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I'm not going to make any promises on this one, because I've had this garbage for 3? years already and have very little to show for it. But I figured it was time to start doing something with it (again). And I'm hoping if I have a thread going I can be a little more motivated with it, plus there is a bunch of questions that I'm going to have to ask anyways. There was a thread on some of it before, but Photobucket killed the pictures anyways, so I think we can just forget about that.

The idea is to build something that will function for occasional mild towing and some around town driving. I don't currently have a real fullsize truck that is drivable (just a Comanche) and have relied on friends for the few times I need to move something heavier than I can tow with that. That's lame though.

Anyways, the first Gladiator I got was terrible. I gave away the frame/driveline because it was pretty abused, and I didn't feel it was a good starting point for actually towing/hauling at modern speeds. The cab was the best part, and it's pretty bad, and that's coming from somebody with low standards. However, it's the cab I'm currently planning to use (maybe). I've acquired some other cabs and sheetmetal since then, but most of it is also terrible.

The frame and axles are from a 99 Dodge Ram 2500. So it's nothing super awesome, unit bearing D60 front and a drum brake D70 FF rear. It was a truck I bought for very little, ran thousands of liters of free waste jet fuel through, drove into the ground with a maintenance program that would make 3rd world standards look good, then scrapped the body and sold the enigine/trans out of and pretty much can call it free at this point. The downside of this is that some money will need to be spent to fix some things on the axles, to the point that they might not even be worth dealing with.

The engine is somewhat undecided, along with the trans, but it's highly unlikely to be diesel.

Anyways, here's the frame washed and back in the shop:


Luckily the Cummins had slobbered enough oil on it that it preserved the factory paint on the front portion. The rest of it is a little rusty, but nothing to worry about.

And I squared up the cab with the fenders on it and blocked it on the frame to build mounts:




And that's literally where I am at right now. Yup. Don't hold you breath.

Oh, and the previous owner of those fenders wanted the emblems off them, so he cut the entire area around the emblem out with an angle grinder... The other fender is worse.

Maybe someone here will have some usable fenders or can supply the piece cut out. Word of caution stay away from M-715 fenders they aren't worth the hassle.

I'm digging the start. However long it takes, it will be worth it in the end.


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So for the first of the sorta towing/hauling related questions, the rear suspension.

Dodge built the 4wd trucks spring over with a nearly 5" block. In my experience this produces less than desirable axle wrap, and puts significant loading on the ubolts. One could just throw new hardware on it and add a traction bar if need be, however, I find the entire setup to be borderline offensive.

Is it worth my time to change this, and if so, what is likely the best plan of attack? Was there a legitimate reason they built it this way, beyond ease of assembly on their end?

How it looks, if you're unfamiliar:


The vertical pitch on the front spring hanger is just about dead on 5". If I blast them out I could move the hanger down a set of holes.

Hanger/rivets:


Then I think it would just be a matter of fabricating an angle brace for the lower holes back to the frame (I believe most older GM trucks run something like this, or maybe it's Fords). That would then make the front of the springs the correct height to remove the blocks. Any reason this would be a bad idea?

The rear uses the typical tension shackle arrangement:


I would assume some manner of a shackle flip would be the easiest thing here. The shackle itself is just a hair under 5" eye to eye, so it's easy enough to visualize where it should be. There's more than a few generic shackle flip kits out there, or I could build something. Again, is this a bad idea? Waste of time? Is there a good reason that most fullsize trucks use a tension shackle?

I would also like an overload setup. The easiest option probably would be to not BEEP around with changing the rear, and just nab the overload springs and stops off a 1-ton out of the boneyard. Thoughts?

bigun wrote:Maybe someone here will have some usable fenders or can supply the piece cut out. Word of caution stay away from M-715 fenders they aren't worth the hassle.

I have another set of terrible fenders (that came with the original Gladiator), somebody torched the flares off them. They might be good enough to cut the needed pieces out of. We'll see, it's going to be a while before it matters, I would have to show the full extent of how bad the cab is so it's apparent how much work this will be.

I'm in Canada, there's basically no M-715s here, so no temptation to use those fenders.

66stepside wrote:I'm digging the start. However long it takes, it will be worth it in the end.


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I'm hoping so. I just need to put some priority on it so there is some progress, which then will keep me motivated.

Fender flares on M-715 are basically cut as much out of the fender as you can then take a section of 55 gallon drum and weld it in. The actual metal is a bit thicker, but that'll give you an idea. Oh still think you need the Hemi!

