Cross Member Drilling

This is the tedious part of any fabrication job.  Drilling big holes in relatively thick metal with hand tools is not very fun.  So, today I got to drill 10 of them.  Two of them were elongated!  Yeah!  :o(

"Wallered-out" holes to allow the transmission mount to find its natural resting place on the cross member prior to fastening.  They look big, but the studs on the mount are fairly large, so it isn't as sloppy of an interface as it looks.

 Fits like a glove!

 All bolted up:

 Transmission output shaft and seal:

 The truck has been propped up on jack stands for a while and I needed to get some steering and driveshaft measurements with the truck sitting down on the tires.  SOme of the measurements would be off if the suspension was not compressed.  I added about 100 pounds of weight to the front of the frame to simulate the missing body weight.

 Mocking up the old driveshaft for reference on the angles and length:

 Here is a short video of how the drive shaft looks under the vehicle with the power train back in the truck.  I will be getting a new shaft made soon with the proper length and transmission yoke.