That´s so sad. Fortunately there were no injuries right?

Here some pics of The Green Crab.

Still many things to finish or do but you know, it´s a never ending story.

 

Hope you are alright! The truck can always be fixed.

 

Yeah it was just me and my buddy in the car neither of us had seatbelts tho. He ended up in the back and I ended up under the passengers chair. Worst part is er flipped it and left it for like 6 hours to get some sleep and come back with tranny fluid to drive it out of there and the cops beat me to it so it had to spend a night in impound and I got some tickets. Amazingly it still drives almost as good as before it flipped so Idk what I'm gonna do with it yet it might be a fun sas conversion project. I just paid like 1700 bucks too for rims and tires that I never even got to put on the truck

 

Hey o2Dingo. sorry to hear about your misfortune...(THANK GOD YOU WERE NOT KILLED) ...can you salvage most of the drivetrain to use on another D...?

 

Yeah I don't think any of the drivetrain was harmed just lost a lot of fluids but I filled them up and it drives the same as before it flipped

 

Glad you're OK 02, bet thats the last time you drink and drive.
Nice durango adinbaja. What axel did you swap into the front?

 

Green crab what front diff are you running? Any set up segestions for sas? Engine mount/cage?

 

It is a Dana 44HD. It is a 1 ton. axle which came out of a 1979 Chevy G30 panel truck as well as the rear GM 14 bolt 10.5".

Let me tell you I was very lucky with that GM truck. I gave a friend of mine a ride home and then I saw this old chevy truck abandoned a half a block away in a dirt street. The minute I saw the front axle I knew it was perfect for my D so I went there and started looking for the owner (he do not lives there and took 3 days to find). Finally found him and I asked him how much would he want for the axles but he was not interested arguing that what would he do with a truck with no axles later (and to be honest I thought the same lol) that if I wanted I could get it all together. A few weeks later I decided to call him to find out if we could make a deal. He said I should go over and we closed a deal for around $600 bucks in easy payments. (I was not in a hurry and I could take it home once it was paid and he was happy to get rid of it, after all he just got it because he liked the rims that came with it ).

I was going every once in a while to measure and stuff, one day I was looking at the front axle and suddenly saw the transfer case... It was a 205 transfer case which can be divorced! WOW They go from $300 up! Lucky me!

A couple of months later ready to move the truck (not fully paid yet but the guy I got it from asked me to move it because he was worried the truck could get towed by the police or get stolen) one day I called a guy who owns a recycling bussiness to find out how much would he charge to tow the truck to my house so I could take the axles out and then he could pick it up to recycle. He said it would be better he take it straight to his place, take what I needed from it and then I could bring a pick up truck and take it to my house. In about 4 hours we took the truck to his place his employees put it on one of its sides and dismantled it (wow those guys are fast!). There were the axles with their spring leafs and the 205 transfer ready to go home. I was so pleased that I gave them money for pizza. The guy from the recycling place and I became friends so he volunteered his pick up to give a ride my new stuff home (gave him $20 for gas) and at the end of the day I got home with $200 bucks he paid me for the rest of the truck. Not bad ha?

Once I started cleaning and over the week when overhauling the axles I found no satelite gears in the 14 bolt.... humm What´s going on here? I asked myself. I remembered the guy I got it from mentioned it was a rear posi axle but did not believe him, and the info sticker in the truck´s hood mentioned it too but I thought it was a cheap and bad limited slip unit, well, it happened to be an Eaton G80 locker wooooow! New they cost around $700. And it works just fine.

Finally from the stuff I took out of the D and the left leaf springs I even got almost $100 more from the recycling place.

Final numbers:
$600.00 paid for the truck
$40.00 pizza and gas.
$640.00
$300.00 "refund" from the recycling.
$340.00 Total Paid for a Dana 44 Heavy Duty Axle + 1 ton 14 bolt 10.5" WITH Eaton G80 locker + NP205 transfer case (still in my backyard waiting for the double transfer project)

What is the lesson here? Next time you see a truck like the one in the pic look under it. You never know what you might find.

 

My front leafs are the rear 46" GMs from the donnor. I have them rear fix mounted and front inverted shackles that way when the axle needs to go down the inverted shackle gives a lot more of travel. Several guys told me it would be very unstable but I mounted the leaf springs wider on the front and closer at the rear (as in a \ / instead of a parallel way) making it more stable. I thought they were right when I drove it on the hwy the first time, when reaching what I think was like 40 mph (no odometer yet) it started moving like a boat in bad weather lol, but then it had no shocks at all. Now I can go up to 60 mph with no problem and then it starts to have what seems to the start to a death wobble but I found out that´s because of a big tires-wrong caster-toe out combo, the caster changed because I added 2 more leafs than initial project and the toe out was "recommended" in some places but last weekend found it should be toe in because of the size of the tires, so I´ll have it the cater changed, properly aligned and I will have double shocks in each front wheel (projected since the begining) as well as twin shocks on the steering.
I recycled the front "bridge" which I use as my front support (the bridge is the one where the "A" arms used to be in the front). The shackle mounts are the recycled "A" arm mounts. and the shackles are the stock rear ones. Here´s a couple of pics for you to see how they work, both tires are about 11" down and still in the ground, they can go 2" or 3" more but then the leaf spring push the shackle downward (happened once when I lifted more than I should lol) so I´ll need to limit the downtravel.

I might start a properly separate thread about the built so anyone wanting to start their own save some (or a lot) of time in research and spend it in the making.

 

Regarding the engine mounts the weld on the brackets of my D went bad due to the wheeling abuse so the motor went against the radiator and the fan perforated it . I thought on getting some aftermarket mounts but since I found none I started thinking how to make ones. finally I got an idea and got the stock ones modified. Here´s what I did:

- First I got the insulator (the replaceable rubber and aluminum part) out of the mounts with a press at a suspension parts place and bought 6 poly bushings from them.

- Then went looking for tubing to fit the bushings, I got the outside tubing really quick but since I could not get it for the inside I had to get the 2 core bushings made at a machining place.
- Took everything to a place where makes and modifies off-road rigs and asked them to weld and reinforce the stock brackets, got 4 plasma cutted "donuts" out of 1/8" steel plate. Weld them to the replaceable part, inserted the poly bushings (you will have to cut one to make them size fit) and finally inserted the steel bushing.




- Ready to go! Installed, turned the motor on and they´re perfect. No motor moving and no vibration at all!

Costs involved:
$20.00 Tip to the guy who took the replacement parts out. (Store would not charge me for it)
$25.00 for 6 Red Poly bushings.
$5.00 piece of tubing for the outside of the bushings.
$8.00 for core steel bushings.
$50.00 labor for welding and plasma cut (made by a friend and this is in Baja. You might have to pay more)
$108.00 Total. Stock insulators were around $130.00 for both of them and I could not find them here in Cabo. Next time will be $25.00 for bushings to rebuilt. Not bad at all for "custom" made mounts! lol.