'90 W250--'89/91/92 Ramcharger

[PToombs]

Do you tell the goobers that you pull it all the time and ask if they wanna help?

Just get an axle torque rod from a big rig and mount it on top of the diff like they do. I bet you break the welds or twist the frame before that bends, they are kinda beefy.

[Hansen01]

Math for traction bars? What did i miss when i built mine

[Tacoclaw]

Yeah, I've looked at a lot of traction bar crap today and to be honest I think my first step will be to flip my shackles and ditch the lift block. My wrap isn't horrible, it's just there. I think losing the block will tone it down for now.

[oldestof11]

It will help for sure.

[Tacoclaw]

The more I look at bar stuff that goes over the axle the more I realize it really won't help at all. The axle will still roll the front of the spring up, which makes it shorter, so a bar up top will work right along with that. It'll make it tougher, but it won't actually stop it.

I've found the desert/baja racing guys to be a huge help in looking up bar geometry. Even their leaf spring trucks deal with big power and can't have their sthi binding up, so they're perfect for someone who's just worried about getting their wrap stopped.


I also noticed that a flip will pull my axle forward in the wheelwell, so I'll have to get an offset bloc to get it back where it belongs. Dangit, I hate having to buy stuff.

[DodgeFreak]

why would it pull your axle forward??? are you dropping the front also??? if you dropped the front with the rear shouldn't change anything except hight right???

[Tacoclaw]

The leaf spring acts almost like a bar, that's why leaf-sprung vehicles don't need any other locating links. The front spring eye on the rear axle acts as a pivot point. If you drop the rear of the spring down 4+" it will swing your axle in an arc.

I'm not sure how noticeable it will be by only deleting my block and not lifting it or anything but I'm going to assume it will be enough to bother me. I haven't even dug into the measurements of me making my own shackle flip but I may get around to it tomorrow.

Or not, that's y beer-drinking time.

[Tacoclaw]

New crossover is almost done, I've just got to get an actual welder over there to finish it for me. I almost did it myself again, but I remembered this will be the first thing everyone sees when they open the hood so I resisted. I'll put pics of the one I made to show you why after I get this one on here.

Just noticed I had the turbo-side section turned backwards in this pic. There's just enough flat area on it to get a coupler and clamp on it. It's pretty cool setup like this because there's literally nowhere for the boot to go. I don't think I'll need to put beads on it or anything to hold it.








I also did some measuring on my rear leafs. My truck, a 1990 W250 4x4, has factory 3" blocks in the rear. My shackles are 4" long, so when they're flipped it'll give me 8" of drop at the rear of the spring. Divide that by half since the axle is halfway down the leaf and it should be around 4" of lift. That'll leave me 1" over once my block is pulled... I can't stand a tail-high truck, so it may end up with a new set of front spring out of all this. Not to say she doesn't need them, but once again I hate having to buy stuff.

[Tacoclaw]

Yet another busy day. My welder didn't show up again so I decided to tackle a couple of my truck's more glaring problems.

First of all, my truck and I haven't been able to come to an agreement on when she should warm up in the mornings. I say it's before we leave the driveway. it says right before we pull into work. We never had this problem until I put those electric fans in and set one to key-on, but that's how it will be until my controller gets here. Instead, I set about making a shroud to block off the radiator a bit.



My epically-ghetto fan mounts in case anyone forgot what they look like.




As of right now, I've got the shroud sitting right against the core, so the fan can only pull through it's little hole and the air can't push through once I'm moving. Once I get things together a bit I'll space it out from the core and make it so the fan is pulling through the entire core.

I also trimmed some fat in the underhood harness and got rid of all the WIF, fuel heater, intake temp, and anything hooked to them. I'm still searching for the resistor that's supposed to be inline of the KSB, but until I find it I just moved the KSB's pin over to the spot that used to be key-on for the fuel heater. I tried to use just the smaller, 4-pin connector there, but the KSB has a fat pin on it's wire so it wouldn't fit in there. Oh well.
Also a funny story, for some odd reason my truck's speedo refuses to work if the coil wires are unplugged off those grid relays. I have no idea why yet, but this is the second time it's happened.


Finally, I threw in the washer fluid reservoir I bought off Mark a million years ago. I had to bring the washer fluid connector back through the harness to get it over to the drivers side, but aside from the usual hidden bare hots this truck always seems to have it was a breeze. I'm only using the driver's washer right now since the "T" broke off on the one I left flopping under the hood for the past year, but once I get another one I'll reverse the hoses and have them both spraying again.


It was a good day.

[PToombs]

I have that same temperature disagreement with my truck in the morning. It thinks a mile down the road is an equitable compromise. I don't.

[Tacoclaw]

Before I put the fans on my truck would be warmed up enough to start burning frost off the windshield before I made it 4 miles.

Not no mo', it starts getting warm just as I hit the highway. That's great and all, but the 5+ miles of curvy, deer-filled roads before that would be much better.

[DodgeFreak]

The leaf spring acts almost like a bar, that's why leaf-sprung vehicles don't need any other locating links. The front spring eye on the rear axle acts as a pivot point. If you drop the rear of the spring down 4+" it will swing your axle in an arc.

I'm not sure how noticeable it will be by only deleting my block and not lifting it or anything but I'm going to assume it will be enough to bother me. I haven't even dug into the measurements of me making my own shackle flip but I may get around to it tomorrow.

Or not, that's y beer-drinking time.

Unless you drop the front with the rear....

[Tacoclaw]

The leaf spring acts almost like a bar, that's why leaf-sprung vehicles don't need any other locating links. The front spring eye on the rear axle acts as a pivot point. If you drop the rear of the spring down 4+" it will swing your axle in an arc.

I'm not sure how noticeable it will be by only deleting my block and not lifting it or anything but I'm going to assume it will be enough to bother me. I haven't even dug into the measurements of me making my own shackle flip but I may get around to it tomorrow.

Or not, that's y beer-drinking time.

Unless you drop the front with the rear....

Seriously though, I'm already past my personal allowable lift limit by an inch, dropping the front will make it even worse.

Here's the new crossover in all it's glory. I may clean some more edges and have some more weld thrown on so I can smooth out the seams some more, but this it it. I painted it just for Pete, the middlecooler will be black. I may pop the compressor housing off this turbo and paint it DD green to see what I;m in for.

[PToombs]

Paint the middlecooler green too you slackass!

[Tacoclaw]

Nah, it's going to be flat black. I've got too much green on the driver's side and too much black on the passenger's.

I'm thinking the secondary's compressor is DD green and the primary's will be black. I'm hoping it doesn't turn out too stripey across the top, but I highly doubt it will. Anyways, who cares if it does? the thing's painted DD green for God's sake.