joshua keroes

Flipped the chassis over with two guys (thanks Russ, Dennis!) and welded all visible joints on the top deck. Here are some of the A-member welds:

Mounted the wheel hubs, packed the bearings with grease. Wow. Sure hope I never have to do that again. I’ve got grease on half my tools now.

To prepare for the paint job, there can’t be any rust or dirt on the frame. Took a grinder with a wire cup to all the welds and made them nice and shiny. Hit every spot of rust I could find. Gave all the steel a quick twice over with acetone. Next time, I think I’ll clean the steel before welding it.

To do: weld spare wheel carrier to side. Determine optimal tongue height and mount ball-hitch coupler. Primer and paint. Remount wheel jack to tongue. That should do it for the chassis.

Well, we screwed up last time. We mounted the axle only 20% of the way from the back. It should be 35-45%.  I think we basically welded one spring hanger and instead of extending forward to weld the second, we went extended backward instead. Whoops. So I cut the welds, got new hangers, and rewelded them all today.

I added A-members to the front. That’ll add a bit of structural rigidity and prevent tongue twist.

Also added some cross braces on each back corner and plug welded a pair of Atwood swingdown stabilizer jacks to the braces.

Bolted my swingdown wheel jack to the tongue.

Tomorrow, we flip, grease pack bearings, add wheels, and add a few more welds.