AssBurns 2000 Limited Build Thread

phattyduck said:

Did you check the ADD system and the right side needle bearing for issues? That's kinda all that's left up front...

-Charlie

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Already replaced the whole ADD system. That was my first thought, so I replaced the whole ADD tube and components.

Does it spin freely when it’s all together?


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snow junky said:

Does it spin freely when it’s all together

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It felt fine. I did feel a super slight resistance at one point in the rotation when spinning by hand, but took me a while to notice it. Not sure if it really was anything since I could barely feel it. I might have to check out the t-case next.

AssBurns said:

I might have to check out the t-case next.

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If your sure the diffs fine that's the next logical place to look. When your in 4hi or lo do you feel any weirdness as far as driving? I'm still trying to figure out how a t-case could lock up long enough to snap a CV without any other symptoms.

Congrats on the new DD BTW.

I'm honestly how clean that front diff is considering that you wheel your truck regularly. It honestly looks cleaner than the junkyard diff I picked up with the only 140k that was allegedly never wheeled which appears is true by the oil that came out.

Has your breakage been isolated to one side? I feel like since it is breaking the inner joint, basically just pushing it out of the tulip joint judging by the pictures, that it is something with the suspension rather than the powertrain. I wonder if for some reason that in 4wd it causes something in the spindle to shift outward and pull that joint apart.

Id start by having someone watch the CV shaft as you move in 4wd, that might show you the issue pretty quickly.

theesotericone said:

If your sure the diffs fine that's the next logical place to look. When your in 4hi or lo do you feel any weirdness as far as driving? I'm still trying to figure out how a t-case could lock up long enough to snap a CV without any other symptoms.

Congrats on the new DD BTW.

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Haven't felt anything weird in when in 4wd with the front diff disconnected. I've used 4LO quite a bit and haven't noticed any issues.

Black798 said:

I'm honestly how clean that front diff is considering that you wheel your truck regularly. It honestly looks cleaner than the junkyard diff I picked up with the only 140k that was allegedly never wheeled which appears is true by the oil that came out.

Has your breakage been isolated to one side? I feel like since it is breaking the inner joint, basically just pushing it out of the tulip joint judging by the pictures, that it is something with the suspension rather than the powertrain. I wonder if for some reason that in 4wd it causes something in the spindle to shift outward and pull that joint apart.

Id start by having someone watch the CV shaft as you move in 4wd, that might show you the issue pretty quickly.

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Yeah that diff does look pretty clean. The fluid looked pretty good too, but I did change the fluid about a year and a half ago.

No the breakage has been on both sides, First I broke the passenger side when all this started, then immediately broke the passenger side again in 4HI once I swapped the CV with a new one. Swapped it again at home and drove 15 miles to a trail in 2wd, then broke the passenger side one more time on the trail as I was approaching an obstacle and putting it in 4LO. Swapped it again at home along with the whole ADD tube and associated parts, took it for a drive around the block in 2wd and all felt fine. Then I put it in AWD and backed out of my driveway, as soon as I started turning into the street, the drivers side broke. The first 20 feet of my driveway there was no issue until i started turning, which is why I suspected that the spider gears were broken. I had them break in 4LO, 4HI and AWD, so again it made it seem like it was in the diff or ADD system. They all seemed to break way too easy though compared to how I've broken them in the past.

I just went out and did some inspecting of the t-case. Jacked the rear axle up off the ground and put the t-case in all the different modes. Nothing seems out of the ordinary when spinning the rear driveshaft or front output shaft by hand. Rotation was smooth and in sync front to rear. Seems fine and the fact that I've been using 4LO for the past few months without any issues makes me suspect it is probably not the t-case but I could be wrong.

It could possibly have something to do with the suspension but I don't recall changing anything prior to this all happening. It can't be from having too much droop because I have limit straps and broken them before the suspension was drooped out. It does seem extremely odd that the inner joint is the one having the issues though. Now that you point it out, it does seem like is has to do with something suspension related possibly. It's almost like the joint is popping out.

