[CVTitan05]

Hey guys, ive been a little MIA for the last couple years up until a couple months ago, i sold my last truck (2005 TITAN Prerunner Build), and i kinda fell off the map for a while. Well i bought my GF an 08 CC 2wd, and then a month later i wanted one so bad, i bought my 05 CC 4x4. So this is just a thread to post what i have done/will do in the future to this truck. Its named the Madigan build, because im the head fabricator at Madigan Motorsports in Menifee, Ca, and is where i will be doing 95% of the work.

Heres how i bought her, has a 6" PC stage II lift, with a 3" body lift, nothing special, with 35's on 20s, and 3.36 BT gears, she wasnt a dog, but sure as hell wasnt winning any races.
(it looks much lower in the back, but the trailer is hooked up to it, so it was squatting a bit haha)

Stay tuned

 

[CVTitan05]

The truck also came with this horribly hacked up exhaust, that the dealer "put together" to make it pass smog. It was horrible, had dozens of leaks, sounded like crap, ran like crap, had lean codes a week after i bought it... So my first job was replacing the entire thing...

Video of old exhaust:
Video - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

So i bought stock 08+ bpipes with cats, and a stock 08+ catback, and then some JBA LT's and Uprev, courtesy of Jeff and Joe at Cajun

And the startup video with open headers. It was amazing.
Open Header startup

I also got a 50" Light bar for chirstmas, and bolt on roof mounts (that coincidentally we at Madigan Motorsports make).

Also made a little billet aluminum shift knob on the lathe, the one that came with it was some cheap plastic pep boys sh*t...

 

[CVTitan05]

Also in the last few months, ive taken her on some wheeling trips to Dove Springs, we followed my dad in his RZR 1000. Also tested the truck in the mud, safe to say it does fairly well in 2 foot deep muck.

 

[CVTitan05]

And now we come to today, when i built my beefy HD traction bars. I over built them way further than necessary, but who doesn't like some piece of mind ?
I built the axle mount to reuse the stock u-bolt plate, and to just add onto it. We drew it all up in Solidworks, and cut it out on the CNC plasma table at work. We cut it out of 3/16" steel plate.

Then cut some 1.75" .120 wall Chromoly tubing to use as a boss for the tabs, and machined them true on the lathe (excuse my messy lathe)...

Then the tubing was pressed into the hole of the plate we cut out on the plasma table, and off to the TIG welder they went.

(Continue on the next post)

 

[CVTitan05]

While they were TIG welding the tabs to get ready, we also cut out the frame side, which constisted of 3/16" steel as well, and was formed and TIG welded together as well, i didnt get any pictures of it though, until after it was mounted...

Then as they were welding all that together, i made the traction bar out of 1.75" .095" wall DOM tubing, with a big 2 5/8" ballistic joint in the front, and a 2" polyurethane bushing at the rear, then welded it all up, greased it, and put it together. I used big 5/8", Grade 8 bolts and Stover locking nuts to bolt it all together. This is how it all turned out: (excuse the rust, as they sat in the bed of my truck in the rain for a few days, but they will be powdercoated).

And here you can see how the rear mount came together (before welding to the u-bolt plate).

And after welding.

And then, they bolted up in place of the stock u-bolt plate, raised them up to the chassis, marked where to sand the stock frame coating, sanded it off, and then welded it to the frame rail.

I will be taking better pictures tomorrow of it, in the day time, but the feeling is NIGHT AND DAY difference. I dont have a front sway bar on my Titan, i like the ride better, and these took a lot of body roll out, and helps keep the truck planted. There is no more "squat" when accelerating hard, it just hooks and goes.

If anybody would like a set, let me know, as im interested in making another set

 

[thebassn8tr]

Lookin good Daniel. Talk about some extreme quality work and attention to detail!

 

[honda250xtitan]

Looks good man. Traction bars are my favorite mod other then coilovers.

 

[REDRUM]

thats some purty welds! stack them dimes! lookin good

 

[CVTitan05]

Thanks guys! Ive learned a lot in the last few years working in this industry, and its definitely paying off!

 

[NAlag]

Wow nice work! Gives me lots of ideas i just dont know if i can actully do any of them haha.

 

[Thunderhawk]

Nice to see some good old fashion fabrication. Nice job. Been doing it myself for 25 years. Its nice to come in when the employees are not in or on the weekend to play with the toys. Omni Metals Company - Home

 

[honda250xtitan]

I welded mine on the plate instead of on the side, it was a bit of a pita to make sure the nuts cleared the tabs lol

also my angle with tabs welded to it isn't nearly as clean as your front brackets lolzzzz

 

[CVTitan05]

I was going to run the tabs on the inside like you did too, but I wanted u bolt access, so I went to the out side and used bosses. Now I can fit a 7/8" impact socket on all 4 nuts, I also got a much larger bushing because of it, just a little more time consuming.

