I don't weld and hearing some prices of shortening the bar plus that fact that I want to do a d60 swap in the future and having an adjustable bar would be nice, I bit the bullet and just bought a james duff bar swap will be finished as soon as it comes in

 

The wristed arm idea is kind of old school but has been used quite abit successfully, you use .5" plate so you're not losing anything strength wise (it's plated inside the arm as well). What it does is relieve the bind in the front end. When the axle moves down it will want to rotate, this is stopped by the solid ra's. When you wrist it the axle can rotate and eliminate that bind and allow it to droop more. You don't do both sides because the axle would want to flop around. When pinned up though it'd act just like a solid one. You could also extend the arms a foot or so and that would relieve help to relieve the bind as well. Again, kind of a old school/low dollar mod

Wristing an arm for me will be a temporary thing until I can put together a linked suspension for the front. Plan is to run coil overs at that point.

Flex wasn't the primary concern when I SAS'd my explorer. The ttb has some crappy behavior when you're off camber (it wants to jack the high side up). I sas'd mine for the stronger axle, brakes, and handling offroad. LOTS of guys in my club run ttb's very successfully though but I had to go the hard route lol.

 

extending the ra's a foot is something I really wanted to do but had a few people tell me the home made extentions (just round stock threaded to the ra's and welded ) just dont hold up to well and with time started to bend. If I do get the 60, I think Ill go that route and just get it beefed up so its stronger

 

I have my doubts about those extensions as well. What you can do is cut your RA's around 6"s from the C's. Then take DOM, slot it, make it fit in the I beam of your RA, weld it, then put a heim at the frame end. I just finished doing this on a comanchee i'm helping build. If you spend the coin on a 60...just link it. It will be a bit more pricey but might as well when the credit card is all warmed up lol

Something like this

 

Damn that's exactly what I wanted to do it looks good too. I'm sure it could even be bent like duff ones or bloody knuckle garages too so it fits the 80-96 frame right. My only concern would be using the right tube to withstand the abuse and not brake or bend. Like I mentioned I'm no welder or machinist so not to familiar with all the different Dom and such. As for linking it, I wish. Definitely not at the experience level to do that and as for the keeping the credit card warm, im broke (real broke now), and come September full time job ends and back to college, lived pay check to pay check even with this swap so that d60 build will be slower than molasses

 

I think we used .25" wall on the comanchee arms. And we did have to bend them to get the castor close to reasonable so that all can be done! I dig what you're saying bout broke...i have a kid LOL

My advice...hit up craigslist for a cheap tombstone welder (got mine for like 60 bucks), then buy a box of rods and start burning them up. My welds are starting to look pretty decent. Once you're good at arc you'll be way ahead when it comes to a mig

 

Bed on, brakes done,
Need to make a shock hoop or do something to lengthen the ride length for my shocks, ride height is 21 inches 5150's, 5100's and fox 2.0's don't have any decent travel shock to fit that space, it appears that ride height really needs to be about 25" for a 14" travel shock to have 5" of up travel. So I ordered sky jacker shocks for now until I figure that mess out. But all im waiting on is track bar and shocks and I'll finally have this thing on the road, and off road ofcoarse

 

That thing is going to be a offroad monster!!! Is it going to be a truck! to just mess around in or will it be a hardcore offroad truck?

 

Not my daily driver so it will definitaley see a good deal of offroad, mostly just mud holes maybe a little trail riding. The main reason I built it was so I dont have to brake the daily driver any more. Still going to drive it around on the road and I won't even be loading it on a trailer to offroad any where. I'd say its some where between messing around and hardcore offroad. Hopefully Ill have some action shots next weekend

 

Its real nice to have the bed, bumper and hitch back on. I really liked the look of the truck with out the bed, but when I put the bed on the truck looked bigger. A new issue I found with the bed on though, is that the body isn't sitting perfectly even, the body mounts are all crappy after 19 years I guess. In the rear of the body the passenger side is a half inch higher. Now Im thinking a one or 2 inch body lift just so I have new mounts, never installed a body lift before any thoughts?

 

they sell rubber pucks to replace the stock ones. get some of those if you do a body lift. the cab will shake more if it sits 2 inches higher. well ours does but we have 3 inches. (we didn't replace the stock pucks)

 

Good to know, maybe Ill just replace the stock pucks, although if I took it apart I mite as well throw the body lift in

 

I will be looking foward to see the finished product. This is something id like to do one of these days so I don't have to beat on my daily driver

 

Thats exactly why I did it myself, I looked on craigslist for a long time, looking for a cheap extended cab short bed. I think Im 3 grand in on this project, buying the truck, axles, coils, shocks, brakes, adjustable track bar, tires and rims, gears, u joints, paint, grade 8 hardware, steering column, new shackles(mine were rusted out), and all the other miscellaneous parts. Going 8 lug, and restoring/painting along the way definitily jacked up my costs but what can ya do. Once its finished I'm really going to enjoy it

This swap could be done for really cheap though, 5 lug d44 with all the steering and with lift coils already, use those coils buy rancho/rough country shocks and weld your own brackets it could probably be done for like 600 bucks

 

Minus the shocks (which were expensive) i was right at $900 for my swap. That was using 79 coil buckets, radius arms, radius arm brackets (friend cut them 22* back n re-welded to get the arms from binding), 79 track bar, 79 track bar bracket modified (friend welded it up for me), F-250 shock towers, F-350 steering, thunderbird calipers (bigger pistion), brake pads, banjo bolts, extended brake lines, new coils, new lower spring cups, hardware, bushings, ball joints, spindles (mine were fawked), spindle bearing kits and reusing my TTBs rotor/hub/bearings/lock-outs.

I think that covers just about everything.