68' M715 AKA "Smokey", 8.1 engine on links, coils and 40's

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Blasted the clutch pedal to clean it up, new needle bearings are on the way

Brake pedal, to my surprise, the factory pivot pins fits the hydroboost rod perfectly. However it wasn't in the right spot. The pin is pressed into place. I ground the one end off and then pressed the pin out hydraulically. Notice that the pedals really only ever got "half" painted, essentially from overspray when the truck was built

Cleaned it up to get it ready for welding. The pedal is cast steel and I made a bracket out of 3/8" plate in order to move the pivot point further out from the firewall (towards the driver).

I was a bit nervous to weld on the braking system, especially the main pivot point. However if this ever breaks loose I'll be astounded (and probably dead). Double pass TIG, it welded very nice

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

The pin is in place here. Prior to welding, I drilled it to use an 1/8" cotter pin. This pin is obviously too short but you get the idea.

Moving on now to the transmission hump. This is the factory unit. It's not rusty but it's bent to hell and has at least 4 coats of paint on it

Drawing out where the 465 is, along with the NP205 twin stick, the Ranger OD and the ORD Magnum. It's going to be busy in here, like a friggin' forest of shifters

Transmission hump work is tricky. I wanted this to look super clean and functional and I really wanted to cut up the interior as little as possible. BUT.... I'm trying to add a total of 5 shifters so something has to give

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Starting the tunnel construction, all 14G. It's thick enough that it welds pretty decent but not so thick that you can't easily bend it to your will....

Lots of cardboard design before any of the sheet metal got cut up. I'm retaining the upper portion of the factory transmission hump. It's blasted and clean here

I'm using 1/4"-20 nutserts to attach the tunnel. The nutserts are fully welded, just not in this pic

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Here's a close-up of a welded nutsert. Originally I was doing ER70S2 but I later switched to silicone bronze. The nutserts REALLY don't like heat and they want to melt way before the base metal

The key to clean tunnel construction is going slow. I very carefully hand bent this to match the floor and bolted it down as I went. Some bends needed a little help with heat, others didn't. It was bent, bolted down, checked, unbolted, bent some more and finally done.

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Took a break from the tedious tunnel work. Who needs a SHAVE? :idontknow: Lets make a 15Bolt.....

Start with a $189 junkyard axle and begin by adding about $5k in parts...... prepping for the East Coast Gear Supply shave kit which adds 2" of ground clearance under the axle

All done on a mill to keep it level

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Final cut...

Better. MUCH better

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

I must have woke up hating myself because I ended up hand lapping the 15B cover 3 hours this afternoon just to get the damn thing flat.

It looks like it snagged in the mill when ECGS tried to flatten it. Pretty big gouges :banghead:

60 grit glued to flat 3/8" plate + a whole lot of sweat....

Done. It’s for sure flat now.

CalSgt · Feb 1, 2021

Rock40 said:
Final cut...

Better. MUCH better

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Time for a little Dana 60 teardown.....this axle also came down from Fairbanks, AK. I hauled it down in the bed of the M715 actually. Generally any heavy duty truck parts in AK get used HARD and this axle was certainly no exception....

Full tear down, these are the parts which won't be reused on this build

Lower trunnion bearing caps were COMPLETELY frozen in the knuckle. Bearings looked OK though. Because I couldn't get the lower caps off, I had no choice but to remove the kingpins first.

Tried with my normal 1/2" impact....no go. Went to my 1" impact which is an Ingersoll Rand and I think is nearly 1,000ft/lbs of torque. At 120 psi they didn't budge. Since the axle isn't secured into anything, I couldn't put a 12' cheater bar on it.

So....used a CO2 Powertank and gradually kept increasing the pressure. One broke loose at 300psi, the other at nearly 350. Yes, dumb, tools blow up but frankly I was out of options. Once the knuckle was off, I was able to knock the trunnion caps off very slowly through the knuckle assembly. For others that have ever tried to remove an original GM Kingpin, I'm sure you understand my pain....

And living up to the AK reputation, the tubes were both pretty friggin' nasty. Axle is on its way to the blaster below...