Man, that second and third pic looks familiar...
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M-715 fenders





Crom

Honestly, I would look for some lift springs to go in the back to get rid of the block. If you plan on any towing, you don't want a shackle flip. The stock setup there is much more stable.

Great start though!

I got some j4000 fenders if interested

Stuka wrote:Honestly, I would look for some lift springs to go in the back to get rid of the block. If you plan on any towing, you don't want a shackle flip. The stock setup there is much more stable.

Great start though!

The third gen trucks actually use 'normal' (flipped) orientation shackles, and they do not have stability issues. I believe people cite stability issues with flipped shackles because they normally do it to lift the truck (taller will always be less stable), or they do something that's terribly bojang, or the parts they use are not up to the task. That said, I've been wrong before, and will be wrong again (or if I'm not wrong again, then I'm wrong about saying I'll be wrong again). I think if I flip it I will buy new shackles that are a bit beefier than those ones, and I'm not likely to reuse the stock hanger (or if I do I will cut it down and brace it). Also, I'm doing it to pull the block, and blocks are inherently unstable themselves, IMHO. Honestly, Dodge really dropped the ball with the way they set up the rear suspension on these things, along with a bunch of other stuff, but I'm working with what I have.

My reservation with lift springs is that I'd be paying a LOT of money for them, being in Canada, and my experience with most aftermarket lift springs is that they tend to be garbage. Not the right height, not the right rate, no anti-friction pads, improper steel/treatment and they sag out, etc. I am going to look into what the Dodge guys who wheel them do, as they may have some good ideas, but most of them that I've seen so far flip the shackles or stack the blocks (UGHHHH!!).

bigun wrote: Crom

I can't decide if I like them enough to consider finding some. I like my Comanche because it has the boxy fender flares like the FSJs. I think I'd rather stick with that look.

I have thought about fiberglass flares, or Bushwackers, as then I could probably mod up some GW fenders (which I can actually find in decent shape).

jaber wrote:Man, that second and third pic looks familiar...
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Yeah, the original plan was to use the Cummins like you are. But I wasn't working on it and just kinda got fed up and sold all of the Cummins stuff and related bits. It wasn't that I needed the money, it just bothered me to be sitting on stuff. I actually still have one 24V engine left, but it doesn't have the adapter plate on it, and I sold the much adored NV4500 to bolt to it, so I think I'll just sell it off and so be it...

Your thread was a bit of a kick in the pants for me to start on this thing again.

230ohc wrote:I got some j4000 fenders if interested

Thanks for the offer, but it would be quite the drive to go get them. I'm in the northern half of BC, so it's a long ways.

Got a little more done on the rear cab mounts. I decided to reuse the Dodge stuff, which may or may not be a good idea.

Marked the old mid mount for recycling:


Bucked it off, cut it down, and hard tacked it in place where it should be:


Other side:


I'll clean up the remains of the crap on the frame sometime later. I left the part of the mount that holds the ebrake cable as I figured I might need that later, of course I did get a little heavy handed with the plasma... The mounts will need a little extra work once I know I want them there, and have the cab off, etc, but for now they're in.

Then I straight up ran out of gas and that was it.

MJMadness wrote:

Stuka wrote:Honestly, I would look for some lift springs to go in the back to get rid of the block. If you plan on any towing, you don't want a shackle flip. The stock setup there is much more stable.

Great start though!

The third gen trucks actually use 'normal' (flipped) orientation shackles, and they do not have stability issues. I believe people cite stability issues with flipped shackles because they normally do it to lift the truck (taller will always be less stable), or they do something that's terribly bojang, or the parts they use are not up to the task. That said, I've been wrong before, and will be wrong again (or if I'm not wrong again, then I'm wrong about saying I'll be wrong again). I think if I flip it I will buy new shackles that are a bit beefier than those ones, and I'm not likely to reuse the stock hanger (or if I do I will cut it down and brace it). Also, I'm doing it to pull the block, and blocks are inherently unstable themselves, IMHO. Honestly, Dodge really dropped the ball with the way they set up the rear suspension on these things, along with a bunch of other stuff, but I'm working with what I have.

My reservation with lift springs is that I'd be paying a LOT of money for them, being in Canada, and my experience with most aftermarket lift springs is that they tend to be garbage. Not the right height, not the right rate, no anti-friction pads, improper steel/treatment and they sag out, etc. I am going to look into what the Dodge guys who wheel them do, as they may have some good ideas, but most of them that I've seen so far flip the shackles or stack the blocks (UGHHHH!!).

