The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[KCStudly]

You'll do fine, Randy. Stick to the 4" grinder, get yourself some thin cut off wheels (do not use for grinding, only cutting), and some 60 or 80 grit flap sanding disc, along with the grind stones that you probably already have, and that is all you will need for this type of work. I don't like using those big grinders either; they're evil. Port-a-band saws are an option (the hand held motorized type) but they are harder to make cut straight. Hacksaw would work, but way too much work.

I need to get my pics from today downloaded so I can give an update. I'll be back in a few.

[KCStudly]

Okay, well speaking of warping from welding, Karl had welded up those big expansion joint parts and was concerned that the warping he was seeing might not be acceptable to the customer. The inside diameter is a 1/4 x like 4 inch plate rolled the easy way, and the flange is 1/4 inch x like 6 inch rolled the hard way with expansion relief slots laser cut around the perimeter. These two parts were welded in a 'T' section. The leg of the 'T' ended up pulling out of perpendicular by about 1/4 inch at the tip. Having no idea of which tolerances were critical to the end user, he put in a call to the customer to see if that was okay, but in the meantime it was full round house blows with the sledge end of a maul trying to beat them back into submission.

Thankfully, the customer replied back that the warping was not at all critical (even though everything on the drawing was specified to 2 decimal places), so that stopped pretty quickly (it was loud and laborious).

Since Karl was still using the hoist bay and most of the bench, I focused on the axle perches.
Welded up the alignment bushings.


Cut the other side down with the cut off wheel (uncut shown for comparison).


And here they are sanded flush.


Here's another shot of the fit with the spring alignment pin now that the bushing has been cut down flush.


The axle measurement from outside to outside of the brake mounting plate flanges was about 71 inches (measured in the middle, plus or minus 1/16 depending on if you measured on the top or bottom, due to camber). I settled on offsetting the spring and shackle hangers 1/2 inch inboard from the centerline of the frame rails, which makes the springs 61 inches ctr-to-ctr. Quick look to make sure I had the axle camber the right way around. Rough measured over 5 inches from each end and used the flap wheel to sand off the paint where the welds would go.

I scribed a line down the center of the perches and measured over 5-1/32 to the center of the perch.

I also checked it for square to the axle centerline using a quick square (no pic).

With the axle clamped down to the bench on the flats of the brake mounting flanges, I checked the perch for level.


And here it is with a nice heavy tack on each side.


Now 3 heavy tacks on each side.


And here it is welded down for good.

I had gotten a little ahead of myself, having forgotten that I wanted to sand the sharp corners and edges off of the perch before I welded them on, so I did this one after the fact with the flap wheel, and the other one on the Bader.


For the detailed side profile sketch that the computer model is based on I had used the dimensions from Dexter's website for the spring mounting hardware and short trailer leaf springs, and had assumed that I would need to go spring over axle to get the height I wanted. Then I decided to go with the longer Jeep leaf springs. Before I had modeled all of the actual spring hanger parts I had briefly considered putting spring perches on both the top and bottom of the axle. If there was a question or error and I wanted to switch from spring over or under to the other way around, it would already be set up. However I quickly dropped that idea after modeling the Rough Stuff parts and YJ springs and gaining confidence that spring under configuration would work out great.

Well immediately after finishing the above welds, that decision was quickly reversed...I had welded the perch on the top of the axle, not the bottom!!! DOH! That 'quick look' I had made to confirm orientation of the axle and perch was just a tad hasty. I must have gotten mixed up on what was up and what was down due to working 'upside down'. The April fool was me.

Frustrated over the lost time, but not defeated, Karl and I made a lunch run combined with a trip back here to buy another pair of 3500 lb. perches.

Add another $12 and change to the tally.

Back at the shop I located and welded the second perch (on top).


Back to the lathe to make some more alignment bushings (the frustrating part is that if I ever do switch to spring over, the first set of bushings will have to be drilled out to clear the spring alignment pin nuts).
Turning and drilling

Fit into the perches (note that I sanded the corners on these perches ahead of time).


Weld 'em.


Grind the top sides flush, weld them, too, and sand 'em smooth.


