Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build

[MStudt]

I don't mind advice or suggestions, but you come off as an ******* and have yet to provide any valuable advice. Where did you get your engineering degree from? And what was your function on the team?

Don't mind him, he's special.

You've seen issues along the way and have adjusted them accordingly. I don't think it's a matter of functionality, but more so a preference on way things "should" be done. Everybody is going to have an opinion. The only thing I would improve on this far would be all the butt welded joints. However, you can only work with what you have access to. Butt welds are strong, but they can crack in high stress situations so pay attention to them. More so your uppers since the lowers are plated. Down the road if you decide to redo anything and need some tubing bent let me know. I can't wait to see this on the road!

 

[snivilous]

Been really busy this past weekend moving. We started moving Friday, and I got the truck running Friday night and made a bunch of trips on the brand new suspension hauling stuff back and forth.

I'm thinking of removing the 50" bar, I was never a big fan of how wide it is nor the blinding effect it causes, and I think it's even worse looking with how wide the front is and then this giant bar on top like an hourglass shape. I'm also thinking of removing the 4Runner from the grille and maybe going with a stock 4Runner emblem on it, there's too much clutter in the grille right now I think. And then, not that I can afford it, but I want to get one of the Whitson Metalworks roof racks and put another 40" bar like I used to have on it. I want to streamline the truck and make it look sexier and sleeker. And then I've been on the lookout for new fenders to help me stuff a not bald/bigger tire and that look cleaner but that's even further down the road.

During the moving trips I thought my alternator went out, so once everything was moved I got to work on that. Went to O'Reilly and replaced it, then dropped it in and no bueno (lifetime warranty so it was free). I took out the wiring diagrams and tested the alternator and plugs and went through the fuses, turned out the plug for the alternator wasn't registering anything. I went through the wiring bundle for it and it turned out the wires had been sliced for the plug--presumably when I was cutting through the inner fender. Fixed that, and then checked everything and pulled the primary gas line since it was nicked too. I also bought a valve cover gasket kit which I'll replace tonight or tomorrow to fix my leak. And then finally I've found some more ways of aligning the front end myself so I'll do that once everything else is fixed and she's rolling again. And finally a picture of this boss sticker my girlfriend got me

 

[snivilous]

Replaced the valve cover gaskets today, they had some gnarly leaking going on which was a result of majority of the bolts not even being hand tight.

Nothing exciting, certainly a pain in the ass trying to get all the hoses and wires out of the way. Both sides looked pretty clean which I was surprised at

And then I was going to replace the messed up gas line but the guy at O'Reilly gave me a line with the wrong end fittings, hopefully get that sorted tomorrow and then she'll be running again and just need to align the front end. I'm driving back to CO for thanksgiving on the 21st so I have three weeks to get the truck running for a 1000+ mile round trip, which will be the first major test of the suspension. I plan to have the front end bumped and strapped by then and hopefully new(er) tires by then, and have everything painted and prettied up cosmetically. Getting there one step at a time!

 

[shootmymime]

I have three weeks to get the truck running for a 1000+ mile round trip, which will be the first major test of the suspension.

Then he will be coming to go snow wheeling in rexburg! :boxing:

 

[t4r4life]

Those valve cover bolts are always loose on 3rd gens, 10/10 times.

 

[t4r4life]

Also i'd be interested in those 4runner letters, pink 4runner letter on my grill would be FABULOUS!

 

[shootmymime]

Pink 4runner letter on my grill would be FABULOUS!

ummm ound: but what ever you want :tea:

 

[snivilous]

Working through all the bugs... I got the fuel line fixed after boring out the stock end fittings and adapting them to the new fuel line since O'Reilly didn't have any lines with threaded parts that would work. After that my alternator fuse blew since some part of the hot wire going out of the alternator touched my shock/UCA mount which is next to the alternator when I hit a bump. The weird thing was my gauge and console all turned off but the truck kept running, and then wouldn't start once I turned it off. I solved that by just pressing the remaining parts of the fuse back together to get home. I then replaced the alternator fuse which requires taking the fuse box apart which is a *****, and then an 8mm and 10mm fastener holds the fuse in. Fixed that and then aligned the front ends toe better so it at least doesn't squeal driving around. Another weird thing I noticed getting dinner tonight is that if I hit a bump sometimes the suspension seems to droop a bit but then not splay back out, since at full droop the suspension moves a couple inches in due to the motion arc of the A arms. I couldn't figure out what was happening and the truck felt weird, and then I tapped on the brakes to pull over and this weird sluggish feeling happened which I thought were the brakes not working... I later realized when it happened again that it was the truck leveling out. At first I was concerned with all of this, but not really worrying now since I think it's because my shocks aren't valved correctly at all so the suspension won't compress for a bump and just push the whole truck up and then the tires have enough grip on the road so they won't push back out to normal height--versus if the suspension compressed for a bump it would splay out and then try to push itself back up, just an idea though... Still lots of stuff to sort through, one step at a time! :ballchain: Here's some pictures I grabbed today too

 

[4Running Daily]

Dat Camber

 

[K2Runner]

Looking good! Very impressive, any videos in action soon?

 

[snivilous]

Dat Camber

One step at a time! I'm getting there! :roadkill:

Looking good! Very impressive, any videos in action soon?

Thanks Probably like Decemberish, it still has a long way to go before I start putting it through its paces

 

[snivilous]

So I moved again, had roommate issues so got the hell out of dodge! Needless to say I haven't worked on the truck. List of current issues that I'll check off as I go:

-Transfer case front output seal blown
-Still leaking oil from somewhere
-Torn inner CV boot
-Alignment still off
-Replace front O2 sensor
-Temperature gauge isn't reading so need to get to the sensor by pulling the intake manifold again
-Shocks are valved way too stiff. .015s on comp and 0.012s on rebound as I recall, will drop it to 0.010s comp and 0.008s rebound
-Spring rate is still off
-Weird driving issues where the suspension will droop out and not splay back out so the front end will act like it has a 8" lift
-Rear link bushings are messed up
-Wouldn't hurt to replace U-joints
-Rear axle seals blown
-Rear drums are soaked
-At a minimum rear passenger shock is blown or almost there, drivers is probably following
-Front skid plate needs to be rebuilt and need to weld new mounts in
-Need further reinforcement on the shock towers before I'm comfortable going fast offroad
-Need 14" limit straps
-Need 2" stroke hydro bumps (lower priority due to the 10+ inches of up travel I have from ride height)
-Want to lengthen one of the spindle/LCA 3/4" bolts to be safe
-Need to add a windshield wiper fluid reservoir somewhere
-Need to put my winch control box back in somewhere
-Want to grind and weld the slider mounts to be safe now that my welding ability has increased
-Sand blast front (and rear probably) bumpers
-Mass tamper on transfer case got hit and needs to be bent back
-LCA bushings need to be greased
-When I get home I'll sand blast the whole front suspension and paint it
-Add fuse box for my lights and accessories to declutter everything
-Fiberglass my center console where my light switches are
-Aim headlights
-Replace passenger corner light and bulb
-Get Hi-lift cover so it won't ice up like I had issues with last year
-Need new rims
-Need new tires
-Install grille/rock lights I have

None of these are MAJOR issues, primarily I need to correct the alignment which I'll do today and then she'll be ready to drive to CO a week from Friday. Since I'm going through the truck upgrading and fixing things I'm just finding a lot of stuff that's a coincidence it failed, like the O2 sensor going out and the transfer case seal, etc. By the end of the year hopefully the truck is in tip top condition again! The hard part of the suspension is done and now it's just going through the list on mostly cheap things.

I'm also debating on what I want to do with paint, as of now I'm thinking I will remove the 50" bar and put a full length rack with a 40" bar on that and have it be all black. Then black out my rims (or get blacked out rims since these are bent to hell) and white out the rear fender flares... We'll see.

 

[snivilous]

So I've been having lots of issues. To start, I had a P0125 and P1130 which everyone points to being the front O2 sensor. Order a replacement Denso sensor off Amazon and swap it in and it doesn't fix anything, same codes thrown again 2 miles down the road. So I figure I'll start with fixing my temperature gauge which had stopped working since I did the valve cover gaskets. I take the manifold off and spend an hour looking around for the temperature sender, I find tons of threads with diagrams but no one has a picture or can say where it actually is. FINALLY find it at the back of the block, slightly on the drivers side underneath the plastic electrical bundle and under a vacuum line. Plug the sender back in and that fixes that. So now I know the coolant is at least at the right level. Back to the CEL, I try heating the engine up then resetting the computer and restarting it which I had read the O2 sensor might have a slow boot the first time so that would be required...no luck. As of now I've blown the MAF out with cleaner and reset the computer, so far no code but I haven't driven it anywhere.