You can make compression style shackle work, but you need a track bar for towing. Or, a shackle with a very wide mount and thin bushing to prevent deflection. A tension setup auto centers, and gets more stable with more weight. A compression gets less stable with more weight.

Stuka wrote:

MJMadness wrote:

Stuka wrote:Honestly, I would look for some lift springs to go in the back to get rid of the block. If you plan on any towing, you don't want a shackle flip. The stock setup there is much more stable.

Great start though!

The third gen trucks actually use 'normal' (flipped) orientation shackles, and they do not have stability issues. I believe people cite stability issues with flipped shackles because they normally do it to lift the truck (taller will always be less stable), or they do something that's terribly bojang, or the parts they use are not up to the task. That said, I've been wrong before, and will be wrong again (or if I'm not wrong again, then I'm wrong about saying I'll be wrong again). I think if I flip it I will buy new shackles that are a bit beefier than those ones, and I'm not likely to reuse the stock hanger (or if I do I will cut it down and brace it). Also, I'm doing it to pull the block, and blocks are inherently unstable themselves, IMHO. Honestly, Dodge really dropped the ball with the way they set up the rear suspension on these things, along with a bunch of other stuff, but I'm working with what I have.

My reservation with lift springs is that I'd be paying a LOT of money for them, being in Canada, and my experience with most aftermarket lift springs is that they tend to be garbage. Not the right height, not the right rate, no anti-friction pads, improper steel/treatment and they sag out, etc. I am going to look into what the Dodge guys who wheel them do, as they may have some good ideas, but most of them that I've seen so far flip the shackles or stack the blocks (UGHHHH!!).

You can make compression style shackle work, but you need a track bar for towing. Or, a shackle with a very wide mount and thin bushing to prevent deflection. A tension setup auto centers, and gets more stable with more weight. A compression gets less stable with more weight.

I checked and both the 3rd and 4th gen Rams use a compression shackle. No track bar. Some have a rear antisway, some do not. They are wider springs (and hence bushings) than most Jeep guys would deal with at 3.5". They probably are using a harder durometer bushing than older trucks or many of the aftermarket parts though, since they typically will last about a half million miles. Like I said, those trucks are fine, I've driven them enough to say they certainly aren't worse than the 2nd gen truck is with the blocks.

I can see if you bought a kit that uses this style of shackle that it probably would suck: http://diy4x.com/product.php?productid=17735&page=1

So I actually worked on this again.

Stuffed the header panel on it and tried to shim it up to figure out the rest of the body mounts. However, my header panel is so BEEPED the Rhino grill won't actually fit (it's just sitting leaning against it) and I'm not sure I should be using it to position mounts based on that.



Old front cab mounts are removed and repositioned for the new cab.





One thing that pisses me off is if I ever go looking for the weight of a component I get wildly varying answers, most I think are total bullshit based on guesses that were passed around until they became fact. So I bought a strain gauge type scale for my hoist.

Anyways, I got this AAM 11.5" (I think?) out of an 06? Dodge? 3rd gen truck at least. Not sure if I'm going to use it, but it was cheap, and has factory disk brakes, BUT it didn't include the calipers.



It weighs 470lbs without the brake calipers!

And I picked up a 5.3 out of an 04 1500 truck for not a lot of money... Gotta go back and pull the gas pedal and the O2 sensors because BEEP went haywire when we pulled it so I forgot.



614lbs including the ECM and most of the wiring, A/C comp, stock manifolds, etc, just not including the O2 sensors and the gas pedal.

So, trying to build the front body mounts I realized that the Dodge ones just wouldn't work there, and I bought some generic ones from Energy Suspension. I probably should have just bought a bunch from them to begin with.

Then I realized that the front clip was way too screwed up to locate mounts off of, so I went scrounging and found some slightly better metal to work from.

Got everything all bolted up and aligned decently:


(My phone hates those LED lights)

Of course I figured I was going to need to clearance the inner fenders for the shock mounts. So I did this.


I can always just flange it and Dzus it back on, right?

As it turns out I really didn't need to do that.


But no, honestly, I wanted to be able to access the shock tower, so I'm probably going to cut the hole bigger at some points anyways.

The Rhino grill actually mostly fits now, but I believe it's missing the top mount that would go here somewhere?


I don't know what it's actually supposed to look like, or if that radiator support piece is bent down or what?

I'm going to try putting a hood on it tomorrow (and latches because I need the right type) and then hopefully I can determine if I'm putting the body mounts in the right places or not...

Also, gone back to debating using the AAM rear. Going to price out some parts for it...

Neat! I wanted to do this exact thing but with my M715. How much longer is that frame compared to the stock FSJ frame?