Same drill as before, clamp 'em, measure 'em, tack 'em, weld 'em.


Notice that the welds wrap around the ends so that there is virtually no opportunity for a crack or tear to start.

And a few minutes cleaning up after myself.


I will post a link here, in a bit, of my first vintage camping equipment score, that I made on my way home.

[KCStudly]

Karl has another rush job for the same sub and trash plant. A different style of expansion joint; eight of them; something like a mile of welding, it seems. Couple of half pallets full of plate.

Kind of inconvenient for me what with them working late on Wednesday and the holiday tomorrow. However, the benefits far outweigh the obstacles. So I grabbed some of the suspension brackets and brought them with me to work so I could make some progress after I punched out.

Welded the rock slider plates (gussets) into the front spring hangers, and started modifying the U-bolt plates for the 2-3/8 axle U-bolts tonight. Pic's next time.

Tomorrow I will weld the rear shackle mount sleeves into the brackets and finish the U-bolt plates, along with computer time on the drawings.

Have a line on some factory Jeep steel wheels close by; waiting to hear back. Need something temporary for roll around use until the nice wheels I ordered are available.

The CNC router deal is looking more promising. Karl has volunteered me to work on a Land Rover project in exchange for the CNC work. Hope to see about plywood supply options as well; maybe get a deal or at least a referal to a good supplier.

[Wolffarmer]

Hey KC
I been slowly reading the thread. I am up to where you are getting your spring parts. I use the axle and springs from a VW Rabbit pickup. built my own spring shackles. They are probably a bit strange but they work for me. The rear ones are a pipe inside a pipe. The large outer one is welded to the frame and the inner one was a fairly close fit, surprised me. Made it about 1/8 longer than the outer one so the hangers bolt solid to it allowing it to move inside of the outer one. Put a grease zerk on it. Got the zerks from the old John Deere combine out behind my shop. It came with the house.

Randy

[KCStudly]

Practical experience and cunning! I remember seeing some posts about your VW suspension. Looked to be well executed and thrifty ta' boot.

Like I said, looking forward to your current (next) build. It is sure to be entertaining.

Made contact with the C-list guy about the temporary wheels. He still has them (5 Cherokee wheels, rusty with worn down tires for $40, I may offer less depending on how bad they are), but have not heard yet on where to see them.

Off to thrash now.

[KCStudly]

I’m here at work getting a little something done on the trailer (crickets...plant shut down for holiday). I'll post pic's and details later when I get home, but I was doing some design updating intermingled with browsing around on the forum. Threw in my $0.02 on Pahrumpcaveman’s build thread here and got to wondering why my axle was so far back. Concerned about fender clearance with the door opening, maybe? I did have my door outline just a little bigger in the sketch than I ended up with in the model, too.

Anyway, I have now moved my axle up to 44-1/2 inch from the rear of the frame. Here’s a rendering of the new location superimposed with the detailed side profile sketch.

Looks a lot more like the original hand sketch and will be much more forgiving should I decide to put one or two 12v batteries in the tongue box (I may only have one, or I can split them up and have one in the galley, or just one in the galley… so I’m pretty flexible on balance).

[Wolffarmer]

Looks good to me KC. My trailer ways about 1100-1150 lbs in camping mode and my tongue wight is so I can lift it with one hand and move it about easily. Probably way to lite for Merican specs. But it is right in line with Uropean practice. Why do we spec such heavy tongue weight? Is it so the trailer makes less noise when towing. About the only reason I can see. If you have a good hitch, ( which you do ) And are not near 0 weight or worse negative. Then what is all the fuss about having tongue weight 10% of the total? Not that it is bad, just I don't see it as being necessary. Buy your picture I can't see how wide your door is. I made mine 30 inches and it is plenty wide even for this wide body.
Next trailer will probably go with a 26 inch door. Will have to measure first to make sure I can fit.

Torsion half axle

that is the axle I am using, did not know how wide I was going to make it and just wanted to get parts so I would be committed. ( insert your comments now ). But I am really toying with the idea of running with the arm forward.

