THE VOLVO...Ugly semi truck crawler hauler build thread

[ChestonScout]

Ever had one of those days where you shoulda just stayed in bed? No matter what you do everything is a fight? And you just seem to be super clumsy and hurt yourself all day?? Ya......

But even with all the problems, I did get a little done.

Started the day off with a scrap metal run. So now the guys on Pirate cant make fun of my old water heater out front.

Yesterday I pulled the stacks off, trimmed 3" off the top and sprayed a couple coats of paint on them. Its been plenty warm and they sat for about 14 hours so I decided to reinstall. I tore the paint job to hell. They are big, heavy, and awkward. Not so easy to install by yourself. So the one looks like garbage. I got the wife to help on the other side and it only got a couple scuffs. They will get pulled off and powder coated when the cab gets painted. So for now touch up and be done.





After hitting my head multiple times, 2 bleeders, and a lot of cussing, I decided it was time to move to the next matter of business. Some headache rack supports. I want it to be stout since the Scout tires will be resting against it in transit. So here is what I came up with.



Kind of hard to see whats going on. The rack comes thru the flatdeck and rests on the frame. Its welded all around on the tread plate. There is the crossmemeber that runs the length of the bed and along the frame so I welded in that filler piece to tie it all together.

It felt completely solid after that but I had some more tube so I came up with this for the top



Left enough room between them for a tool box or a winch..Maybe both? time will tell. But I feel that is plenty for what it needed to be.

I do still plan on plating in the bottom 3 panels of the headache rack but Im focused on getting it usable right now.

Speaking of which, I have the state inspection scheduled for Monday. Im sure there will be things they want changed. Im just hoping nothing major

Next I decided it was time to load the Scout up and weld on some D rings for tie down points. Fired the truck up, filled up the air system, hit the parking brake and started moving the truck. I can hear a small air leak. Weird, mess with it later. Well I got in the middle of the street and the brakes locked up. Air was empty. Had to push in the parking brake, let air build back up and then drive till the brakes locked again. Took me 15 minutes and several pissed of neighbors to get the truck turned around.

Found my culprit.



One good piece of welding slag found its way inside the line. DOH. Trip to Lowes. It crazy. The welding really wasnt even very close to this line.

So after that nonsense. Finally got the Scout loaded. Just in time for the wife to inform me Im taking her out to dinner.



One of those days for sure. But every step helps I suppose

 

[ChestonScout]

Big hurdle jumped today. It passed state inspection!

Emissions test is scheduled for wed morning

 

[STAG]

I hate to say it, it actually makes the scout look little!

 

[Cascadia]

Big hurdle jumped today. It passed state inspection!

Emissions test is scheduled for wed morning

Awesome! That's a relief. Kinda like when I had a house I built pass final inspection today. You just hate to get a list of little annoying things. Congrats!

 

[littlyota]

Big hurdle jumped today. It passed state inspection!

Emissions test is scheduled for wed morning

Where did you take it?

 

[ChestonScout]

I called Jiffy Lube and they didnt seem to interested. I ended up taking it to Walts automotive in Clearfield. Good bunch of guys and gals there

 

[littlyota]

Cool. Nice to have a backup location. I am going to get a safety fine on mine to make it easier on a buyer.

 

[ChestonScout]

The truck passed emissions test with no problems. So with the plates attached it was time for a test run. I loaded up the Scout and headed to Nevada to visit Skipped Link for a couple days. I wanted to check out his new axles and mess with the Scout a little bit.



The trip out was pretty uneventful. The truck is geared out at 68 mph. I filled the drivers tank before I left and then filled up in the last town before getting to Leroys. Truck got 8.5 mpg

Im pretty surprised at how good it goes down the road. Really straight and smooth. Power is a little low but I never had to downshift on the hills. We will see what the camper does to that tho.

The AC works as well as the heater.

While in NV I changed the oil with 26 qts of sae 40, did some shock tuning, did some wheelin and then headed home.

The trip home was nearly as uneventful. Except I didnt expect to be testing out the trucks winter capabilities in the middle of June.

But.....it snowed



And snowed




Im pretty dang happy with the truck. It is fairly loud inside tho....I will be ordering some dynamat this week and hope to get the interior family ready. Just over a month until Hard Grass Havoc in Canada

 

[Bart]

Very cool to see it working so well and nice job on the build. All that hard work is paying off. It's a sweet looking setup and fits the Scout nicely. Well done brother.

 

[ChestonScout]

Thanks Bart!

Hopefully it will be as cush as your new tow rig when the interior is done

 

[LT.]

Exhaust stacks are always noisy in the cab. It doesn't seem to matter what you do to them either. The noise is just behind your head and at nearly the same level. Dynamat will help but, I fear you are going to have the noise no matter what you do. Just be advised. The rig looks fantastic and will do you well. I am really anxious to see the weight loaded up with Scout, and camper, ready to wheel. I am also very jealous of your set up. Damn you! Time for me to upgrade so, I can keep up with the Jones', er, Beck's I mean.

LT.

 

[ChestonScout]

Exhaust stacks are always noisy in the cab. It doesn't seem to matter what you do to them either. The noise is just behind your head and at nearly the same level. Dynamat will help but, I fear you are going to have the noise no matter what you do. Just be advised. The rig looks fantastic and will do you well. I am really anxious to see the weight loaded up with Scout, and camper, ready to wheel. I am also very jealous of your set up. Damn you! Time for me to upgrade so, I can keep up with the Jones', er, Beck's I mean.

LT.

