Turns out nobody makes heavy duty stainless flanges for the 8.1 liter, at least not that we could find. So....got a chunk of 1/2” 316L stainless plate to start from scratch. The idea is running full 3" mandrel bent exhaust from the headers back. And of course, the passenger/driver sides are both different shapes with different bolt patterns.
Rough cut circle hole.
Final shape...
Cutting the 1/2” plate with the plasma was slow but doable
Starting the exhaust from the manifolds back. All mandrel bent with a crossover from dual to single. Crossover should go from passenger to driver side and then single up from there.
Driver side:
Driver side underneath. Short flex pipe and a small cat because I can't stand exhaust stink on the trail all day
Hard to see but this is the passenger side. There is VERY little space to cross it over and the only option is bringing it back to the Magnum and doing it there. If I didn’t care about having a front driveshaft it’d be WAY easier
Unfortunately, the new panels are only “close” to the original and I will not name the USA supplier. No amount of hoping, praying or massaging them with a sheet metal brake are going to make them right. So....I'll have to come back to them later
Cut out the rest of the bad spots today. This is the lower portion of the B pillar
Plasma cut out the last little bit, basically the very inside floor corner of the rear cab. I didn’t want to play around with welding anywhere near it
Cab corner fit-up. Overall pretty good. The only issue is that the corner radius is slightly different. I should be able to mechanically push it to where it needs to go.
If it seems like I'm bouncing around from project to project, I am. There are literally dozens of different things to work on at once.
Went ahead and welded nutserts into the tunnel. This way the shift boots and rings can be easily installed or removed without a back up wrench
I also cut out the hole for the Ranger a bit bigger to match the shift boot ring
Had it with all the tedious body work. Took the 40 out of its nearly 8 month storage and jetted over to Eastern WA for the day. This is up near Sugarloaf
Time to cut up the frame a bit. In order to maximize uptravel with only 2” of lift, the frame needed to be relieved for the panhard bar. Max uptravel will be 4” as just beyond that the differential casting strikes the frame and the panhard is in the front differential cover and engine harmonic balancer.
Used a chunk of DOM that I bought awhile ago for doing this same thing with the bump stops
It’s VERY tight at full bump but it’s in
About a 1/16” of clearance on the draglink at full bump. You can see the panhard in the background
Also ended up modifying the factory GM pedal a bit as it was protruding WAY too far in towards the seat. Cut it, ground it a bit and bent it out some towards the brake pedal. Now at least both are “on line” together.
This also clears room for the installation of the cutting brakes
Notched out and tubed the rear frame in preparation for the bumpstops. Got a little help from Kaiser too
Plasma cut then cleaned up with a flap wheel
Sleeve welded in
Using 2.5” King bumpstops
Got a big welding helmet upgrade as a birthday present. Unbelievable how well you can see under this hood and the color while welding appears like natural light
Welded the rear frame plate in after plasma cutting holes for the shackle mounts. The mounts pass through both the outer and inner frame sections and will be fully welded. Very strong tow point that way
These are fully passed through the outer and inner frame. Solid 1” bar from Ballistic
Tying in the plate corners...
DUN. Mounts are tacked in place and will eventually be fully welded
Plugging away. Fabricating a mount for the cutting brakes here
These will operate the rear left/right brake calipers independently and will allow for much tighter turns at low speed. They should easily lock up a 40" tire
