l'll get one up...probably be tomorrow

here it is
[attachment=1]100_0670.JPG[/attachment]

Yeah, that's bent. They can be heated and bent back, and I've got a torch. Some folks have done this for additional tire clearance. I'm honestly not sure how it'll affect overall strength. My initial thought is that it'll be fine, as we're going to heavily reinforce it with a big chunk of DOM tube, but I'll let others chime in. Given the low cost of arms, I'd track down a straighter one, but I'm anal about stuff like this and have the tools around to build arms whenever I want.

OK guys, here's the plan for tomorrow: Use common sense. I'll be out in the garage all day no matter what, either building arms or working in my rig. We're expecting more snowfall than Denver due to our elevation and front range location, possibly 10-20 inches. I've currently got a coupe of inches on the pavement. If you can make it without dying, great! If not, stay home. We'll get your arms built one way or another and I don't want anyone taking a risk because it seems like the only chance to get this done. If you're coming and feel like it, text me at 303-570-6276 when you leave so that I can send out the search dogs (or Kirk) if you don't arrive. Hope some of you can make it, should be fun!

Many thanks to Digger for the advice and modeling to make sure I was on the right track with adding some caster to the long arms. We'll be adding 1 degree to these long arms, I say "these" because it's all based on how long we are extending them, how they are being mounted and the most common lift that most of us are using.

So we all need to add 4 degree C bushings to our future shopping baskets before we mount up the new arms to the rigs if you're running a 3.5" lift. This should put the trucks just a bit over the factory caster amount. If you plan on running a larger lift, like a 4.5 or 5.5, then you'll need to either add more caster to the arm or run the larger degree bushings.

Cool, thanks for working that out. It'll be easy to add the caster to the jig.

Got the tweaks to the jig finished and got the shop organized. Sort of.

Well?

I hurt. A lot.

Well... there was a lot of grinding!

OK, now I'm in front of a real keyboard. Very successful build day. We got all of the tube cut and slotted, and most of the present radius arms cut to size. At one point we has 3 grinders, the plasma, and the chop saw running at the same time. 3 sets of arms got fitted and tacked or finish welded. The jig was a resounding success. I'm pretty sure we could knock out a set in an afternoon at this point. There is some fitting work to be done on the remaining arms, but it won't take a huge amount of work to get them completed. My wife thinks I have a sunburn from plasma cutting for an hour or two.

It was a pretty good day. Enjoyed getting together with you guys again. I didn't know that my little sister had gone over to shovel my dads driveway or I would have stayed longer to help. A lot of work was done today you guys did a damn good job.

Like everyone said cut, grind, grind, grind, grind, fit, grind, grind, fit, grind, grind, grind, grind, fit, jig, grind, grind, grind, grind, fit, jig, tack and Im sure a lot more in there. Was a very good day. We got a lot done. One thing we know is the next ones will be built on a mill. Would save a lot of time and grinding. Welding them up uses a lot of wire. But we have one set fully welded except for the bung's.

Thanks to everyone for all the help.

I can still hear the grinders in my head and did all night in my sleep.

ZOSO saves the day with pictures! Had a great time and learned a bunch on this project. The jig was added to and performed well, it'll be an asset to future builds.

One additional piece of info: Ideally these should be left to cool in the jig after finish welding. Rob's stayed dead straight left to right, but we had to do some filling at the top of the tube due to the degree of camber we added in. It added roughly an additional degree of camber due to some very slight warping of the structure. He'll just need to take this into account when picking the shims, but I think that keeping the entire setup clamped to the backbone of the jig would have lessened the warping. Ultimately, building some way to solidly clamp the end of the tube in the jig is likely a better solution than the c-clamps we were using, as it'd keep things from coming loose as we roll the jig to weld each side.

Great job fellas. All of the grinding doesn't surprise me as that seemed to be most of what we did the weekend before! So what's the plan to get the rest of the arms finished?

I've got the pieces and am leaving it up to their owners how they'd like to proceed. We don't have plans to re-do the tech day at this point, but I'm happy to help folks that need it. For your stuff, the arm that's tacked needs minor tweaking to fit and finish welding. The other arm has been bent, but still needs to be notched, fitted and welded. Happy to help you get it finished up if you want to come over.

Major CYA disclaimer to everyone with parts left-I can lay a good bead, but am not a certified welder. If you want to be 100% sure that these are correctly welded, I'd advise you to take them to someone who is.

Man you guy's are loud,great time though.Thanks to your wife for putting up with us and lunch.Any idea when the rod ends will be in ?

Glad you could make it! No new info on the rod ends. I'll be checking in with MetalCloak for an update this week and will post anything I know in this thread.

Did my bender get the job done?

Yes, although we only bent Eck's arms. After more conversation with Digger there was a decision to go with straight arms since the bend didn't add much and make the fabrication and alignment more complex.

So mine will be just slightly better but 100 times more complicated to install and fabricate? Oh well, it's only Eck's truck.

See, you know how this works! The fitting is a much bigger PITA as you're working in 3 dimensions instead of 2, but we'll get it done.

I may still bend the arms, I want to get them under the Bronco and take a closer look at things. One thing Digger & I talked about was modeling up the wedges from a D44, I'll get some measurement and once it's sorted I'll post the info.

Update from MetalCloak:

Looks awesome guys!

Yes, it may be smart to examine each truck on a case-by-case basis. I think it would be possible to add a clearance bend after the arms were built. It would likely shorten the overall length by a minor amount that could could be made up by unscrewing the joints. We'll see.

I had an EB44 under my Ranger and was able to run straight arms with a 1.5" wheel spacer on 3.5" BS wheels and 35x12.50s. With my current build, I running straight arm with the same 35's on a full width, no wheel spacers. The amount of interference is pretty minor and would likely not require much relief in the arm.

Update from MetalCloak: