The WC53 Carryall thread .

[Bruce in BC]

Finally got to check the frame for square

Rolled the frame outside , jacked and shimmed the front until level and did the same for the back , once this was done I checked the frame in about six places and they all came in as level too . Diagonal measurement was different by 1/16 small . So the frame is out of square by 1/32 which is fine and within specs . There is a lot of small stuff to do before the frame is done , a mess of the brackets need to be ground or have nuts welded in place . Not sure if I will sand blast the parts or try and find a place that will do it for me ..
Going mountain climbing tomorrow , I am dragging my butt around here .

[Alxj64]

To all the guys with 4bt swaps... What are you using for front springs? I see in the picture of Bruce's truck above that he has made modifications to the spring hangars. I was considering outboarding my springs as wide as I can with the new axles to help increase roll stability and was going to go with a 3" wide Ford Excursion leaf spring setup for the front as it should also be more laterally stable with the wider bushings. What are ya'lls thoughts on that?

[Bruce in BC]

Not sure if the spacing is much of an issue .

I am running 1993 dodge cummins front springs , the custom brackets where built to accommodate the dana60 axle's spring perches . My first design used a new 2x3 crossmember at the front , but it was in the way of my winch , so I went for the design you see up thread . I had to build all the brackets , if I could have used some off a OEM vehicle I would have . Too much fabricating .
I just finished off the rear bumper supports . Need to be cleaned up and primed .

take care

Bruce

[Desoto61]

It's not a WC53, but I had a new set of springs made up by Eaton Detroit with a 2" lift built into them. They are supposed to be stock as far a rating, though they guy said he would stiffen them up slightly (thicker top leaves is what he said) to make up some of that extra lift when I explained why I wanted the lift.

I think my thread talked about it, but other than the extra arch making them a little short for install they look to do exactly what I want. I considered extra capacity like Paul (in NY) had done, but after talking with a few others (including Flatlanders) they kind of talked me into just doing the 2" arch in the hopes that the extra weight of the engine would just help soften the ride a little. Based on how little the front end dropped with the engine and trans in place I think it will be just right, but I'll have to wait and see how they settle in with use.

But I'm also using the stock axles, so moving springs would mean even more work. Someone suggested going with 2 1/2" springs but the Eaton web site stated that the difference in performance wouldn't be significant enough to justify the work of converting to the wider springs.

[Alxj64]

Thanks for the heads up on the springs guys. Yesterday I picked up a complete F-250 TTB Dana 50 front end and have the leafs off of that to mess with, as well as I needed the hubs to convert my '86 ford Kingpin D60 from Dually to single rear wheel and the assembly also came with brand new rotors and brand new Warn lockouts so it was a good deal. Along with that I snagged 4 aluminum stock 16" ford wheels that are the Big hole alloy pattern. Going to use those for mockup to put my XMLs on when the suspension work starts.

Additionally last night I pulled apart the two different front WC radiator shell/ grills that I have to get the best mix and match of parts. While it was apart I took a tap and chased out all of the threads on the welded nuts so that I didn't have to worry with galling or cross threading when putting it all together. I'll chase them all again once I get it back from blast work. My plan is to build the entire truck and then take it all apart for blasting, painting, and wiring.

[Bruce in BC]

updates and out takes

(1) Carryall for sale on Craigslist .
http://stockton.craigslist.org/cto/3195424491.html
rear fenders look a tad ratty but the rear tailgate looks better than most .

(2) One last mod to do on my carryall frame and it will be ready for a clean up and paint . Nothing fancy , base coat will be zinc , epoxy and the topcoat will be what ever I have that is laying about and is black . May get a couple of coats of the black .

(3) Alxj64 - excellent score on the parts . Sounds like you may have the best drivetrain that has ever gone into a carryall . Really , you have the perfect combination that I have seen to date .

(4) and how is this for having a piece of scrap providing a perfect solution ? All I did was drill two holes and bolt it in place . The bar with the bend in it was on the piece of angle when I found it . The engine stand has been laying around the yard , and put to use on occasion , over about 35 years . It now has another use . I like tools that are multi taskable .

