Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build

Alright, so starting off where I left. The key I found is leaving the uniball in the freezer for a long time (overnight) and then using a torch to heat the cup, I just used a propane torch and had it heat it for like 5 minutes and the uniball dropped in and didn't even need a tap with a hammer. I put some engine oil on the race to help slide it in but that wasn't even needed!

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The UCA is designed to match the loadings calculated for the LCA, and the heims are set half way out as default so each heim has about a half inch or more of workable adjustment in either direction.

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The upper arm went in fine and the spindle appears to be almost perfectly vertical as well as the hub being vertical at ride height, which obviously is ideal so no adjustment is needed to make it visually aligned.

Now, the good news and bad news: I am pulling 14" of workable travel. This is limited by the uniballs, I originally thought I would have 36 degrees of misalignment with the spacers but getting the new uniball kits I only get 32 degrees. I doubt the extra 4 would of made that much difference, but considering the CV has over 18" of workable travel it's disappointing. The good news is I am pulling at least, if not better, than all 4WD kits out there. I could pull more up travel if I went to a horizontal upper uniball (bolt horizontal) but it would require redesigning the UCA and analyzing the spindle mounts in that configuration. I will probably go to both upper and lower uniballs horizontal for the next iteration.

I then threw on a tire to see how it looked at full bump. Keep in mind this is a VERY worn down 31" tire that measures under 29" as of now, so for 35s which is my plan next add 3" to the top and bottom :eyebrows:

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One positive thing about my travel being limited at 14" is I have "plenty" of clearance at full bump. I was thinking originally I would be lucky to have 2" of clearance from the skid at full bump with 35s but that shouldn't be an issue now. You can tell I am using considerably more CV up travel than stock, which the CV barely goes above level at full bump.

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Next I cut up the inner fender more (get to that more in a bit) to stuff the shock in and figure out where to mount it and make sure it clears everything--which it did like a charm! :D (Obviously I won't have the reservoir just hanging there haha)

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You can see how the UCA uniball is binding at full droop, which the LCA uniball does at the same time too actually.

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I then took the coils off and compressed the shock to see where it would sit at full bump. I was surprised at first that I would be using the full travel of the shock considering I was expecting 18" of travel originally, though then I remember TC and Camburg use an 8" shock so 10" should work about the same depending on the mounting setup and that I might be pulling an inch or two more travel.

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Final picture, a peek into the engine bay. I originally had to cut the inner fender to clear the UCA, and keep cutting until it stopped hitting different spots. I then had to cut more to get the shock stuffed into the engine bay. I didn't get to it, but I will run a shock hoop around the UCA and into the engine bay. I'm not done cutting and will pretty it up, maybe try to cover up the cut in the inner fender so the engine bay will be more protected from stuff flying in...we'll see. For the record, the top of the picture is the exhaust manifold and the photo is taken from above the hub, threw me off for a second haha.

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Finally, I will have to trim my pinch weld and maybe more. At full bump with essentially any turning the tire hits and that's not even running a big tire... We'll see how that goes, I might have to run 33s instead of 35s if I can't clear enough until my second design comes out and moves the hub forward.

Also, I realized that there is a rubber seal on the hub that keeps dirt and stuff out of the area where the abs sensors are. I realized this is why my sensors always have so much shit on them and stop reading every few months, I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to replace or fix this rubber seal? I don't want to take apart my hubs yet and press all the shit in and out of them (and I don't have the money to replace the bearings and other stuff), so was wondering if this part can just pop out? I might just put some silicone in since I don't think it's a rotating interface, I think it just presses against the CV and spins with it... Anways, thanks for reading as always! Probably be a few days until anything big happens again since I'm pretty busy and will be having Cartzo welding up lots of stuff and getting the passenger side ready. :D Have a good weekend!
 
Thanks guys! :hatsoff: :D

So nothing too impressive today. Ordered two heims for my passenger side UCA, two heims to replace the outer tie rods (may eventually go to two heims per steering linkage), and then two uniballs for the passenger upper/lower arms. I need to buy a passenger side LBJ and convert it for the uniball, and then of course miscellaneous bolts and hardware for everything but otherwise the minimum stuff needed to make the truck driveable has been ordered!

There is a chance we will move houses this weekend or next, and I know the truck will be driving next week at a minimum but I'm gonna go hard once I get the remaining joints in and see if I can get the truck running this weekend so it won't need to be trailered. It'll be some long days, but should be doable. The steering is straight forward, and then the shock hoops may prove tricky to make sexy more than anything, otherwise I can just mirror the drivers side over and already know what I'm doing.

