Unchewable, the D170

[kingcrunch]

Them videos:

Turn signal stalk testing
https://youtu.be/hqcWOxzdAiQ



And now with them return of turn signals. Really proud of that ;)

https://youtu.be/jP-5PKRu8uc

[kingcrunch]

I will have to look into building the chassis soon, i took delivery of the 6" drop coils from Early Classic (Chevy stuff) and the trailing arm bushings.
I intentionally went with rubber bushings for compliance. This thing will be hard enough once it's done... and i don't consider poly bushings a good replacement.

[kingcrunch]

I think that's so awesome:




And at the end of lots of making of waste parts, i think i am close to beeing done. All i need is a 50cm flat flex cable and additional wiring to the hazard switch and horn.
Oh and i need to figure out, how the BCM wants its horns honked.





And i also made a different approach for the turn signal return cam. This is easier to build and it does not slip off the wheel stub.

[kingcrunch]

I built this contrapment:





It locates everything in its stock Ram 1500 specs, adjusted to the aproximate ride height of my truck so i can just push it under the engine crossmember and start building frame attachments.

Well, no.

In stock form the inner axis of the LCA of the Ram 1500 is on a 2° incline with the rear of the control arm beeing lower.
It is also angled inward 7° in relation to center line, with the rear bushing sitting further inboard than the front bushing.

None of that works with my D150s frame.
Also i can not set the LCA level (which is something you want to have) and have my preferred ride height.

Gotta think about it, make some adjustments and see where that takes me.
All of this is scrap metal that we have in the shop, so no biggie if i have to cut it up and make another one.

[JayinMI]

I think that's so awesome:




And at the end of lots of making of waste parts, i think i am close to beeing done. All i need is a 50cm flat flex cable and additional wiring to the hazard switch and horn.
Oh and i need to figure out, how the BCM wants its horns honked.

There's a relay in the underhood fusebox (in the Challenger, it's on the right fenderwell) It outputs a +12v signal to the horns. The horn relay is controlled by the BCM, so I assume it sends a ground pulse to the relay to trigger it, but I have never used that to trigger them. The wiring color website I use for alarm/remote start wiring tells me to use the positive wire (output from the relay) and isolate away from the relay when interfacing with it. I assume you have a wiring diagram of the BCM that will tell you what color wire does what regarding the horn.

Jay

[kingcrunch]

From the top of my head, i don't think the '15 Challenger works that way (apply ground to something to trigger the relay).
The steering wheel communicates with the SCCM over four wires. And i guess two of these are for the air bag charge.

I will let you know how it works, once i figured it out.


In the meantime, spot the difference:



I had the LCA angled to the wrong side in relation to the centerline of the frame... bozo move.
No everything wanted to go where i first saw it going when i mocked up the LCA on a bucket and just shoved that under the frame...

Hearthrobbingly i began cutting the bump stop off the frame and drilling out the rivets of the original LCA mount.
These had to be drilled out to .35" and on the next metric drill size 10mm/.4" the rivet heads just sheared off.



Yay!
These have been: A - larger and B - gnarlier on my '76 W200.
And they fought harder than they did on this purdy frame. Ignore the chisel marks on the LCA mount, i thought i would have to hammer and chisel the rivet heads off until i tried the .4" drill bit.

My arms still hurt though, the position i had to hold the drill at was not really comfortable or endurable for very long...

My small 270W B&D drill, made in the 50s in England, went through the rivets really well.
My gramps had the exact same drill in his small basement shop. Good memories.

[JayinMI]

From the top of my head, i don't think the '15 Challenger works that way (apply ground to something to trigger the relay).
The steering wheel communicates with the SCCM over four wires. And i guess two of these are for the air bag charge.

I will let you know how it works, once i figured it out.

Kinda what I was trying to explain. It's not like a normal car where there's a negative horn wire in the column. There's some sort of data bus that talks to the BCM, but from the BCM to the underhood fuse/relay box I think it's still just a wire triggering a relay between the two.

Jay

[kingcrunch]

Yes, the power side of the horn circuit is a single wire switching 12v to the horns over a relay... In the end i could just build my own horn circuit but we'll see, can't be too hard to use the Challengers setup.

[kingcrunch]

Shoot...
I thought i had bought tail lamp "led lamp" inserts... it turns out it was just a pair of license lamps i bought.
Not reading the Ebay offer properly, i guess.
Anyhow, i needed one of those.

