the two. There is a main tube that runs from beam pivot to beam pivot, that is 1.75x.120 with 1.5x.120 inside of it to keep it as rigid as possible. And then there is two other 1.75x.120 tubes to create an “X” over the top of the beams at the same angle the beams sit at when at full compression. The structure that’s in there now is way stronger than anything I could have came up with out of platework while staying in the same packaging constraints.

Back to the blessing in disguise. After realizing the clearance to the beams/oil pan and there was no factory firewall from holding me back, I ended up pushing the engine and trans back 7” from factory location. At the same time, it mitigated the issue I was having with the trans output being right on the cusp of the driveshaft needing to be a two peice shaft with a carrier bearing or a single peice shaft. So pushing it back put the output of the trans right in the sweet spot for a single peice driveshaft setup which I’m pumped on. Also, when I mocked Ryan up in the truck originally with his new PRP seats and the engine and trans still in the factory spot, the shifter was a good reach away when full pinned in the seat while simulating having harnesses on. So now the shifter is in a super optimal position for really comfortable driving

 

[ChristianEwing]

Another thing to note too, the engine is offset still to the passenger side just like how it was from the factory. Reason being the driver side needs all the clearance it can for the starter, header, and foot control space. With this thing being a 3 pedal truck still with the manual trans, it needs ALL the space it can get for foot room. Pushing the engine back proooooollllyyyy didn’t help in that area but ya gotta weigh out the pros and cons sometimes

 

[Scott F]

I've been wanting to do this on the dual case shifters in my shit box... ODI will even do Custom grip locks... you could do Wings World or Vital Designs

Those are my favorite grips. I've been using them on my mountain bikes for years.
They are soft and sticky like rock crawling tires. They still grip even when worn down.

 

[ChristianEwing]

Once engine and trans were in place, I wanted to get a bearing on space in the engine bay area, so I mocked up a fender and the header panel. The radiator we got for this truck is a CBR 31x16”, which is 3” shorter in height than I’m used to using on full-size trucks and you can still see it stuck above the header panel by a decent amount. This resulted in me cutting the front of the frame off and bringing it down lower for the radiator to sit properly in the truck once I started on the engine cage structure. There was some time spent trying to figure out what I wanted to do for layout on the engine cage, my main things were I needed to build it around knowing it’s getting a bigger power plant later, so the center needed to be as open as possible and if I could I wanted it to look different than what I typically see on these I-beam trucks. The main structure comes out wide from the A pillars, instead of the center windshield tubes, giving a lot of space in the center of the truck and also giving it a more aggressive look diving into the front portion. The radiator tucks nicely into the engine cage, right in its little pocket in the frame rail. I didn’t want to have this thing sitting outside the main engine cage structure and have it possibly get unwanted damage if there was some sort of front end collision so this was the ticket.

Once the main structure was there, I started playing with shock layout as well as firewall layout and engine cage lacing tubes. These all need to be thought out together, at least in my opinion, to make sure everything works together properly and you aren’t shooting your self in the foot somewhere later. With this truck being so narrow in width, packaging shocks was kinda tricky at full compression/full lock situations. To add ontop of that, because this is running a conventional 3 peice clip and not some sickkkyyyyy raptor clip, the height constraints to the underside of the hood are a lot tighter as well so getting the bypass to clear at full bump took a little time moving mock up tabs around to get the angles correct. That is why this shock package has so much rake to it as well, it’s just to get everything to clear under the hood. You can also see my super custom shock supports I use too while I mount shocks another thing to note too, all the shock pivots are running dirtking weld washers making the bolt holes extra thiccc and simplifying the shock mounts to where I don’t need to run some crazy looking overlay. This is my go to setup now, sometimes more simple is better and in this case with shock mounts I think it’s the ticket

 

[the bodj]

That outside miter weld is on point! Those are tricky for me to not make them have a tall profile.

As for the weld washers, they look great, but if you put them on the inside of the plates it spreads them a bit farther apart so the caps aren't as prone to being gouged.

 

[marcytech]

bad ass work dude!!!!!!

 

[Turboyota]

Awesome work! Compact fitment of big shocks showcases creativity. Well done.

Also, is this band poster GrindCore, ThrashEmo, MellowHarmonySka, MetalTranceMix, or CountryFolkRap?

 

[FasterNU]

That outside miter weld is on point! Those are tricky for me to not make them have a tall profile.

As for the weld washers, they look great, but if you put them on the inside of the plates it spreads them a bit farther apart so the caps aren't as prone to being gouged.