Ya, I know it will always be loud. Just hoping to calm it down all I can. No sense of being jealous. Your tow rig will pass me like Im standing still with your big trailer and 2 rigs on it. And get at least double the fuel economy. But at least I dont have a payment! hahaha


Well, things were going good. Truck gave me no issues on a 600 mile round trip, I am learning to shift it and overly just being pretty satisfied with what I got. SO it was time for a reality check again. I would like to call this bad luck but its really just another screw up on my part..
Before I unloaded the Scout off the truck, I wanted to hook up to the camper and cruise the whole load around a bit to get used to driving it. I just drove around the neighborhood a few times. On the corners it was looking like the Scout tire was awfully close to the camper. So I decided to stop on one of the corners to take a look.

Insert your choice of cuss words here. I bet I said them


When I was building the bed I knew the Scout tires would hang off. At that time I had planned on buying a normal camper and cutting the tongue off, extending it and adding a flatbed for a place to haul the dirtbike and 4wheeler. The deck would be low enough to have not been an issue. When I switched gears to the toy hauler the thought really never crossed my mind. And to make matters worse, instead of buying a toy hauler with a flat front, I had to get one that angles out to make room for the queen bed up front that I had to have. So sitting straight, the camper was only 32" away at the closest point to the Scout tires.

I was pretty friggin ticked and was ready for either the camper or the truck to go bye bye. But after sleeping it off and calming down a bit, I figured a solution had to be found.

From the ball to the outside of the Scout tire is 53". So I figured I needed 2' more for them to at least clear enough to be able to drive. I thought about extending the hitch but thats to much in my opinion. So the next option is extending the tongue on the trailer. After looking at what I had to work with I figured it was going to be the best solution. I didnt get a good enough deal on the camper to sell it and break even after taxes and licensing and Im to stubborn to take a loss. So instead of losing 1000 or so, I cut up the trailer and made it so no one will ever want it.



This was not my intentions for my day Saturday......


So this camper was on recall a few years back for having a weak tongue and front frame. It was repaired and probably way overkilled. There is a 6" channel running the full length of the camper, then the tongue goes thru the front end and meets up with the outside channel and the 2 are welded together. So its double channeled all the way back to the axles. They also added gussets and some other tubes here and there.

So it was decided to leave most the tongue that was there, add 2 new channel at the same angle, just wider to give me the extension, run it all the way into the camper frame, then tie the new tongue into the old tongue.

uhhhhg

I decided this at about noon Saturday. No metal suppliers are open on weekends here so I went to a local trailer supply store to look for a hitch. They close at 1. Picked out a hitch and asked if they happen to sell channel. By golly they do! Even half was reasonably priced so I went to work.



I have to do this project in the dirt on the side of the house. My tools wont reach the road the the driveway is to short for the camper.




So anyway, I added 25" to the front of the tongue. This will make the truck and trailer combo 64' long. Still a foot under Utahs legal limit. Hopefully it works out. If my math is half right, I should be able to jackknife the camper and still have a little to spare. I got the 2 legs of the new tongue tacked in place. Just need to weld on the hitch, make a crossmember between the 2 tongues, weld it all up and extend the plug. Pretty easy project. But it is sure one I wish I didnt have to do

 

[LT.]

And the good news is that I will not be in town to snap your tack welds off again. Lol. You continually demonstrate why we are in this sport. If something is not to your liking you just put your head down and make it what you want. Good on ya, bro. Oddly enough though, I had a similar issue years ago when I decided to pull doubles with a goose neck flat bed trailer and my little pop up camper behind it. The fold over ramps could get into the front edges of the pop up. I think it was mostly due to the length of the flat bed and how the flat bed would actually start to travel backwards when i turned tight enough. I never thought you would have the same issue.

LT.

 

[ChestonScout]

With the camper hooked up and full of water, the back tires had about 1" of clearance to the flatbed. I hit some pretty good bumps and speed on the freeway and the tires did touch pretty mildly. May have been ok but I decided lift blocks was gonna be the ticket.

So I called up Tuff Country. Turns out they don't make a lift block for a 1986 Volvo. WTF????

SO I had to build some.

I had 1.5" of u bolts showing so I figured 1" would be sufficient. I have some .5" plate kickin around so I cut 4 chunks out and got to work.

Hardest part was getting the u bolts un done. Holy crap! Arms are still sore.

So with my 4 blocks and after enough grinding to make Miley Cyrus blush, I welded them together and started drilling holes


The leaf springs have a 5/8" centering pin. But then they have a conical washer that needed to sit in the block as well. Started getting creative with my Ryobi drill press. haha



I did some head scratching on how to do the pin on the block to sit in the spring perch on the axle. Here is what I came up with. I went ahead and drilled the 5/8" all the thru, then sacrificed some bolts



Welded them in on the bottom and put a weld on top in the hole for good measure



Then took the die grinder to the weld until it fit back inside the spring perch

 

[ChestonScout]

done



and.....whatcha know?? It raised it a 1"



the bed sat level empty before. Scout weighed it down a bit. It should be pretty level all loaded up now. Ill post pics when I load it again.

Been doing some other tinkering getting it ready for Hard Grass Havoc in a few days. Sure hope it makes the trip ok

Im gonna make storage racks for the ramps under the dove eventually. But this will do for now




little bling. hahaha



Got these flush mount LEDs for driving lights. The 1986 headlight technology leaves a little to be desired. Hopefully they help






I thru some house carpet down inside. NOT permanent but should make it a little more cozy for the fam on the long long drive to Canada. I think its 99% ready to make the trip now. Pretty nervous. If I have issues I don't know what Ill do