Project freebie!

[72soa]

What kind of ball joints are on the dana 44 front end?

 

[Justutt67]

What's weird is I have Photobucket as well but pay $30/yr and it seems all my photos are appearing online. I only pay to have the extra space so I'm curious why people would be charged $400 vs what I'm paying.

Well that's weird. They offered a $30 per year service but the only one that said I could do "3rd party photo hosting" was the $400 level of service. I will go back and look.

 

[Justutt67]

What kind of ball joints are on the dana 44 front end?

Those are the Napa premium or Napa gold. Can't remember what they call them.

 

[Justutt67]

Well my Scout is officially a driver! Got my seats back from upholsterer, got all gauges installed and they work perfect, got the inside of the bed coated in Raptor liner and lizard skin, and all glass is in and a new set of bills turns all around. Still need to build bumpers, have new driveshafts made and install the stereo but I have been driving it around town with a big grin on my face. I took all the glass out of the frames and had it all powdercoated before I reinstalled also powder coated the seat bases.

 

[Justutt67]

Also if anyone is rebuilding their vent Windows I found a place online www.thefillingstation.com that caries the special rivets for the upper pivot. I bought 4 rivets (in case I messed one up) and the rivet tool for like $15.

 

[Justutt67]

I was going through my build thread fixing the mess that photobucket had made when they blocked all my pictures and found a few that I never posted. So here they are. I bought some modified headlamp buckets from a member on here "Olive Scout" they are used for mounting LED headlamps but i used them for mounting Jeep JK headlamps that I already had. BTW these headlights are nice and bright, fit perfect, and have an excellent pattern.

 

[Justutt67]

Also found a couple other pics i took of the Scout last summer. Still working on homemade bumpers and will update when done.

 

[Randy Z.]

Nice nice nice. The black-out is perfect!

 

[gamestrader]

Wow!! Your scout turned out great. I love the color. Thank you so much for fixing all the pictures on your thread! I hope others follow suit.

 

[winchested]

My wife actually commented when I showed her the pictures of yours. She likes it!

 

[Justutt67]

Wow!! Your scout turned out great. I love the color. Thank you so much for fixing all the pictures on your thread! I hope others follow suit.

Yeah I was pretty pissed about the whole photobucket debacle. Had to individually download each photo back to my computer and go through each page and re-post the photos. glad I did it though. I have a thread over on cummins forum of a set of compound turbos I built for my dodge truck that I still need to go through and replace pictures. Thanks for the comments guys they are appreciated!

 

[Mx-5 Scout]

Excellent build!
This is very much in line with my own goals in terms of body and suspension, I greatly appreciate the pictures in the beginning, as I am going to have to rebuild that area from scratch!

 

[Justutt67]

Well I finally got around to building a rear bumper w/tire carrier for the Scout. I probably way over engineered this thing but it is stout as heck and doesn't rattle at all. I wanted to have some clevis mounts so I found a nice piece of cold rolled steel at my local metal yard that measured 1 1/4" wide by 1 3/4" tall. I wanted them to be attached to the frame rails so they would be strong. I drilled and tapped a 1/2" hole that gets bolted to the most rearward hole in the rear frame rails. Then I drilled a 7/8" hole for the clevis and beveled the top and bottom where it would come through the front side of the bumper face. I also had to modify the holes at the back of the frame to accept the clevis mounts.

 

[Justutt67]

Next I made sure the clevis mounts were square to the frame and found the center line of them. I took those measurements and transferred them to the 2"x5"x 3/16 wall square tubing I used for the bumper itself. Drilled 4 holes at each location and cut them out with the plasma cutter. They fit like a glove! I slid the bumper over the clevis bars and measured how far out from the back of the frame it needed to be to clear the tailgate. Then I cut out 2- 1/4" thick mounting plates and 2 spacers out of 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 3/16 wall square tubing that I welded between the mounting plates and the bumper.

 

[Justutt67]

I cut the ends of the bumper at a 20 degree angle and eventually cut the upper part of the angle off at 90 degrees also. I purchased a tire swing hub and mount plate off amazon for the tire carrier portion of the bumper. The spindle came with a sleeve that I cut a hole for to mount in the bumper but in hindsight I probably didn't need to do that I could have just welded the spindle directly to the bumper. The swing away part was also made form the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" square tube but the vertical part was made from a left over piece of the bumper.

 

[Justutt67]

I then fully welded the clevis bars to the front and back side of the bumper slid the bumper back into the frame rails bolted them in and welded the bumper to the spacer mounts. Then it was onto building the tire swing.

 

[Justutt67]

Then I had to figure out what to do for a latch. I decided on a DE-STA-CO clamp latch for its ease of use and its 2000# holding capacity. I also wanted to ad a spring loaded T latch on the other side to hold it open if wind or something came up. I built a little cradle for the left side of the tire swing to sit in while closed and cut up a red cutting board to provide a slick surface as well as vibration dampening. It worked perfect!

 

[Justutt67]

Painted it black, mounted the tire and called it good! I didn't mount a hitch receiver into the bumper cause i figure I will buy one of those CURT frame mount hitches when the time comes. Front bumper will be next on the list.

 

[walkersscout]

Nice. I'll give you double what you paid for it now!

 

[Randy Z.]

Nice work, again...