The truck in 3D
This is the checked 3D model of the truck, drawn as parts: the welded frame, the four battery boxes hung between the rails, the cab's tube frame on six rubber mounts under flat steel panels, the square hood and grille, the oak deck on its bed strips, a dash of gauges, both motors riding on their axles with their two-speed gearboxes — and now the leaf springs that bend as the axles move, the shocks, the bump stops, the limit straps and the brakes. Drag to turn it, pinch or scroll to zoom. Steer it with the slider, twist the axles, or lift the body off to see the frame, the cab's tube frame and what lies under the deck.
What the parts found. The first full check caught a real clash: the bolt through the front hanger of each rear spring reached into two of the battery boxes. The rear springs were shortened from 1,400 to 1,356 mm between eyes, and the frame was checked again on its own and in the truck. The drawn parts also came out heavier than the outlines had assumed — the front axle reached 102 % of its rating at full load — so the plates under the battery bays came out (each box now hangs from the crossmembers), the rear battery's electronics moved to shelves under the rear deck, and the panels nobody stands on went to 18 gauge. The front axle now carries 96 % of its rating and the rear 93 %.
The two-speed gearbox at each axle's nose is laid out like a manual truck gearbox: a countershaft that always turns, two free gears on the output shaft, and a sliding sleeve between them. High range is one to one; low range halves the speed for a trailer or the field. It is shifted with the truck stopped, and a switch keeps the motor off until the sleeve is fully in one range. Five catalogue gears, bearings from a parts counter, and a case of two machined plates.
The cab and the deck. The cab rides on six rubber mounts the size a 70-series Land Cruiser uses, and its skins bolt to the tube frame, so a damaged panel is cut again from its drawing. The oak deck boards are held down by steel strips between them — one board comes out without a screw through the wood — and four of them lift out as a hatch over the rear motor.
Springs, shocks and brakes. The leaf springs hang under the axles, the common pickup arrangement, on 100 mm shackles, with bump stops that let each axle rise 100 mm and limit straps that stop the axles twisting further than the body clears. The steel each strap hangs from — the frame's ears and the axle's tabs — is sized to hold the strap's own 7,000 lb rating, so the strap, a part bought by length, gives first. At the rear the stops sit inboard of the springs, so an axle rolling under a twist cannot lift a U-bolt into them; at the front they stay over the springs — moving them inboard would let the front shocks bottom — turned small enough in polyurethane to sit between the U-bolts. A shock stands at each wheel. The brakes are discs all round — larger front rotors and a bolt-on rear kit that keeps the parking brake in the rotor hats — with the master cylinder, booster, vacuum pump and the brake-balance valve on the firewall under the hood, where they can be reached. The steering box moved inboard on a bolt-on bracket so the steering arm clears the front spring at full lock.
The clearance check ran through the whole steering sweep, lock to lock, and through the axles twisting both ways to their limits — one wheel hanging on its strap, the other on its bump stop — with the springs bending and the straps pulling tight. In every sampled position no part passes through another. The brake lines are drawn too: steel lines in clips along the outside of the frame rails, kept at least 22 mm from anything that moves, and a flexible hose to each wheel that twists at the kingpin when the truck steers. What it does not show: strength — the spring rates, the brackets and the frame are hand calculations — the wiring, and a road test. Every weight is an estimate, not a weighing.