Gladiator/Dodge Tow Pile Abomination

[MJMadness]

I'm not going to make any promises on this one, because I've had this garbage for 3? years already and have very little to show for it. But I figured it was time to start doing something with it (again). And I'm hoping if I have a thread going I can be a little more motivated with it, plus there is a bunch of questions that I'm going to have to ask anyways. There was a thread on some of it before, but Photobucket killed the pictures anyways, so I think we can just forget about that.

The idea is to build something that will function for occasional mild towing and some around town driving. I don't currently have a real fullsize truck that is drivable (just a Comanche) and have relied on friends for the few times I need to move something heavier than I can tow with that. That's lame though.

Anyways, the first Gladiator I got was terrible. I gave away the frame/driveline because it was pretty abused, and I didn't feel it was a good starting point for actually towing/hauling at modern speeds. The cab was the best part, and it's pretty bad, and that's coming from somebody with low standards. However, it's the cab I'm currently planning to use (maybe). I've acquired some other cabs and sheetmetal since then, but most of it is also terrible.

The frame and axles are from a 99 Dodge Ram 2500. So it's nothing super awesome, unit bearing D60 front and a drum brake D70 FF rear. It was a truck I bought for very little, ran thousands of liters of free waste jet fuel through, drove into the ground with a maintenance program that would make 3rd world standards look good, then scrapped the body and sold the enigine/trans out of and pretty much can call it free at this point. The downside of this is that some money will need to be spent to fix some things on the axles, to the point that they might not even be worth dealing with.

The engine is somewhat undecided, along with the trans, but it's highly unlikely to be diesel.

Anyways, here's the frame washed and back in the shop:


Luckily the Cummins had slobbered enough oil on it that it preserved the factory paint on the front portion. The rest of it is a little rusty, but nothing to worry about.

And I squared up the cab with the fenders on it and blocked it on the frame to build mounts:




And that's literally where I am at right now. Yup. Don't hold you breath.

Oh, and the previous owner of those fenders wanted the emblems off them, so he cut the entire area around the emblem out with an angle grinder... The other fender is worse.

[DarkMonohue]

Oh, and the previous owner of those fenders wanted the emblems off them, so he cut the entire area around the emblem out with an angle grinder... The other fender is worse.

Hacks. I wish I knew who it was that decided savages like that should be allowed access to power tools. Sounds like the kind of person who would use a chainsaw to knock out a wall in his own house.

Looks like a cool project so far. Keep it coming!

[MJMadness]

So for the first of the sorta towing/hauling related questions, the rear suspension.

Dodge built the 4wd trucks spring over with a nearly 5" block. In my experience this produces less than desirable axle wrap, and puts significant loading on the ubolts. One could just throw new hardware on it and add a traction bar if need be, however, I find the entire setup to be borderline offensive.

Is it worth my time to change this, and if so, what is likely the best plan of attack? Was there a legitimate reason they built it this way, beyond ease of assembly on their end?

How it looks, if you're unfamiliar:


The vertical pitch on the front spring hanger is just about dead on 5". If I blast them out I could move the hanger down a set of holes.

Hanger/rivets:


Then I think it would just be a matter of fabricating an angle brace for the lower holes back to the frame (I believe most older GM trucks run something like this, or maybe it's Fords). That would then make the front of the springs the correct height to remove the blocks. Any reason this would be a bad idea?

The rear uses the typical tension shackle arrangement:


I would assume some manner of a shackle flip would be the easiest thing here. The shackle itself is just a hair under 5" eye to eye, so it's easy enough to visualize where it should be. There's more than a few generic shackle flip kits out there, or I could build something. Again, is this a bad idea? Waste of time? Is there a good reason that most fullsize trucks use a tension shackle?

I would also like an overload setup. The easiest option probably would be to not around with changing the rear, and just nab the overload springs and stops off a 1-ton out of the boneyard. Thoughts?

[MJMadness]

Hacks. I wish I knew who it was that decided savages like that should be allowed access to power tools. Sounds like the kind of person who would use a chainsaw to knock out a wall in his own house.

Looks like a cool project so far. Keep it coming!

Yeah, he was more than a little heavy handed with things. He figured the body wasn't worth anything to anyone. Which is too bad, because the damage to the flares on these would be a fairly easy fix...

[SJTD]

That hole looks easier to fix than the crunched front of the flare and the rust.

[MJMadness]

That hole looks easier to fix than the crunched front of the flare and the rust.

Yeah, but it didn't need to happen, so it's a piss off. The other fender has two holes cut in it, you can see my toolbox through the second hole where the emblem would be at the front.

Realistically I can't repair those fenders to be 100%. Maybe a solid 80%. Which might be all I care for.