AssBurns said:

No the breakage has been on both sides, First I broke the passenger side when all this started, then immediately broke the passenger side again in 4HI once I swapped the CV with a new one. Swapped it again at home and drove 15 miles to a trail in 2wd, then broke the passenger side one more time on the trail as I was approaching an obstacle and putting it in 4LO. Swapped it again at home along with the whole ADD tube and associated parts, took it for a drive around the block in 2wd and all felt fine. Then I put it in AWD and backed out of my driveway, as soon as I started turning into the street, the drivers side broke. The first 20 feet of my driveway there was no issue until i started turning, which is why I suspected that the spider gears were broken. I had them break in 4LO, 4HI and AWD, so again it made it seem like it was in the diff or ADD system. They all seemed to break way too easy though compared to how I've broken them in the past.

I just went out and did some inspecting of the t-case. Jacked the rear axle up off the ground and put the t-case in all the different modes. Nothing seems out of the ordinary when spinning the rear driveshaft or front output shaft by hand. Rotation was smooth and in sync front to rear. Seems fine and the fact that I've been using 4LO for the past few months without any issues makes me suspect it is probably not the t-case but I could be wrong.

It could possibly have something to do with the suspension but I don't recall changing anything prior to this all happening. It can't be from having too much droop because I have limit straps and broken them before the suspension was drooped out. It does seem extremely odd that the inner joint is the one having the issues though. Now that you point it out, it does seem like it has to do with something suspension related possibly. It's almost like the joint is popping out.

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I would say you can rule out the t case. If you have been using it in high and low range for the past few months and had no issues and feel no weird binds it's probably fine. You could change the fluid to be sure there are no chunks floating around but these cases are pretty strong.

Looking at your last break back at the bottom of page 21 it doesn't even look like the joint broke, more like it just got pushed or pulled out which is really strange. It also looks like it isn't an OEM inner tulip cup, looks more like the spare Duralast I have sitting in the back of my truck. I wonder if that cup is shorter than the OEM cup and it's allowing the joint to basically fall out when it extends to go around a turn and the suspension droops out a little? I'll grab some measurements of the two different shafts I have in the truck this afternoon and see if they're the same.

I also cant see how the spindle would be moving out that far to separate the inner joint because they have like 3 inches of travel and I think if the spindle were moving that far or was bent that far you would have other issues.

Well updates are slow, but at least they are exciting. For me at least. Now that I picked up a daily driver, the 4 runner has barely reached the 500 mile break in period. So this weekend I will be swapping fluids in the rear end. While I’m down there, I will be taking care of some other stuff that I’ve been putting off for too long. As most people know, when we lift our rigs, the suspension geometry gets weird and the angles of things cause poor handling characteristics. Hence why [MENTION=28464]eimkeith[/MENTION] made some sweet brackets to correct the panhard angles. Well that only combats a small part of the weirdness that makes for poor handling. My solution? Cut it all off and start from scratch with a much better design. No more panhard, no more funky angles or binding. For the past week or so, I’ve been working on all the parts that can be done without cutting into the rig. I started out by making templates for the brackets, taking everything to my buddies garage to cut out everything with his band saw. Then cut and notched the new crossmember to clear the driveshaft. Made frame plates for all the new parts to weld onto. Now that I have the majority of the fabrication aspect done, its about time to start tearing into the rig by cutting off all the stock crossmembers and brackets. I will be cutting off the crossmember behind the axle, the one that the upper links currently mount to, and the one behind the t-case. Two crossmembers will be welded back in. One for the lower links behind the t-case and another behind the axle. The wheelbase will be extended a couple inches in the process, therefore I need to cut my rear bumper back a few inches, as well as tub the rear inner fenders to make room. While I’m back there working on stuff and moving stuff to shift the axle back, I figured that since I’m cutting off the stock bump stop mounts, I might as well go with hydro bump stops. I’ve been searching online for a set of used ones for the past couple weeks, looking for a good deal. I ended up finding some 2.0” x 4” Sway-A-Way bumps for a good price. I will end up shortening them down to 2”-3” travel though, since I don’t have enough up travel to warrant the need for 4” bumps. However the 4” stroke will come in handy when I finally get around to long traveling the rear.

While I should be spending my time and money fixing my front end, I am going to wait until I finish the rear end first. Hence why I keep spending my front end budget on bump stops and other things that isn’t helping my front end get done. I’m hoping to knock most of the big stuff out this weekend.