[Alxj64]

Looking good Bruce! And yea I am stoked about the drivetrain combo. Should do a good job at towing my wife's '68 airstream camper when she gets that done.

Dropped the leaf springs onto the front axle to see what I was working with. These are the TTB Dana 50 front springs from a '94 F250 Crew Cab, 460 cid truck. They are 50-1/2" long so they go all the way up under the cab. I am also planning a shackle reversal to improve ride quality and steering response. That being the case I was wondering if anyone can give me the depth of a stock front bumper where it mounts to the front frame rail. That is I want to keep the new spring hangar within the limits of the front bumper so that there aren't "buck teeth" hanging down where the leaf springs mount. I think I should have plenty of room because my computer wall paper at work is a front on view of the front of my WC53 back when the previous owner had finished it and you can't see the spring packs at all within the visible limits of the bumper. But a dimension would be really helpful anyways.

One of these days I am going to get back to work on the rear body of the truck and try to get that buttoned up. I just keep getting deals on parts dropped in my lap so I am rolling with that until that runs out.

Additionally I found a set of rear bumperettes and original headlight grill guards that are (wire-in). Those are supposed to be shipped to me this week.

I still need to find headlight buckets and one headlight to fender mount, and still need a few miscellaneous other things to complete the front clip.

[Bruce in BC]

Front axle

If you can move the axle forward of the stock position . I think mine is 1 1/2 inches forward of the stock position and the tire fills the wheel well better . What ever you decide to do , mock it up with the fenders in place . Unfortunately it pays to have the frame fully loaded when mocking up the axle position .
As to the front bumper I have no clue , I never had a stock bumper . For some reason 9 inches comes to mind , for the stock bumper , but I may be creating the number out of thin air .

Front springs on my truck are 48 1/4 long , the only problem I can think of is getting your springs to run at the correct angle to set the caster on the front axle . You may need to make a custom front bumper .

[Alxj64]

9" sounds good to me... ha ha.. But yea, I am thinking I may end up building a custom front bumper that "looks" as close to stock as I can get it. The front hangers are going to be way forward of stock to try and get the springs where I want them. As for setting caster angle, I have thought about having the cast side spring perch milled to the angle I need it, and I am ofcourse going to end up building my own perch to the desired pad height to go along with the correct caster angle.



I think what I can do for the stretch is build the front hanger all the way up against the back inside face of the front bumper, and then make an offcenter spring perch for the spring pin rather than dealing with re-drilling the spring pack. There are only two leaves in this Superduty pack but they are very thick and are 3" wide. I have been doing some research on other forums and supposedly a wider spring allows for a tighter steering response. The downside is its more difficult to "tune" the spring rate. However less springs in a longer pack should create a more dynamic spring pack also as the same is true with coil springs and sway bars, the longer the working length I can get the same static spring capacity, but am changing the effective spring rate because there is more material to deflect under a bump cycle.

[Bruce in BC]

Ford front spring

How close is the front of the spring to the front end of the frame ? From the photo the spring looks like it is set back a tad . With the front of the spring set about 1/4 inch back from the front of the frame where will the spring pin end up ?
I drilled new pin holes about one inch back from the OEM holes , this was done on the axle , which helped move the axle forward . I did not like the look of how the tire filled the fender opening until I moved them .
What diameter of tire will you run ? My 39.5 tires come close to the spring , not sure how close your selected tire will come to the spring . Not that it is all that big of a deal , the tires on my trash truck hit the spring and all I do is back off a tad when I hear them rubbing .

Is the rear spring eye reversed on your spring ?

And here is a shot of how I created a pivot point for the rear of the frame . That is the super rare WC53X rear cross member .

So how do I have text followed by a picture and then more text ?

[Alxj64]

How close is the front of the spring to the front end of the frame ? From the photo the spring looks like it is set back a tad . With the front of the spring set about 1/4 inch back from the front of the frame where will the spring pin end up ?

