Building Sergeant Rock's Custom Suspension

Welcome to trucks.

You are gonna love today's show because it is all about how to design and build and fabricate that special suspension for your particular project. Now,

the reason that this is important is that

there's a lot of you guys out there that are building Jeeps or

Bunkos or Blazers or whatever

they wanna put on bigger axles and tires than

the average person would or you wanna stick it way up in the air. But

how do you do that?

There's no kits out there are there no,

there's no kits, but there are parts

and you need to make them fit

and that's the fun part.

Now, most of you know that on the Sergeant Rock project, I am planning to stuff underneath here, these huge 2.5 ton Rockwell axles that I got from an army surplus place. Now, the suspension that I wanna put on here still needs to have kind of an old school military feel. So I'm definitely gonna put it on leaf springs, but

those leaf springs need to be able to handle those axles and handle those tires

and handle the huge engine that's going in here which of course you haven't seen yet. So,

what do you do?

Well, you head back to the military place

when I got those axles from Memphis equipment. Well, that's not all I got.

I also got most of the components to go with them. Take a look at this.

These are frame brackets, these are shackles and these are used, pull these right off the trucks out there in the yard,

but there is nothing wrong with these. All you gotta do is clean them up and they will be perfect and they've got the look that I'm after too.

Now, the U bolts and the upper and lower brackets, all this stuff is brand new N Os

as well as new pins for the leaf springs. Take a look at this

original packaging, October 86. Now, is that cool or what?

Now the leaf springs, those are also new, got the bushings in them

and these are for the front

of a deuce and a half military truck. Yeah, these are gonna be stiff. There's not gonna be much flex coming out of these. But then again, I probably won't have to worry about axle wrap either.

And since

I am not building a flexi rock crawler, those should be perfect.

Now, some of you guys are thinking, oh man, this looks expensive,

man, that's the good part about going to a place like Memphis equipment. They're a salvage yard, they are affordable and if you're going this route, they've got all the stuff to make it look right and fit together.

Can you imagine trying to find that at your local auto parts store? Yeah.

Ain't gonna happen. All right. Let's take a look at some wheels right behind you.

Now, wheels, now, those were an issue at first because these tires are for a 20 inch rim,

but they're wide enough to where you really need a 17 or 18 inch wide wheel to fill these things out and make them look right.

And nobody was building a 20 inch rim that wide.

Well, the answer came from Marsh racing wheels.

Now, Marsh racing has been building quality racing wheels for years for everything from sprint cars to rock crawlers, you name it and they will build them however wide you want them, whatever backspace you want, however you wanna dream them up.

And if you want real functional bead locks like these have all you gotta do is ask, they can do it all. Now, these are just in primer for now, I'm gonna paint these up the color of the truck and detail them once I'm done with all this pre fitting.

Come on, Scott.

See.

Mhm.

Yeah.

To

no

one of the biggest mistakes that people make with bead lock wheels is if they over tighten them,

these things only go down to 15 ft pounds, but you will wanna run this whole circle at least five times

because you want everything to be even and tight. Trust me, you cannot check these too much. Now, speaking of checking,

most real B lock wheels are not dot approved. So if you're gonna drive these things on the street,

you need to check with the manufacturer of your wheel and see if they're dot approved.

Now you can finally start to see just what this big old sucker is gonna look like. Move on back there. Take a look at this. Is this cool or what I told you this was gonna be huge. Now,

with all the components mocked into place, you come to a very important part, you have a lot of measurements, a lot of calculations, a lot of things to do to make sure this stuff all lines up and works, right?

And that's what I'm gonna walk you through.

Welcome back to trucks today.

Size matters

because I'm putting big tires on big axles, building a huge truck and showing you what's legal and illegal in terms of hydraulic steering and bead locks and bumper heights, that kind of stuff. But there's more to it than that. Now, the main purpose of this project today is to show you how to fit any kind of axle under any kind of truck. So

let's get back to it

first square up the truck to make sure it's sitting level and even front and rear,

then measure your frame width in the back

and the front where your spring hangers are gonna mount. Now, this is really important since most frames get narrower at the front of the truck, especially these old ones

next square up the new axles and wheels under the truck

and set the truck to its new ride height.

