Front Suspension Fabrication

In the last week I have finished all of the fabrication on the front axle of the cruiser. Unfortunately, I don't have any progress pictures because my camera batteries were dead, so here's the results of the last week's work. First, I installed the sleeves for the front shackles through the frame. In order to place them correctly, I put the engine, transmission, and transfer case over the front axle to help simulate the weight of the truck on the springs. I set the shackle angle at about 30 degrees from vertical. Hopefully fully weighted I'll get a decent shackle angle. Here are the sleeves welded in with the springs and shackles installed and no weight on them.
Next, I set the pinion angle to point at the approximate location of the Tcase output and set the perches at this angle. Finally, With the axle bolted in and the weight on it, I set the Caster Angle to 5 degrees. Here's the axle all welded up in its new configuration. Those spring perches are Dodge D60 spring perches. Big O Dodge here in Greenville lists them at $8 a pair. While I had the axle out, I decided to beef up the ring gear area of the diff cover, so I welded on a strap of 3/16 steel to cover this area. With the turned up pinion this area will be more vulnerable than in the stock configuration.

To form this around the diff cover, I welded the bottom first, then hammered it down and welded it as I moved upwards. It fits pretty nicely. Here's the axle mocked up in its final location.

I've got some Zero-rust coming to paint the axles and the frame with. Once I have the axle painted, I'll start re-assembling it with the Mini-Truck Axle parts and move on to the rear axle...