If you put the plate/bulkead/divider in the miter junctions, it really helps with the space for weldment.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

You guys are making Mig Welds Great Again!

 

[UR_Mawm69]

holy fuck

this turned out to be a long post by the time i got through the whole thread. haha



I just went through and read this whole thread beginning to end.

a few questions though.........

1. its more of a "how" or "way that you do this or that". as i type this, im looking at the pics of when you did the swaybar and setting it up and stuff.
HOW do you know where to set everything? if its me what i used to do is just tack shit somewhere, cycle it, re-rack/move it, cycle again, and over and over until i got my desired numbers in whatever it was that i was working on.
BUT that ended with fuckload of tack marks ground off everywhere/looking like shit.
THIS build, at least the pictures you posted, looks like every fucking tube was already planned out in a SW drawing, then laser cut and notched, then given to you like a puzzle. put this piece here, this there, notches are perfect, then just set your welder correctly and you'll have Camburg shop style welds all over your truck.
is that not how this build has gone, and can you explain?

thats at least what it looks like to me, with a lot of these builds nowadays.

maybe more in a summarized rAtard version for me?


2. HOW, specifically did you add this tube piece for the miter?
it's not just a 1" piece of tube butted up to the stub coming out of the cab, right?
just my thinking, if i had access to a mill or lathe.... id buy a 2" x .250 peace, then put it in the lathe and cut the OD off of like 2 or 3" to sleeve INTO thee main A-pillar peice that stubs out of the cab, then the miter would meet THAT piece




3. more for the welds part.
HOW do you, or everyone who does this/ends up with this style of prepared tube and NOT just a fucking flapdisc grinder to the end of a tube, clean all your tube ends?
maybe not in this exact pic i'll attach but it always looks like people just put the ends of thier tubees in a machine and it grinds/mills off the exact perfect amount of millscale off the tube, which also prepars you for a perfect weld





4. WHY do you put this bigger DIA sleeve on the endsof some of the fender mounts? i get why you and others do it on spots that see a lot of stress, but i always see it done on the specific fender mount type tubes????




5. what do you use/how do you clean all the frame rails and stuff? im used to just taking a grinder and w/e mood im in, either going fucking hard dig grinding the frame paint away or if im more relaxed/just go laid style just lightly (but still with a 4.5" flapdisc) grinding the paint and shit away.............
(ANYONE ELSE READING THIS, THIS IS ALL REFERENCING TO WHEN I USED TO FABRICATE BEFORE YOGA TOOK OVER MY LIFE AND I TURNED GAY AS FUCK)



6. the more i read, now im on the front end you built, it seems like you must have drawn everything in SW and laid all the tubes out perfect..........

 

[ChristianEwing]

That outside miter weld is on point! Those are tricky for me to not make them have a tall profile.

As for the weld washers, they look great, but if you put them on the inside of the plates it spreads them a bit farther apart so the caps aren't as prone to being gouged.

If you put the plate/bulkead/divider in the miter junctions, it really helps with the space for weldment.

Yes! Miters get partitions, which gives a really nice joint to weld. On our F150 prerunner i did all the front stuff with the weld washers on the inside, all the washers on that setup i cut on the plasma table though so they just sat in the inside of the main tabs of the shock mounts. On this truck, the weld washers i used were stepped. So the bolt holes had to be opened up to 3/4's diameter for the washers to step into. If i did the washers to the insides, it would leave a wierd looking setup on the outside of the platework where the weld washer comes through the plate. Granted it would be covered by a washer and bolt 99% of the time but I would still know it looks like that if you pulled the shocks off and thats the kinda shit that keeps me up at night!

 

[the bodj]

Hah good point! I didn’t even think about the step of the weld washer.

 

[ChristianEwing]

1. its more of a "how" or "way that you do this or that". as i type this, im looking at the pics of when you did the swaybar and setting it up and stuff.
HOW do you know where to set everything? if its me what i used to do is just tack shit somewhere, cycle it, re-rack/move it, cycle again, and over and over until i got my desired numbers in whatever it was that i was working on.
BUT that ended with fuckload of tack marks ground off everywhere/looking like shit.
THIS build, at least the pictures you posted, looks like every fucking tube was already planned out in a SW drawing, then laser cut and notched, then given to you like a puzzle. put this piece here, this there, notches are perfect, then just set your welder correctly and you'll have Camburg shop style welds all over your truck.
is that not how this build has gone, and can you explain?

thats at least what it looks like to me, with a lot of these builds nowadays.

maybe more in a summarized rAtard version for me?


