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Old 01-16-2016, 12:22 AM   #1
Mini-Skoolie
 
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
Project: Off Road Compact Abode

This build is the next step in our passion for travel.

I give you: The ORCA:



So here's some backstory:

My first car was an 87 Suzuki Samurai. I got her when I was 15. Learned a stick in a few hours in a muddy pasture. Learned a lot with that truck and absolutely fell in love with offroading.

10 years ago My cousin gave me his 92 Integra. I've never owned a small car before and was immediately pleased. Wife and I ended up driving out to Big Bend National Park around 2006. We decided to drive on some un-maintained roads. We got about a mile and a half in before I decided the feeling of rocks beneath my feet was a bad idea and turned back.

We came back to Houston. I bought a 94 GMC T15 Jimmy 4x4 specifically to take back to Big Bend and see the rest of those roads.

We fell in love with the experience. My wife loves to look around and I love to drive the trails. We went back to Big Bend in the Jimmy a few years later. I proposed beneath a waterfall somewhere in the back country.

Fast forward a few years. We got some dogs to add to the mix. We put them into the cargo bay and recline our seats flat for overnighters. It's a great makeshift bed. Got to explore a ton of places we otherwise would not be able to afford the conventional way of Hotels and eating out. Lots of canned tuna and dry goods. We just recently did an offroad trip with our family up through and around Colorado that really sealed our Skoolie fate.

We took the Jimmy (refitted with v8 POWER!) and they took a brand new 2 door Jeep. We drove around with no itinerary for 10 days. On the way home my wife found out that her grandmother had passed away. We have a 4000lb load to haul to Salt Lake City UT scheduled to deliver when we get back from the Colorado trip that will finance us driving to the east coast for the funeral.

We get back home, I find out the rear diff pinion bearing is shot. Drive it to the junkyard and grab another diff, drive to my brothers, install the junkyard diff, drive home, grab the 2000lb trailer and 4000lb load and head north in 1 day.

We make it to Utah with our trailer, drop the load then head east. I negotiate with my friend in Louisville to store the trailer at his place so we don't have to drag it around with us the entire trip. He obliges. So we drop the trailer in Louisville, head up to Boston. We do the funeral and somehow convince the in-laws to do a little exploration. 2 weeks later we have been through 11 states and as far north as Acadia National Park. We head back to Louisville and spend a few days with our friends. Grab the trailer and on my way home a friend calls me and says: "Hey your taking an empty trailer from Louisville to home right". I'm already like "expletives". So we "swing by" Bonifay Florida and load up an 84 El Camino onto the trailer.

2 days later we are home. The heat was brutal.

I start shopping for a larger truck to take on bigger trips like these (the long distance towing trips). I'm nearly dead set on a 7.4 96-99 Suburban. My wife says "I just want something I can stand up in".

After searching for the last 5 months and coming up empty handed consistently we found our Orca. Listed on craigslist 10 hours ago 45 minutes south of us.

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Old 01-16-2016, 12:26 AM   #2
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
We looked at a few different bus combinations:

Transit busses: They all look like fiberglass. I'm not a fan of the material for body parts. Never have been.

5 window busses: Departure angle was just despicable. Especially Ford models. I have so much experience with GM power-trains I felt it would be fun to learn something new but not fun on the side of the road troubleshooting foreign systems.

Single rear wheel busses: LOVE how narrow they are relative to their drw cousins. Unfortunately thats really a bunch of square footage to give up. That and the drw is vastly superior for towing.

So we ended up with a shorty. After measuring everything out we just can't figure out where to put a toilet/shower.

Thinking queen bed for the rear of the bus. Fold it up in an s shaped couch to save space but otherwise the back 2 windows on both sides are occupied by the bed.

Use from behind the drivers seat to the bed for the kitchen so the front left 2 windows are occupied.

finally a table for work and eating on the passenger side 2 windows.

A bathroom shower isn't required but it would really take this from a lavish camper to a proper tiny house.
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Old 01-16-2016, 12:56 AM   #3
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
Specs on the bus:

1999 Express cutaway van (2 wheel drive)
L31 5.7 Vortec v8 engine
4l80e Automagic transmission
14 bolt full floating GM Corporate open rear differential with 4.10 gears
10,000lb brake system powered by hydroboost and ABS.
She has 252xxx on the odo.
No cruise control but appears to have the provisions to retrofit from a similar configuration GM vehicle from the junkyard for next to nothing.