All I did today was clean up the spindle and tack on the reinforcement gusset, and then cut out the UCA tubes and tack them and tack the LCA together.

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Hopefully a week from now she's driving! Thanks for reading!
 
Looks good! How are you attaching the UCA's at the spindles?

My photo quality sucks but you can kind of see it in this photo. I cut a 1/2" thick slug out with a hole saw and slid it into the hole where the UBJ used to sit, it was then welded in and then for further strength had two 3/16" plates sandwich the slug and spindle. I bored a 3/4" hole through, and just ran a bolt through the uniball and bored hole with a nut on the bottom since the bolt was too long to squeeze past the spindle reinforcement gusset. The misalignment spacers offset the uniball enough that the cup and UCA don't contact the spindle at full travel or turn too. Obviously everything isn't torqued down and still needs some final welds, so everything with have lock washers eventually. It is similar to how Camburg/TC do it, however I didn't have the resources to machine a slug. I plan to do that in the future for a fancier kit or if we start making UCAs.

For the record a 3/4" bolt is way overkill, especially for the UCA which sees substantially lower loads than the LCA. With the loads given to me by the guy who used to build race trucks, and then a factor of safety of 1.25 the UCA is only laterally (front to back) loaded to 6000lbs which is only 14ksi in shear and the shear strength of a grade 8 bolt is 75ksi, I could of run a 3/8" grade 8 and still had plenty of stress to spare!

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My photo quality sucks but you can kind of see it in this photo. I cut a 1/2" thick slug out with a hole saw and slid it into the hole where the UBJ used to sit, it was then welded in and then for further strength had two 3/16" plates sandwich the slug and spindle. I bored a 3/4" hole through, and just ran a bolt through the uniball and bored hole with a nut on the bottom since the bolt was too long to squeeze past the spindle reinforcement gusset. The misalignment spacers offset the uniball enough that the cup and UCA don't contact the spindle at full travel or turn too. Obviously everything isn't torqued down and still needs some final welds, so everything with have lock washers eventually. It is similar to how Camburg/TC do it, however I didn't have the resources to machine a slug. I plan to do that in the future for a fancier kit or if we start making UCAs.

For the record a 3/4" bolt is way overkill, especially for the UCA which sees substantially lower loads than the LCA. With the loads given to me by the guy who used to build race trucks, and then a factor of safety of 1.25 the UCA is only laterally (front to back) loaded to 6000lbs which is only 14ksi in shear and the shear strength of a grade 8 bolt is 75ksi, I could of run a 3/8" grade 8 and still had plenty of stress to spare!

Thanks! I can already tell what my next project is going to be.
 
Holy shit man. I look away for 3 days and this happens! Good to see it all coming together. I remember you mentioning earlier you bought wheels/tires but the wheels didn't fit the center caps. What are you doing for the bigger wheels? Are you planning to run 35s at this point?
 
Are you gonna plate the frame?

It's not planned right now. The shock hoops will be mounted with angle iron to grab the frame and then possibly run a cross brace over/around the engine to each shock hoop. I might gusset the UCA mounts, but otherwise that's all for now.

Holy shit man. I look away for 3 days and this happens! Good to see it all coming together. I remember you mentioning earlier you bought wheels/tires but the wheels didn't fit the center caps. What are you doing for the bigger wheels? Are you planning to run 35s at this point?

Yea, I need new tires badly and plan are for 35s, I shouldn't have too much of clearance issues aside from the pinch weld. I want to go with some Trepadors but they're so expensive so I might go with MTRs. Either way, I need new rims since mine are bashed and want 17s to run Tundra brakes and definitely need new tires for the winter!

FR4R Hahaha boss post man!
 
Alright, quick late night post. In my attempt to study for an exam tomorrow I ended up working on the runner for a good 6 or so hours :rolleyes: Summation of this post, the pictures all look the same as the past week and it's more mocking up of the suspension.

The drivers side is all mocked up aside from extending the steering linkage. I'm not very happy about the shock geometry, the shock is angled back quite a bit which is a result of pushing the LCA shock mounts forward because the coils were too close for comfort to the CV boot. I spent a ton of time messing with shock hoop configurations; mounting on the side of the frame, on top of the frame, steep and shallow angles, inward or outward angling, on top of the stock shock tower, etc. and ended up having two tubes angling out from the top of the stock shock tower and going up 8". It looks a little weird, but I'm gonna gusset the frame to the tubes and I think in the end after I clean it up it'll look shnazzy.

