Heavy Duty and Off road bumpers

The Adventure Topper

This is a detailed look at the design and fabrication of a pick-up topper made specifically for adventure travel or offroad camping.

The Design

Features
Here are some of the main features I want for the topper.
-Lots of headroom ( for sleeping in )
-Full lighting
-Weather proof
-Removable/vented windows with misquito netting
-Roof rack for extra storage and accesorie mounting ( hi-lift, shovel/ax, spare tire, lights)
-Rear window with detachable awning
-Audio from in cab stereo

Materials
After considering weight, price, and workability I have decided to use 1" 11 gauge or similar square tubing for the main structure and 1" angle for some bracing and other supports. The windows will be made of 1/4" acyrlic in a dark snoke color (tinted)
All metal sheathing with be light gauge aluminum

Sketching it out.

The 1st gen ranger

I know all my friends are going to have a terrific time bashing me about my "disease" and laghing at my ubsurd ideas but here goes nothin. It started out the summer before I bought the Cherokee. I was driving from my girlfriend (angie's) house and I spotted a little truck still sitting next to a buiding on hwy 10 at mathews auto sales. I stopped in and asked about the truck and one the owner wasnt there so his son said to come back later well long story short when i saved up enough money they sold it out from under me. A little background on this place is their bussiness is unorginized and sketchy and their always have money trouble. Well thats what started my disease with ford rangers and I havent been the same since. I am a GM guy thru and thru although I do like some ford trucks ( like my 83) I am generally not a ford guy. However as I looked at more and more rangers I loved the little first gen pickups and so I decided to build one. Now this is premature I know because I do not yet own the truck yet however being cooped up in a dorm room at college I have had lots of time to think about it and plan it out. So without further comment heres some of my plans and ideas. Thanks for looking.

Where to start

What will I use this truck for:
Daily driver (street drivable in all conditions)
-needs to be comfortable and easy to drive
-decent gas milage
Trail rig (capable of easy to moderate trails)
-flexible suspension
-35 inch tires + durable driveline
-body armor
Road trip/adventure travel
-carry lots of equipment for camping
-decent gas milage
-useful onboard tools such as on board air and welder

Base vehicle
1984 to 1988 ford ranger ext cab

Modifications
Powertrain

-5.0 efi
-tranny undecided- posibbly zf 5 spd, nv13550, or np235
-t-case-depends on tranny
-eventually 203/205 triple-sticked

Axles

-front-dana 44 rr out of a 79 f-250 with good stuff inside once $ permits
http://evanstruckpages.blogspot.com/2009/01/dana-44-front-build.html
-rear-dana 60 out of same truck also with goodies

Suspension


-leaf spring front and rear using 4 in lift springs for a 73-87 chevy
-not sure if I will use 1/2 or 3/4 ton leafs yet. Custom front hangers with shackles to the rear.
-front and rear sway bars with disconects.

Interior


-rhino lined floor
-cd player with 4 speakers in cab maybe a small sub but i doubt it
-cb and maybe ham if i get my liscense
-not sure on seats yet

Exterior

-bushwacker cut out flares
-custom front and rear bumpers and sliders
-custom adventure topper with roof rack
-Tan in color with black accents


Wheels and tires

-35x10.5x16 Boggers or like
-steelies eventually with weld on beadlocks

Here are some sketches from a boring day in chemistry class You can see I added a moovisor which I think looks dumb in this sketch but oh well its in pen. Also the blank area obove the roof is a slanted part of the topper to create more headroom. I should also have added a grill gaurd bar but forgot to.
Got the custom rear bumper but i think ill have the receiver drop below the bumper and add a couple lights to the liscense plate area. swing away tire carrier holds fullsize spare and a jerry can. Note the extra tall topper window to provide more shelter over tailgate. Also planning out an awning that uses topper window and swing out tire carrier as anchor points.
This is the ranger that started all the madness. And humorously enough it ends up at the same car lot as before but once again I dont have the money, oh well im over it and besides i decided to get an ex cab anyways. Its a super clean georgia truck with under 50 thousand miles. Too bad the seller is sketchy and he raised his price $700 from the last time he sold it.