Engine pulls well, had some major coolant and power steering leaks. Lower intake gaskets were bad and milking the oil. The power steering hoses were all deteriorated and there was a ton of just poorly routed plumbing and wiring.

All of the lights work, the motorized stop sign acts funny unless the vehicle is running. Not sure what's going on there. Lots of little things I've been plowing through over the last few days getting everything back up to snuff.
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Old 01-16-2016, 03:13 PM   #4
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
The day we bought her:

55 mile trip home and let the dogs do an inspection:


Empty coolant bottle. topped off the coolant system with half a gallon of coolant when we bought her. The following morning it rained and this is how much water got in.

The alleged perpetrator:

Some of the seats had the nuts installed up-side down. It took me a few minutes to decide on vice grips which worked perfectly.


Found the RPO sticker stashed above the passenger sun visor stuck to the headliner. What a weird location!

Rattling heat shield. Thinking a nut goes here to secure it.

I haven't checked the rear brakes yet. They require removal of the axle tube to get the drum off. Waiting on some cash for a gallon of diff fluid and axle seals first. HUGE friggin drums:

This is a shot of the first removal of the doghouse:


Centered is the beautiful cap for the vacuum booster. Since we have the power of hydraulics for brakes!


Spark plug wires tend to rub/burn holes in themselves. GM tends to wrap sections of spark plug wire in corrugated tubing. Most people don't move it over to the new wires leaving them vulnerable. These wires had damage throughout but nothing serious yet so I installed some high temp corrugated tubing to keep them in good shape.

Before:

After:


Passenger side before:

Passenger side after:


Completed:


Then comes the bad news:


This is coolant/oil mixed inside the pcv system. I had already done a coolant pressure test and noticed the lower intake manifold gasket leaking externally to the front of the engine. This wasn't exactly unexpected but somewhat worrisome because it could also mean the cylinder heads are cracked from overheating.

Fortunately (in this particular case) GM designed the intake gaskets incredibly poorly and Fel-Pro designed a proper gasket (model # 98000T) to retrofit the Generals garbage design. I happened to have a set on hand and installed it.

It's very important to mark the distributor and rotors relationship when replacing it. These engines have no timing mark and are set via an expensive computer. You can get lucky by trying different settings but you can also damage the engine that way.



Nasty milked intake:

Gasket is damaged around all 4 coolant jackets:




Junk gasket design in:


Awesome gasket design in:


Cleaned up the intake:

Mysterious adapter installed in-line to the hydroboost return line:

Dropped the transmission pan to replace the filter and fluid:


Pretty normal in my experience. Transmission with lots of miles and minimal fluid changes. No metal on the magnet, just dark brown fluid. Still shifts like a champ.

So that's where I'm at on the project thus far. May God have mercy on those of you who clicked on this thread with low speed internet.
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Old 01-16-2016, 05:13 PM   #5
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Thats one thing about the Chevy-easiest by far to work on. Good progress.
You don't have to do anything special to get the drum off. Just some careful taps of a hammer-and maybe backing off the shoes if there is a ridge in the drum. Just hope you don't have buy new ones. $$
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Old 01-19-2016, 05:53 PM   #6
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
The rotors are $112.79 on rock auto for the fronts but the rear drums are $95.79. Not the worst prices around considering they are ac delco parts but it's still pretty spansive.

Been looking around for a lift kit for the front, found a fabtech 4.5" lift spindle kit but it's discontinued and was around 800 bucks.

Then I found this for 330 shipped: Amazon.com: 1988 -1998 Chevy / GMC C15 C1500 C2500 2WD 4" Lift Lifting Spindles + 2" blocks + U-Bolts: Automotive She's a 4" lift spindle. I'm still trying to figure out if it will work on an 8 lug platform with drw rims but it's a long while off before I can afford them anyhow.

The rear leaf springs have an inverted shackle on the rear and some 2" blocks already installed. I figure I can grind the iron rivets off of the hanger and flip it 180* then reinstall with some grade 8 bolts. That should bring the eyelet down a good 8 inches or so (eyeballing, haven't measured yet). Hopefully the lift will be high enough to remove the lift block as well.

Then there are brake hoses and shock lengths to deal with but that's a heck of a lot easier to solve than lifting the front of a 2wd.

