Ol'fogasaurus black buggy

[dustymojave]

You've been thinking blue

I've been thinking and suggesting red.

Yellow would help some too. But too many gussets and you make a stress concentration ("stress riser") at the inboard end of the gussets.

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You don't need to plate the outboard side of the forging. Plating the inboard side will be plenty.

Note there is already a gusset on the inboard side of the forging to attach the red gusset to. You could do that without even adding the plate.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I was thinking blue and red (but not at an angle like you are showing it) but had'nt considered the yellow. If I did the red on the structural rib, which is not parallel to the bottom flange but inset at the bottom (as I remember, the lower flange is longer), would the full boxing of the shock tower be necessary (yes... as a precaution, but remember, my thinking is still thinking in 12 Gs with "cribs" to 16 Gs)? Yellow on the other side might help with "up and down" loads from the pickle forks but then that is what the down bars from the cage are supposed to help with.

Thanks, that helps a lot.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

If you look at Dusty's pix in the above post the red triangle idea I am going to use which requires it to be attached to the rib in the casting which means that the boxing of the lower part of the shock tower will be handled a bit differently.

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This is a rough pattern for the boxing of the lower part of the shock tower. It still needs some correction but this is where my back gave out. The join of the two boxing pieces will weld to the gusset going to the spreader bar.

The red arrow points to the rib that the gusset Dusty is suggesting I use (we have talked off line about this some) and as I said: I agree! Since the shock towers on each side look like "mirror pieces" they do vary some because of "tolerance" differences. I have not tried this pattern on the opposite side yet.

The black arrow points to a structural flaring of the bottom leg of the forging. I had to cut the pattern to go above it as 1/8 flat stock would be hard to bend to the surface at the bottom but not the top... I still can weld to it. Just a warning.

I am thinking about making this a separate item then referring to it as it doesn't affect just off-roaders but anyone abusing the stock setup . The commercial units do the job... kind of but are a shortcut in my opinion that can cause others problems. The put a lot of loading on the shock mount eye which is what I am concerned about. Is mine the best way... probably not but hopefully it gives some thoughts to others so they can make better designs.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I did do some work on the boxing of the shock tower but it needs more work to get to fit correctly... it isn't as easy as one would think.

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The gaps shown aren't as bad as they look but they aren't good either. The bottom of the gusset needs some reshaping and you have to account for the angle of the beveling of the stiffening flange. The 1/8th inch boxing material also wants to not sit straight up and down but I think more fitting will be the way to fix it. Bending over to look at this stuff even when it is a bright sunny day still doesn't allow you to see it all. I clamped the plate in place the took the photo then went..."wow!"

If you notice there are two lines up by the body mount, those are for the location of a stiffening rib that I had not noticed before, again due to shadows when looking from over the top of the shock mount I missed it.

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Believe it or not but I was able to a lot of the basic shaping on this cheap horizontal/vertical band saw. The new mount I made years ago stiffen things up compared to the stock mounts. Also, you have to "yarf" down on the tension adjusting knob to keep from spitting the blade out. You can make arc cuts but are limited by the blade width.

Lee

[bajaherbie]

That'll work, time to melt it in place.

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[Ol'fogasaurus]

That'll work, time to melt it in place.

Sent from my SM-G920R4 using Tapatalk

You just did that to my heart!

The boxing piece just does not want to sit in place long or well enough to tack due partly to the taper in the "ears" on the outside of the forging that hold the torsion bar bushing in place... close, but not quite. Today has been busy here and tomorrow might be also... not sure yet. Its kind of a "fussing" thing then, when it fits, I can copy this one to the other side then fuss it in place also.

I am going to have to pull the torsion bar and bushing out before I can weld at the "south end" of the boxing piece and not melt the bushing.

Then comes to top boxing pieces then on to the good stuff. It has been fun but different to say the least.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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I got some time in the garage and after about an hour of grinding and fitting there is where I am. A very tight fit and needed a clamp at the top to keep things in place.