What's weird is it blows the codes a few miles down the road, even though the P0125 means the engine doesn't go into a closed loop operation or whatever in the first 140 seconds of starting...so that doesn't trigger it, and the engine is warm, and the thermostat seems to be operating right, and the O2 sensor is new, and it keeps throwing the same code that the O2 sensor is bad and insufficient coolant temperature. So not sure what's up, [MENTION=14772]shootmymime[/MENTION] thinks I might of gotten a faulty replacement sensor which I doubt but there's something I'm missing...

Moving on, I adjusted the camber on the tires all the way out. I made spacers for the joints if I needed more adjustment range but they seem good right now at the ride height I'm using. I also spent a lot of time today getting the toe correct, I drove around a parking lot for an hour adjusting it by feel. I have this issue where the front end will droop out while driving, you can literally feel and see the hood rise up like 4 inches as it droops out. I figured out what it is, which my dad had already pointed out but for some reason I never paid much attention to how big a deal this was, but my bump steer is backwards of what it should be. At full droop the tires toe in, so they are pushing together and keeping the nose up while at full bump they toe out pulling apart and keeping it down... What it should be is at full bump they toe out and try to pull the suspension back down to ride height, and compress back together at full bump to push it back to ride height. Obviously no bump steer is preferable, but mine is as bad as it can get. If I'm in 4WD it's super bad since the front end always wants to be in the air, presumably since the CVs are pulling. Also if I accelerate very fast the nose will come up since it'll droop out enough that the toe change will push the tires together and push it all the way up until I slam on the brakes to compress it down and splay the suspension out.

To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure my heims on my steering linkage are cold welded together. As I recall from before, if I flip the steering linkage to the top of the knuckle (now it's mounted to the bottom) then the bump steer direction will flip, but I need to shorten the steering linkage. I have adjustment from the stock inner tie rod and then the heim, but I need to shorten both sides to get it short enough. After soaking the heim threads in PB blaster and then heating it with the propane torch for 5 minutes and using a 4 foot breaker and I couldn't get the heim to budge at all. There's no rust on the linkage, and the joints are obviously brand new and threaded in wicked easy originally. After talking to my dad he said it's common for stainless to cold weld, which I'm pretty sure my heims are stainless and is the only plausible conclusion I've come to as to why my joint is seized (I didn't check the other side, but it wouldn't matter now since I can't flip one steering knuckle). So for now, my alignment is good as long as I can keep the nose from acting like it has an 8" lift and I'll try to fix my bump steer when I get home and can burn out the heims.

It's also tons easier to work on the truck with the fenders off so I took them off yesterday and left them off driving around since it takes like 10 seconds to adjust the toe then. Looks gnarly with the rusty suspension but also kinda cool since everything is so visible. When I get home I'm gonna throw all the A-arms and spindle and stuff in our sand blaster and clean them up and paint them. So yea... LT problems... I also realized I've never seen an LT suspension in person and somehow got the idea to design one from scratch. All lessons learned though, just stuff to fix for the next iteration and knowledge to apply down the road.

 

[snivilous]

I figured out how to fix my bump steer (or droop steer that is), I added a 1/2" spacer between my steering heim and the steering knuckle so the steering linkage angle is more extreme at droop. Because the angle is steeper, the horizontal distance is shorter pulling the steering in--which because we have rear mounted racks makes the tire toe out which is what I wanted. Realistically the toe doesn't seem to change at all between ride height and droop, and this has completely fixed the front end riding high in both 2WD and 4WD. Additionally my alignment is correct now so the front end feels amazing. The rear suspension is very evidently in bad shape but the LT feels more solid than it did stock as far as steering and feel is concerned, still not valved or sprung correctly but that's down the road. So plan remains to head to CO on Friday!

Additionally since the truck is now fairly consistent at staying at ride height I pulled the camber out on both sides and it seems pretty good now. The truck still has a change in the front ends camber as the wheel cycles, which is evident if I slam the brakes and get out versus just roll to a stop. In the following picture the passenger tire looks like the camber is off, though when it's actually driving it's correct.

Gonna try to fix the CEL today, which is the last thing I want done before I head home since I think it's killing my mileage.

And here is "snivilous" in it's lazy natural habitat

 

[MStudt]

With trying to get your heims loose. After you heat them up with a torch rub a candle on the exposed thread right as the enter they tube adapter. The heat will draw the wax in, and should break them loose. I have yet to find a bolt/joint that didn't work on.

