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For sale, and looking

We are nearly wrapped up with our current project , and looking for the next build. I am offering one of my personal projects as a starting point.

Or may be interested in building your dreams. Please use steve@industrialchassisinc.com for communications. There are a few of you using my eBay account, I don’t like using that for off eBay discussion.

Floating this out there for those interested. F100 Crew-Cab project, Frame was repaired, straightened and lengthened 29″ to build a custom crew cab.

Chassis is done, Dakota IFS with Full-size truck rotors, Wilwood calipers up front, new premium parts, powder coated, Bilstein shocks, new springs, etc.

Rear is a Ford Truck Dana 60, with upgraded axle bearings, Dutchman axles, Wilwood brakes, new gears and bearings. Power-Lok diff, Ridetech coil overs and air bags for load on a powder coated four link with panhard rod. Frame is fully boxed and a very stout X-member. Hydro-boost brakes. I was building this to be a long distance hauler, something that could easily pull a 20-25′ enclosed trailer.

If you were to contract someone to design and build an identical frame, it would exceed what I’m asking here.

Body work was started, floors are nearly complete, I have most of the body work and bed, seats, mechanicals, but in poor but fixable shape. The goal was to use

56 rear doors, shortened a bit. Use stock window mechanisms, keep the vent windows etc. Trying to make this look as much like a factory build as possible. This is a personal project I have lost interest in. I have an Arizona title in my name for this. Included are a set of 5 Wheel Vintique 17″ X 7″ steel Ford style wheels with caps and rings. Wheels are powder coated Navajo White.

There are other items I have for this project not included with this sale. Example, I have a modern Cummins turbo diesel four cylinder and six speed auto that would be a fantastic power unit, but I realize it’s not everyone’s preference. I will be selling those items separately. I would consider finishing this for you as a project and may make a deal for the powertrain I had reserved for this.

I have 30+ years of experience building custom trucks, including sheet metal fabrication and body finishing, wiring and plumbing. Please contact me for further information.

  • Render of the design goal
  • Front suspension as it currently is
  • Current rear suspension
  • Current picture of the body

Below are two examples of trucks just finished as an example of the quality of work we do.

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New Venture, check it out

I am starting a new educational school, teaching in person classes about fabrication.

Go have a look IC Fab School

This is where I will teach small classes the basics, to the more serious in fabrication. How to design, engineer and finish your project.

  • Custom Sheet Metal Embossing and Metal Shaping
  • Custom fabrication
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Please check out the eBay store for product

Any product or parts I have will be listed on my eBay store, thank you.

https://www.ebay.com/usr/tractort

I really need to ask you to not message me through eBay. I do not want to use that platform for questions about the old product lines. I do not have old stock, no blems, no parts to build more. My regular email links are still active, I will be continuing this website for a while longer, it’s paid up for a few more years.

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An opportunity for those interested

I would like to talk to any parties interested in purchasing any or part of the product lines, even to hire me for continued consultation and further product development. I have some product that is in development that would match current market moves, as well as full frame/chassis ideas. If you are interested, please contact me through info@industrialchassisinc.com

I have discontinued making the Dakota Based product line as well as the Studebaker and ’32 Ford products. I am currently concentrating on private builds only. Not doing any job shop or customer work at this time.

For all other inquiries, please hit the forum listed at the very top of the page. I am limiting my time working on the website.

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Issue found with Heidt’s Mustang II stock spindles

We had a customer complain about one of our Studebaker clips not capable of an alignment recently. With all the shims removed from the adjusting plate, there was still negative camber.

I had to investigate further, and on a chassis we are supplying right now we had the same issue come up. This is brand new for us, so I needed to investigate. This is what I came up with. The upper ball joint bore is moved outboard about 1/2″.

This is causing a few problems, First off is the Camber issue. Second is going to be an issue of scrub radius. This may not cause any driveability issues, but you may notice a bit more wheel kickback on uneven road surfaces.

Short solution is to use a longer control arm, in some cases where the stock slot and T-bolt are used, you may not have much of an alignment issue.

EDIT:

I spoke with a representative from Heidt’s this afternoon. Of course this issue has never come up with them. He informed me they use a 1/4″ longer control arm at 8″ from pivot to ball joint. No reason given as to why. I want to caution everyone that if you are to mix-match parts, you may end up with a front end that you can’t align.

