M35a2 build thread!

[ridgerunner97]

Still less in that crane than most. Especially when cranes sell new anywhere between 10-30K for a service truck style crane.

[DeathBlade556]

Got a lot of work done in the last few days!

I wet blasted the entire truck down to the CARC, and shot on 4 gallons of majic olive drab, got one last coat to go if the weather allows.
Its looking pretty good other than some media from the wet blast must have been in my trees and blew on it from the storm on satuday.

And once the paint drys the deuce gets to ear its keep I have to move 2 big piles of locust tree that came down on saturday to haul out, my chipper can only go to 1.5"-2" branches.

[DMG]

What is wet blasting ?

[Keith]

What is wet blasting ?

Some day you will meet a nice lady and you will find out...

[DMG]

Some day you will meet a nice lady and you will find out...

Lol. Gabe must be one sick dude, doing it to a truck.

[DeathBlade556]

What is wet blasting ?

Its a sand blasting with water pressure instead of air pressure. You don't have dust concerns as its a wet process. I have a attachment you can use with very big pressure washers 4000+ 4gpm+,
I have the new harbor freight 4400psi unit and its just enough pressure washer any smaller and it doesn't work it uses a siphon tube and a 0* nozzle to cause a suction that pulls media into the water at the nozzle.

Its cheaper to get a big pressure washer(upside you now have a big pressure washer) than a very big air compressor (unless you get a tow behind cheap at auction).
It doesn't do as good of a job as the usual pressure pot blaster but, it does good in blowing of paint and rust, if you go slower it will go to bar sanded metal.
Only down side it will flash rust if you dont blow it off but that is what leaf blowers are for.

I took about 7 bags of media to blast the deuce. But I did one wet when I forgot where I put the bucket when I was blasting, water lol.

[DeathBlade556]

Well I got some paint on there, and it looks alot better in OD than chipped red and white! I still have to get the backup camera in, the second alternator for 12v for the crane and accessories.
I started taking apart the troop rails I dont know if want to sand down the wood and hit it with oil or varish, or paint the wood? The metal post and alot of the trucks hinges, etc I'm going with gloss black, front bumper too. (every store has a can of rustoleom gloss black) so its a easy repaint of scratches etc.

Now I've got the crane mounted on the stand in the corner, and I need to weld up a subframe to tie into the truck frame, along with some jack legs made from 7000lb trailer jack legs.
But I also want to mount my welder (Lincoln Weldnpower 225) on the same side of the bed, just under the crane arm I need the open area on the other side for my little skid steer and spare tire/ equipment.
I've also got a line on some cheap 395/80r20 tires in goodyear MVT and Mrap wheels I'll have to machine adapters since no one has them cheap at the moment.
So I'll be singling the truck out and going to a the long bed bobber earlier than I expected.

Now the welder weights ~520 lbs, and the crane weighs in at ~590lbs so total weight would be ~1200ish~ lbs
Do you guys thing that is to much for one side of the bed?

[ridgerunner97]

Weight will be fine with proper outriggers on a truck that size and if it stays tandem. You won't notice.

[DeathBlade556]

I welded up a subframe today, and got the welder up on the bed. Now I'm thinking how long to make the outriggers 2 feet? 4 feet?
I dont have any tube that will telescope, so the outrigger will be a fixed length also they we come off with hitch pins and stow in the bed along side the crane.

As for the welder I'm debating on if I want to make a rolling cart that mounts under it, with wheel barrow size wheels, handles, etc.
That will drop into some mounts on the bed that way I can just pull the mount pins and lift the welder off with the crane if I cant get the truck close enough for the weld leads
Which wont happen much with how long these leads are. I'm half way tempted to cut the leads in hafl and maybe had a dinse twist connect so I down have to haul all that lead around. Plus it would alone me to pull the welder off when I need more bed space, but the welder is rather small its only a 225amp.

I had alot more plans to start fabbing up the mounts for the second alternator, but did nothing much else amazon did deliver my vac/boost gauge.
I'll try to get that in tomorrow, along with something else before the next bunch of thunder storms come in.

Stupid rain.

[joshs1ofakindxj]

I think user TMAmerica on SteelSoliders was who I got my second alternator brackets from. Saved me a lot of work. Check it out. Not sure what alternator you're using though. I had a Standard Chevy laying around that was the right one for his brackets.

The troop seat boards are traditionally painted the same as the rest of the truck, but do as you wish. You're already deviating from the norm!

Sounds like you should keep the outriggers tighter to the truck rather than wider out. If they are made from a square tubing that is light enough that you can remove and stow them on the truck, then they probably won't stop a roll over situation from happening and you should keep them at the body edge or under it for transferring weight directly to the ground. Don't put yourself in any off camber loading situations.

