It's been awhile since the last update, and while 635 has had a couple of week-long breaks, the build has been progressing.
Several more coats of paint have been applied. I'm quite pleased with the finish - a fairly heavy orange peel. With the lack of heat in my garage to fully cure the paint, I've decided to wait until spring/summer to wet sand etc...
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In the meantime, I've been slowly assembling the interior of the cab. Thankfully the electric steering column, pedalset, and brake/clutch reservoirs still all fit under the dash. I also added a mount for the electric steering control module.
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With the truck frame exposed I also completed the front & rear brake lines. I used M5 stainless rivnuts and panhead screws.
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The next part took a bit of time. When testing rear wheel travel I noticed a couple of items which needed to be addressed:
1) The truck didn't sit low enough,
2) I needed to make some custom bump-stops,
3) When cycling through the rear travel the bottom of the damper would travel a significant amount
forwards.
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1) The first issue was eased by relocating the rear suspension mounting point on the coilover sleeve/collar. This bought me 1" of lowering w/o any interference between the collar and suspension.
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2) Bump-stops were fabricated with generic Energy Suspension bump-stop, thick tubing and top plate, and a long nut that would also seat against the frame (that way load would be shared through the tubing and nut onto the frame). This assembly was aligned over a nub on the rear upper control arm which is designed to handle potential spikes of force. Overall I'm pleased with the design, simple, light, and +/- half an inch of adjustment (see circle in pic below).
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3) For the damper travel, after further investigation I noticed the Rear Upper Control Arm has more of a 7-1 o'clock range of motion, rather than a 11-5 as originally appeared when at full droop. THAT was a PITA to take apart and redo. I hate wasted work but when pushing boundaries with new build designs (which this project most certainly is), there are bound to be mistakes. The good news is the the revised towers are cleaner in design and arguably stronger.
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The suspension revision made me realise that while this truck was on course for Spring start-up, there would be so much stuff to sort out that it could be months before I would really start to enjoy it (trouble shoot, potentially tear apart and re-engineer etc...). Given that I'm VERY keen to get a solid Solo2/drift season in with my boys I began to reconsider where I should focus my spare time.
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The decision was made to put this project on pause, and focus on my 510 which is much closer to being ready for motorsport fun than the pickup. However, there are several moderate issues plaguing my 510 which had prevented me from really enjoying it the last couple of summers. I'm confident I have a good plan to resolve these nagging issues and have it sorted out by end of March. So, 635 was lightly assembled and rolled outside to switch places with my 510. While out in the daylight, I couldn't help but take some pictures and study it in perspective to another vehicle. Interesting in that the 635 has a wheelbase 4" LONGER than my Xterra. Track width is approximately 6" narrower.
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Besides my personal builds, the majority of my focus (throughout the winter and upcoming spring) has been on finishing a customer's 510. Once done, 635 will resume (ETA mid-summer). The exciting part is that I feel I'm actually getting quite close now (relatively speaking). The body will get another round or two of paint/sanding, the motor still needs to start, electrical needs to be done, then final assembly of interior/glass. THEN shakedown will commence, and hopefully completed by fall.
