Okay, so last febuary, I bought my friends 97 4runner, sr5. Immidiatly, fell in love. The bad part, 2wd. Well, over the past year, i've been doin nothing but research, well, im doing a 4wd conversion, along with a sas. Alot of people might say im biting off a bit more then I can chew, and maybe I have, but we'll see. I got the tranny, crossmember, front n rear drive shaft, along with the front axle( a dana 44) from a jeep. Spent 500$ so far. Shocker right? Well, now im saving for a new set of leaf springs, and shocks. Still going bi-weekly to my local junkyards for other micellenous parts that I need. So stay posted, any input would be meet with appreication,and constructive critism. Thanks. Pics coming soon!
Complete conversion
- Thread starter 501runner
- Start date
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SO I had planned on doing a SAS and 4WD conversion once I had all the pieces. I don't have everything I need yet, but I have started on the conversion. and due to lower ball joint failure is why I started the conversion. why spend money on alot of ifs parts when I can just dump it into the conversion.
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In day one I started stripping everything down. took out all of the ifs system. cut the crossmembers out and dropped the transmission. I do wish I had taken more pictures. I'm going to try and put them in order. from the moment of lower ball joint failure and as I work through this conversion.
Picture one; my roomate(white shirt) took the car up the street where he called me because something was wrong with the 4runner. when I came up, this is what I saw.
Picture one; my roomate(white shirt) took the car up the street where he called me because something was wrong with the 4runner. when I came up, this is what I saw.
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I have to main parts of my conversion figured out. Put in the 4wd tranny, which I got from a pick -a-part for $336. A 81 wagoneer axle, which I believe is a dana 44, but it looks to have been modified, like the panhard brackets have been cut out, and the differential cover is also different from what I keep seeing as what should be the original differential cover, but anyways, I picked that up from caliper to caliper for $166. a ifs steering box out of a 2nd gen 4runner for $46. I picked up a set of 4 leaf springs to go all the way around the 4runner for $100. the set is a six inch lift springs for a 1st gen 4runner.
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Its been a while. Haha. I left the state soon after I started working on it. I just moved back and have a fire underneath me to finish my baby. I've been back a month and have it almost together. I'm fine tuni g the front end and finishing off the welding right now. My aim is to get it as low as possible. To my measurements right now are going to put the front end to 23 1/2from under the doors. I ordered the sky mfg french shackle hangar with off set shackles and didn't end up using the hangars because I didn't need them. And I fabricated my own front crossmemeber to sit flush with the frame. Also for the rear axle I plan on going spring under. For the stability lower cog. I also plan on running the bilsteins 5125s. 14 travel for the front 10 travel for the back. After I finish fine tuning cycling the suspension next is to mount those bad boys.
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txbonds
Senior Member
Looks like it's coming along nicely. I keep wondering if I should have just sas'd mine but it will be a while before I could go that way now that I've redone my ifs.
The thing I can't figure out is how you are able to move the thing around once you have the wheels and ifs all cut off. From the pictures it looks like it is in a few different positions. Do you just use multiple floor jacks or is there another trick?
Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see the SAS done.
The thing I can't figure out is how you are able to move the thing around once you have the wheels and ifs all cut off. From the pictures it looks like it is in a few different positions. Do you just use multiple floor jacks or is there another trick?
Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see the SAS done.
KidVermicious
New member
Leafs are cheap and easy - relatively, anyway. DOM for links costs money and figuring your link locations is not the sort of thing your average driveway monkey has the ability to do. By comparison, leaf packs are easily scrounged for free or at least dirt cheap, and they're pretty hard to screw up when you're setting them up.
Not that I'm calling the OP an "average driveway monkey". There's lots of valid reasons to use leaves, too.
MStudt
official vendor
I was figuring that cost would be a major contributor.
Haha. It actually had to be moved from where I had it before. That was a pita. Its still a pita. I have the wheels under it so I can push it around my driveway to get it out of my family's way when they wanna park their cars in the garage. So now its good ol fashioned elbow grease.
Definately a costing factor. I picked up all four 1st gen 4runner 6inch lift springs for 100 that was probai some of the first few parts I started stock piling and I decided to build off those. But believe me, I wish I had the money to afford those sweet fox coilovers.