For my home garage, I have two 25' welding leads I primarily use, then I have two 100' lead extensions. All are set up with quick twist connections. That way I'm not battling long lead piles all the time and I can reach anything in the garage or just outside in. If I need to go further down the driveway I hook up the extensions. That's how I would set up a mobile welder as well.

[DeathBlade556]

I found a plan for a second alternator bracket on steel soldiers and did the layout and cut it out of 1/4 some this morning I'll weld it all together tomorrow.
I have a single wire 10si 63 amp I had for my skid steer.

As for the out rigger tube I'm using some 2.5x2.5x.25 square with a triangulated piece of 2x3x.188 to from a right angle triangle 48"x16"

Already order the twist connect for the leads, only cost $7 a set for male/female the leads are only 50' but they are from a much bigger welder so they have to be 0/3.
I'll just split them in half.

[DeathBlade556]

I well I need to make some more brackets I cut the ones for the outriggers too small....
But I ended up taking measurements for the long bed bobber 4x4 what ever its called I cant use the extra pair of front springs I go with the rear most axle in the stock location
so I started thinking, If I move the rear axle forward 12-16" I can put in a cross member with a carrier bearing and reuse the stock drive shaft I take the flanges off the mid axle
And use some splined shaft turn on some threads for the flange nuts and then I can use the front springs, and not interfere with the crane mounts, and I have room for more air tanks for the harpoon gun, and still look like the deuce I posted in the first post!

[DeathBlade556]

Well I just ordered five M35a3 wheels with 14.5r20's for $250 a pop, with shipped its going to be $295 per tire wheel, More than I wanted to spend but there are no mrap adapters to screw around with.
I'll be going from a 39-40" tire to a 43" so a small speed 55mph to 60mph change which should get my speed back in place since I'm reading 55 at 50.
I still want some 395/85r20 MVT's or XZL's since the 14.50r20 that are on there are 50% tread.

[DeathBlade556]

Tires come tomorrow!
So now its time to figure out the new rear driveshaft I'm thinking if I grab another deuce rear driveshaft I can get it cut down and rebalance then use a carrier bearing.
Of I can get a new drive shaft made a point spring, but I doubt they will use the 1500/5-115x bolt on ujoints the come on M35s.

[joshs1ofakindxj]

When I did my bobbed truck I had Greensburg Driveline extend the center tube of the shaft with a new piece and re-use the ends.

[DeathBlade556]

Tires came this morning, they said the tires are 50% tread and probably not good for the street, which translates to very good looking tread but very dry rotted and one completely bald. But I'm only going to use them to roll it around while I'm working on it they will be fine.
I've got some goodyear MVT's coming in.

I'm keeping the rear axle in about the same spot I do have to move it a few inches forward for the spring hangers. So I'll have to have a carrier bearing, the drive shaft would be too long for a single shaft.

[DeathBlade556]

Tires!

If you want to know how many MRAP tires fit in a volkswagon its 5


New higher volume air compressor, I'm installing that today.


I've got a windsheild wiper from a MRAP that I'll be adapting to the deuce, I have some cheap universal wiper motors but they don't park in the same spot when I turn them on.
I need to take apart the old air wiper actuators and steal out the shaft and arm. Then use some heim joints and rods to link it all together.


Putting the welder on there bed. The crane became useful instantly!







Moving heavy objects when you dont have enough work studies to push it. VW rabbit pickups are not suitable attachment points for winching when moving 10,000lb lathes.


8 hours and 80ft later

[DeathBlade556]

Well I've done some this and that I found my truck is 15710 unloaded instead of 13000 which a normal M35a2 without winch weighs in at. With the crane and welder 700 and 590 which should only be 1300lbs more, so either something is up with the scale at the yard or these powerking tires are heavier than I thought? The drop side bed can't be that much heavier than a normal M35 bed right?

I still haven't got the 395's mounted to the M35a3 wheels I'm getting there one tire at a time had to buy a IR 3/4 impact wrench for the wheel bolts there on there tight! And I got a hydraulic bead breaker, I got a air over hydraulic pump for the bead breaker, I should have bought a electric 110v pump, need to find one of those. But the bead breaker works good if slow. Heavy tires are heavy.

I've been running around getting stuff went to get a new to me safe off craigslist and drove over a chain that was along the side of the road and it got rapped around the duals, that was loud as it slammed into the bottom of the bed! and then I almost maxed the crane picking up the safe(harbor freight non lift rated, lifting ratchet straps for the win) I need to add hydraulic retract and extension to the boom of the crane, got more than a few tons of gravel and found out I need to add a dump hoist, moved a Cincinnati toolmaster HV milling machine now need to sell the old mini one.