The issue, for everything at this point, is the UCA. It bumps into the engine bay, which causes a lot of problems. I have yet to figure out how to mount everything IN the engine bay (though probably mount them on a plate on the shock tubes), but since the UCA bumps so high I would have to make the shock hoop really long since if the angled/vertical parts were anywhere near the UCA it would slam into them. Moving the mounts to be on a structure extending from the stock shower tower simplified everything a lot since then I didn't have to route around the UCAs region of travel. Though NOW I have an issue routing the reservoir and hose. It's not that big a deal since I can move stuff around, but the hose can't really go over the UCA since it'll get squished against the inner fender... yada yada, anyways, UCAs are annoying. By the way, I have chopped a ton of my inner fender for the shock and mounting it, and realized when I did a travel test before leaving the garage that the UCA is still hitting parts of the inner fender!!! :Cry:

Oh well, everything on the drivers side is now finessing it. Remember, the main goal is to get the truck driving and then after I know it works correctly I will go back and pretty everything up and route lines and electrical stuff and paint everything. Right now function is priority over form, until function happens.

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There's a ton of other stuff I figured out tonight but it's late. Hopefully tomorrow and throughout the weekend I'll have a lot more to post and write something actually interesting haha. Waiting on my stuff from Poly, once that gets here then the last hardware will have arrived and it's just a matter of putting it together. Thanks for reading and have a good Friday!

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Just finished reading the entire thread. Can't wait to see some more wheeling stories with the new Lt finished. Makes me want to take my 3rd gen out and take the old quarry pass even though I need better tires and a winch if wheeling alone. Maybe I'll go to work instead...lol awesome build thus far. Keep it up!
 
I just called Poly and my order of joints has yet to ship, apparently everything is sitting there except one of the heim kits is missing pieces... I ordered on Tuesday and got charged but never even got a receipt emailed or told that they didn't have the hardware. I asked for an ETA and they said the manager was out of the office getting ready for offroad expo and they couldn't say. So I have $300+ of joints sitting at Poly and they are all I need to get the truck running and there isn't even an ETA of when the parts will get shipped. Needless to say this pissed me off quite a bit at their lack of communication, and as per the norm now the truck running is further delayed. It's so annoying! I needed two uniballs and two heims for steering--that's it and I was certain the truck would be rolling for the first time in almost 2 months this Sunday! That dream came to a screeching halt :pout:

I'll post whatever else happens. In the meantime I'll get the passenger side fully setup so all that should need to be done is weld the uniballs in and then weld the heims in for the steering. Thanks for reading, have a good weekend dudes.
 
Do you recall what eibach springs you ordered and where from? I'm considering running those until I can get my hands on some fox 2.5's. Been wheeling 2-3 times a week since I got the 4runner and it hasn't even acted like it was close to being stuck a single time. Running 31×10.50's and wanting to move to at least 33's and eventually 35's on the IFS. Probably try to track down the bilstein's with the multiple spring seat settings like you had as well. I don't have anyone to go wheeling with out here so I generally try to keep things as mild as possible until I can self recover. This thread was an information overload at points!
 
What a let down right before the weekend. Is Cartzo in the same boat?

More or less, his still has a lot of design and testing to do but he can't really move forward until he gets his uniballs...which our order was combined so we're both screwed :Cry:

Do you recall what eibach springs you ordered and where from? I'm considering running those until I can get my hands on some fox 2.5's. Been wheeling 2-3 times a week since I got the 4runner and it hasn't even acted like it was close to being stuck a single time. Running 31×10.50's and wanting to move to at least 33's and eventually 35's on the IFS. Probably try to track down the bilstein's with the multiple spring seat settings like you had as well. I don't have anyone to go wheeling with out here so I generally try to keep things as mild as possible until I can self recover. This thread was an information overload at points!

I'm glad you got some use from it! Sometimes I wonder if anyone learns anything from what I post haha. I got the Eibachs from Toytec and they are their silver 620lb/in springs and ran $163 as I recall, the Bilsteins are the Tundra 5100s which I got from Downsouth Motorsports. I think the front 5100s are like $260 and the full set front and back is like $360. And all I can say for wheeling alone is be careful! People say you shouldn't, but I do since like you said sometimes people don't want to go. I have always had a sleeping bag with me, since at some point no amount of self recovery gear will get you out and you need to be able to survive. And if you can invest in a winch, that's by far the single best thing I've ever done (or my dad before me that is). Be safe and be smart and be prepared for the worst! If you have any other questions let me know :D
 
Thanks man! I usually have a few survival based things on my person at all times. When the weather is cold I have always stowed gear in whatever I am driving g at the time to ensure that I won't freeze to death. Now I can expound on my every day carry bag as I have much more storage room in this rig!
 

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