Ascinder's 1-Ton VX... Cont'd

[Tookie]

hahahahahaha


Fab party at Ascinder's house!

[Marlin]

hahahahahaha


Fab party at Ascinder's house!

WHAT KIND OF PARTY??

Wait, I read that wrong, carry on everyone.

[Ascinder]

Can I come live in your garage for a while?

Yes, I need the help

Why do I feel like eventually you'll be able to make new VX's from scratch in your garage?

Because I will, I mean, someone's got to

FINALLY SOME PROGRESS!!! (The fact that's coming from me is what makes it funny.)

Speaking of which,"Hey pot, this is kettle, how's your project coming? Haven't heard anything in while...."

I checked on some combo units and that is the one I figured I could actually afford and use.

They'll knock an extra couple hundred bucks off with that "make an offer" deal they have going on. Stop buying Jeeps and you can get one(says the hippocrite)

So that means... I'll be coming to your house again soon!

Well what are you waiting for? Let's have a "build Ascinder's Vehicross" group meet.

[ZEUS]

Speaking of which,"Hey pot, this is kettle, how's your project coming? Haven't heard anything in while...."

They'll knock an extra couple hundred bucks off with that "make an offer" deal they have going on. Stop buying Jeeps and you can get one(says the hippocrite)



Well what are you waiting for? Let's have a "build Ascinder's Vehicross" group meet.

I do need to update my build progress but it is once again on hold cuz I have till the 12th to get rid of a few project trucks and clean up the city's property... I mean MY property. ..|..

Plus since my tree broke off 20 years of growth and that put 10 holes in my roof before BMan I'm getting nickle and dimed out of my build money. So no new cool tools for me yet. Tip: Never buy a house!

[Ascinder]

After the stories you've told me about the neighborhood, I can't believe the city would crack down on you of all people. Crazy Mormons...... That sucks about the tree too, life always seems to have ways of kicking you in the nuts when you least expect it. At least now you have a good reason to liquidate some of your excess inventory so who's up on the chopping block first?

[pbkid]

ya, i could take the $1200 the local shop wants to build a rear bumper with swing arm for my Runner and drive to Reno

......ill bring beer........

[ZEUS]

After the stories you've told me about the neighborhood, I can't believe the city would crack down on you of all people. Crazy Mormons...... That sucks about the tree too, life always seems to have ways of kicking you in the nuts when you least expect it. At least now you have a good reason to liquidate some of your excess inventory so who's up on the chopping block first?

Well interestingly enough, all 3 trucks were in regards to ONE project! The Army truck I bought for $600 (no title or A/C or anything comfortable) so I got the 2wd donor truck for the body, title, comforts, 12v system, stronger motor. Then later, I got the '94 for the 6.5 turbo and NV4500; failing to realize I got the 1st year of electronic injection - which was CRAP! All 3 trucks died shortly after buying them and diesel parts are expensive so now I hate diesels! No idea what to do yet... other than toss the motor and trans in the Blazer quickly so I can take the trailer out of the garage and try to figure out how to slide the Blazer to the left side of the garage so AWOL can go back where it was on the right side of the garage. I could throw the extra VX plate on the green truck for now and just let the 2wd go to a pick 'n pull or tow it to a friend's house till the city is off my back. They just want to raise property taxes.

[ZEUS]

WOOHOO! Progress. That motor is looking stellar! Still not sold on the batwing tho. I can't keep my compressor in that location due to frame interference which is part of why I don't like the batwing I guess... can't wait to see what that thing looks like dropped into place however! The rollers... AWESOME! Watch your back.

[nfpgasmask]

Awesome dude, the wheels/tires look sickgnar.

Bart

[JHarris1385]

unreal

[vt_maverick]

I have a feeling that if I was good enough with mechanical stuff to actually own a plasma cutter, my project would go seriously off schedule while I tried using it on everything I could think of. Phone books, spiral hams, my friend's plasma cutter (images of light saber battles dancing in my head)... nothing would be safe.

Nice work (even if I don't understand it all), can't wait to see pics of everything put back together!

[Triathlete]

Disconnecting the rear allows you to run a FWD vehicle which is good in some circumstances. When used in conjunction with cutting brakes(individual wheel brakes) you can pivot around corners unlike anything else. So yes, I'm totally doing that.

"Front digs" anyone?

[Ascinder]

So, a little progress update. My belt for the A/C compressor got here and was installed-yay. Also the shift rail mod to the transfer case is completed and everything reinstalled. On a side note, the transfer case guts look brand new inside with no signs of wear.
Anyways, for the purpose of this post, I thought I'd shoot out this little tidbit about some wheel tech. In assembling the Hutchinson double beadlocks, I wanted to look into the options to air the tires up and down quickly. Being bigger, they hold more air and therefor take longer to air up and down when you offroad. I had a set of caps on a keychain that attached to the valvestems and basically held down the schrader valve to air all four tires down at once. They worked ok, but were fairly slow. Another option is to pull the valvestems to let the air out even faster. Problems with that is that occasionally the tiny stems get launched into the abyss that is the great outdoors never to be seen again. So, I started looking into alternatives. There are a lot, but the one I chose was to use tractor valve stems. Reason being that they were the most effective out of any option and the most available anywhere in the US should replacement parts be needed. They were also the cheapest at a measly $4.50 each. Tractor valvestems have a removable core that is used to add either water or Calcium chloride as a ballast. Needless to say it would take a long time to fill up a tractor tire with either through the small hole that removing a valvestem provides so the removable section on a tractor valve is pretty big. People say these stems can drop a max air pressure 42" tire to zero psi in 20-30 seconds. The removable core of a tractor valve gets taken off by hand instead of a special valvecore tool, so when the air pressure decides to try and launch it, you have a much better chance of holding onto it. In the following pics I have three valves which demonstrate the size differences of the air passages. The small one is your standard size opening on a tire valve. It comes in at a whopping .010 square inch of airflow. The next size up is only slightly better at .027 square inches of throughput. The tractor valve however is .075 square inches which still sounds small, but is 750% bigger than stock. When has anyone ever done a mod that increased that much over stock levels of anything-no really, I don't need smartguy followup answers to that statement(you know who you are) Another thing to note is that the valves(all three) seal differently than your typical stock wheel valve. These valves are all metal with a rubber seal that sits inside the rim so it isn't exposed to sunlight or the elements. After seeing several rubber valvestems deteriorate and crack and leak air, I'm really liking this all metal design. The rims' valvestem openings had to be reamed out only slightly to accept the larger threaded portion of the tractor valves. The tractor valves also had to be turned down at their base from 7/8"(0.875) to 0.800" to fit in internal slot inside the rim itself. Without furter ado, Here's the pics:

The three different size air passage holes:



Side by side size comparison:




The tractor valve showing the core removed. As an additional note, the core contains a normal valvestem so these are still servicable at any location you would air a tire up at.



And that concludes this segment of Ascinder's fun yet boring facts about stuff you never knew or cared about. Tune in next week for my segment on tire doilies.....

[ZEUS]

BRAVO CHAP!! BRAVO!!! At least on the Hutch's you can tuck them out of the way enough to protect them from trail hazards.

[Marlin]

Over the weekend at Uwharrie, some Jeepers next to us showed me a neat toy. It was an ARB deflator, he said it was 40 bucks at a 4x4 shop in colorado. The way it works was like a normal chuck with a gage. It clipped onto the vavle stem, and had an adjustment screw that actually pulled the valve core out without the risk of losing the core!! Very cool and it monitored pressure in real time. I have a set of trailhead deflators and a set of smittybilt deflators, which work pretty good, but those tractor stems look awesome!!!