Got some leather seats from a Mitsubishi galant installed I wanted tiburon seats but couldn't find any good ones. But now I have room for a center console now for the CB and cup holder.
Also got a ton of switches of even more LED lights time to make a over head switch console.

German club always good for some sauerkraut.

[RalphDogg]

Boy that thing is so cool!

[joshs1ofakindxj]

You mentioned waste oil in another thread so I figured I would post here rather than going off on a tangent in an unrelated thread.

Have you made a waste oil filtering rig yet? I had a pretty good set up using gravity filtering. I would expect you to come up with some sort of centrifuge though.

I ran my truck year round on 90% mixed waste oils and 10% gasoline with great results. I mixed used hydraulic fluid, gear oil, motor oil, ATF, fryer/cooking oil. Just no brake fluid and obviously no coolant.

Anything donated to me that had a chocolate milk appearance I got rid of because I didn't have a centrifuge to separate out emulsified liquids. And never use the bottom of a container of donated fryer oil haha. I would let any container sit about a month to separate out any water before dumping it into my filtering rig.

I had a 55 gal drum mounted on a stand about 6' up in the air. I dumped oil into the top of it through a high micron drum filter screen from duda diesel to catch debris. I let it sit in that drum a few weeks to separate water to the bottom of the drum again. Then I would open a dump valve on the bottom to drain water until oil came out then shut it off. Then open another valve to run the oil through a stack of low micron filter bags from duda diesel. I still have some of those filter bags I think if you want them.

This gravity filtering would drip into an open top drum and I would pump the oil out of that into storage drums.

When I pumped from the storage drums into the truck's fuel tank I went through a water separating fuel filter for one last good measure. For a pump I was using a modified small block 350 oil pump spun by a harbor freight drill with a locking trigger so I could lock it and walk away. Took about 10 minutes to move a 55 gal drum and it was self priming.

I never experienced clogged fuel filters on the truck even though I still carried spares. After a few years of this I removed the fuel tanks (I was running two deuce tanks on my truck) and cleaned them. Nothing was nasty or showed an issue with my filtration process.

It was a lot of work to make free fuel but I think it paid for itself. It wasn't too much work once I had everything built and figured out. Just kept moving oil around and waiting for water to separate out.

[DeathBlade556]

I do have a large filtering/centrifugal setup, I'm making a new centrifuge , the first one could only filter a few gallons a hour, the new one I'm building will be able to keep up with the filters and pumps.

What I have now is a 250gallon IBC that is the main settling tank where I bleed off any water and then particulate with sock filters
That is feeding a set of stainless 55 gallon tanks first has with a mesh filter going into a pump then going through a few home filter housings going down to 10 micron and a few filter housing with magnets,
the second tank has a heater to heat the oil and that feeds the centrifuge, if I think its too dirty I have recirculation valve that will feed it back into the second tank to be reheated and re centrifuged.
The last drum is a 55gallon drum with a gear pump where I can mix fuels so I can add the gasoline and really mix it up.

[joshs1ofakindxj]

Very nice! I forgot to add that I too had magnets inside my drums to catch metal particles and I had a hot water tank heater element in my first drum to heat oil for cold weather filtering.

[DeathBlade556]

After moving my new mill with my crane (and bending the hell out of the mount) I think its time for a upgrade the current service truck crane
the 3200REE crane can only lift 3200lbs at 7ft and a 75* angle which didn't help at all because I needed 15ft and about 15degees (which only give me about 700lbs)
at 15 feet I'm limited to 600 to 2000lbs at 0 and 75 degrees.

Now I have a line on a Hiab 650 knuckle boom out in latrobe its $1200 and older and has problems and might be made from two cranes from looking at the manual and pictures (a 650A and 650AW) so I'm hoping to work down the price, it can lift a lot more once fixed, 3150lbs at 16ft straight out with the hydraulics and still move 1200lbs at 28ft with a manual extension so alot better for moving stuff.

It has hydraulic out riggers so I dont have to build some, which I need to do for the Liftmoore,

But It would need a PTO pump (it needs 7gpm at 2600psi) which the truck doesn't have. And the only 24v hydraulic I have probably move even a half of that much oil.
Now I could rig up a pump with a small yanmar diesel or Harbor freight predator engine, so I dont have to have a PTO (Been meaning to find a reason to bid on one of those little military surplus engines)

I would need to make a new mount but since the current crane mount is bent up I had to do that with either one, so its a draw

Now this crane need to mount to the frame, so I would need the bed moved back or cut it down 25"~26", making it even longer
I am planing on putting in a dump bed hoist so a shorter bed without a crane mounted on it would help, (if I stay with the current crane I'll have to make a pivoting crane mount to move with the bed)

A big one is the current crane and mount is about 800lbs, the other crane is 2300lbs so a big step up in weight a 1500lb difference, but the increase in capacity might be worth it going from semi useful to very useful, But the extra weight would eat up most of weight saving from going to 395 tires and dropping the mid axle and trimming the bed

But


Think of all the cheap safe I could get from post office and steel mill auctions to fill with even more guns.....
Moving the milling machine and my other tools without back breaking labor....
Or all the large heavy rocks I could move from point A to point B for no reason....
Or moving large rocks infront of jagoff driveways.