I was able to snag a complete tail light (only need one side to disect the circuit board) and a wrecked headlight for cheap, which means each one is around 200$ incl. shipping to Germany.
400$ in parts that i will have to destroy to understand them. Great.

[2ndroundko]

your R&D on this truck is going to be more expensive than the actual truck when its all said and done.

Suspension jig looks good BTW glad to see your coming up with some solutions.

[kingcrunch]

I am only three or four grand deep in the "trash" department right now... i hope to be able to sell the Viper parts (still have knuckles and discs up for sale).

[kingcrunch]

More info on the "horn" topic, from the FSM:
"The horn system components operate on battery current received through non-switched fused B(+) circuits so that the system will remain operational, regardless of the status of the ignition switch (Keyless Ignition Node/KIN). The Body Control Module (BCM) controls the output of battery current to the horns through a horn relay located within the front Power Distribution Center (PDC). The BCM controls the relay based upon internal programming as well as electronic message inputs received from the Steering Column Control Module (SCCM) or the Radio Frequency Hub Module (RFHM) over the Controller Area Network (CAN) data bus.

The vehicle operator can control typical horn system signaling through the horn switch contacts within the hub cavity of the steering wheel. When the Driver AirBag (DAB) trim cover in the center of the steering wheel is depressed, it provides a hard wired analog input to the SCCM. The SCCM then sends an electronic horn switch status message to the BCM over the CAN data bus."


But according to the wiring diagram, it's even better than that:
The horn circuit is hardwired to the BCM, meaning the SCCM does not do anything with that signal, it just passes it through over a separate trace on the SCCM circuit board.
The BCM has a direct connection for the horns, switch that to ground and the horns should honk.

[kingcrunch]

Been working on attaching the LCA to the engine crossmember this weekend. It almost broke my brain. I have very few ideas on how to do this.
It all boils down to frenching the LCA into the bottom plate of the crossmember so i can have a more level LCA and a lower front ground clearance.

How important is a level LCA at ride height?

It would be a little easier for me if the frame side sits a little lower (in relation to ground) than the knuckle side.
I know how to angle the UCA to cope with camber and track width changes.

[kingcrunch]

Just learned from Forgeline that i can not get the CF1 wheel in the bolt pattern configuration i want. Yay. Never trust what any distributor will tell you.

[Domer]

Its not so much a level lower control arm, as it is the imaginary line drawn from the LCA mount center to the pivot point in the lower balljoint. The more that is off, the more drastic the changes to your Instant centers, and your Roll center.

[kingcrunch]

Witness me cutting up 200 dollars worth of tail light:



Forget the heat gun. Use real tools instead.



And that's when stuff really went snowballin' on me. One circuit board after the other came out of this thing like there is no end!



And i could not help myself and played with it a bit. Man these LEDs are bright... and yes, i totally needed the circuit board to understand what's going on.

[2ndroundko]

So how do you plan to retro fit the lights into the stock housing?

[kingcrunch]

I don't actually plan to do that :D Sounds weird but here's why:
I want this vehicle to be a totally dailly driver capable race truck. To me that means i have to reduce custom built stuff that can't be re-created in an instant.

The custom crossmembers i won't break, if so, wait a few days for a new replacement.
If i put the truck into a wall and kill a tail or headlight? That's downtime, because i will have to re-create a parts- and labour-intensive custom-one-off-lamp.
The carbon fiber fenders, hood, bumper? The company i hired to do that keeps the moulds and can re-create up to 80 parts from that.


Talking about carbon fiber parts, the guy that runs said company (Alsatek from Germany, they make a lot of custom, one-off, racing, development (for Audi for example), etc. parts in really beautiful quality) had a great idea that i would like to toss in and discuss:


He told me that current BMWs have carbon fiber roofs.

Now what if we replaced the outer skin of the roof with a carbon fiber skin and glue that on?

[andrewb70]

If you're doing a lot of carbon parts, why not the roof? Although, on a truck, the roof is fairly small.

Andrew

[kingcrunch]

But very high up in the air, which was my contractors whole point, lowering the center of gravity by taking weight off the top of the cab.
My concerns are more along the lines of stability. I know the Dodge cabs are not the stiffest and cutting out the whole outer skin of the roof... i don't want the whole cab to collapse.

Modern body panel glue is damn strong but i wanted to know what others think about it.