Ha ha I was putting off homework on yet another late sunday night and conjured up this compilation of photos and alot of simple photoshoping

Now that you know my plans I will go into more detail about the build. This will be a slow process as I currently am in school and have NO money.

The Adventure Topper

Well thats what i decided to name it. Pretty lame I know but oh well

Edit 8/25/2009: Still plan to someday do this project but probably not in the next 5 years

1983 F-150 Project

I grew up riding around in this pickup with my mom. I would ride in the middle and she would clutch and tell me what gear to put it in. It sat for about a year when we got our new truck in 03. When I got my lisence me and dad got her goin good enough to drive around town. I didnt know much about vehicles back then and so i didnt really care as long as it moved. I hardly drove at all because I didnt have a steady job to pay for gas. One time on the way back from Zimmerman my oil pressure dropped pretty low so I switched to 15-40 oil which was a uneducated guess on my part which no doubt made the problem worse. Anayways long story short i parked it for a few weeks till spring then got her going enough to go to grants and back then halfway to town where the waterpump bairing decided to fail and I turned around to try to make it home. Well temp went way up and oil pressure went way down and it made alot of funny noises as i coasted in the driveway. So after a while I bought the suburban and got that running and as I started teaching myself about trucks and engines I once again got interested in the ford.

The Plan

I decided I wanted to restore the body and make it a farm truck with possibly a wood flatbed. After getting deeper in the project I got some pretty crazy ideas about tube frames and rockwells but I now realize that cant happen till much later when funds allow. So now im back to restoring the body and putting it on a cleaner frame and a possible solid axle swap with a hd dana 44 I have and probably still some sort of flat bed.

The Proccess

I started ripping it apart and gutting the inside in the spring of 08. I also bought a 1993 F-150 as a parts truck. It was crashed in the front but had a good 302 e4od and clean doors. I pulled the engine and trans and sold the trans. I also purchased new sheetmetal for the truck. I ended up with one floor pan both rocker panels and cab corners and i will still require some sheetmetal patching but not much. So by now I had most the truck apart and I was running low on money due tue the purchase of my Jeep. With most the parts at hand I pulled her all apart down to the bare frame and cab. Thinking i would be building a frame and such. Now i wish i would not have gone quite so overboard but it is nice to have a empty cab ready for bodywork.

1991 Jeep Cherokee Laredo

This is my daily driver vehicle that sometimes I use a bit too roughly. Its a 91 Jeep Cherokee Laredo with a 4.0 six and AW4 auto tranny and i believe the t case is a np 241 but ill check later. I bought it in the spring of 2008 for $1250 with 156,000 miles and some minnesota rust. So far i have not done much work on it but plan to keep it a daily driver/mild rig.

Problems When i bought it.
-Occasional Overheating in hot weather.
-Low oil pressure when engine warmed up
-Nasty rear drivers side door and bent rear bumper
-Cruise control did not work
- Leaks power steering fluid

Rear Bumper

Just for kicks i wanted to build a solid rear bumper to replace the piece of tin that was bent. I also wanted a receiver hitch for towing a small trailer. My dad had some left over steel from a sign post so i used that as a base. After i ripped everything off to see how it was attached i came up with my plan. I used a section of 4 inch 1/4 thick angle for the top brackets that mount into the 4 holes on each side that hold the original bumper brackets. The original hitch was a bar bolted to the bumper and tied into the uni body by a long piece of 1/2 inch steel bolted in three places. I used this as another attachment point at the bottom of the bumper.