Would give a bit more room inside for how I am going to build it. Would be different. There is no toe in, only camber which will not change. Of course there may be toe in and toe out by the time I get it built.
And I have adapters so I will be using the same wheel and tire as the tow vehicle. No need to carry a spare for the trailer and I will have 3 spares for the TV if things get really bad.
Randy

[KCStudly]

Randy wrote

... just wanted to get parts so I would be committed (insert your comments now).

I can understand that logic. When I bought my windows I thought, "Well, this is it. No turning back now." Even though I new I could still just sell them if I chickened out, but I made sure I didn't let that thought predominate.

On the other hand, you do have to be a little crazy to think that a person could ever actually finish one of these things. So bring on the straight jackets and let's build!!!



Now that's the second time in a week that I've seen or heard of someone putting the trailing arm forward. Rhino Ray (build thread) had his axle installed backward, but I think that was just a momentary slip up.
I would see this as a disadvantage due to the way that the loading from road irregularities would be applied, especially for starting angles that are from horizontal to down.

What is your thinking? Wouldn't it be better to just put the mount where it needs to be to have the "trailing arm" be trailing?

[Wolffarmer]

I have 2 older BMW motorcycles with Earles link front suspension. Works good there. Of course some people say it was something the English forced them to do as war reparations. But it does have a unique ride. And when braking it is naturaly anti dive. Though I am not putting brakes on it.
BMW
They do have a much longer arm, swing point is behind the wheel
Randy

[Wolffarmer]

Here is info about a plain leading link much like a reverse torque flex would be
Leading link

And there must be more of these than stars in the skies
You meet the nicest people on a Honda

[Wobbly Wheels]

...and my tongue wight is so I can lift it with one hand and move it about easily. Probably way to lite for Merican specs. But it is right in line with Uropean practice.

I'm with you, bro !
Trying to tow with a wee li'l pickup means I gotta go light....My goal is to still be able to afford a road trip when gas hits $2.00/litre (~$8/gal). My next vehicle will likely be a hybrid SUV because of an extra dog in the family so I can't imagine tow capacity would be any better than on my current 4 cyl Ranger.

[KCStudly]

Starting out on Thursday night after work:
The Ruff Stuff hanger parts came unwelded. First I cut a scrap piece of 80/20 extruded aluminum (just because it was handy and aluminum cuts easy) to fit snug in between the spring hanger ears. This will keep the ears from sucking in while welding the little gusset (rock slider) plate in place, especially since the gussets (seen inside the hanger) were a very loose fit and a bit of filler would be required.


Here I have a couple of more pieces of 80/20 holding the gusset up, and a piece of scrap angle setting it flush.


The only steel filler rod we had was 1/16 diameter. I welded the first one up shoving this wire almost as fast as I could (see hanger on heavy aluminum welding surface plate in middle). But that would not do, so I twisted 3 wires together using a cordless drill and the vise.


Here's a crappy close up of the twisted wire with the welded hanger in the back ground.


And another better pic of the welded hanger with the twisted rod to the left.


On Wednesday when I went up to Fab Mecca I wasn't able to get much done due to shop priorities, but I did manage to slice off a couple of 5/8 wide lengths from a piece of 3/8 x 6 flat bar; rounded the corners a little on the Bader and cut a bunch of 1-1/8 long slugs to fill the over size slots in the U-Bolt plates (the slots were sized for larger U-Bolt diameter and larger axle diameter).


I know. I could have just made the slots a little longer with a die grinder, or in the mill, but I would never have been happy with that.

Here's one with the slugs welded in from the bottom and top.


And here they are ground and sanded flush.

Ignore the little bit of weld undercutting; I'll be using SAE flat washers under the U-Bolt nuts.

And here they are with the front spring hangers sanded up a bit.


On Friday I needed to go back up to Fab Mecca and get the shackle hanger parts that I had forgotten on Wednesday, and it was also a good chance for me to go get some blood drawn for my annual physical. I had hoped that the guy with the Jeep wheels would call, since I was going to be in that neighborhood and I even stopped and had a leisurely breakfast to kill some time, but no luck. So off in the other direction toward work to get something done. But first a little prefab snack.


Sanded the pickling treatment off of the shackle hanger sleeves.