I also think I can get away with adding a 1" or so coil spacer after the lift spindle if the suspension geometry can handle it. Might end up needing 20" rims though haha!

Detroit makes a pretty inexpensive locker (around $500) that just replaces the spider gears in the diff. Couple rear locker with aired down drw's and you have a pretty large footprint which should be stout enough for any trails we find.

My next concern is 1st gear power. The 4l80e really doesn't have a good 1st gear for offroading. One solution I'm looking into is installing an np243c tcase to be used for it's 4lo gear reduction. I think it's 2.6-1 ratio would be tremendously useful.

Depending on how the lift works out tires will become a factor. I'd love to see some 35's with a 4-5" suspension lift on the front. That would give it 6-7" of total lift height.

The biggest issue would be gearing. 4.10's are pretty anemic with such a heavy rig towing with such a relatively small engine (5.7 liters). Looks like I can go to 5:13's for about 250 bucks. Motive Gear GM 10.5- Ring and Pinion- 14 Bolt Gears This is just an example of gearing. I haven't calculated the correct ring/pinion ratio as there are far too many variables missing from the equation.

The dual rear wheels also interest me in that how you air them down without having them rub sidewalls against each other?

So that's where I'm at. Ooh and painting the hood. Got 3 $1 cans of enamel black from lowes. Soap and water washed/scrubbed the hood. Used a dremel and attacked a few rusted spots and away we went. We're not trying to make this a show truck. If she holds 3 bucks worth of paint and 2 hours labor for a few years I'm calling that a win.

Soapy water and dremel rust deletion tool.


2 coats and I forgot to spray the backside:

3 coats and 20 hours later. I think we're going to toss a few coats of clear on her depending on the price of course.
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Old 01-20-2016, 07:22 AM   #7
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Awesome. I like your style and budget minded personality. Remember, the higher you lift that bus the towing ability gets worse.
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Old 01-20-2016, 01:24 PM   #8
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
Thanks, I find a great deal of pleasure doing builds balancing expense vs practicality.

Anyone can throw money at a problem. That's boring to me.
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Old 01-20-2016, 05:07 PM   #9
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Thats gonna be quite a top heavy off-roader. And you better really consider carefully what you do to your interior-and how secure you can make everything. The body is going to be leaning at angles that's going to want to be throwing things off shelves-and a twisting body is going to want to be pulling screws out.
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Old 01-21-2016, 12:06 AM   #10
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Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
I'm looking forward to the challenge!
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Old 01-21-2016, 08:39 PM   #11
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I am tracking down the plumbing.wiring on the stop sign on my shorty, it appears to be vacuum/air controlled and that mysterious adapter might be the ticket, although I have yet to get the doghouse off to follow the lines. My sign won't work well either unless the engine is running meaning there has to be vacuum/pressure to operate the sign most likely. I have an air tank under the drivers side mounted to the frame that is part of this system.

Is that the factory tranny assembly plug in the tranny pan? might be the first time that pan has been dropped. I just did the tranny service on my f150 that has 160k on it now (I bought it at 130k) and I was the first to drop the pan and see that assembly plug loose in there.
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Old 01-21-2016, 08:47 PM   #12
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
My sign is electric. Has 4 wires going to the unit although I'm not sure how to remove it without cutting them off so I left it on for now.

If your sign is controlled by vacuum supplied by the engine I'd suspect a damaged vacuum hose. They don't last too long being made of rubber with no reinforcement.


If it's vacuum powered you can grab a hand held mityvac vacuum pump and connect it to a port and see what happens. They run about 30 bucks and can be used for a lot of things.

My mysterious adapter has something to do with the power steering/braking system. It runs (electrically) in a series with the hydroboost pressure sensor.
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Old 02-05-2016, 07:24 PM   #13
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Location: Willis, TX
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Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
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Here is how she looks today:

So we have a pretty good leak in the roof over (shocker) where the rotten floor is. We will need to fix the leak, replace the mildew insulation (researching insulation that's immune to mold/mildew to replace with). Once the roof is done we will then do the walls/floor.

