Progress Thread Seriously? Another Boosted Coyote Swap Build? - Still Slowly Moving Forward

I’m just about convinced to do that myself.

I thought about removing it before when I wanted Wild Rides upper and lower torque boxes.

The metal on the stock upper torque arm mounts is much thicker than the assembly they are spot welded to, so it's really about the same effort to remove the entire assembly IMO. You still have to drill about 9+ spot welds out of each mount to release it from the frame rail, but there's at least double that to get just the mount off by itself. I totally see why these things get ripped from the floor during hard launches, there's only one or two spot welds holding the assembly to the floor pan where the mount is located. Not sure what the factory was thinking there.

Once it is all removed, I'm going to weld a 1 1/2" .083 DOM tube between the frame rails where the trunk floor meets the rear seat area. This should strengthen the floor where I removed this assembly and provide lateral support between the frame rails.
 
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The metal on the stock upper torque arm mounts is much thicker than the assembly they are spot welded to, so it's really about the same effort to remove the entire assembly IMO. You still have to drill about 9+ spot welds out of each mount to release it from the frame rail, but there's at least double that to get just the mount off by itself. I totally see why these things get ripped from the floor during hard launches, there's only one or two spot welds holding the assembly to the floor pan where the mount is located. Not sure what the factory was thinking there.

Once it is all removed, I'm going to weld a 1 1/2" .083 DOM tube between the frame rails where the trunk floor meets the rear seat area. This should strengthen the floor where I removed this assembly and provide lateral support between the frame rails.
I was thinking along the lines of some sort of support beam too.

I didn’t think about the floor support though, just between the frame rails. I’ll look into that too.

Post your progress on this, I want to copy that too!:D
 
I was thinking along the lines of some sort of support beam too.

I didn’t think about the floor support though, just between the frame rails. I’ll look into that too.

Post your progress on this, I want to copy that too!:D

Will do. It'll be simple. Pretty much a DOM tube welded to a 1/8" metal plate on each end that will allow go between the frame rails and tight up against the floor board. I'll probably rosette weld the floor board to the tube in a couple places from the top and fully fillet weld the plates to the frame rails.
 
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Well, it's finally out. Now I just have to grind down all the spot welds, fill all the holes, and get the new support in.....

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So @Davedacarpainter , here's what your getting into if you decide to do this:

-Cut out around 62 spot welds, give or take a few depending on how attentive your Ford assembly worker was on the day they built your car
-Bright light and scraper to locate the spot welds
-Cut two 2" factory welds
-Plasma cut the sides off as they are spot welded on the inside to the frame rail
-Plasma cut a chunk off each of the mounts so you can cut the sides off
-About 4 harbor freight spot weld cutters, both sides
-Plenty of chisels, pry bars, hammers, ect
-About 3 nights, 24 high abv beers, and 5 cigars, if so inclined
 
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Rare sighting in the garage today. A mysterious creature was helping my prep the DOM tubing for the reinforcement in the rear. She says she wants to learn some of the stuff I do and be a part of the car (it did used to be her dad's). After about 3 hours of work I think she had a new appreciation for what metalwork involves. Yep, that's her beer on the right also.

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@Davedacarpainter Below is the reinforcement I did after I got the whole mess removed and ground down. Here is a pic of the plate I cut out for each side to weld the support bar to. Also, you can see I just finished cutting out each existing factory spot weld through the floor. Also this has been cleaned and triple coated with bloxide.
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Make sure you clean both the top and bottom of where you will be welding
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Here it is all welded up, top and bottom. I used 1-3/4" DOM .120 tubing and 1/8" plate steel.
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So I wanted to use the existing factory spot weld locations because I didn't feel like having to fill/repair them. Because of this, the IRS does come close to the bar location with the one upper control arm mount, but I have about 1/4" clearance on each side with the support bar pipe pushed as far against the floor pan before welding as possible.
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Finished up the driver's side rear stitch welding. I'm tired of stitch welding right now, so I decided to move onto the front mounting re-enforcement of the IRS.
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Here's what I can up with for the front mount re-enforcement. At this point, I am still maintaining the mount into the torque box, but this re-enforcement should eliminate any possible flex in the IRS cradle tubing near the lower control arm mount during hard cornering.
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Here are the pieces cut out and cleaned up, ready for tack welding to the IRS while fitted in the car. I'm using .120 hot rolled plate steel here.
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Here I am getting ready to tack weld everything in place. I plan on bolting this to the frame rail with weld in nuts on the frame and through bolts.
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Dropped the IRS out to finish the welding. I'll finish this up later as I'm not feeling the greatest the last couple days.
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Finished up the driver's side rear stitch welding. I'm tired of stitch welding right now, so I decided to move onto the front mounting re-enforcement of the IRS.
201250889.jpg



Here's what I can up with for the front mount re-enforcement. At this point, I am still maintaining the mount into the torque box, but this re-enforcement should eliminate any possible flex in the IRS cradle tubing near the lower control arm mount during hard cornering.
201039614.jpg


