Another Rebirth For The 3b

Based on my experience, I disagree completely with this statement. My Ford F250 truck when through 4 sets of tires in 80,000 miles. There wasn't an alignment or frame shop in the Seattle area that I contacted that could remedy the problem and several tried.

 

I've got a 06' F-250 with a solid coil sprung axle and a '89 F-250 with leaf sprung TTB. The 89 rides noticably nicer than the 06 in bumpy stuff.

The worst part of the TTB is the bushings at the pivots wearing out and the truck wandering all over the road. But... if you grew up driving Fords, you don't even notice it.

 

Don't know what to tell you. I've had 10-15 TTB Trucks, of various capacities and configurations, and as long as the Pivot Bushings, Radius Arm Bushings, and Ball Joints were kept in good repair, and I threw an alignment at it every time I got tires, and did the rotation roughly every 6000 miles, I never had issues with tires "wearing funny" or "wearing quickly", even on the ones that had lifts on them.

 

I'm a big proponent of swapping the stock pivot bushings out for a polyurethane, like energy suspension sells, that's usually one of the first things I do.

 

I spent the morning by starting to torch all the non-essentials off this frame…





and it made me realize I’m wasting my time. Not only is this frame trash and a waste of time, it also became evident that I really need to start with fresh steel. The amount of work and extra steel this will require is counterproductive. I’ll start pinching my pennies to buy some proper steel for this project.

I should’ve walked away. That trip was a bust.

 

Damn, that's a bugger. Yeah, there are probably some bits that you can save, but the frame looks garbage.

 

Everything is worse than it looks. The v6 mounts were horribly welded into a 4cyl frame and the DS has a hack-job hole though it for a steering shaft. The shackles are home-made garbage and bent.

I’m really sort of irritated with myself; first that I bought this, and again that I wasted torch gasses on it.

 

but we know your skills . so step back . still you have something to work with
your going to change things to coils anyway . aren't you

 

There are more cracks in this frame than I’ve ever seen.

Yes, going to coils, most likely front and rear, and the torsion that outboarded coil springs will put on a frame just solidifies the reasoning to start with some 2 x 4 x 3/16” tubing. It would tear this junker apart.

 

Reminds me of my frame....

 

Seal up the all holes in the frame with duct tape. Stand the frame on one end and pour JB Weld into both cut-off frame horns. Let dry. Remove duct tape.

 

With the TTB front suspension I bet a guy could build a cradle between the front frame rails and hang a Volvo rack and pinion steering setup in there fairly easily....
Between that and a tie rod flip one could probably achieve perfect bump steer without having the steering hanging super low.
Curious to see how you work the steering.

 

You know, I would, but they’re reverse rotation.

 

The Baja kids use a couple swing-a-ma-things that put the top ends of the tie-rods inline with the axle pivots.

Complicated, but no bump steer through the long travel:

 

You guys are going to be so disappointed.

 

I heard of a guy who made his own frame for a jeep type thing...He seemed to think that old junk is, well junk and new steel is worth the money.. But what do I know.....? I m already disappointed, so have at it...

 

I wonder how that guy's Jeep is doing these days?

 

I heard it’s considering a ticket to Idaho to get completed.

 

He says its in pieces and its not finishing itself.

That can be arranged... but the guy is scared of his work getting seen outside of a junk yard..