Some photos of the progress so far.












Yesterday my wife and I got done with our Mother’s Day family obligations pretty early, so while we were deciding what we wanted to do, we stopped at the local brewery to have a couple beers and decided what to do the rest of the day. We eventually decided to take the BeerRunner out for one last run before the rear end gets its makeover. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how well it handles once it’s done with hydro bumps.

AssBurns said:

My solution? Cut it all off and start from scratch with a much better design. No more panhard

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Triangulating the rear?

If your pushing the wheel base your gonna have to get a new rear driveshaft made. Might as well throw dual cases in and only have to have the shaft made once. lol\

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Nice welds BTW.

theesotericone said:

Triangulating the rear?

If your pushing the wheel base your gonna have to get a new rear driveshaft made. Might as well throw dual cases in and only have to have the shaft made once. lol\

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Nice welds BTW.

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Yes it will be dual triangulated.

For the driveshaft, I think I just might be able to get away without any modification. The driveshaft has about 5.5" of slip before it comes off the splines. Right now it has about 4.5" of extension left in its 5.5" total spline engagement. So if I extend the wheelbase 2-3", the splines would have 2.5-1.5" engagement left. So at that point, I should be able to get away with a simple driveshaft extension. Speaking of that, I need to order one :biggrin1:
I don't need go spending more money on dual cases at this point. My wife is already giving me a little shit for spending so much money and not even fixing the things that are actually broken.

Thanks on the compliment!

I love seeing your fab work dude. The design AND execution are always spot-on [emoji1598]Looking forward to hearing how the new 4-link performs!
A driveshaft spacer sketches me out, but I don't have enough knowledge on them to have any validity to my feelings. Just like wheel spacers- if they have centering rings on both sides, and the bolts are properly torqued- you should be fine.
Again, great work [emoji1360]

Tyler James Inc said:

I love seeing your fab work dude. The design AND execution are always spot-on [emoji1598]Looking forward to hearing how the new 4-link performs!
A driveshaft spacer sketches me out, but I don't have enough knowledge on them to have any validity to my feelings. Just like wheel spacers- if they have centering rings on both sides, and the bolts are properly torqued- you should be fine.
Again, great work [emoji1360]

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Thank You! I appreciate the compliments. I really enjoy fabricating things that look as well as they perform. It’s easy to just slap things together half assed and still perform as needed, but something about taking the time to design something that is visually appealing and executed properly is extremely satisfying. Obviously something you know very well by looking at all your builds. Your attention to detail is amazing. I don’t have the patience for details in most things I do. Even fabricating, I get lazy sometimes.
Just ordered the Trail Gear Longfield Triple Drilled 1.5” spacer. It has the hub centric style centering rings and grade 8.8 bolts. I’m not too worried about it being an issue. If it becomes an issue, I’ll pay the $200 or so to have my driveshaft lengthen. For now, the $40 spacer should be fine.

The new hydro bumps showed up today, along with the mounting cans. Did a quick mock up and there is already a slight problem... not much room for tire clearance. Looks like they will need to be frenched into the frame, which then leads to them sticking up into the cab. Not a huge issue, but just more work for me to get things dialed in. I’ve got my plans set this weekend to try to knock as much work as I can with the 4-link stuff. If I can pull off mounting these too, I’ll be super stoked. Gotta make some strike plates for them though. Should be easy, since I will just use the cutouts from the 3” holes I drilled in my frame plates.



With the amount of up travel I currently have, I don’t need to use all 4” of the bump stops since I don’t want to be riding on bumps constantly with only 5” or so of up travel. So I had a machinist buddy make some of these for me to shorten the stroke to 3”. They turned out *****in!