The plan is to attack the inside of any metal surface with fatmat or a similar sound/thermal barrier. then some sort of filler between the corrugated parts of the flooring (like a spray foam or something like that) then go back with plywood/osb/unknown then some rubber flooring. Looking at stuff thats .25 or so thick for traction and ease of cleaning. (definitely gonna rock some rugs)

So we tore the seats out, cleaned it up a bit then reinstalled 2 seats on the passenger side. The seat mounted on the drivers side above the heater in the very back worked perfectly backwards just in front of the stairs. Had to drill a few holes but nothing too dramatic. Then we installed another seat facing forward. This will be where some sort of folding/collapsing/removable table top will go when parked. Mocked up the seats:
Once the holes were drilled we removed the seats and my wife cleaned them up and scrubbed them down. We then moved the seat belts anchor points around a bit and swapped only metal clad seat belts because we prefer how they look compared to the plastic latches.

Pulled the rear heater box apart to fix the rattling noise it makes when on. Looks like more inept "electricians" jacked around with everything. Lots of electrical tape over melted crimp terminals and bundles tied up right next to the fan blade. a few wires ground down (the noise). The sticker reads 3.5 tons of heat capacity as I understand it. More than enough to keep us toasty on 30* drives (cold as it's been while driving so far).
We'll tear it all back apart to sand/paint everything later on.

Pulled the trim above the windows to see what's going on behind it: Lots of corrosion, I believe there are small leaks there that help the dissimilar metals react against each other (fasteners, roof, trim, window frame, etc). I suspect it could also simply be 17 years of sweating and condensation.


I attacked the cluster. It had a few burned out bulbs and I wanted to see how a few of my spare led's looked:




I'm no photographer so the 3 led's seem more blue than they are and the incandescents look whiter than they are. (I think I had too long of an exposure) I believe gm uses a blue filter inside of the cluster to make the natively yellow 194 bulbs appear whiter. I'll have to order some yellow led's to get it completely white and it should look amazing.

Attacked some of the existing latch mechanisms for the drivers overhead and electrical panel access doors:


These are really impressive. They have a very secure lock for the violence of their future now I just need to find a few more since I only have 1 and the rest are missing.

Attacked the ac condenser. The electric fans made of plastic warped and created air gaps 1/4" all around the non supported left and right sides of the fans. One fan was not mounted properly whatsoever. I have no idea what was going on but I made it right in a jiffy. Used some sticky foam insulation after cleaning the surface and covered the diameter of both fans then bolted them back on. (picture is on teardown)

More electrical half-assery went on here. Lots of crimp and butt connectors and electrical tape.
The fans were grounded to the single self tapper that also holds the breaker to the shroud and it was all corroded. The breaker was bolted to the shroud as low as you can get it with wires drooping a good 4" lower effectively making this the low hanging fruit of the entire vehicle. I pulled, cut, stripped, crimped, and heatshrunk every connection (I'm not a fan of soldering with good crimpers, heatshrink, and barrel connectors) Solder joints don't do as well with vibrations. Once that was all wired up properly the lowest point on the vehicle is the driveshaft safety strap (which I'm probably going to remove) and the ac filter dryer.

This thing's going to suck to reroute. It's fed by a hardline directly off of the condenser so in order to relocate it to safety I'll either have to build my own hardline or make a nicely crimped refrigerant hose.
I may throw some armor at it for now. It's an otherwise low priority.

I've got half a tank and 190 miles on the trip odometer. This is all without running ac and a mix of city and highway. I'm really hoping this is a 55 gallon tank (with a crappy sending unit) and not something tiny like 36 gallons.
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Old 02-05-2016, 07:25 PM   #14
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
It's funny, all 3 of my vehicles have an l31 v8 in them!
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Old 02-19-2016, 01:49 PM   #15
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Location: Willis, TX
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Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
Hitch installed!

Spent about 30 hours on this project between research, shopping, and all of the support related tasks.

Stage one: Find a hitch.
Found a hitch for an express van on craigslist for 50 bucks in Katy which is about an hour and a half of driving one way from here. Emailed to verify the dimensions.

We got there and he sold me a 50% tread 6 year old set of e range 245 75 16's for 20 bucks. Turns out ours has 225 75 16's. Still 20 bucks isn't terrible and I can probably get 50-100 bucks for em out here.

Stage 2: Trailer wiring.
Removed the easy access panel that covers up the right rear of the vehicle.

Everything is there except the left rear turn signal. Concluded that the main conduit that connects the front/rear of the vehicle is on the top left side.

