Now that i've had a little time to rest up from an eventful weekend I wanted to drop a few insights from the swap thus far..
This is definitely a very sizeable project. Unless you have a full shop with a lift and a ton of free time to dedicate to this, dont plan to knock this out in a weekend. I certainly didn't even come close. And that doesn't even include the couple of hours I spent earlier getting the custom outer tie rods fabricated.
Granted I was also in the process of doing the total chaos cam tabs, I still don't see a way to have gotten this done much quicker, and not to mention, I think these are a perfect combination of projects to tackle together.
Another note is that I just don't see an easy way (if at all) to work on this rack swap without dropping the diff.. just pull the diff if you're going to do it, I feel like it will save you time and frustration. It's literally 7 bolts and 2 axles, which pretty much have to come out any way.. so yea.. just do it lol.
Not having the lower control arms hanging down also was a huge help. The only thing that remained on the rig were the uppers.
The motor mounts were a lot tougher to do then I expected.. it's a super tight fit to get the up and out of the rig. I also absolutely despise the engineer that came up with this moronic design of having to remove the motor brackets to take out the mount, but hey, it's done now lol. Definitely do NOT tack weld the 1/4" spacers to the mounts. It will make your life hell trying to get that in like that. They are super easy to get into place after.
Also, I found that I need to lift the motor back up in order to manipulate the rack in and out (like 10 times during the hole process) so don't crank down on them until you're all done.
To initially get the rack in, what I did was come in from under the subframe, got the passenger side tie-rod into the opening and muscled it as far as I could while turning it slightly to clear the hoses and mount to a point where I could get the drivers side tie rod up and into the opening as well. Once the rack was in, I didn't have to fully remove it to do what I needed. Pulling it as far out to the passenger side gave me sufficient room to do all the cutting and grinding to get it where it needed to be.
Centering and squaring up the rack in the subframe was surprisingly not all that difficult to do. I first found out that the rack itself was slightly turned out to the left, and the best way I found to square it up was to remove the boot and just measure from the rack face out to the inner face of the inner tierod.
Once I got the tie rods evened out on both sides I just picked 2 places on the subframe to measure from to the rack and make small adjustments in the offset bushing. I ended up with the rack being 4" back from the front face of the subframe to the center of the tie rod ball joint, and I think something like 7 3/8" diagonally from the top of the subframe to the tip of the threaded inner tie rod end. Both sides were within 1/16" of each other so I'd say it's pretty close... (if the subframe is truly all square lol, if not I may be all sorts of messed up but certainly looks close).
Because of the way the offset bushing moves the rack (both front/back and left/right) as it spins, there really isn't ALL that much wiggle room you have to shift it forward of backwards if you want it squared up. I got it as far forward as I could manage while keeping the measurements somewhat even. If you are looking at the rack from the front/top, my offset bushing position is some where around 1-2 o'clock. I have not verified if it hits the coils any, but honestly.. there's not much I can do if it does.. there is some adjustment, but not a ton so I guess fingers crossed on that.. I ended up shaving a bit of the subframe under the drivers side rack mount to allow it to sit lower into the frame, definitely didn't take much, and there is a little interference still, but I'm just doing to leave it as is, I don't see it hurting anything. The rack should be torqued down quite a bit and not move any so I don't see it causing any noises or vibrating itself into trouble.
after I got the position where I wanted (after moving the rack in and out quite a few times, I got really quick at it by the end), I roughly marked the passenger side mount position and went to town with the drill. I ended up being off slightly with my position, but because the reinforcement tube I am using was larger than the bolt but a bit I was able to make it work. I cut the tube to bottom out against the top of the subframe and welded it with the plate to the bottom. I don't have it welded at the top, it is just snug against the inside face and can't go anywhere and will do the job of not allowing the subframe to crush as I tighten the mounting bolt. I feel like having a larger plate to weld is a must to help distribute some of the force even more and give you some wiggle room if you miss your mark on the exact centerline of the rack mount.
Next up, and the only BIG project left, is to make the steering shaft work.. I felt pretty terrible about cutting up a brand new, not so cheap, shaft... but I think it was still worth the money, especially since I have to make it custom and having new U-joints should help it last longer over the 150k miles factory one. I'm keeping it just in case I screw up and need to do something different.
The u-joint near the rack literally sits against the motor mount, no way of making it work unless maybe you made a completely custom double cardan joint to sweep around the mount.. I don't have that ability so I resorted to the cutting wheel.. a plasma torch would have been quicker, but something about laying under molten metal and not seeing what you're potentially torching on the motor on the opposite end steered me away from that option (no pun intended
).
I found some pictures of the modified shaft on the FJ cruiser forums, and it basically cut down the spline tube as short as possible on one end to move the u-joint closer to the rack and away from the motor mount, and also cut out the larger diameter ribbed steering shaft and replaced it with a smooth tube (that seems to be approximately 1" OD. I have a 12" long piece of 1" OD, .12"side wall tubing coming from McMaster later today or tomorrow and am planning on welding that in place. I don't yet know if I need to shorten or lengthen it at all, so one step at a time I guess.
I'll also need to figure out how to reinforce the motor mount again after I fit the shaft. One thing I am a bit concerned about is how much the body flexes over the frame when fully articulated. I don't have a way to simulate that .. so I can't test to make sure I have sufficient clearance on the steering shaft.. so I guess time will tell.
and for the last chapter in my overly long, none-picture book, goes to modifying the spindle. You definitely want a corded drill at the least.. better yet.. if you have a way to get these on a drill press you'll be a happy camper. My corded drill with a 3/4" drill bit did the job, definitely Low Speed and Lots and Lots of Feed was the trick, along with a tone of cutting oil. You want a nice sharp bit for this. The issue with doing this by hand is that if you're not careful your bit will wobble on you and slightly oversize your hole. If it's too larger the bolt will have slop.. luckily for me it looks like it should be fine, but certainly is a hair over 3/4" for sure.. maybe better to have done it with an undersized bit to see if I could get the clearance that way so I have an 18.5mm drill bit from amazon on the way.
So yea... that's where I am..