All right. Now where you set your height, man, that is entirely up to you. That is where your prep

planning comes in.

But if you want the vehicle to be street legal,

now you better check your state laws because they either go from bumper height or headlight height. And if you want to build something this big,

you can just forget it, man. It's not gonna pass anywhere in the United States.

Now, these old military trucks had about 14 inches of clearance between the top of the tire and the bottom of the fender.

So I'm gonna keep roughly that same number.

So everything looks in proportion just

a

lot bigger.

Now, also, when you're coming up with this number, make sure you factor in spring sag

the amount that those springs are gonna sag when you put the weight of the truck back down on it.

And how much those springs are gonna sag is gonna depend on the weight of the truck and the capacity of those springs. So you need to know these things before you start.

All right, with everything centered up and ready to go,

you can see that we have got a little problem. This frame is too short here in the front. But wait, wait a minute. It's not that big a deal. Now, all you gotta do is extend the frame out.

So you have a place to mount this front spring hanger

and we're gonna do that

with a super strong two by four square tubing.

So,

ok, with the frame extended,

we are ready to move on to the next step, but that doesn't mean I am done with this frame. No,

no, I still need to come in here and weld up all these holes and box this thing to give it the proper strength, but you don't need to do that. Now, you can do that later. Right now, we need to do something about fabricating some drop brackets that will hold this hanger and basically

it's gonna look something like this.

Now, the stock that I'm gonna use

is this three by three square tubing with a quarter inch wall. Yeah, this is some heavy duty stuff. It's actually stronger than I need. But

like I keep telling you if you overbuild it for strength now,

you won't have to worry about fixing it on the trail later on.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Sergeant Rock is on the block today and the project is how to fabricate a suspension

and retrofit bigger axles into your project.

Now, at this point, I am deep into the time consuming part of cutting and drilling and tapping and

all the other stuff that's involved in hand fabricating parts.

Now, if you're gonna do this kind of project,

make sure you have got the proper tools to work metal this thick

or you could spend all day

trying to finish just one piece.

OK. Once you're done fabricating your frame drops,

clamp them into the proper place, utilizing all those measurements that you've been taking.

Now, make sure that you take your time here

because this

is what's gonna determine how high the truck sits,

how straight the springs and axles are gonna be

everything,

ok? With your front spring hangers in place, it is time

to build the rear spring hanger. Now, these are actually a lot easier than those fronts because this frame is wide enough here in the back where this hanger will come right up underneath the frame. All you have to do is build it

to the measurements that you took earlier. Now,

you need to be on the money here because too low or too high is gonna affect your opinion angle, which um hopefully you did factor in when you uh made your original measurement.

All right, with your brackets built,

just clamp them into place in the proper position

and check the fit of your leaf springs. Now, if anything is binding up or out of whack, now is the time to fix it and adjust it.

Now, once you have everything in place, you got the other side in,

you've measured, you've taken everything into account,

then you can start welding things in. Now, for the rear,

that's even easier because the frame is square in the rear, it doesn't taper. So if you can do the front, the rear is a piece of cake.

Now, there are a couple of points that I'd like to bring up here when you're finishing all this stuff off. Don't just leave these ends open. That looks bad. Now, come in here. Weld in a nice cap, smooth it all down.

You'll be glad that you did

also remember to put in some gussets here for strength

and any time that you build a drop like this, it's a good idea to also build in some sort of cross member that'll keep the front end from moving and flexing on. You.

Also, you need to be on the lookout for weak points, for example,

see how thin this frame gets here. Yeah, that ain't gonna get it even with the frame boxed.

So what I'm gonna do later on, I'm gonna build a filler panel that'll build that frame back up and make it as strong as the rest of the truck. Now, obviously,

there is a lot more to this kind of project than I had time to show you today.

But hopefully this answers some of your questions

and shows you what's involved in building this sort of rig.

Obviously, it's not easy. You can see it completely pegs out or difficulty meter because you need to know how to build a frame. You need to understand suspension geometry.