Every wire is gloriously labeled. This is the most user friendly wiring I've ever had the pleasure of working on. (auto strippers bit my fingers and left me a nice blood blister)


Reinstalled cover minus removed fiberglass insulation and switched to the challenging side where the rear heater partially blocks access to the panel fasteners.
We purchased a Hopkins 46155 from Oreilly auto parts: http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...0158&ppt=C0386
The bus has dedicated turn signals and trailers use the brake light and turn signals in the same circuit. This converts the signal to the one the trailer requires. Another cool part about the adapter is when you hit the brakes while using your turn signals, the signals on the bus and trailer alternate which imo draws further attention.
Theres a hole from the service panel down to beneath the bus where I ran the wires for the trailer lights to a 7 way. Next time I'm at the machine shop I'll have shane plasma cut a hole in the bumper to mount the 7 way high up to keep it out of harms way.

Step 3: Modify the hitch to reduce departure angle.

I decided rather than hang the hitch from the bottom of the frame rails I'd hang it from the top of the 2 C-channel frame rails to keep the hitch above the rear bumper. Dropped her at the machine shop and had about .5 inches cut off of each side to fit within the frame rails.

Removed the bumper to begin the design of how to mount everything. I was fully expecting to be killed from the weight of it when the final bolt was removed. Turns out she's aluminum and light as a feather. 1/4" thick C channel aluminum. Theres a structural cross member that was originally installed at the very end of the frame rails. At some point in the past it was torched off and relocated inward by about 15" as indicated by the burn marks on the frame and cut marks on the member.
This interfered with the hitch. I decided that the hitch install would replace it's purpose anyhow so it was removed. The welder had a really fun time in those tight spaces with 3" long self tappers sticking down from the school districts floor repairs.

Once the bracket was removed I ran home from the machine shop a second time on this project. The hitch slid between the c channel frame rails like glove. It was magical. Shane (the machinist/welder) and I gave an exuberant high five when we slid it into place after he removed the crossmember.
Came back home so I could figure out how I wanted the hitch installed. Pondered and mocked everything up for a few hours and decided against welding it to the frame. I wanted to be able to cleanup/paint the receiver and frame down the road. The hitch boxes everything in so welding everything on would make maintanance/cleaning a challenge.
Experimented with the hitch mounted to the top and bottom of the c channel and decided to mount it to the bottom for ease of access to drill the holes out for the bolts.






I went through my loose bolts/nuts drawer and decided against reusing unknown grade/strength bolts/nuts and spent 25 bucks at lowes for 6 1/2" grade 8 zinc coated bolts with zinc coated washers 1 per side, zinc coated split washer, and finally a zinc coated nut.

My wife built a template for me to drill on the frame. I learned a long time ago to use masonary bits when drilling on steel with an unsteady handheld drill. The 5 dollar bit walked through the 1/4" thick frame supported by my now heavily bruised knee. I couldn't stand the pain on the next attempt so I let necessity take over. She built me a drill press using a bottle jack against my drill. It was glorious.

My Milwaukee 18v lithium battery is about 5 years old now and she's lasting maybe 10 minutes under the drill press so I had to whip out the 8 year old dewalt 18v nimh to finish the job.

In my haste to wrap this project up I didn't realize I had squished my Fenix LD12 between the hitch and frame. Just a little surface damage, had to use a prybar to rescue her.

The hitch is now properly mounted.


Shane rewelding on the bumper brackets. We did have to cut off and re weld on the bumper brackets. I'll design some stronger gusseted brackets in the distant future that bolt on.

We have a pretty good impact on the rear right of the bumper. Shane and I used some wood blocks and a sledge and pounded it a bit. It straightened up quite well for 5 minutes of effort. Once that was done he measured and drilled a pilot hole in the bumper for the hitch opening.

I designed it in such a way that the bumper sits flush with the end of the hitch. This gives me room behind the bumper to install the hitch pin and clearance for the factory hitch chain straps.
Once the pilot hole was drilled we mounted the bumper. Shane then used a plasma cutter to make the hole in the aluminum.

Hitch installed and cargo rack mounted!
The cargo rack is a walmart special. Holds 500 lbs and has a lift hitch bringing the rack up a good 6+ inches. The problem is after holding 10 gallons of fuel on the rear left and an empty tool box on the rear right it got a stress fracture in a bracket and was also incredibly poorly designed so that 6" it gains in the front sags down 6" in the rear. We put a block of wood on the rear of the rack to put it in a bind holding it up as high as possible then Shane tacked on a few welds.

