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Unread 11-21-2006, 10:05 AM
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Smithers Smithers is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: San Luis Obispo, CA
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It was way more work than you might think. I had the help from my good friend Ian who did more of the metal work as he is a perfectionist and has MUCH more experience welding. He's an expert and can lay sick beads forever. Check him out boxing the frame in. Those are some LONNNG welds my friends. That welder was sucking the juice! I estimate a few HUNDRED dollars worth of electricity to do all this welding. A couple HUNDRED for the Argon. I made sure I had a lot more money than I estimated this whole build would cost and STILL ended up turning my pockets inside out!! haha I choked when I bought a 4x4 plate of steel. And I remember getting like $600 in fasteners, bung washers and heims in a tiny little box one day. I felt noxious !



Total chaos spring hangers were definitely worth the money and saved a lot of time not having to make em. The guys at Kartek hooked me up with odds and ends and shipped em to me quick. Deaver race pack is used and everything else is blood, sweat and tears.

Wheel hop doesn't exist anymore which was a concearn. All you feel offroad is the front Donaho's doing what they can to take the hits and the rear just follows you around. You don't feel ANY bumps from the rear and it doesn't sway side to side like I have felt in a couple long travel trucks. I will revalve once I build the front. That is, once I decide on the finishing the turbo system or putting in a different engine. Mwuahahaha!

To tell you the truth I would like to but the bulk of the system is welding work that is applied directly to the chassis. Now you have to realize that every chassis will have different measurements between the two frame rails leading to the back. Every time you weld supports of any kind to the frame the measurements change and it is extremely important to get your measurements perfect. We actually had to straighten the rear frame before we even started welding to it because we had assumed it was straight and we cut all the steel for those dimensions. Unforeseen things like this really add to the time involved and it was a lot of hustling every time something new would come up.

The cantilever arms could be reproduced but the subframe that secures them has to be DEAD ON! If not your in big trouble because everything that determines this is welded solid. This whole project was a big exercise in different welding techniques as well as the shrinkage involved which is very surprising when things are pulling together and cooling down when the beads are laid.



Anyone wanna let me cut, bend and weld your nice clean frame and sign a contract saying I'm not responsible or to be held liable for the results?

And making any money off of a kit like this? This stuff cost me a ton of $$. I couldn't imagine marking it up for a profit. People would be thinking I was making a ton of money off of them when I was actually just trying for 10 percent. It's fun to throw the topic around though.
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