02 Tacoma doublecab 3-Link on FJ80 axles

Made some mounts for the tranny cooler today and checked clearance behind the grille.



my paint looks like hammered dogshit, I found this cool color from rustoleum called nutmeg. its pretty close to sandstorm just a little more brown.

[/url

 

Sub'd to see how this goes. Ordered my 4wu links last week, need to get my crawler box in first and finish building my axle.

 

Sorry if you’ve already touched on this but do you have all your manual hub ifs setup still? By the looks of your truck, I’d imagine it’s all in pretty good shape. I’ll buy it. Nice build btw.

 

@03yodaor it's all in good shape and I even have a spare hub, Its still on the truck right now, should be off in the next couple weeks. Ill let you know when I get it all off and a price for everything.

 

Appreciate that a lot man. Im trying to retain my abs so I really only need/want the aisin hubs and cvs but if you want to clear out everything in one sale I'll just take it all. Please keep me posted. Thanks man

 

yesterday I got a wild hare to build the rear axle. I rebuilt the parking brake setups and put some new shoes in while I was at it.




Everything went together just as easy as I took it apart. The full float is a super simple axle to work with.



One of the bearing races had some wear marks out of the box, I ran my finger over them and didnt notice any issues. Just going to run it, I packed the bearings really good with synthetic grease in a bearing packer



Nice part about the rear axle is it shares the same bearings as the front axle hubs and also the 79-85 hilux/4runner front axle hubs as well.





I left the 3rd out so I could still move the housing around if need be.

 

Wyatt is shooting for a 2/19 start date. Since I already had My parts accumulated and hes had a lot of the parts to get started started on in advance of getting the truck, he's estimating a week build time with me helping. I feel he's more than capable of that however I wont hold him to it since it was never a part of the build plan. I was incredibly happy to hear that. Ended up going 37's because I found a killer deal and I had plans to later go to that size anyway. I have 295's on right now and rather than have the links setup and placed for basically a 34" it made more sense to size up. Even moving the axle as far forward as steering box placement will allow I know I'm going to have clearance issues, we'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

 

A week?

Well...I guess you can cut all the IFS crap off and map out your link locations relatively quickly. But a finished product...meaning; with all the steering figured out and everything else dialed in so that you can drive it home...a week seems like a big stretch.

 

@1999RegCab well he said a "long week". Even if it took 6 weeks I would still be fine with that. I'm in no hurry, I would like to get a couple shakedown runs in before the fall when I head to the Sierra's but that's about it. 4wdtoyotaowner did an article a couple years ago about swapping a tacoma with leaf springs in a single weekend. I know links are way more complicated but I think it would be interesting for someone to try something similar.

 

For what it's worth, my 3 link swap took 2.5 months... 21 months to tinker and dial in.

6 weeks is very doable.

Good luck.

 

The tinkering part is what takes forever!

 

Yes it does, especially if you want the end result correct as it should be.

Good luck OP.

 

Awesome build so far! I was able to cut out and install 95% of what was needed for my sas, in 4 days but took 4 months to tune and finish all of the loose ends. Just don’t get hung up on time and keep a good attitude.

 

MONDAY 2/19 DAY 1 at RST
Needed to put some gas in the truck as it has been sitting and I wanted Wyatt to be able to drive it around if need be. The previous owner gave me this rad pneumatic gas pump setup, You use a rothco style GI gas can, and the screw on part has a shrader valve. I've used it a bunch of times, its so much better than trying to lift a full gas can with a crappy california CARB spout that leaks everywhere.


My buddy that was supposed to trailer my rig down to RST fell through so wyatt was cool enough to come get it. Moving a fully built fj80 axle was a huge pain in the ass. Finally made it down



we played tetris with some trucks to move mine in, there are some badass rigs in their shop. We got started right away. Me and one of his guys pulled all the bolt on stuff off in about and hour, then I cleaned the frame in prep for the plasma cutting.



Wyatt made pretty quick work of the coil buckets and stuff on the frame with the plasma. Even though we left my all-pro bumper on to act as a rigid support, we decided to leave part of the steering rack bracket to support the frame and keep it torsionally rigid until with added a brace to the front.



Casey started in on forming the frame stiffener plates to match the contour of the frame and tacking them up. He has a 9 to 5 job as a welder so hes got miles of bead under his belt. He got the top and the holes all done before we had to call it quits for the night. the bottom tie in was going to take awhile and we didn't want to put too much heat into the frame.



Couldn't say enough good things about the guys and they have an awesome work ethic. Being the owner one would think that Wyatt would be the conductor of the symphony but he's getting dirty and smashing fingers just like the rest of us. The man is a perfectionist.

 

Good to see this taking off, looking forward to the progress!

 

Whatever you guys do, don't go off lcengeneering's oil pan swap list because the part number for the pickup strainer is the wrong one(the number they list is for the stock one that's already in there). We spent a couple hours trying to sort through 4 different part #'s. Good stuff today, pics to follow .

 

Thursday:

Pulled the inspection plate on the trans to get to the back couple bolts on the oil pan. There were no cracks on the flywheel so that was a plus.


The oil pan came off relatively easy, once I got all the bolts out its was just a matter of getting a thing bladed screw driver in there and breaking the FIPG seal. I got the old pan off and realized that the strainer I ordered was the same one that was already in there. I used the part number off of lcengineering's website. I just ordered everything seperatly on a toyota parts wholesaler, I saved about 100$ off of a kit price, Now I'm stuck with a strainer I don't need.



Luckily I didn't find so much as a speck of metal in the old pan which to me is pretty impressive considering I have 145k mi on my motor. There was a couple hairs in the strainer grill, not sure how they got there but no biggie.

I drilled the holes for the steering box, the front most bolt on the mount is very close to the radiator. I had to trim some of the mounting bracket and the fan shroud to be able to get to the nut. Casey came in and we finished welding up the drivers side reinforcement plate. we also finished the sleeves for the bolt holes.





Its crazy that he could work all day, come in and still run the beads that he does. We got out of the shop about 8pm.

 

Friday:

I didnt go down to the shop on friday, It was my birthday this weekend so I took those days off. Wyatt did send me a picture of them getting the lower link bracket in it's place.

[/url]

 

What springs are you going to run in the rear?

 

@Broke Okie Ty haven't decided yet, I have a 7 leaf deaver pack with a tacoma main leaf. We need to finish the front so we know what the ride height will be. We're shooting for a 23-24" frame height on 37's. There rear axle is already in and ready to go, only thing we have left to do is make a hardline. I'm planning on getting rid of the bed and building a ute style tray, or I have something else in but I'm not sure it's possible and I don' want to ruin the surprise. Need to find out my total weight capacity then have it sprung accordingly. The full float fj80 axle is a 1/2 ton, my frame is reinforced on the outside, and I have plates to fully box the frame, so I'm not too worried about it.