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After a bunch of de-burring, smoothing things out and other stuff this is where is it and it is a fairly nice fit for welding.

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This is the top of the other shock mount showing the stiffening flanges I had to deal with in order to get a good fit. It even shows the "snot drop" near the middle that gave me fits trying to get the boxing plate to fit correctly. If you notice on the second picture down that the top of the place is a bit low which was because of that little what ever there.

If you look you can see two notches that I made in the top of the boxing plate and that was for the stiffening flanges. What isn't shown is the relief cuts I had to make in the inside surface of the plate to get things to sit fairly tight and even.

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I thought you might enjoy this. The boxing piece for the other side was cut to the tracing of the original cardboard template I made (from a paper mockup). The first outside line is a tracing (a bit oversized due to the wide Sharpie I used that also allows fitting to the shock tower as they are both a bit different) of the boxing piece after the last go at this. The inside line again is a tracing but of where I ended up today. HAVE PATIENCE GUYS !

Lee

[dustymojave]

I hope you're not trying to fit that "gusset" into the back of the recess in the forging. The plate should be flush with the outer edge of the perimeter rib of the forging.And you should be closer to your original pattern in what is the lower left corner of the plate in your last photo. In fact, fitting the plate just like the pattern where it's taped with blue masking tape would be a pretty good fit for the plate. Ready to weld.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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I just took this picture a few minutes ago. The arrow is to where most, but not all of the problems lie.

In order to do a proper boxing of the tower I would have to do a very complicated heat bending to fit the one surface and or add a twist or two in place which, for me, would be almost impossible. I agree with you about the gap in the one corner but the flange's taper and spherical radius in the corner somewhat dictated it... just probably not as bad as it ended up. Sometimes just a little bit of fitting ends up being just a little bit too much; I just couldn't get things to fit until this and a couple of other *%$&#@ fittings had to be finessed into place. "Fittings" in this case means adjustments to the shape. I was using a 6" grinding wheel, three pneumatic grinders, cut off wheels and sanding discs. I was trying to be as "gentle" and light touching as I could but in a stubborn "I am in control here" manner (or is that backwards and the inanimate objects were in control ).

Do you have another idea? If so I will be happy to try it.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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This is the area Dusty was talking about. Notice the taper which is pretty great here. The taper is necessary so the casting or forging doesn't get caught in the tooling. No taper or the tolerance goes the other way and the part is stuck in the tool and would have to have the tool broken to get it out or vice-versa.

A "spherical radius" is a point where three or more radiuses come together/conjoin. Very hard to do especially when forming sheet metal as the stretch from the radiuses get very thin and you can get ripping/tearing out of the area. Castings and forging are similar but not as touchy from what I understand.

If I welded this in the top in this corner as is it would be pulled out a bit as the other end it in correctly. The engineers must have had a problem because of the sudden wide area shown in the picture looking down in my last post (arrow).

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Since I had cut two to rough cut boxing plates to the original template I will try to do the other one to fit the surface flanges but notch away the area that sticks out. The rear suspension will have to be removed to have access to weld this in place 'cause I am not that capable of bending around like one would have to. Also the flanges that you weld to are very narrow and I suspect they might cause problems in some areas; not sure yet.

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It rally would have been better if this had been done on the rotisserie (like I said a couple of posts ago) which still could happen. I'm not afraid of stripping the suspension off and the rotisserie is easy to get to .

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The only problem are the flanges of the rear mount for the trans but maybe some adapters can be made to allow the mount to be left in place.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Since its Mother's Day (happy Mother's Day to any Mothers reading this) I had to shower, shave and cook breakfast for my wife then vacuum part of the house... then stay clean for the family get-together so no work in the garage. But I did do something...

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This is the other boxing piece I had cut and roughly clamped in place. You can see the results of the different levels of the forging here.