Next will be either upper control arms, driveshaft spacer, or steering.

 

[rambob]

agreed on the beautiful welds.

 

[honda250xtitan]

I was going to run the tabs on the inside like you did too, but I wanted u bolt access, so I went to the out side and used bosses. Now I can fit a 7/8" impact socket on all 4 nuts, I also got a much larger bushing because of it, just a little more time consuming.

Next will be either upper control arms, driveshaft spacer, or steering.

good call. the forward u bolts are a B!TCH to unbolt lol.

Boxed uppers look awesome....should build a set of those for sure.

 

[CVTitan05]

good call. the forward u bolts are a B!TCH to unbolt lol.

Boxed uppers look awesome....should build a set of those for sure.

I would do boxed uppers, but i will need to practice my tig skills for sure... Im the MIG welder at my shop, and my job is 90% working with tubing, so ill probably end up doing a tubular upper arm, also because it can be MIG welded and still look great.

Im thinking steering first as i bought these from Nick at Dirt King a few months back...

 

[CVTitan05]

For those that were wondering, I make all of the roll cages, bumpers, doors, etc at Madigan Motorsports, including rolling, bending, notching, fitting, welding, etc. We specialize in customizing UTV's from start to finish, from the simple cage and doors, to the full blown race RZR, and even very high end show UTV's.

This is a pic of my personal RZR 1000 that we took to the Sand Sports Super Show last year, as our shop car, nothing was left untouched, and no money was spared on this build! The build sheet on this car is pages and pages long!

I have also built full race chassis, like this Class 10 car I finished last year. We are going to start building another 10 car in the next couple months, and then build a 6100 truck for the same customer later this year.

 

[CVTitan05]

A little hill climb the guys and I did by the shop, no one ever went up it before, so i decided to give it a shot. The hill is extremely steep (cant tell too much in the video, like always), i wasnt even sitting in the bottom of my seat, my entire body felt like it was resting on the backrest... I chose to stick to the left side more, as it wasn't off-camber. Come to find out, it was soft dirt, so i ended up burrying it on the hill half way up. The video starts after i back up a little, and then shoot over to the right side. The guy recording didnt think i was going to make it up, so once i started coming at him, he was attempting to run up the hill at the same time haha.

You can also see the truck hopping alot, it was doing it the entire time (I was in 4 lo), and im not too sure why?

05 Madigan Titan Hill Climb

 

[CVTitan05]

Well, a few things have happened in the last week or so.

Last weekend i went to take a nearly 700mile trip to a place called Shaver Lake near Mammoth Mountain. Before hand i pulled the truck into the shop to check it out before the trip, and was delightfully surprised by what i found...
First, the drivers front wheel bearing is completely trashed, like i jack the truck up and can watch the tire fall when the weight is taken off of it... So i will be replacing that soon...

I also jacked up the rear of the truck because the other day after towing a heavy trailer down some hills, the passenger rear tire/wheel area had some smoke coming from it. I took the tire off, and pulled the rotor just to see a very small oil leak, so it was just oil getting hot and burning up, not brakes. But then i accidentally bumped the hub flange and it moved? I looked into it more and it moves in and out a solid 1/8".
Axle Shaft Play
So i pulled the shaft out to see if the bearing was trashed, or the race or something, and i saw this:

Bent flange... Im guessing from either over-torquing the bolts, or a very very hard impact on that side, so im sourcing solutions for that... i have 2 good axle shafts sitting in my garage, but theyre for an e-locker rear end so theyre the wrong length, but the flanges are still good. Im debating on replacing the bearings and seals and putting the good flanges on my axle shafts. Or a dana 60 swap, done a lot of research on that and i can finish the entire swap for about $1200...

So on my trip i went anyways. Got a few cool shots up in the snow. Ive never driven in the snow before, so this was very interesting. I learned the titan loves snow, but hates ice... lol

 

[CVTitan05]

The other day some jeep friends came over to the new shop we just moved into, and it has some very large boulders out in front, and they were messing around, so i had to see what the titan could do there, it was very fun, and i was able to do everything they did, just a little tougher because of the size of it haha. This thing does scale rocks like no other though, I tried to push it over an almost vertical 4 ft rock (just to see if it would even go up it), and it actually pulled its way up about 2 ft before it started to slide to the side off of it...

Got to actually put an exhaust tip on it too, i was tired of the stock 3" tubing just exiting out the back tire. So i cut the exhaust tip off my old hacked up exhaust, and cleaned it up, put it in the lathe and spent a few minutes with a scotchbrite pad. Came out pretty good. Then i had to put my own little touch to it, and riveted a small Stainless Madigan "M" onto it. Im pretty proud of it.

Before:

After: