Carwash Crawler - Build Thread... again.

[JeffK5]

How much shock stroke do you think will go unused front and rear ? If your cutting it close to being at the end of travel you might need adjustable strap ends. I can tell you that when I ran 24" Rancho's on the rail and they stretched about 1" after 4 or 5 rides.... went from working to letting the rear over extend and pop CV's.

I would most definitely make the front adjustable as you have diar consequences if you over-travel .... like a fawked up ($$$) HAD drive line!



Jeff

[carwash]

yes, and if i run the adjustables, i will be as cool as all the desert racers...

[carwash]

Well, been piddling on it here and there a bunch more, and managed to get a bunch done…

Pulley system for this motor has been the bane of my existence. All was good until I put this BBC in. The chassis was built with a SBC in mind, so with the big block, I lost quite a bit of clearance in front of the motor. So much that I was required to use a short style water pump. Serp systems don’t exist in stock form for this style waterpump, and v-belt systems that will work on my rig are also hard to find without buying classis car restoration stuff, etc. So after exhausting every other possible resource, I bit off the big one and got a March Performance pulley system.

[carwash]

This gives me about 3/4” clearance between water pump pulley and fan motor. It’s tight. Let’s hope for no flex. This system utilizes a high mount alternator tho. So high that it is about 1/2” from the hood. So, I put another cross bar to protect it in case of rollover, etc. This bar will also help protect the radiator top tank. (still need to flange it for removal) Had to cut the radiator in the grill about 1.5” at the top and 2.5” or so at the bottom. Clearance below with the pinion brake is a lot tighter than I would like as well.







Hood clearance to fit top tank. So much for the stock hood latch.





I originally mounted my evaporator and lockoff to the this bar as well, but then moved it due to clearance issues with radiator hoses etc. I liked it on the front bar, but it’s more practical on the firewall for sure.

[carwash]

Found a hole for the power steering reservoir and stuck it there on a thick 3/8” tab. It’s out of the way, and the highest point in the system.







And that comes pretty damn close to buttoning up the engine compartment of this damn thing. I’m starting to hate this rig.

[carwash]

Wasn’t real happy at all with my propane tank mounts I had at first, as it was near impossible to get them in and out, and then even harder to clamp and un-clamp the rings. So, made my own system, which will hold down from the top. I’m pretty happy with it.

Had to start by doing a lot of measuring, etc of the tanks, both the Lites and Aluminum ones so that my system could use both if necessary. The sizes differ a tiny bit.

Side by side comparison with a couple measurements as well…









They really are sweet looking tanks, I look forward to filling them to see just how transparent the inner cell is. I’m going to remove the outer shell and paint it read with some Krylon Fusion…

[carwash]

Then, noticed I had some issues with one of my tanks. The outer shell didn’t seem to fit the inner composite cell as it should on one of them, so I called up the supplier, and they rushed another one right out to me.