Here are the pieces cut out and cleaned up, ready for tack welding to the IRS while fitted in the car. I'm using .120 hot rolled plate steel here.
135040356.jpg


Here I am getting ready to tack weld everything in place. I plan on bolting this to the frame rail with weld in nuts on the frame and through bolts.
141431905.jpg


Dropped the IRS out to finish the welding. I'll finish this up later as I'm not feeling the greatest the last couple days.
170323673.jpg
You should spend less time drinking in the rain on the beach, it’s tough on a body.:D
 
Finished up the re-enforcements on the IRS cradle this weekend. Pretty happy with the results but I'm not sure if I will ever have any data to support whether this made a difference or not. You could definitely tell the bean counters had a hand in deciding how much work the factory would put into this cradle when it was produced as there was only the absolute minimum # of welds done to each piece when assembled . I gusseted and re-enforced all the areas on the cradle I could visually "guess" needed re-enforcement and finish welded all the areas on the cradle the factory skipped. These re-enforcements combined with the solid front and rear mounts to the chassis should really make this thing solid.

Here's an overall picture of the finished cradle (primered to keep it from rusting). I am going to send the whole unit to get blasted and powder coated black once I do final fitment and verification.

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Here are the detail pics with the areas that I re-enforced highlighted in the picture.

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Only one side of the control arm mounts get re-enforced as I still want the other tab to flex a little so the mount will clamp down on the control arm bushing without pre-stressing the gusset/weld
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All areas on the cradle that were open were boxed in and fully welded. I made sure to factor in water draining/corrosion resistance when doing all these as I maintained the necessary drain holes to allow any water that sits on, or gets in the cradle, to escape.
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See, here's my issue with what you do here.

You do all of this really over the top stuff,..Done to the nines, and you barely tell people why, or how you did what you did. I'm not outing you specifically, but when you can do what you do, as well as you can do it, it seems prudent that you would spend more than 10 seconds telling people what the picture you just dropped in is about.

The benefit to the community you offer is huge, as long as you are willing to share your thoughts. A picture here is NOT worth a thousand words. It's worth one or two. The two repleys you got immediately afterwards are testimony to that.

Tell people what you are doing..there is a lot to be learned from somebody with your skill, and attention to detail.
 
See, here's my issue with what you do here.

You do all of this really over the top stuff,..Done to the nines, and you barely tell people why, or how you did what you did. I'm not outing you specifically, but when you can do what you do, as well as you can do it, it seems prudent that you would spend more than 10 seconds telling people what the picture you just dropped in is about.

The benefit to the community you offer is huge, as long as you are willing to share your thoughts. A picture here is NOT worth a thousand words. It's worth one or two. The two repleys you got immediately afterwards are testimony to that.

Tell people what you are doing..there is a lot to be learned from somebody with your skill, and attention to detail.
He’s going to tell us Mike. He’s building suspense in the community.

How do you keep a pinhead in suspense? I’ll tell you later.......
 
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See, here's my issue with what you do here.

You do all of this really over the top stuff,..Done to the nines, and you barely tell people why, or how you did what you did. I'm not outing you specifically, but when you can do what you do, as well as you can do it, it seems prudent that you would spend more than 10 seconds telling people what the picture you just dropped in is about.

The benefit to the community you offer is huge, as long as you are willing to share your thoughts. A picture here is NOT worth a thousand words. It's worth one or two. The two repleys you got immediately afterwards are testimony to that.

Tell people what you are doing..there is a lot to be learned from somebody with your skill, and attention to detail.

@Davedacarpainter has it, I was just building a little suspense. But....., I might have nodded off a little early last night and gave a little more suspense then I was intending :eek:

I was originally planning on going with the aeromotive A1000 stealth fuel tank system, like this:
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but came to the conclusion that the A1000 pump would be limiting me on ultimate power goal. Plus, I wanted to do something cleaner with the battery relocation than just strapping a box to the floor. So this whole deal is going to be a custom fuel cell cage and battery box that will be built just below the floor. It'll have a cover that goes over the fuel cell and probably a separate cover for the battery location (so I don't have to pull one giant cover to service the battery). This will make the entire rear hatch area flat so I can install carpet and make it look purdy. I just thought of this idea a day or two ago, so I still have some designing to do, but I think I'm going to make a DOM or Square Tube cage/skeleton and fabricate a drop in aluminum box for the battery. The lids will be aluminum also to keep weight down. Ideas are welcome!

And as a side note, if there is anything anyone would ever like explained more as to how or why I did something, I am way more than willing. A lot of people tell me I tend to be overly humble as I really don't ever want to come off as bragging or looking for attention. Humility would be the term I would use. Probably one of the reasons I've been a member since 2002 and only recently have been as actively posting as I have, I listened and learned until I felt I had something to contribute to this community.
 
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