But if you've got the time and you've done your homework

and you've got access to the tools,

you shouldn't be afraid to do a project like this. You'll have the only one in the neighborhood

when the time comes to rebuild a typical gasoline engine. That means you need to take it out of the vehicle and take it apart. Take it down to the machine shop, have them bore it out and then you start putting it back together. Well,

that's not the case with these big rig diesels. Now, downtime means lost money. So they need to be able to rebuild these things in the truck

and no trips to the machine shop. Now, I know what you're thinking.

That's impossible. No, not if you know how it works,

how it works is brought to you by Wyotech.

All right guys, here's the deal. We have an engine mocked up like it would be in a big rig.

Needs an overhaul. Let's walk the viewers through it. All right. As we can kind of tell, we've already had the valve covers removed, the jake brake, the rocker boxes, cross heads pushed to all

disassembly. Exactly. And now we've got the head removed on

back two cylinders on this Cummins engine. Now, this can all be done in the truck. Very simply. It sure can. Ok.

Now we come to the area that makes this engine very unique.

Have a sleeve inside the block.

Of course, the piston goes down inside there to get the piston out. We just unbolt it from the crank where Keith is down there slumbering

and he pushes it up to us.

All right, thank you, Keith.

All right, with the piston out.

Now, what the next step is to take this tool to get the cylinder out of there.

Um We really do need to use these tools. Um, there's, there's a couple of different kinds of press fits in those liners and, uh, we can get them out. Uh, but it certainly is good. It's all about the tool, isn't it?

So, that's just pressed in there. It really has got a press fit right at the top of it. So we would need the tool. So

once we've got it past the press fit, we're,

and there's your cylinder, there's the

link

and that's what keeps you from having to take this thing down to a machine shop. Have a board out.

Exactly. I mean, we're all set. We don't have to do any of that. We have to take it out of the frame to be able to do it. We got a cylinder right here. You just slide in a new one

now, on those kits. Does it come with the piss

in the liner? The whole bit? Does the packing the rings? Everything is all set for that. It just drops in.

All right.

Then of course, you follow it with the new piston

and

yeah, piston with rings. That's always nice.

Are you ready, Keith? They coming to you?

There you go.

And that's it.

That's it. We're ready. Head bolts down on there, holds it in, it does hold it down. Just have to do it

five more times.

Now, once you have an engine rebuilt like this, is it as good as new. Absolutely. We're all set. We got brand new rings, brand new cylinders. Um If you want to put heads on injectors in, we are ready to roll again just like it was brand new. Is there ever a time that you have to pull the engine out of the truck? There is

if, if we have a problem with that crank shaft uh bearing wise or anything, we sure do, we have to pull it out there and turn it over. But other than that, everything done right in frame. So how's the crank? Look down there, Keith? You still awake?

Ok. Then you just

uh reassemble it and you're done. We sure do. We're ready to roll. So the next time you're wondering

what it takes to build one of these things and how they keep these big trucks on the road.

Now, you know how it works and you are sleeping down there, we need

to sleep.

You see

down there,

you know, sometimes it's a simple, cheap, easy stuff that makes the big difference in your truck. For example, L MC truck has got these Euro style headlights for almost every model of truck ever made from square headlight to round bulbs. Now, they feature an H four halogen bulb, special reflector, special lens, which makes these far superior to your stock bulbs. And all you have to do is call up LNC Truck and order you a pair.

Everybody knows that one of the biggest changes you can make to improve the look of your truck is in a custom set of wheels. But

what if you're driving a dole?

Yeah,

custom wheels get kind of scarce and expensive.

Well, bullet has got these polished stainless steel covers for those of you that are driving a Dooley. Now, these pop right over the wheel over the lug nuts over the cap to basically give you a custom look without the custom price. These are pretty much a fancy hubcap for your Dooley.

It doesn't get much easier or simpler than that

except in the case of a performance tuner for your engine. Like this one from Super Chips. Now, there's nothing new here. You've all seen these before, you know what they do?

They tweak your engine for more power. What is new is the application?

Super chips now has these for the 05 Ford Power stroke engines. So if you've got one of those, this is a pretty good idea.