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

CalSgt said:
Good work :rock:

Sooooo jealous of that milling machine... I will have one some day

Thanks! not my mill but a friend of mine who lives nearby. It pays to have good friends and oh the things you can do in a mill :yup:

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

And now it’s clean. No kidding this took them only about 10 minutes. I could have spent HOURS on it and it wouldn't be this good.

Inside the axle tubes. I asked them to shoot a bunch of media through them and they did a great job. No more rust, dirt or scale.

However, the previous damage on the long side (driver) tube is pretty evident here. the U-joint wore into it pretty deep, I'd suspect a failed spindle bearing or broken axle. That somebody kept driving on :doh:

The axle looked like it had been fully disassembled at some point. The main seals at the carrier had been replaced and someone had smeared blue RTV all over them. The differential itself was very clean though

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

What time is it? Time for anything shave actually....

This is the Ballistic Fab D60 shave kit and the cover is sans "skull" plate. Gain in clearance is right around an inch. Worth it? In my opinion yes if you've got the axle down this far, have it blasted and are going to change/replace EVERYTHING. Pic is "pre-shave" showing the clearance gain

Back at the mill, working on clean stuff is SO nice.

The cast steel mills quite well and this made LOTS of chips

Here's the end result. Compared to the 15B shave kit, the axle is opened up a WHOLE lot more here. Like a told my friend Mark (owner of this build) we are taking a highly sought after D60 and essentially ruining the perfectly good factory casting. I love it.

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Here’s how the plate and cover will sit

It's a BIG skid plate

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

And the ring gear clearance. This is the factory carrier with factory 4.56 gears. The gears are going to be re-used the carrier will be replaced with an ARB.

Ring gear clearance on the lower skid plate. It's very good, as in about 1/16" of an inch. Plenty to not worry about it.

So...… given the storied history of Ballistic Fabrication, how do I feel about this kit and their service? It was good, very good.

Ballistic said the kit would be backordered about 2 weeks and it arrived at my house right in that time frame. And that was with the crazy holiday shipping during the time I ordered it.

The quality control is VASTLY better then the ECGS 15B kit I just did. The D60 cover was very nicely milled. I lapped it just a bit to see where it was at and I've no doubt it'll seal fine without any work. It was clearly well milled after all the welding was finished.

If I could change one thing, it would be making the bottom skid plate about 3/8" longer actually. By the time you mill the differential casting down to the correctly depth, the end of the plate is RIGHT at the edge of the hole you've opened up. It'll weld up fine I've no doubt but a bit of extra material would be nice.

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Also worked on prepping the passenger firewall so it can be plated. It was fairly bent in places as in "how in the hell is this so hammered?"
I roughed up the green paint a bit but I'm not doing to remove it altogether. That was hiding under the ventilation box and is original 68'!

Picked up this little guy.... 8 week old German Shepherd, our 3rd one now. And since I used to own a 67' M35A2 and now I'm doing this build.....

We named him Kaiser after the Kaiser Jeep Corporation that produced the M715 in its day :thumb:

On the way to the blaster again, fast asleep for now!

wjtstudios · Feb 1, 2021

Such a cute pup, congrats!

2015 JKUR AEV JK350
1985 CJ8 Scrambler

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Welding up the shave kits.... This is the 15B. Did pre-heat to 500 degrees and then MIG welded it. Seemed to weld pretty consistently but I just don't care much for the noise and splatter of the MIG process.

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

D60.... I did the same 500 degree pre-heat but I decided to TIG the plate. Took probably 5x longer but the end result is at least visually more appealing.

Rock40 · Feb 1, 2021

Also welded all the brake retainers on the axle tubes. From the factory, they are only about 50% welded

Leaky axle tubes on the 15B. While doing the 500 degree pre-heat, ALL the plug welds started leaking nasty old gear oil pretty good. I ended up cleaning them really well and then TIG welding them up so they're actually sealed.

Slowly plugging away at the rear frame and suspension mounts. The entire frame needs to be boxed and the upper link mount needs to be angled away from the frame appropriately. Plus I'm filling a bunch of factory frame holes....