Decide for me internet
Pictures in a minute.

Got the mill off the truck, barely.... (you can see the tear in the harbor freight ratchet strap of wonders)


Now to move the mill uphill on lumpy brick sidewalk and through a door...


Some time with a comalong, prybar, swearing and a future hernia...


Running the old mill on my generator, safety is optional


Old mill learns to fly! Or how much do I trust harbor freight winch cable?


You know it Christmas at your grandfathers

[DeathBlade556]

Well I just got the crane. It needs more hydraulic lines replace than I would have liked, but I got it for $800 instead of $1300 so that was good.
But that was a day. I get there later than I wanted. and the crane is buried in the back of the guys supply yard so he gets out his baby track loader (makes me want to get one!) and he cuts me a road through his dirt/mulch pile so I can back up my ATV trailer with my jeep wrangler which I driving today since I still need to put a new wheel cylinder on the deuce. Thank goodness I took the low deck trailer! We would have never go it up and into the deuce

Well he brings over his log truck over and uses its knuckle boom to pick it up, just as we get it half way onto the trailer a hydraulic line on the crane blows!
Oil everywhere! So we have to use the track dingo loader, prybar and comalong to hush/pull it onto the trailer.

I just got it into the back of the deuce with my current crane which was a close thing which required some help from a comalong or two.

Now its time to replace a bunch of hydraulic lines, and while looking at the crane it has two extra unused hydraulic valves on the block! (probably for rotation and jaws) but I might be able to use one of those valves for the dump bed and maybe something else? maybe hydraulic controlled drop sides? hydraulic bed winch? Who knows there are so many options!

And once I go 4x4 I should have room under the bed on the passenger side next to the fuel tank for the engine powered power pack, On the drive side I'll put my tool box I usually keep in the bed.
So I'll only need to make a mount for the 395/85R20 spare so I can reclaim some bed space.

The Haib need 8gpm @2600psi so I'll size the pump and engine for that, Though I'll have to make sure the engine I get is electric start/auto choke so I can start if from the cab.

For the time being I think I'll run the crane off the 24v electric pump I have since the pressure is correct even though the GPM is something like .75-1gpm it will be slow but will 'work' aleast for checking for leaks and it will allow me to use the crane to help me cut the bed.

Now to build a gantry crane help me move the bed back so I can trim and weld the rear and position the knuckle boom so I can use the new crane to move back the bed back.

Anyway pictures

[DeathBlade556]

Well I did some math today, and I'll have to cut the bed down 36" to 9 feet for it to look right but if I take but the bucket off the skid steer it will fit easy and I'll have room along the side to hold it and some gear so I'll have to live with a 9ft bed.

Now the crane is only ~23" deep so If I leave a 26" space for some room for wrenching (the room needed to swing the boom is only 480mm so about 19 inches. I can cut down the bed and move it forward about 10" to a foot", so I can do a little trim to the end of the frame to allow more room for my dump bed hardware.

Hopefully all the valves are good on the crane, if not, I do have a wireless crane remote I got for the small crane and I have five 24v solenoid valves and manifold blocks, that I got for another crane project that are siting on the shelf.

Once I pull the mid axle I'll have 48" on both sides, one side for my under bed tool box and the other for a 24v forklift hydraulic pump for short runs and for a 12hp gas engine/pump for longer run times. I know it would be a pain to run the plumbing for both pumps but I often use my crane to lift small 1000lb parts and materials around when I have the truck parked. I should be able to fit in a extra set of 24v batteries for more run time, I also found a 150amp leece neville bus alternator I got for another project when I was digging around the basement this morning, so nice charging upgrade.

Once the crane is on the frame it will be about 19" taller than the cab or about 9 feet and some inches from the ground so not to bad it will be higher once I get the 395 tires on but only a few more inches.

Now to find some 16-18" pieces of 3/4" all thread and make some flanges to hold the crane to the frame along with a couple frame stiffeners/cross members

And to design and build a large gantry crane to lift the bed/frame up for the axle pull, and to move the Hiab crane for install.
Atleast I have the little crane to help me start building that.

Got around to unboxing the rotors time to clean up the insides and to turn down the hubs a few thousands.

Pictures are worth some words