Removed the rack and Shane welded everything up awesome. I can jump up and down on the end and it's stout as ever. (perky if you will)

Our 16' tandem axle utility trailer bolted up to my 3" adjustable drop hitch.

The trailer is about 10" higher in the front than the back (unloaded) so I'm going to grab a 6" drop hitch to level things out. Otherwise the mechanical part is completed.
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Old 02-19-2016, 03:41 PM   #16
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You're starting down the road I might be traveling by early summer

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Old 02-19-2016, 03:51 PM   #17
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What brand of masonry bits do you buy.
I do concrete and steel construction for a living and have tool boxes and buckets full of masonry/concrete bits thatmight drill mild steel wire/the edge of rebar embeded in concrete or block if the tool is on impact but not many times before it is wore out.
None of them have the cutting edge on the tip to cut steel? I do have a few diamond tip masonry bits but they are more like 65-75$ each and I would stop (to be polite ) anyone of my men from trying to drill steel with them? Yes I also use core drills up to 20-30" holes that cost 100$ an inch per diamond tipped bit that drills concrete,rebar,wire but you will waste all your money and time cutting through 1/4" steel with a masonry bit in my opinion.
Please
Share your wisdom of masonry bits drilling solid steel and the make,model,serial number type stuff?
Please teach me this one.
Not trying to sound like a butthead but my head has never had any luck with what you are capable of so please share what you learned along your way.
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Old 02-19-2016, 04:16 PM   #18
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I would highly consider getting wheels with a heavier offset up front and possibly a wider rear axle in back. making her wide will keep her stable.
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Old 02-19-2016, 04:45 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Roger View Post
Please
Share your wisdom of masonry bits drilling solid steel and the make,model,serial number type stuff?
Please teach me this one.
Not trying to sound like a butthead but my head has never had any luck with
Do a search on "masonry bits to drill steel"

How To Drill Hardened Steel

Tom
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Old 02-19-2016, 04:51 PM   #20
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Location: Willis, TX
Posts: 31
Year: 1999
Chassis: Midbus
Engine: GM 5.7 L31
Rated Cap: 19
I'm a big fan of keeping my wheelbase as small as possible. If we need to explore in harder places I'll throw the Jimmy at it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Roger View Post
What brand of masonry bits do you buy.
I do concrete and steel construction for a living and have tool boxes and buckets full of masonry/concrete bits thatmight drill mild steel wire/the edge of rebar embeded in concrete or block if the tool is on impact but not many times before it is wore out.
None of them have the cutting edge on the tip to cut steel? I do have a few diamond tip masonry bits but they are more like 65-75$ each and I would stop (to be polite ) anyone of my men from trying to drill steel with them? Yes I also use core drills up to 20-30" holes that cost 100$ an inch per diamond tipped bit that drills concrete,rebar,wire but you will waste all your money and time cutting through 1/4" steel with a masonry bit in my opinion.
Please
Share your wisdom of masonry bits drilling solid steel and the make,model,serial number type stuff?
Please teach me this one.
Not trying to sound like a butthead but my head has never had any luck with what you are capable of so please share what you learned along your way.
So I learned this a few years ago drilling into leaf springs. I spent about 40 bucks on some 1/2 hss drill bits grabbed one of each at home depot. The problem with hss is when it wears down it just becomes useless. No amount of pressure will cut after it wears out. It just starts smoking and gets tossed into the scrap pile.

The masonary bits do indeed get trashed however they will cut start to finish repeatedly. I didn't take any breaks drilling or use any cooling fluid/lubricant. Just ran her until the holes were through.

The bits I used on the hitch were a 5 dollar one (cheapest at home depot) that says "not for use with hammer drills" which is good since my drill doesn't hammer.

The 10 dollar bosch hammer drill bit ran out of steam after the first hole and performed about on par with my 1/2 hss metal bits after they wear out. The 5 dollar one ran the remaining 5 holes with relative ease. It wore down the cutting edge down about 20%

Heres a few pics. The 10 dollar bosch one has 1/2 50T stamped at the base. The 5 dollar one has only 1/2.



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