[Bad Luck]

Originally Posted by Black798

Also mocked up a tire to get an idea of where things will sit. Hoping to hit a 21" frame height on 37s with 4 to 5 inches of uptravel, we will see how obtainable that is

That's gonna look impressive! How much down travel are you expecting/hoping for?

[Black798]

Originally Posted by Bad Luck

That's gonna look impressive! How much down travel are you expecting/hoping for?

The rear I have it planned to be strapped around 13". The front I have a set of 12 inch coil overs on order for so it should be around the 12 to 13 range depending on how I mount the coil overs.

[Black798]

Ive slowly been picking away at stuff with the truck and have made some decent progress in the last few weeks. 1st big thing was finally getting the frame stripped and the new frame plates on. I choose to plate the rear as well to hopefully reduce frame flex a little and to fill in the area where my outboard shock mounts were located.




Made up all the rear link mounts and I have those tacked in place now. Next step there will be figuring out all the coilover mounting to make the cantilever work. I have a rough model in solidworks of it all but making it match the truck will require some tweaks.



After a crazy long wait I finally got the new wheels in last week and was able to mount them up. I wound up getting trail ready 17x8.5 beadlocks and threw a set of apex designs valve stems at them to make airing up and down a little faster and easier.

[stevew092984]

Lookin good!!!

[busmup808]

Looks like we doing the same thing at the same time. Nice work!


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[Black798]

Finally making enough progress that its worthwhile to post. Rear suspension is essentially done. There are a few more welds to make but it right there. Ended up at 12" of travel after I strapped and bumped it which I am pretty happy about. The 37s are clearing great even though I gained about an inch of uptravel over my old setup. There isnt too much else to say about it since most of this stuff is just me pending a ton of time testing and cycling stuff and just figuring out what will work best given the packaging I have to maintain and all of that. Time to start cracking on the front.

[infamousRNR]

Originally Posted by Black798

Finally making enough progress that its worthwhile to post. Rear suspension is essentially done. There are a few more welds to make but it right there. Ended up at 12" of travel after I strapped and bumped it which I am pretty happy about. The 37s are clearing great even though I gained about an inch of uptravel over my old setup. There isnt too much else to say about it since most of this stuff is just me pending a ton of time testing and cycling stuff and just figuring out what will work best given the packaging I have to maintain and all of that. Time to start cracking on the front.

sheesh!! these are some Sicmods for sure

[rdruss]

If I could weld like you (or at all) I would reinforce every inch of my frame that I could get to as you have. With all the rust I have gotten out of the inside of my frame and the hole that I had patched I'm pretty sure the frame is about half what it was when new!

[Bad Luck]

I can only hit the like button once which is not nearly enough for the impressive fab work and design that you are putting into this!

[busmup808]

Originally Posted by Black798

Finally making enough progress that its worthwhile to post. Rear suspension is essentially done. There are a few more welds to make but it right there. Ended up at 12" of travel after I strapped and bumped it which I am pretty happy about. The 37s are clearing great even though I gained about an inch of uptravel over my old setup. There isnt too much else to say about it since most of this stuff is just me pending a ton of time testing and cycling stuff and just figuring out what will work best given the packaging I have to maintain and all of that. Time to start cracking on the front.

Very nice. I like how you have the shocks set up and how your 3 link is also set up. Well done brother.


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[Team_Jake]

Didn't realize you were SASing, now I'm following very closely. Excited to see everything coming together! Interested in more details on the cantilever setup.

[Black798]

I'm way behind on updates with this thing since I am scrambling so bad to get it finished. Trying to have the truck loaded up and on the road to Moab the second week in March so its a dash to the finish at this point.

A few weeks ago I went through and got the new crawlbox built and ready for install. I went with a new style crawlbox that Northwest Fabworks is making now called the eco crawler. It is based off the Toyota chain drive cases so finding donor parts is way easier than the old style Toyota gear driven stuff. It also is a more compact setup and should be stronger overall. Install was super easy and the machine work was top notch.

Donor case all ready to be split apart





Main shaft out


Planetary gears all pulled out. This is the only part needed from the donor case.


Front half of the crawl box assembled with the shift fork.


