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Amber and Jeremy Liscum of Bandera, Texas contacted Brutal
Off-Road about transforming their 2004 Chevrolet 2500 H.D. from a problematic
street cruiser into a
fully operational but show winning truck.
After days of discussion with the owners, we planned the truck’s build using a
combination of leading edge rockcrawling designs used here at Brutal Off-Road
and
up to the minute bling used by national show competition cars, trucks, boats and
bikes.
Our plan was to re-create the truck’s theme, going higher, wider and stronger,
yet having a fully functional truck that could be driven safely and legally.
After positioning the truck in the shop we discovered a few possible problems
that may have been causing the owner’s driveability complaints…
At some point in time the upper control arm lost it’s setting and allowed the
44”TSL to contact the added dual shocks.
Here you can see the solution to the caster
problems…..
It also had conflicting geometry with the O.E.M. shock and added upper shock
mount….
The upper shock mount was right out of the bottle-jack bender
The passenger side front drive axle had blown it’s inner boot due to improper
front differential lateral angles,
caused by a missing bolt for the upper drop bracket.
The entire front drop cradle is designed to be stabilized by the lateral
compression arms attached to the torsion bar cradle, located near the center of
the truck. In this truck’s case, the entire cradle was moving fore and aft over
.250” each direction. That’s a half inch total! The center steering link was
actually scraping the front drop cradle during braking, due to the instability
of the entire front drop system.
Here you can see the still stock rear driveshaft pulled out two inches, having
not been lengthened
This is a look at the rear set up. Notice the
factory rubber brake line stretched to the max at ride height!
Check out the cool ladder bars made out of PIPE!
Here is the “Oh my god, they didn’t!” dual rear shock mounts. Single shear at
it’s finest.
The upper ends of the Pro-Comp shocks rubbed against the factory cross member in
the at rest position.
U-bolts were not quite long enough to do a serious job of clamping the
spring/block combo to the axle.
Especially with the torque of the Duramax turning the 44”s.
In Brutal Off-Road’s opinion, the only legitimate way to build a truck this
high,
is to replace the IFS front suspension with a solid axle and build current
technology steering to keep it as safe as possible with a truck this tall.
So, after a decision was made with the owners to go four link with the
spring/suspension set-up.
The after-market and original IFS bracketry began to disappear.
As you can see, there was quite a pile of parts ready for recycling, with more
original brackets left to cut off the frame.
But first, we fabricated two simple cross members to support the frame
dimensions, before we began removing the primary IFS cross-members.
This keeps the frame from spreading. Out came
the plasma cutter, and parts started hitting the floor.
The long and tedious job of stripping the frame of all it’s corrosion resistant
coating was started.
Since the truck was also going to placed in competition shows, we decided to
remove ALL bracketry except for the cab and body mounts,
as well as fill and smooth every un-needed hole in the frame, to prepare for the
base coat/clear coat paint.
Due to the decision the use 3.0” King coils and dual Bilstein reservoir shocks,
a tough base was needed to mount the suspension components to.
Here you can see the cardboard template at it’s beginning.
After the initial template was formed, transferred to mild 3/8”sheet steel then
cut out, it was fitted to the frame.
After fitting and shaping the filler sheet, it
was welded into place. Also visible are a few un-needed holes that were welded
closed.
Before the front axle could be built, we needed to get a realistic look at how
the truck’s stance and overall attitude would appear.
Using a spare Ford Dana 60 for mock-up, we centered it, then rolled the 21”-49”X
17” IROK Swampers into position.
Dimensonally, the truck will be 100” wide at
the outer-most edges of the sidewall, with 8” of useable wheel travel both up
and down.
Headlights will be another story, as 52” (Legal headlight height) is about the
center of the original frame box ends. The roof of the cab stands at 9’-2”.
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