 

[snivilous]

With trying to get your heims loose. After you heat them up with a torch rub a candle on the exposed thread right as the enter they tube adapter. The heat will draw the wax in, and should break them loose. I have yet to find a bolt/joint that didn't work on.

Sweet, I'll definitely try that!

 

[snivilous]

So last week I drove back home to Colorado. The truck ran pretty well though I had the issue of the rear end moving around for some reason when the truck would shift and the torque through the driveshaft would change. Also had an issue a few times where the truck would almost die from the alternator sparking on something, but the fuse never actually blew. That only happened once I got to the city and was almost home. I didn't start working on the truck until yesterday. I was planning on taking the front end apart and sanding and painting it, but since I leave tomorrow I held off and just sprayed some rust converter on to hold it over for the week and a half until I head home after finals. So my dad and I swapped the FJ40s tires on since mine were so bald, some 33x9.50 with the old land cruiser rims. It looks kinda retarded with the tall skinny tires, but it's a vast improvement over my previous bald tires and the truck sits 2" higher now... it'll seem crazy high once I go to 35s.

I also found that my drivers side rear upper link was broken, which last time I broke the passenger link. This explains the axle shifting--I had checked out the links before when I was looking for the issue but everything was lined up, I just didn't look thoroughly enough to see it was broken at the bushing.

So fixed that, needless to say I definitely need beefier links since this is my second link I've broken now. I was then going to clearance the shock hoop on the drivers side for the alternator, though that was gonna be a pain and once I thought about it we just bought a shorter alternator belt to pull the alternator away from the shock.

After doing that and topping the fluids off I took the girlfriend for a ride and we cruised Switzerland trail, not really offroading by any means but we searched for some cool photos while making sure the truck ran fine. Even though it was essentially a dirt road, there were some consecutive dips from puddles which in the past I would of easily bottomed out the front in if I was going with much speed at all though this time having 10" of up travel I could hit the dips and the truck would just sink in and not get close to bottoming out and feel super smooth which is sweet. It feels weird to have the truck (at least the front suspension) at the point again where my skill limits how fast and hard I can go, where as for a long time my ability surpassed the trucks capabilities. It's cool to know that I can hit things faster and push the truck further with the limit being how comfortable I am, and not how soon will I break something.

I'm driving back to Utah tomorrow, then coming back home after finals in a week and half. In the mean time here are some photos we took

 

[snivilous]

Same rock I took pictures on before school last year.

The suspension, obviously lacking cosmetically still.

 

[t4r92]

Seriously envious of your abilities that have allowed you to progress your truck to this state. Can't wait to see the improvements you'll be making in the future. Keep up the great work. I'm driving a completely stock 4Runner at the moment, and it is paid for, but once I get my house all settled, it'll start taking on another look for sure! We don't have much in the way of LT setups out here in south central Kentucky, so I'd like to have the first one!

 

[snivilous]

Thanks [MENTION=51495]t4r92[/MENTION]

So yesterday [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and I started putting the suspension through its paces, still nowhere near its full potential but I pushed the truck further than I have before and it did great! It's a massive improvement over stock, if I tried hitting the bumps at the speeds I did yesterday there would of been serious damage and it would of been an insanely rough and back breaking ride (I know since I've bottomed out the suspension going much slower over the same bumps in the past).

Obviously the suspension still isn't tuned correctly, but a few times I got the tires to stuff enough where they were contacting the wheel well though I still didn't use more than maybe 70% of my suspension travel. Numerous times I had the suspension fully droop out, and it felt like the whole truck got off the ground and the front was amazingly smooth on the landing. The back end is still rough, the compression is too high and the rebound is too soft. I think I'll try to get some 12" remote resi rear shocks just to hold me over until I can relink it.

I can't express enough how amazing the truck felt though! I've never hit anything so rough or fast, and there's lots of room for improvement but the LT is such a massive improvement over stock!! I had thought the front was valved too stiff, but after last night I kinda like where it's at. I really need bypasses, but even though it feels rough on the road now I love that I can hit a bump offroad and not worry that I'm over doing it since it's valved stiff enough that it'll take a lot of effort to bottom the suspension. Obviously I don't have bump stops yet either, so I'll probably back the valving down a little once I get bump stops. Like I said, I really need bypasses to make it nice on road and over small bumps but still let me hit a jump without worrying about hurting the truck.

Anyways, just figured I would tell everyone that the LT we made functions exactly how I wanted even when it's far from done! Finals are this week and then I'll be going back to CO next Friday and will be working on the truck again.