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This is looking down at the piece of 1/8th inch steel. The one rib that is the end of this section of the shock tower has to be left unused by the boxing as it is reserved for the bracket to the spreader tube then the two boxing pieces will weld to it Assuming I can get it to fit well enough to weld in place on the thin flanges on the forging otherwise it is back up to the scrap yard for another 3' section of 4" X 3' plate (~$10).

The arrows show where adjustment has to be made just to start fitting. I did bead blast the lines off as they were a determent to getting things clamped into place correctly (Oh! I found out that if you want to erase computer discs the bead blaster might be a way to go. Drawback... they aren't reusable but they seem to be erased as I can see through them )

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Been kind of busy so I haven't been spending much time on the buggy but when I go by it in the garage I do look and play unless my wife catches me and I get "THE LOOK" ! Since there are a lot of people in the development that work odd hours and there still is a fair amount of kids (the old people are moving away and the new/young families are back filling in I don't go to the garage before 9:00 AM or do any noisy work after say 5:00 PM. I don't get yipped at by the neighbors then.

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If you are planning on working with this area I recommend that you don't trim off this part of the flange. I suspect it is an engineering fix to a problem that came up or a "known" problem from doing the math.

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This is an other area that I would not mess with. Since I have a glass buggy I don't physically use the platform other than for mounting the tool for setting the preload but I still think there may a reason for it being there so, in my opinion, it should be left alone. There is also a notch on the upper surface but don't mess with it as I think you work around it during welding.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I've been waiting for a guy to show up and do some spraying on the greenery to protect it from who knows whatever so I got some time in the garage to play.

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The arrows point to the stiffening flange that I think Dusty wanted me to use for a brace. I wanted to come close to it and the diagonal piece from the spreader so I could connect to it from the two boxing pieces (one in the lower part of the tower and another one in the top part of the shock tower). The angle out it makes is a problem as is the bulge in the bottom of the shock tower.

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This is about as close as I can get to the desired box. At the upper bend, by where the large clamp is there is a gap of close to 1/4 inch. Not quite but close. If I use the clamp there a can bring the 1/8th inch stock over to the flange to weld it to. The bottom of the shock tower flange I am on the inside of and will have to stay like that as near as I can tell.

Question Dusty et al: If I pull the top in the bottom wants to follow. If I weld the bottom first then pull the top over will there be enough heat in the weld to allow the boxing piece to take a set or should I just use the smoke wrench to heat the area and pull it into shape. The question there is: will the bottom of the boxing piece pull over and also take a set.

The inside piece I made first does have a better overall fit and I can get it to do things w/o having to do any tricky stuff .

The overall fit is more or less a fingernail gap in most places. Where not I can clamp but they are so few.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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Got some time in the garage later this am before my back gave out from bending over .

Last night I traced the RH side piece onto a piece of 4 X (scrap) X 1/8th flat stock. This morning I cut it out and proceeded to fit it in place. I said that the two shock towers were opposite but they are not "mirror parts". The basic shape is similar but there are some big differences.

The red arrow shows where I have not accounted for the radiused flange yet so the gap on that side is affected. This end has to sit down a bit lower in order to get in contact with the lower stiffening flange also as when (see the next sentence) I try to pull the piece in like the other side the bottom area wants to pull into the wall of the shock tower. The arrow shows the gap, similar to the other side but much wider. I'll have to get the other radius fitted in then I can see what I can do on pulling in or heat bending the radius here.

I'm going to have to do some tacking joins properly in place before I can go much farther on this part.

Lee

Addendum. I hadn't noticed that the lower part of the plate was not sitting on the flange until I had already posted the picture so I went out and corrected that (no picture) and... the gap had gotten a smidgeon smaller. As I tried to pull in the plate where the gap is using a clamp it pulled the metal in andthat lower edge slipped off the flange. I think some metal stretching might be in the mix when I perminately attach it.

L.