Knocked out some major work this weekend on the 4-link. For the most part things went pretty smoothly since I did a lot of prepping prior to this weekend and that took just about all the guesswork out.
Friday night I got home from work and immediately got to work pulling brake lines, fuel lines, bumper, fuel tank, and the axle.
Saturday my buddy Kyle came over and we went to town on cutting everything off the axle and frame. All 5 link mounts got cut off the axle, and 3 more crossmembers got cut off the frame rails, along with link mounts. I also needed to cut off the coil buckets too, so they can be rewelded back a few inches to match the axle. Once we got everything stripped down to bare frame (which is a hell of a lot of work), we started mocking things up and tacking them in place. Once I cut the stock crossmember off behind the t-case, the frame rails pulled in almost 1/4”. So I had to trim the crossmember and brackets back a little bit to fit between the frame rails. Once we got it all in place, we pulled the axle under the truck and test fitted the new links. Those lower links are heavy! While we were putting the links in place, I had the upper frame side link put in place and reached over to grab the bolt next to me while Kyle was wiggling his side into place. While he was wiggling his side, my side slid out and the joint landed right on my face next to my eye. Boy did that one hurt!! Even with all that beer we were drinking. Now I got a nice puffy red mark next to my eye. Luckily after that link was bolted in, we were ready to cycle the suspension, so the excitement washed away the pain along with celebratory beers once we determined everything was lined up properly and cycled perfectly. At that point we it was getting too late to work, so we cleaned up and jumped in the spa for a few beers to relax after 14 plus hours of work and almost a 36 pack between the two of us.
Sunday we came back out to pull everything off for final welding. We quickly realized a little mistake of not thinking ahead. When we tacked on the axle side lower link brackets, we had the joint bolted up to it. Well when we went to pull the bolt out, we realized we put the bolt in from the wrong direction so it didn’t have enough room for the bolt to slide all the way out. Good think everything was just tacked on! I went to town on welding everything together while Kyle did some prep work and painted the new link tubes. Gloss black is all I had left, so now I have some shiny black links hahah. Another weird thing that happened was after I welded on the frame plates, the frame spread out by 5/8”! That was extremely frustrating since I just got done cutting my crossmember 1/4” the day before. We tried to use a hi-lift to pull the frame rails back together but were only able to get 1/4” out of it leaving 3/8” gap still. So we just made some smaller frame plates out of 3/16” plate to fill the gap while still keeping the structural integrity of things. From there the last thing needed was the rear crossmember between the gas tank and axle. Once that was done, we put the axle back in and cycled everything to insure final fitment. Everything was perfect! We checked pinion angle throughout travel and it changed by only about 1°. We also checked driveshaft plunge and that only changed by 1/2”. All in all I am extremely happy with how the link geometry turned out at this point.

Another awesome thing from yesterday was [MENTION=28464]eimkeith[/MENTION] was in So Cal this weekend and made it out to Yucaipa to hang out and have a beer on his way back to NC. It was awesome to finally meet the guy that I have been bouncing tons of ideas off of for the past couple years.

Now all I have left to do is, weld in the coil buckets, cut back my bumper a few inches, tub the wheel wells back a few inches, install the rear bumper and fuel tank. Then eventually get to installing the new hydro bumps. Still a ton of work left to do, but it’s all easy compared to what we accomplished this weekend.

Obviously some pics for you guys.

Everything that got cut off.


Motivation.


Stock links are 20” and 11” long
New links are about 42” and 42.5” long






A couple things to note in this picture.
1) The CAT is just hanging down since it was in the way of the new crossmember. This will be replaced by a muffler.
2) The lower link bracket on the axle will also act as the bump stop strike plate.


Frame side upper link mount on the frame plate.








I will post more pics as I get further into things. If anyone wants any specific pictures or measurements, let me know.

Your the Man! Great work!!

AssBurns said:

Knocked out some major work this weekend on the 4-link. For the most part things went pretty smoothly since I did a lot of prepping prior to this weekend and that took just about all the guesswork out.
Friday night I got home from work and immediately got to work pulling brake lines, fuel lines, bumper, fuel tank, and the axle.
Saturday my buddy Kyle came over and we went to town on cutting everything off the axle and frame. All 5 link mounts got cut off the axle, and 3 more crossmembers got cut off the frame rails, along with link mounts. I also needed to cut off the coil buckets too, so they can be rewelded back a few inches to match the axle. Once we got everything stripped down to bare frame (which is a hell of a lot of work), we started mocking things up and racking them in place. Once I cut the stock crossmember off behind the t-case, the frame rails pulled in almost 1/4”. So I had to trim the crossmember and brackets back a little bit to fit between the frame rails. Once we got it all in place, we pulled the axle under the truck and rear fitted the new links. Those lower links are heavy! While we were putting the links in place, I had the upper frame side link put in place and reached over to grab the bolt next to me while Kyle was wiggling his side into place. While he was wiggling his side, my side slid out and the joint landed right on my face next to my eye. Boy did that one hurt!! Even with all that beer we were drinking. Now I got a nice puffy red mark next to my eye. Luckily after that link was bolted in, we were ready to cycle the suspension, so the excitement washed away the pain along with celebratory beers once we determined everything was lined up properly and cycled perfectly. At that point we it was getting to late to work, so we cleaned up and jumped in the spa for a few beers to relax after 14 plus hours of work and almost a 36 pack between the two of us.
Sunday we came back out to pull everything off for final welding. We quickly realized a little mistake of not thinking ahead. When we tacked on the axle side lower link brackets, we had the joint bolted up to it. Well when we went to pull the bolt out, we realized we put the bolt in from the wrong direction so it didn’t have enough room for the bolt to slide all the way out. Good think everything was just tacked on! I went to town on welding everything together while Kyle did some prep work and painted the new link tubes. Gloss black is all I had left, so now I have some shiny black links hahah. Another weird thing that happened was after I welded on the frame plates, the frame spread out by 5/8”! That was extremely frustrating since I just got done cutting my crossmember 1/4” the day before. We tried to use a hi-lift to pull the frame rails back together but were only able to get 1/4” out of it leaving 3/8” gap still. So we just made some smaller frame plates out of 3/16” plate to fill the gap while still keeping the structural integrity of things. From there the last thing needed was the rear crossmember between the gas tank and axle. Once that was done, we put the axle back in and cycled everything to insure final fitment. Everything was perfect! We checked pinion angle throughout travel and it changed by only about 1°. We also checked driveshaft plunge and that only changed by 1/2”. All in all I am extremely happy with how the link geometry turned out at this point.

Another awesome thing from yesterday was [MENTION=28464]eimkeith[/MENTION] was in So Cal this weekend and made it out to Yucaipa to hang out and have a beer on his way back to NC. It was awesome to finally meet the guy that I have been bouncing tons of ideas off of for the past couple years.

Now all I have left to do is, weld in the coil buckets, cut back my bumper a few inches, tub the wheel wells back a few inches, install the rear bumper and fuel tank. Then eventually get to installing the new hydro bumps. Still a ton of work left to do, but it’s all easy compared to what we accomplished this weekend.

I will post more pics as I get further into things. If anyone wants any specific pictures or measurements, let me know.

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Beautiful work. Hope I can make it down to run the Dusy trail with you guys.

Did I miss what springs you are going to be running?

Any interest in selling your rear links? Looking at making my own but I like saving time.

Well done Alex. That's awesome!

Plastics guy said:

Your the Man! Great work!!

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Thanks! It’s a lot of work but should be worth the effort.

rkntoy said:

Beautiful work. Hope I can make it down to run the Dusy trail with you guys.

Did I miss what springs you are going to be running?

Any interest in selling your rear links? Looking at making my own but I like saving time.

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I’m looking forward to the Dusy Ershim trip even more now with all this extra ground clearance.

Springs are still gonna be the same LC 8 wraps that I’ve been running. Eventually I’ll do coilovers back there.

Yeah dude the links are about to be for sale. I’ll PM you the info about them.

JBurt said:

Well done Alex. That's awesome!

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Idk who Alex is, but sounds like he did a good job! [emoji1319]


PS, my name is Steven and I appreciate the compliment [emoji6]

Well crap. Well done Steven. If I had a nickel for every name I've screwed up. I'm excited to see how you tub the rear. I don't think I've seen that before.

rkntoy said:

Beautiful work. Hope I can make it down to run the Dusy trail with you guys.

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AssBurns said:

I’m looking forward to the Dusy Ershim trip even more now with all this extra ground clearance.

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That's a pretty sweet weekend you had there buddy. Very nicely done.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm really wanting to get the Dusy done. If all three of us end up on the trail I'm pretty sure we'll be just fine. I'll still be rocking my 33's so I'll be the lowest ground clearance in the group. Damn, now I really need to get that crawl box in. lol