I don't know what the best option will be for fenders if I want better than that. I can get a clean set of Grand Wagoneer fenders out of the boneyard here, providing that guy hasn't crushed the thing, and then throw glass flares on them...

The cab is going to need a lot of love too. Luckily I'm not a purist, but some people may have to avert their eyes on how I fix things.

[rang-a-stang]

There is some good build info in this forum. Advance to page 3 where he is doing pretty darn close to what you are doing (Gladiator cab on Dodge 2500 frame)

http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=110126&page=3

[MJMadness]

There is some good build info in this forum. Advance to page 3 where he is doing pretty darn close to what you are doing (Gladiator cab on Dodge 2500 frame)
http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showt...=110126&page=3

I know. I've only replied in it half a dozen times.

[MJMadness]

Got a little more done on the rear cab mounts. I decided to reuse the Dodge stuff, which may or may not be a good idea.

Marked the old mid mount for recycling:


Bucked it off, cut it down, and hard tacked it in place where it should be:


Other side:


I'll clean up the remains of the crap on the frame sometime later. I left the part of the mount that holds the ebrake cable as I figured I might need that later, of course I did get a little heavy handed with the plasma... The mounts will need a little extra work once I know I want them there, and have the cab off, etc, but for now they're in.

Then I straight up ran out of gas and that was it.

[MJMadness]

So I actually worked on this again.

Stuffed the header panel on it and tried to shim it up to figure out the rest of the body mounts. However, my header panel is so ed the Rhino grill won't actually fit (it's just sitting leaning against it) and I'm not sure I should be using it to position mounts based on that.



Old front cab mounts are removed and repositioned for the new cab.





One thing that pisses me off is if I ever go looking for the weight of a component I get wildly varying answers, most I think are total bull based on guesses that were passed around until they became fact. So I bought a strain gauge type scale for my hoist.

Anyways, I got this AAM 11.5" (I think?) out of an 06? Dodge? 3rd gen truck at least. Not sure if I'm going to use it, but it was cheap, and has factory disk brakes, BUT it didn't include the calipers, so the purchase mostly confirms I'm an idiot.



It weighs 470lbs without the brake calipers!

And I picked up a 5.3 out of an 04 1500 truck for not a lot of money... Gotta go back and pull the gas pedal and the O2 sensors because went haywire when we pulled it so I forgot.



614lbs including the ECM and most of the wiring, A/C comp, stock manifolds, etc, just not including the O2 sensors and the gas pedal.

[MJMadness]

So, trying to build the front body mounts I realized that the Dodge ones just wouldn't work there, and I bought some generic ones from Energy Suspension. I probably should have just bought a bunch from them to begin with.

Then I realized that the front clip was way too screwed up to locate mounts off of, so I went scrounging and found some slightly better metal to work from.

Got everything all bolted up and aligned decently:


(My phone hates those LED lights)

Of course I figured I was going to need to clearance the inner fenders for the shock mounts. So I did this.


I can always just flange it and Dzus it back on, right?

As it turns out I really didn't need to do that.


But no, honestly, I wanted to be able to access the shock tower, so I'm probably going to cut the hole bigger at some points anyways.

The Rhino grill actually mostly fits now, but I believe it's missing the top mount that would go here somewhere?


I don't know what it's actually supposed to look like, or if that radiator support piece is bent down or what?

I'm going to try putting a hood on it tomorrow (and latches because I need the right type) and then hopefully I can determine if I'm putting the body mounts in the right places or not...

Also, gone back to debating using the AAM rear. Going to price out some parts for it...

[MJMadness]

Engine is hanging there with the NV4500 bolted to it. It does fit.

I have other stuff to post, and questions, but that's for tomorrow.

[chrism]

Are you somewhere in NY? I think I remember seeing that on craigslist a while back.

[MJMadness]

Are you somewhere in NY? I think I remember seeing that on craigslist a while back.

What part? There's like 5 vehicles that are involved in this build.

But no, nowhere near there. I'm in Canada.




What's interesting is that the GM NV4500 feet basically line up with the Dodge trans mount... But it needs to be about 5" higher.




Firewall clearance is tight on the passenger side, and there is no way the factory heater core setup will work. I think I will get a Mojave heater...




Steering clears, driver's side manifold clears fine.




Lots of clearance on the driver's side firewall.




I also had the whole front clip on and reasonably lined up, so I could build the core support/front body mounts.





This mount will get changed a bit to make it stronger.



I might actually box in the inner side of both of those mounts, just to fully discourage them from tearing off the frame.

[MJMadness]

Boring pictures. But there is motor mounts hard tacked in place and holding the motor.





I will pull the motor back out and weld them up more and add some other bracing, but I want to tackle the trans mount first, and maybe steering column and brake booster setup.

Also, forgot to ask... Is there covers available for the lower part of the bellhousing when using a NV4500 with a LSx? Must be?