And, after carefully centering the sleeves, started welding them in.


Right in the middle of a bead, I got the call from the wheel guy. Another lap of southeastern CT commin' up. Times like these I wish I still had my little beater Sonoma (S10).

Not bad for $8 each x 5. They have quite a bit more back spacing than the Mojave rims (6 inches from side wall to hub face instead of 4-1/2) but that still leaves about 3/4 inch rolling around clearance which is plenty for building purposes. Swung back by Fab Mecca to drop two of these off, since it was more or less on the way.

Back at work, here's the wire wheel set up.


And the Shackle hangers all welded up and wire wheeled.


I seem to loose quite a few pictures and I wonder if it's because the video movie button and camera button on my camera or too close together...hmm? Anyway, I set the U-Bolt plates up in the mill centered on the middle pin hole. Zeroed the digital readouts and figured out the necessary offsets. The leaf springs are 2-1/2 inch, plus twice the radius of the U-Bolt (1/2 inch) plus some clearance (1/8 inch per side, or 1/4 inch) equals 3-1/4 inch. Half that is 1-5/8 or 1.625 inch. The U-Bolts themselves are 2-3/8 nominal inside, plus twice the thread radius (1/2 inch), plus a little clearance, equals 2.900 inch, which checked with the calipers. Half that is 1.450 inch, so with the offsets figured it was a simple matter to run the table on the mill to the four corners, touch off with the center drill...

at each point and drill a nice free fitting 5/8 diameter hole. (Must not have taken any pic's of the drilling and pile of metal chips.)

Oops, I missed one by half a thou... (tee hee)

Just needed to chase these same numbers around -/-, +/-, +/+ and -/+. Wash, rinse, repeat twice.

Clean up after yourself, no chips.


Hit them with a sanding disk to remove the little raised burr.


And after running the deburring knife around all the holes to set a small chamfer.


You think I'm crazy, but I am much happier now. Now where did I put my straight jacket?

[KCStudly]

Sorry Randy, didn't mean to ignore your question. I think my door jambs are 32-1/2 wide, but I'm not sure off the top of my head if that is from the original sketch or the current model. For some reason they shrunk a little going from the sketch to the model and I can't remember why I did that.

I'm at that stage where I'm starting to worry about making changes on the fly because I can no longer recall all the little things that went into development. Sometimes the model will tell me when I am about to mess up codependent "constraints" (relationships that I have assigned). But I don't always listen to that because it will do that when you are making an intentional change, too. You just have to work your way thru the rats nest of constraints to figure out which one is tripping you up, and whether it is okay to reassign that one.

Take my relocating the axle forward as an example. Well, the fender mount blocking had to move forward, too, and the cut out in the foam as well. Sometimes it will update these by itself because one thing is a "projection" of the other, but when you leave all the "Adaptive" settings turned on you start to get high CPU usage and crashing. It would not surprise me in the least if, after moving the axle, I go in again and find all of my cabinets warped off in space like some kind of Salvador Dali painting. Could happen if I used that fender blocking as a reference point for something else, even if unintentionally.

The first thing the Inventor software people teach you is that the "Undo" button is by far the most used feature of the software. The second is to save your work frequently.

[KCStudly]

My guess on tongue weight is that unintentional uncouplings are far too common and having a little more tongue weight might increase the chances of careless people getting coupled up properly. Also, probably hedges the bet against the trailer affecting the TV under braking. If the tongue is light and the trailer is pitched up at all, then the trailer can lift the rear of the car and push it around giving kwirky steering input. If the tongue weight is a little higher, the chances of pushing the rear of the TV around go down, and if there is any ill effect to TV steering it would most likely be under steer. Most reactions to under steer are appropriate. So I suppose it is intended as a way of idiot proofing.

Though these are just my "off the top of my head" guesses, w/o doing any research.

[KCStudly]

Shared some thoughts on my overall widths here.

Summary:
Outside sidewalls = 64 inches
Outside hub mounting faces = 77-1/2
Inside tire walls = 68-1/2 (approx)
Outside tire walls = 89-1/2 (approx)
Outside fenders = 91 (estimated)