The next step was to trim the ends and add the reciever hitch. I was thinking about putting the reciever tube inside the bumper but for simplicity reasons i decided to just add it to the bottom. It is a 6 inch long 2 inch reciever tube. I got it at Tractor Supply Company and i think it was like $16 i used more 2 inch angle iron to add strength and safety chain holes.

Not a very good picture but ok for now. To trim the ends at an angle I used a 12 inch metal chop saw and rotated the bumper several times. I still need to tac weld the nuts on the inside of the bumper so I can cap the ends and then paint the whole works but for now this will do.

Some Maintenance

Im planning to take the Jeep back to Duluth this semester and in order do do so i have to do some maintenance to get her in better shape. To temporarily solve the overheating this summer i threw in a 165 degree thermostat. I do not recomend doing this and only did it because i did not have time money or another vehicle to drive while working on the jeep. Anyways now that it is winter the 165 stat does not allow very much heat output especially on nights like tonight (-20 degrees) and is also hard on the engine. I got some parts from napa and took her to koreys to dig in. First I pulled th upper radiator x member and aux fan. I also took off the primary fan shroud but just set it back on the fan out of the way. Next pull coolant and tranny lines and disconnect ac condensor. I pulled the radiator out and then pulled the fan clutch. I rented the puller tool from napa but didnt need it cause they came loose very easily. Next I put in a new 195 degree thermostat. We blew the crap out of my ac condensor with the air nossle. My radiator is in pretty tough shape but i dont have money to get a new one yet.

I got the fan clutch from napa and Korey and I put it back together on thursday night. It puts out alot of heat now but with the bad radiator and the really cold temperatures lately (0 to -30) the thermostat isnt able to keep a constant temp. At least it doesnt go over 210. Anyways i put in a new headlight and changed the oil too. I used napa 5w 30 cause its been really cold lately and I figure Ill change it in the spring anyways. The cruise control doesnt work because the wire gets pinched in the tilt coulumn and shorts. Tried to take the column apart but it was too late and we decided to do it another night. Was gonna change the tires to slightly larger 235 75 15s but a buddy who used my almost new tires to haul a scrap truck cant find them. So for now i have to keep the 215s. At least they have good tread still.

Im home from duluth on spring break and I need to do some maintenance on the jeep. Last night I put a reman starter in from napa. Korey had to work after school for a couple of hours because another driver was gone for the day. So he picked one up and brought it to his garage where me and dan were installing some headers on his 1997 chevy truck. I still gotta do some brake work and maybe fix my cruise control but im not sure if we will take the jeep back up to duluth.

8/25/2009

Updates: I got to do alot of work to the jeep this summer due to the lack of consistent work. However for the same reason I could not spend hardly any $$$ on my projects. So here is the low buck updates I have been working on.


It all started when I saw some early cherokee wheels on an online auction for cheap. I bid on them and got a set of 5 for $60 not too shabby! Well the real reason I wanted them is because I have a set of 31x10.5x15 tires that have been sitting around for over a year that I traded my friend Jake for. I was itching to get the stupid 215s off the cherokee and put some real rubber on! And this was the perfect excuse to do just that and possibly get a lift kit to help fit them.

Pretty Classy!

Even Better

Well I didnt have enough money for the lift I wanted so I decided to pull the fender flares off to see if I could trim my way to 31s little did I know the cancer that lied beneath :(

Dana 44 front build.

This is the build up of a 78-79 f-250 HD Dana 44 front axle. I purchased the axle in the summer of 2008 and am hoping to build it and use it under a first gen ford ranger with a leaf spring setup. When i bought the axle it was missing the drivers side spindle shaft hub ect. so i will be replacing these parts with new or junkyard parts. It also was purchased with a dana 60 full float rear which I will cover later.

Welcome

Welcome to my truck and auto blog. This blog is a place for me to document and share my experiences and information sources as I work on vehicles. This blog is strictly a source of information and i am not in any way liable for anyone who chooses to use this information. I simply will try to share as much information that i can in hopes of helping someone else on their project.