As promised a much over due update.
We have actually been able to put a little time into T-Rex and make some progress, and we have a little time allotted in the near future to get the rear knocked out and get the rig standing up.
We have had some major advancements in the progression and growth of our business in the past few weeks. Some of you already know about this, but we have agreed to start building Ultra 4 Bombers for Bomber Fab's East Coast customers. We will be doing everything from a chromoly tube, laser cut, completely TIG welded Chassis all the way up to a turn key race car. We are also moving to a new, much larger 8000+ sq ft shop. As you can tell from the picture we also have a new toy to aid us in bringing down the fabrication time and thus the cost of the future SAS kit.
One of the goals with the design of this kit is to make it as easy as possible for the end user to execute the entire SAS with minimal tools and knowledge. In the beginning of the design phase there were a lot of problems that arose from trying to work around steering components that were already on the market, mainly the pitman arm. Nothing that was readily available for the toyota IFS steering box was set up for this specific application, which led to several issues when we tried to use off the shelf parts. We went around this by making a pitman arm specifically for this application.
Our pitman arm is double shear, uses a 1/2 or 9/16" thru bolt, and is fabricated from 1/4" P&O plate. the splined section is a solid piece of billet and the entire thing is TIG welded together
Another issue we had with my specific truck is the air intake location using the stock air box. I am a little extreme when it comes to the esthetics of my own person vehicle so I wanted my over the engine brace smack dab dead over the center of the engine. This doesn't make it any stronger than rolling the brace forward or back (so that it clears the air inlet) It is simply what I wanted. To fix this, we fabricated an air box enclosure out of aluminum. This also will allow for a more direct line from where the snorkel comes in.
With those two items done the only thing that is left for the front mock up is to cut and weld the bungs in on the drag link and permanently weld in the shock towers. We also completed the rear cut out. Thank goodness it was no where near as bad as the front (though it was still pretty hack-tastic) there was just not as much stuff to cut out. All of the wiring was pulled back to the transfer case, the bead was removed and out came the plasma cutters.
The rear as it sits is ready to build. We are waiting on a large order of DOM to come in tomorrow, and we will get cracking on it the next week or so. The first step will be to box the frame and add fish plates on the outer frame rail, then replace all the cross members that we cut out of the rear with new DOM supports. Then we will set up the three link, which will not take long at all with nothing to work around like an engine. Finally we will build the cantilever set up.
.... Previous owner ran 400 miles of weld on this thing. No wonder we are re-doing everything on this rig.
haha