We have used the Heidt’s and CPP dropped spindles without this problem. I have used the stock height spindles from SPC and Kaiser without issue.

 

I want to go further with you as to what these changes will make to the way your front end will drive and handle in a future date. Right now I just needed to get this information out there.

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More new stuff on the website

I have been working on getting the framework done for the new features I want for the website and fixing some of the dumb stuff I had as place holders. Still not done, but happy with some of the progress.

What I received in feed back from customers was navigation on the store, difficulty finding product and such. So my solution is to put multiple paths to find what you are looking for. At the top of the page are categories based on what you have. Not completely finished with them at this point. What I intend is a bit of information, history and links in each and everyone of those by make and year model.

I will also be working on updating and adding new product. So far I’m pretty happy with the new Theme Plugin from www.woothemes.com . Those guys have been more than helpful getting me going after my crash.

Soon we will have some project updates too. We currently have three full on turn-key projects. The 53 GMC is painted. Thank you Cam at Fury in Color! Rick’s 40 Plymouth is making progress, and we took possession of Bob’s 1964 Ford pickup. Look for pictures of that one soon, it’s really eye catching (in a good way!)

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New feature coming soon

 

One of the reasons for doing the redesign is for you the customer to navigate and find products easier.

The other is to add in a new forum that will go live in the next few days (I hope) where you and I can engage in a more technical sense.  I get asked to help people sort their suspension issues on all sorts of vehicles.

I am working to put together a searchable forum where we can get in-depth with the true geometry of what makes your IFS work and why. This will  be a subscription service, Sorry folks but more and more of my time is being taken up by answering questions. For those of you who are customers, you will get access to the forums, but for those of you on the fence, the fee will be minimal. In that forthcoming forum, we can get in-depth to get your ride working the way you want it to.

 

Eventually, I would like to expand the forum to be an offsite, 3rd party tech line for any aftermarket hot rod parts manufacturer. If you would like to participate in some way, PDF files of instruction sheets of kits you have installed would be helpful in growing to that goal.

As always, I appreciate some input.

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Roadster Show Wrap Up

I want to thank all the people that came by both booths to say hello. You guys made our trip worth it.

We came loaded with product, but something was amiss. I’m not sure exactly what happened to the show, but not only were prices up for us vendors but there were hardly any roadsters. I have seen a couple hundred maybe, this year more like 80-ish showed up. The Preferred Parking area on the North side was mostly vacant on Saturday and Sunday. The area over by the botanical gardens (South side) was pretty full on Saturday but on Sunday it was mostly vacant. The swap was spread out. There were guys jumping the line and buying up blocks of spaces and then didn’t show up. While in line waiting to pick my spot I overheard some of the guys that jumped the line bragging about buying up a few thousand dollars worth of spaces. Of course, the deal is, once you buy a space, you get grandfathered in and can keep getting the same spots for future events. The North East section was sold out by Thursday and on Saturday, maybe half of those spots were being used, Sunday maybe a third of those spots had stuff in them.

Here is a short video I shot at 7:30 in the morning on Sunday.

 

Granted, this is early in the morning. As the day went on, more swap meet vendors packed up and left by 9am. We drove around waiting for other vendors in the show area to show up so we could pick up things we had on order and chatted with various vendors. Some said they felt like a UPS service because all they did was deliver pre-ordered parts. They seemed to have the same experience we did. There is a rumor going around that Roadster Shows will “FINE” us for leaving before 4 pm on Sunday. I can assure you that if they do try and pull something like this, I will not attend the LA Roadster Show in 2018. I know we aren’t a big deal to most, but in talking to some of those big name guys, they won’t be back either.

I have been going to the LA Roadster Show  since 1974 as a kid. It has been a tradition of mine to go, I look forward to it, it’s a big deal. Now I’m not so sure. I can understand the Roadster guys getting upset that they no longer get a free steak dinner and a pewter mug for the price of just showing up, the thing I find very puzzling is that the general public just didn’t show up.

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New way around the website

I’m working with suggestions on how to navigate the website here. If you notice there is a new header under the main one with year and makes. What will happen, is you will click the one that matches your vehicle and it will take you to a page and list all of the product and related reading material to each of those years. This will take me a few weeks to get fine tuned but should result in  a much smoother way around.