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Wonderful. Just this short time and these few responses have narrowed things down for me. I'll be looking for some GM 14-bolt 'corporate' full floaters. I'm in the rust belt of southern MI, seems like there should be some around here being this close to Motown. That will be my first goal: find and cut down two of these.

In the mean time I'll be on the lookout for some scrap tubing, a suitable transfer case, and some drive shafts to mangle as well - need to visit a couple scappers I've been to before and see if they're still operating. I have a steel shop close by that is fairly inexpensive, but new steel is still costly. If nothing turns up I might just price out a couple sticks for the frame and bite the bullet there to get things going - would rather not though. Which reminds me of side project #1: must get the farm truck running so I can collect some of this stuff, and mow a spot behind the stop to store it before the snow flies.

So to carry the discussion on a little further about the axles taking high forces from the articulating action, I was thinking this wouldn't be the case and they would just roll a little to accommodate the new angle. So I modeled a quick-n-dirty analysis of it and you guys are dead on - it's really more of a angular side load on the hub/flange. I'm sure because it's at an angle that there is some wheel rotation as well (it's not perfectly perpendicular to the axle). Watching some video of the GatorS machine in slow-mo, you can see both forces - the wheels counter-rotate when articulating at a stand-still, the outer one more, obviously. But you can also see the inside tire flexing under the side load. With a locked diff, especially with the hydraulics holding the drive train in place, this would surely tend to break things if the wheel couldn't slide sideways easily enough. And that is kind of born out by bunkclimber telling of snapping axles when stationary while articulating with the locker installed (I believe I read that on the GatorS build thread - must have read through that 2 full times and skimmed other parts many more times). Probably not an issue at all when rolling though, even with locked diffs.

So, axle criteria sorted: Will be cutting down HD axles (full floating), and non-locking differentials. Good stuff.

Anyway, that angular scrubbing motion is traced out in light blue below. The two triangles represent the two halves of the chassis and the two end lines represent the axles. Notice the side loads exerted on the the ends of the axles, ie: the wheel hubs and axle flanges (you have to imaging they are there, I didn't draw them in), shown by the blue arcs at the ends of the blue line as it goes through a 45 degree sweep. It looks like that angular force is about at a 45 degree angle to the wheel face (135 degrees from the axle axis).



That's enough late nites for this week. This weekend I have to cut my last cord or so of wood for the year before it gets nasty out there, and I need to get my truck running. Then I'll start in on the shop cleanup and scrounging over the coming weeks.

Thanks again everyone. I'm starting to get a solidified vision in my thick skull.

PS. sonny, I noticed you're in central IL. My company is based in Sullivan, maybe only a couple hours south of you. I've taken many a trip through those endless fields of corn on my way there.

PPS. bunkclimber, my shop is a modest 24x36 divided by woodworking and fab/machining: atlas lathe, gorton mill, 4x6 bandsaw, chinese welder (stick/TIG), and various other doodads. It looks like the Russians came through there now though. Partially built sand muller parts everywhere, broken backup generator in the middle of the work area, and the remnants of things scattered about from the boiler repair marathon. Good times.