2. HOW, specifically did you add this tube piece for the miter?
it's not just a 1" piece of tube butted up to the stub coming out of the cab, right?
just my thinking, if i had access to a mill or lathe.... id buy a 2" x .250 peace, then put it in the lathe and cut the OD off of like 2 or 3" to sleeve INTO thee main A-pillar peice that stubs out of the cab, then the miter would meet THAT piece




3. more for the welds part.
HOW do you, or everyone who does this/ends up with this style of prepared tube and NOT just a fucking flapdisc grinder to the end of a tube, clean all your tube ends?
maybe not in this exact pic i'll attach but it always looks like people just put the ends of thier tubees in a machine and it grinds/mills off the exact perfect amount of millscale off the tube, which also prepars you for a perfect weld





4. WHY do you put this bigger DIA sleeve on the endsof some of the fender mounts? i get why you and others do it on spots that see a lot of stress, but i always see it done on the specific fender mount type tubes????




5. what do you use/how do you clean all the frame rails and stuff? im used to just taking a grinder and w/e mood im in, either going fucking hard dig grinding the frame paint away or if im more relaxed/just go laid style just lightly (but still with a 4.5" flapdisc) grinding the paint and shit away.............
(ANYONE ELSE READING THIS, THIS IS ALL REFERENCING TO WHEN I USED TO FABRICATE BEFORE YOGA TOOK OVER MY LIFE AND I TURNED GAY AS FUCK)



6. the more i read, now im on the front end you built, it seems like you must have drawn everything in SW and laid all the tubes out perfect..........

Alright this is a big one so I'll try my best to answer everything thoroughly for you haha

1. Everything has just been thought out as much as i possibly can, trying to stay 10 steps ahead and not shoot myself in the foot for something coming after, and then the rest of it is just going by order of operation and importance. So for example on the rear, first things that come into play are getting rear end geometry setup and the truck bumped out where you want it, then you get the main cage tubes in. Figuring out width for the main tubes came down to what the fuel cell width was on this truck. So there is that parameter set, after the main cage structure was there, the next most important thing was shock mounts. After those were in, the bumpstops get mounted. The original plan for spare tire mounts was having a spare on each side of the fuel cell standing up, so I knew the sway bar couldn't come from behind the axle. The rear end width isn't wide enough to have a sway bar pass between the tires and the bumpstop cans, so the sway bar had to be packaged between the rear of the bypass and the bumpstops. Its all just order of operations, working from the most important things down to the less important items and making them fit where they are needed. Now that im getting into the more detail oriented stuff like exhaust routing, i need to mentally prerun where plumbing and wiring is going to go so I dont end up with things to close to each other down the road.

I spend a good amount of time just looking at this thing honestly. Thinking about future steps and where things are going to ran, be mounted, how to make the best use of space, have multiple things work together instead of all be mounted separately, how to make things look different, etc. Its not easy honestly. I don't have a crazy amount of experience building these trucks but I take what I've learned on other vehicles and put all of that knowledge into each truck I do to make them better. Whether that's geometry/performance wise, how things get mounted, layout, etc.

2. No, so from the start I didnt realize it until later but I fucked up on the length I left on the main A pillar tubes coming out of the back of the cab. Since I've never done an external B pillar before I didn't know how much length to leave, so when I started on the B pillar I realized really quick it wasn't enough space to be able to cut the angle into the main tube coming out of the cab. Once the B pillar was in for good, I made that little 1" adapter chinga to come out further away from the B pillar to have the miter come down from. All that stuff is 2" .120 tubing, I sleeved from the main tube coming out of the cab into that adapter with 1.75" .120 and then did rosette welds to tie it all together. That was a boner move on my part to not catch that from the start but I just didn't know better haha. Once the light rack is built on top of the main tubes behind the cab I don't think you'll ever even realize it haha. And the shock mount comes up into that entire area too and is welding all those pieces together really good so it will never be a real issue of any sort but its still something that bugs me

3. I use a palm sander with 60 grit sandpaper on all the tube ends or anywhere a tube is going to land for prep, as well as i add a good size champfer to all the tube ends with a flap disk to get a nice joint to lay a bead into! Bigger shops that have bigger equipment chuck the straight tubes up in a lathe and use scotchbrite pads or sandpaper to get the super gnarly crispy looking prep lines in the tubes and then on tubes that have bends in them they use a 360* tubing sander like a 525 industries die grinder setup. I just use what I can currently, as long as the metal is shiny where youre welding youre good. The crispy lines are only for the instagram photos anyways, all this shit gets painted anyways. Or rusted from sitting so long if we are talking about DR dudes

4. I have gotten into the habit of running bigger diameter on the chassis side for bedside mounts because its a cheat. I fit the 1.25" tube first and then just slide the 1" into it and i can pull the 1" tube in and out of the 1.25" tube to where i need it and then tack it in place instead of trying to notch and fit both sides of the 1" tube absolutely perfectly on both sides. Mounting glass is a motherfucker and is time consuming to make sure everything visually sites right and looks square, etc. So any cheat code I can figure out to make my life easier to square things up and be able to have some adjustment in I try and do haha. It really just allows me to adjust the bedside in and out on the top and bottom side until its sitting exactly how i want it. I will typically set width at the bottom and throw a tack on it, and then come up to the top and slide the tube in and out to site where the tail light looks perfectly vertical and not all cockeyed and then tack the top and move on to the other side. If I was trying to fit the 1" tube perfectly without the 1.25" tubes in there, I would have so much time spent going back and forth with the smallest adjustments to get everything to sit just right


5. Generally, to get a factory frame rail clean I will throw a wire wheel on a corded 4.5" angle grinder and just get after it. Its not the most fun or clean thing to do but it cleans the frame rails up really good without leaving any grooves or divots. On this truck, I did the frame plating previously when I did the old front end, so what you are seeing in that photo you added is 1/8" plate work that was all painted in steel it that i palm sanded back down to nice shiny raw steel again haha

6. Everything on this truck tube wise is all hand notched and fit with an angle grinder and there was no computer drawing of any of it. All the layout tube wise has just came out of my head. The beam kit my brother drew in the computer as well as the trailing arms, I drew the pivot boxes up as well as shock mounts. All the plate work items are drawn in the computer as much as I can to cut down on time spend physically cutting it out. Having the plasma table makes things so accurate and repeatable that it doesnt make sense to cut that stuff out by hand anymore. There is small stuff here and there where I do still get down on the bandsaw and hand cut things out, but if its something on the bigger side and especially things that i need multiples of, it gets drawn real quick and ill cut it out

 

[the_fablab_]

Am I seeing this correctly? Are the left and right link pockets different?

Damn you are old....

 

[Brett_408]

Sliding the 1" tube in and out of the 1 1/4" tube to dial in the bedside angles is so simple and such a great idea I feel stupid for not thinking of it. Im the guy that goes back in forth dialing in the 1" structure on the chassis side only THEN to add a 1 1/4" nub to make them removable from the chassis. Thank you for this idea i'm stealing it next time I mount bedsides.

 

[UR_Mawm69]

Alright this is a big one so I'll try my best to answer everything thoroughly for you haha

1. Everything has just been thought out as much as i possibly can, trying to stay 10 steps ahead and not shoot myself in the foot for something coming after, and then the rest of it is just going by order of operation and importance. So for example on the rear, first things that come into play are getting rear end geometry setup and the truck bumped out where you want it, then you get the main cage tubes in. Figuring out width for the main tubes came down to what the fuel cell width was on this truck. So there is that parameter set, after the main cage structure was there, the next most important thing was shock mounts. After those were in, the bumpstops get mounted. The original plan for spare tire mounts was having a spare on each side of the fuel cell standing up, so I knew the sway bar couldn't come from behind the axle. The rear end width isn't wide enough to have a sway bar pass between the tires and the bumpstop cans, so the sway bar had to be packaged between the rear of the bypass and the bumpstops. Its all just order of operations, working from the most important things down to the less important items and making them fit where they are needed. Now that im getting into the more detail oriented stuff like exhaust routing, i need to mentally prerun where plumbing and wiring is going to go so I dont end up with things to close to each other down the road.

I spend a good amount of time just looking at this thing honestly. Thinking about future steps and where things are going to ran, be mounted, how to make the best use of space, have multiple things work together instead of all be mounted separately, how to make things look different, etc. Its not easy honestly. I don't have a crazy amount of experience building these trucks but I take what I've learned on other vehicles and put all of that knowledge into each truck I do to make them better. Whether that's geometry/performance wise, how things get mounted, layout, etc.

2. No, so from the start I didnt realize it until later but I fucked up on the length I left on the main A pillar tubes coming out of the back of the cab. Since I've never done an external B pillar before I didn't know how much length to leave, so when I started on the B pillar I realized really quick it wasn't enough space to be able to cut the angle into the main tube coming out of the cab. Once the B pillar was in for good, I made that little 1" adapter chinga to come out further away from the B pillar to have the miter come down from. All that stuff is 2" .120 tubing, I sleeved from the main tube coming out of the cab into that adapter with 1.75" .120 and then did rosette welds to tie it all together. That was a boner move on my part to not catch that from the start but I just didn't know better haha. Once the light rack is built on top of the main tubes behind the cab I don't think you'll ever even realize it haha. And the shock mount comes up into that entire area too and is welding all those pieces together really good so it will never be a real issue of any sort but its still something that bugs me

3. I use a palm sander with 60 grit sandpaper on all the tube ends or anywhere a tube is going to land for prep, as well as i add a good size champfer to all the tube ends with a flap disk to get a nice joint to lay a bead into! Bigger shops that have bigger equipment chuck the straight tubes up in a lathe and use scotchbrite pads or sandpaper to get the super gnarly crispy looking prep lines in the tubes and then on tubes that have bends in them they use a 360* tubing sander like a 525 industries die grinder setup. I just use what I can currently, as long as the metal is shiny where youre welding youre good. The crispy lines are only for the instagram photos anyways, all this shit gets painted anyways. Or rusted from sitting so long if we are talking about DR dudes

4. I have gotten into the habit of running bigger diameter on the chassis side for bedside mounts because its a cheat. I fit the 1.25" tube first and then just slide the 1" into it and i can pull the 1" tube in and out of the 1.25" tube to where i need it and then tack it in place instead of trying to notch and fit both sides of the 1" tube absolutely perfectly on both sides. Mounting glass is a motherfucker and is time consuming to make sure everything visually sites right and looks square, etc. So any cheat code I can figure out to make my life easier to square things up and be able to have some adjustment in I try and do haha. It really just allows me to adjust the bedside in and out on the top and bottom side until its sitting exactly how i want it. I will typically set width at the bottom and throw a tack on it, and then come up to the top and slide the tube in and out to site where the tail light looks perfectly vertical and not all cockeyed and then tack the top and move on to the other side. If I was trying to fit the 1" tube perfectly without the 1.25" tubes in there, I would have so much time spent going back and forth with the smallest adjustments to get everything to sit just right


5. Generally, to get a factory frame rail clean I will throw a wire wheel on a corded 4.5" angle grinder and just get after it. Its not the most fun or clean thing to do but it cleans the frame rails up really good without leaving any grooves or divots. On this truck, I did the frame plating previously when I did the old front end, so what you are seeing in that photo you added is 1/8" plate work that was all painted in steel it that i palm sanded back down to nice shiny raw steel again haha

6. Everything on this truck tube wise is all hand notched and fit with an angle grinder and there was no computer drawing of any of it. All the layout tube wise has just came out of my head. The beam kit my brother drew in the computer as well as the trailing arms, I drew the pivot boxes up as well as shock mounts. All the plate work items are drawn in the computer as much as I can to cut down on time spend physically cutting it out. Having the plasma table makes things so accurate and repeatable that it doesnt make sense to cut that stuff out by hand anymore. There is small stuff here and there where I do still get down on the bandsaw and hand cut things out, but if its something on the bigger side and especially things that i need multiples of, it gets drawn real quick and ill cut it out

holy fuck. that was a complete and really thorough answer to all my questions. haha

THANK YOU!!!!!!! seriously.

and like ^^ he said, that makes so much sense for the fender mounting! i will definitely use that next time! (IF i remember haha)

 

[ChristianEwing]

Some more progress, I got the upper and lower shock mounts buttoned up and burned onto the chassis. As well as getting the radiator fully mounted in the truck. The bottom side of the radiator I built a tray for it to sit into that bolts to each frame rail, that way it can get powdercoated so any water or coolant that gets down into the tray doesn’t start to make it rust over time. The top of the radiator is held in at 4 points with a removable crossbar that is also tying back to the shock mounts. The tubes that run back to the shock mounts will also be used to hold the air filter, overflows, and other accessories that will need to be mounted up front in the engine bay and all this stuff will be paneled in at the end as well. The last two photos are from when I was checking toe once more before I built the final tie rod that connects the pitman arm to the rest of the steering system. Just cool to see everything without a tire on it

 

[ChristianEwing]

Latest update on the truck came out today!

 

[UR_Mawm69]

if you guys could just stop making us all feel like complete dogshit and that we drive piles of dogshit as well..................



that'd be gaaaareeeeeeeeeeattttttt

titties work.
TIT IES