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

Got the whole exhaust mess in. It’s tacked and has support brackets, just needs to come out for final welding

LOTS of bends. This piece gets the exhaust up and over the rear frame rail

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3rd Borla muffler, right under the bed and just behind the 14B axle. 3 mufflers? Since neither one of us are 16 years old anymore I’d rather hear the conversation than listen to the exhaust drone away. It’ll be stealthy, HA! If I sneak up on you out on the trail you’ll know why 🙄

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Rear dump exits just behind the passenger rear tire

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It’s up and out of the way, it’ll be mostly covered when I add the rear bumper extensions

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Moving on to finishing out the rear suspension. Need to set the King bumpstops in for good and determine the limit strap length

This is full stuff driver with the passenger side coil over fully dropped/extended. Essentially the wheel hub is on the floor

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Perfect fit!!

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Blue towel roll is simulating the coil over, it’s the same diameter. Very close clearance to both the tub, fender and coil over

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Rear bumps are in, what a pain. Apparently it’s a well documented issue that the King bumpstop cans distort when they are welded, which makes it impossible to get the bump in and out of the can. After fighting this for a bit, I had a friend machine up an aluminum slug to help keep the can round

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Cut up some chunks of DOM to make rear frame reliefs. At max droop, the coils were JUST making contact with the outside of the frame

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Of course there just had to be a nasty old chunk of frame or leaf spring support right where it needed to go 🙄

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Relief pieces, they are .120 wall

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Done on the driver side, passenger side needs the same

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With the amount of love you've given that frame you could have built a tube frame for it, good work man...
That is completely true. The amount of frame mods required to sandwich in a suspension like this is ridiculous. FAR more than I was planning on
 
Planning ahead for the rear sway bar. We are going with a custom length Sway A Way

Bar should sit where the blue sharpie line is and have room to articulate upwards to max bump

Unfortunately about 1/2 of the factory bed mount has to be chopped off since it extends outboard of the frame

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See ya!!

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I’m officially past the point of fretting about slicing bits off the frame. Just when I think I’m done I end up hacking off more

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Got all the nonsense holes plugged in on the driver side, used 1” round tube caps

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Cleaned off the old mount in preparation for gusseting it again. Using 1/2”-13 welded nutserts

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Part of the old mount. The hole is far too large and the bed was obviously loose. All the holes are hogged out

Used an oval tube cap, drilled it to just over 1/2” and welded it in with the correct offset so everything lines up

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Gusseted mount, upper mount shortened and welded back in. Uses poly CJ5 body mounts

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Last of the old spring hanger bolt holes filled in with silicone bronze

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