Synchro-Link.com
|
||
|
<> HOME <> JOURNAL <> CURRENT EVENTS <> DOCUMENTS <> |
||
Depending on how much money I have, whether I'm having to build my next truck from money I make from pounding nails or having my books sell well, plans can differ a great deal.
Blog.Synchro-Link.com
|
Building a truck can be as difficult as anyone could want to make it. I've worked on race cars and I understand that a vehicle is just a bunch of components put together. I happen to think that the doors, hinges and window tracks are about the hardest parts to fabricate. In fact I've been thinking of building my next and very well be the first batch of trucks with reconditioned conventional cabs because of it. The hood or as some might call " bonnet" can easily be custom fabricated to fit the smaller running gear. Once made: a mold isn't the hardest thing to do, and popping out fiberglass or epoxy hoods is something many boat shops around know how to do. (But I prefer an all aluminum one.) If I wanted to make some work out of it, I'd just lengthen the top of the cab and chop down the window post and lower upper window tracks down a few inches. The door windows will just roll right up to it just like chop toping any other pickup, simple as that. But then again I think I may very well leave the cab the original height because I happen to like the headroom. For myself I want to have an Allison transmission behind the Cummins engine I already have. I happen to like the older 12 valve model but would like to get the 235 hp torque plate for the fuel pump. I don't want four wheel drive because I don't really need it with a dually. Also the 4 wheel drive running gear would actually take away about 400-500 lb. payload capacity. Lets say I get my web-site selling my books well. I'd get a larger warehouse and a forklift or better yet an overhead gantry crane. I'd get a plasma cutter or maybe even a cutting table. Cutting touches and all. A good welder,compressor, bandsaw and what I'd really like in a hydraulic punch because a drill press is a bit too slow. I'd like to get an straight line automatic welder too and eventually a robotic ones. I'd start off by building two trucks and build a few jigs in the process. Since it would have a tilt nose like the big trucks, a mechanic wouldn't have to pull a starter just to get to the fuel pump. If I start building the cabs from scratch, the standard cab will have longer doors and a longer rear cab portion so that there will be enough room behind the seat to carry two bass guitars instead of one and the driver seat will be able to recline. I'll have a long jump seat which will open up to be a large tool box underneath it. (From using multiple payload beds, I discovered that I'd need tools I use with the different beds.) The front windshield will be of the flat two piece design so it will cost much less to get rid of a broken windshield. I wouldn't bother patenting a couple flat pieces of safety glass, just to soak you and your insurance companies for. (Yeah, maybe dual motors, with double wiper arms, and they will move from side of the window frame to the other with the blades straight up and down. I've always like those. And like my brakes I don't want any ABS crap going on, I
just want hydraulics, because I want to be the one who is doing the stopping.
Eventually I would offer a cab-over design for the market that has to operate in congested city streets, but that design would be more complex to start from scratch, and I have a strong feeling that once people drove the conventional cab design, they would know what they would be missing and prefer the conventional cab over the cab-over design. If people don't feel like buying trucks made from refit and recondition parts -- leasing them out would be the next best thing. Once I get my own doors, hinges, and door-jams designed the rest of the cab is a piece of cake. (Wiper motors and arms are next in line.) As for my own design of a truck -- if one couldn't get at least 300,000 miles out of it, there would be something wrong with it. I'd just build it like the big conventional rigs but in a scaled down version. Sure it will cost more than the tin cans that are offer to you now, but my truck would pay for itself so what's the price mater anyway? No doubt it would be the better deal.
|
|