bone collector

Thank you both for your service and sacrifice to our country

Teuf

Semper Fi Mac.

Daenerysdad

Anytime Collector. Jerd, that flight line, if it gets any bigger, is gonna push right into Miramar road! So have most of the phrog squadrons switched over to the osprey? And how are your ears from all the f-18 touch and goes!? Man, I tell you what, I lost quite a bit of hearing from 4 years of those things taking off 200 yards away... All I can say is wear your cranial down with the muffs on all day, our you'll regret it in a few years.

Daenerysdad

Oh, and Teuf, those bars rock! It's like I'm riding a wheelie everywhere I go! Well, in the sense that I only feel steering inputs, and bumps that my rear tires go over. Now it's time for the 63" spring swap!

BlazeN8

Yeah, 22mm torsion bar just don't have a high enough spring rate. You need 24mm-26mm. Glad to hear your dialing in the suspension.

My experience with the Chevy 63"s (on my 1986 Xtra Cab P/U) was it resulted in 5" of lift which was too high. I took off the overload spring and did a shackle flip to the top of the frame. I also took out the middle leaf spring cut it down and put it on the bottom. Then I added about 150lbs of ballast. After all that I got it to sit at 3-1/2" of lift. The ballast helped with the weight transfer and allowed the rear to settle down. Another drawback is the Chevy springs don't have much of a backbone and axle wrap and wheel hop are a problem. I built some traction bars but then articulation and ground clearance suffered. Overall I am not sold on the Chevy 63.

Teuf

Glad there working out..........

Kingjerd

Yeah after the last hangar where the road starts to turn to the left then go down hill, right before the down hill is our new hangar. We are pretty far away from the 18's, thank God! Most of the phrogs are gone, we have one squadron left with them. All the rest are indeed osprey. These Ospreys though, man, they are definitely a different breed. FUN to ride in!!!

ToyoTech559

good to see another blazeland LT kit. cant wait to see what you do with it

Daenerysdad

Ok,some lame-o updates. Few pics of my rear bumper build. Was tired of how long it was taking to TIG everything, but man, those welds look nice when yo get Em right! uh, main tube welded to frame mounts! And almost everything TIG'd together.

Daenerysdad

And heres about 2/3 of what a perfect TIG weld looks like! Too bad that one was under the receiver and it's getting covered in paint and everything primed in poo brown.

BlazeN8

Nice! I like how you tied into the frame where the the spare tire mechanism mounts.

Daenerysdad

Yeah, when I got rear ended, the car went under me and hit my spare, tweaking the carrier beyond use, so I figured use some provided holes to beef up the bumper...

HighLux

I like the bumpers. Your welds are great. Really good. Cant even say for a beginner. I would have never known. Those look pro.

Im sure you will end up with a super awesome truck. I can tell already.

Thanks for the service Marines. My older cousin was a Marine and he was always a bad mofo. Ended up in Force Recon. Think its gone now?

He did 20 years and retired. The only cousin I wouldnt consider getting lippy with.

Daenerysdad

Well, there she is boys. Add another one-off something-or-other to the spank bank. Hope you like the custom flat black paint covering the huge dents on the back. Next up... swing-out tailgate/spare tire carrier. Got it mostly drawn up in autocad. Just have to submit my plans to my teacher, and the hacking, smashing, burning, and cussing will begin anew!

BlazeN8

Very nice! Looks to me like your off to a good career start in Off Road fabrication.

I was trying to do a search for "Blazeland" and its coming up with hundreds of threads now. I am creating a bump on threads that are pertinent to the subject. I'm marking them with keywords. I am using "Blazelander2013" if its a rig that actually has a Blazeland kit or good related info.

Daenerysdad

Sounds like a good idea Nate. When I was researching your kit on here many of the tags would take me to some guy that from page 1 started a SAS buildup thread and the thread is 46 pages long! I think it'll help out those like me wanting to dig a little before purchasing your kit, but I have nothing but good to say about your product and service so I'd be biased.

Daenerysdad

Picked up some Chevy springs from a kid in the welding shop. Off an '88 2500, so gotta pull a leaf or two out whilst I'm cleaning the crud off...
And started the front hangar and now it's done too....

kornhuskerwizard

Nice looking welds! Anxious to see what the 63's look like. Im planning on doing the 63's but probalbly only 1/2 tons.

Daenerysdad

Little done here and there. Did my 63 swap over the winter school break but had to spend the first week back getting my shock tower stuffed under my bed. And go figure, didn't take any pictures tuil I was 'bout done kinda like the idea of a buggy when/if this thing ever flops As you can see my professionally engineered single shock setup 'tuil I could get the new shocks/mount points set up.. and my axle mounts I plasma'd out on the table for my new bilstien 5125's with 11' stroke. Pretty much sit straight up n down tucked tight under the bed. All I have to say is holy crap. The guys who have done this swap before and say its super soft and crazy flexy weren't kidding! Kinda wanna take it off some sweet jumps!

BlazeN8

On my 86 truck the Chevy 63" spring gave me more lift than I wanted, probably a solid 4" The Blazeland front lift is only 3" so the rear seamed too high. I also found the Chevy 63" had no backbone (being only three leafs) so the axle wrap was horrible. There was quite a bit of wheel hop under heavy throttle. I tried traction bars for a while but that killed the articulation. Eleven inch travel shocks are going to need some bump stops and limit straps. Its tricky to get a long enough shock without making compromises of some sort. Bed cages and your cutting up your bed. Steep shock angle and the shock is inefficient and causes the axle to rotate. Angle the shocks to the center and...... well I'm sure you have run through the pros and cons. Keep us posted on how it turns out.