There is still a few inches until it gets to the front of the frame. However, it turns out I won't be using these springs. I am keeping a full build thread of just my project over on another forum (Pirate4x4) in the tow rig section and it was brought to my attention that I don't want to use those TTB Dana 50 springs as they are WAY too stiff. Reason being is that the TTB axle works like a lever, with the axle halves being levers, so the springs are rated at like 4/3rds of a standard spring rate for a solid axle truck... I certainly don't want that much spring rate. That being the case I am going to ditch these springs (they were free anyways) and try to find some Excursion springs like I was originally looking for.

I drilled new pin holes about one inch back from the OEM holes , this was done on the axle , which helped move the axle forward . I did not like the look of how the tire filled the fender opening until I moved them .

Something that has to be considered by doing that is it will somewhat change your spring effective rate. Because you are not bending the spring at the midpoint it changes the "moment" capacity of the spring. If you took any engineering or dynamics classes you might remember the whole thing about bending moment and the equation is resultant to the load defined at a point relative to its position from the reactive supports. So basically a lever arm, as the force x the length. So a shorter lever is going to be a stiffer effective spring rate relative to the point of fixity, ie, the hangar and not the shackle. I am going to run into that some when I run the Excursion springs because of the springs being off center, the short side mounted to the fixed hangar is going to increase my effective spring rate. Once again, I hope I am not rambling but maybe throwing out some ideas for people to maybe consider when changing leaf springs.

What diameter of tire will you run ? My 39.5 tires come close to the spring , not sure how close your selected tire will come to the spring . Not that it is all that big of a deal , the tires on my trash truck hit the spring and all I do is back off a tad when I hear them rubbing .

I am running the XMLs which according to Michelin measure around 38.7" when mounted on a 9" wide rim. I have them on an 8" wide rim so I would say they are pushing a touch over 39". The Dana 60 front I have is limited to about 42 degrees of steering absolute maximum according to the Spicer Manuals. This being the case I ran a few numbers on paper, and with the back spaced wheels I have currently, they are going to rub the springs before they get to full turn if I run the 3" wide springs along the centerline of the frame. Here is the math

Rolling radius of the tire is 19.5", and the axle WMS is 69.5". The wheels are 8" wide with 4" of backspacing and a 14" wide tire. This gives me a 7" step in from the WMS to the inside face of the tire with the wheels turned straight.

Spring pad width on my axle is 36.5", but add 3" for spring width (1.5" per side)... so (69.5"/2) - 7" - (39.5/2) = 8" clear distance between the inside face of the tire and the outside face of the leaf spring. With a 19.5" rolling radius, when the tire is turned that is my triangle hypotenuse and the 8" is the base leg of my right angle triangle. I am trying to find my max steering angle in this situation so sin^-1(x) = 8/19.5), so x = 25 degrees. Which is not very much... So I am going to need to look at either moving my spring perches in somehow, ie retubing the axle, or running a more backspaced wheel, or maybe a combination of the two.

What is the spring pad width on these trucks stock? I am not near mine to measure it?

Is the rear spring eye reversed on your spring ?

What do you mean? Like flipped under?

And here is a shot of how I created a pivot point for the rear of the frame . That is the super rare WC53X rear cross member .

I dig it!

So how do I have text followed by a picture and then more text ?

I use photobucket for image hosting. The pictures never get loaded directly to the forum this way. Its good and bad. Its bad because if I exceed my bandwidth or stop paying for my photobucket account, everything goes away and becomes dead links, but its good because you can post a lot more images, and have access to them from anywhere, but at the same time, non forum members can see the pictures too so you end up with a lot less registered users.

[Gary Weaklend]

Carryall Pictures

I "almost" feel guilty showing these pictures in the middle of the posts with all the trucks in pieces but......I went to a state park in Iowa yesterday and took some pictures of the Carryall. Think of them as an inspiration. :-)

[Gordon Maney]

The Ledges?

[Gary Weaklend]

Ledges?

Yes. This is the first year the lower Ledges hasn't flooded so they've had the road open all summer.

[Bruce in BC]

Great shots Gary

This thread is for all things Carryall . I think trips , breakdowns , and all the little stuff we do to keep these beasts running are as welcome as the builds .
Your truck looks good , I like the insert in the roof .
The fit and finish look great too .

Best regards
Bruce

Was out on a search all day today , no time on the Carryall