Rear half of the case ready for assembly. Northwest fab sends a new input shaft for the rear case so there's no need for any adapter plates or couplers between the cases.



Final assembled unit 6.5" longer than before and with double the low range. Just waiting on the shifters for it ship from NWF.



Updates on the front suspension coming soon, just need to upload the pictures.

[Black798]

Ok so front suspension. I dont have a ton of pictures of the build process of it because it was literally just weeks of cycling things, mocking up mounts, moving them around and repeating. I finally got everything situated where it needed to go though. Burned out all the brackets on the plasma table and here is were I ended up.

Couple of things to point out. The clearance on everything is TIGHT. I knew this front end would be a packaging nightmare, especially trying to fit the front swaybar but this was something I really wanted to incorporate as well as the hydro bumps. My finished axle width is 63" wide, narrower than what most do but I wanted the whole setup to look like Toyota intended for it to be there. Having the tires as close to flush with the flares as possible was key to this



Had to get a little funky with the drivers side sway bar arm to get it around the pitman arm and steering box.




Also had to really work to keep all the uptravel I could and have a low ride height. This took a couple of s bends in the tie rod and drag link. All I can say here is the rogue fab tube bender I bought last year kicks some serious ass. It made these bends a cake walk




After setting my steering stops where I knew the tires cleared and the birfs wouldnt bind I was coming up just shy of the 6" of tie rod stroke that the hydro ram I got needed. So I ended up tack welding a small dom spacer inside it to keep the ram from trying to over extend the knuckles. Ive never seen it happen to a Toyota knuckle but with the dana axles Ive seen quite a few knuckles get cracked from not doing this.



I also decided to make the switch from the "tried and true" 80 series tie rod end to a full chevy 1 ton steering setup. I figure the larger ball socket will make eveything last longer and just be that much more bullet proof.




I have everything blow back apart now for paint but Im getting dangerously close to actually driving this thing again. Driveshafts are out getting retubed and the front rcvs are the only thing left that I am waiting on parts wise. I am hoping in the next 4 weeks itll be on the road.

[cdrewferd]

Awesome progress!!! I've been eyeing that Eco Crawler box. Just waiting for them to get their triple stick ready to ship and then I'm going to order.

[Black798]

Its been a rough couple of weeks for this build since the last update. I have been fighting supply chain issues like crazy and found some pretty big issues that I am working through on the build.

First up was the driveshafts. The plan originally was to replace all the joints with 1310 series joints so the double cardans would be easier to service and a bit stronger than the Toyota stuff. But turns out all of that stuff is back logged out into June which doesn't work for me. This truck HAS to run and drive by march 12th... So now I am just getting the shafts retubed with whatever Toyota parts that the driveline shop could find. Those are thankfully done and I will be picking them up tomorrow.

Other huge supply chain issue I am dealing with is the front RCVs. I ordered these stupid things back in December with the guarantee from RCV that they would be here by the 23rd of this month. Long story short they're giving me the run around and the parts are a ways off. Solution there was to throw my checkbook at it and order shafts from trail gear as they have the capacity to get everything to me in time.

So with those two big issues I have been in full panic mode trying to get this thing together and find parts wherever I can and then to add insult to injury last weekend I went to bolt the rear tires on only to find out they were about half an inch shy of clearing the brake calipers.... After an afternoon of head scratching I finally figured out that trail ready shipped me 4.5" backspacing rims way back when I got them in September, they were supposed to be 4". I never thought to check and they hadn't been on the fully assembled axle until now. Thankfully they are being great about the whole deal and are rushing a set of rims out to me this week. This does also technically mean I set the front axle width 1" wider overall than it should have been but hopefully it doesnt make the tires stick out too far. Otherwise I may be redoing the front axle in a few months haha.

Setbacks aside the reassembly process has been going great. The rear suspension is all hung off the frame now, haltech ecu is installed along with the 650cc injectors, and the front suspension is about 90%together as well.

Now the part everyone actually wants to hear about, axle porn.
















At this point its up in the air if I make this trip on the 12th but I am doing everything I can to make it happen. Ive been steadily working on the truck every weekend and during the week some so at this point the supply chain will either make it or break it for me.