Sluggo: The 4 banger build

Looks awesome man! Now if you would just finish the bumper...

 

Bumper....

 

That giant opening used to hold fire wood and rocks .

 

Ill fix that by putting a winch in it eventually

 

Camp needed more firewood... I wanted to help

 

Looks badass with the 35s Mark!

 

lol

 

TIME LAPSE: FENDERS:
http://youtu.be/KTVvsj1105w




TIME LAPSE: TUBBING
http://youtu.be/amft70jgLUA







Alright. Thoughts on the tub:



First off, want to thank Konsta and Brady so much for helping. Got done in time, we had time to play around and have dinner, weren't rushed, and it looks good. Cheers guys, cant wait for moab

While it was a weekend job, and took most of the weekend, if you do not have a konsta and a brady, with a full shop with a lift, good welder, tons of grinders and tools available...good luck, it will take a while. I was spoiled haha. Totally doable, just time consuming.

So after prepping the truck, removing the coil overs, fenders, clearing out the inside of carpet and wires, we used people like jon's and montes holes and drew that as out first cut. We just used a soap stone and drew out outline and attacked it, ended up doing passenger side first. Fuck test fitting, just take out the whole wheel well. The way we went about cutting was by using all grinders. We had a couple 4 1/2" grinders with cut off wheels and bit mother fucking 14" grinder when I got pissed.

Also to note we put a big ol fire blanket down on the inside on the side we were grinding and welding on that covered most of the front seats. We didnt have any fires and im glad we had that blanket.

So we just went along cutting out more and more with the grinder. Top section was easy, then of course by the pinch weld there is layer after layer which is just a PITA. so we took fresh disks and went through as much as we could and just cut layers out until they were gone and we had our big gaping hole. After doing this for both sides we also took off the washer fluid container and pounded up the forward, upper metal surface of the wheel well with a BFH and test fit the tire.



After the first fit we realized we had to also bang back the cab mount with the BFH and cut a bit more (mostly out of the drivers side). Also from that test fit i saw I had to take out an inch or so of the bumper wing.

The drivers side hole ended up being so much bigger than the passenger side we had to weld that one together with 2 pieces, and where the tire rubbed the bumper on the passenger side, it didnt rub at all on the drivers side.
This has to be due to how different my alignment is side to side (should probably get that looked at).







But anyway after test fitting the tire again we saw it all fit and could move on
All in all it took us about 4 hours a side to cut it open and finish our final cuts.





After finishing the holes we stuck some cardboard up to them and traced the shape and hit the 20ga sheet with the plasma cutter to get out pieces and started shaping them to the holes. also no pics available right now of that.


on day two we started even earlier (10am, compared to 11ish the day before, had a bit too much to drink friday night) on the welding. Started with the drivers side, and like I said we did this one in 2 pieces. Konsta did this side while I was pulling the axles and diff, then I did the passenger side. Started at the top, tacked it in a bit, pounded the edge in to over lap and worked down and down repeating the process. tack a bit, weld down, tack a bit, weld down. Then he pressed up the outside piece and did the same thing.








Same principle went for the passenger side only it was in one piece. we started up top, wend down a bit on the outside then I welded the whole inside edge then went back to the outside edge and went down then went around the bottom.

Welding on the thin body has its problems, but if you are gentle and focused with a good welder turned all the way down basically it isnt too bad. I found my groove was when i had the surfaces banged together I would go in sideways motions across the seam while traveling down and it would keep it the weld flat and cover the 20ga and body nicely. The rubber goo shit toyota sprayed on the wheel well is a pain in the dick and we attacked it with a wire brush and it worked well. I want to say the welding all in all took about 3 hours a side.





After getting it all welded (nothing too specific, just tedious) It got sprayed with undercoating and the inside kick panels got trimmed and wires tucked back and put together. On the inside, we took the plastic kick panel, cut enough out so it could still snap into place, and tucked the wires and computer behind there and called it good. took 10 minutes and you wouldne ever even know there was a tub job done on the inside unledd you stick your foot into there







boom, theres room




after getting it painted we did a quick rear end job, and put a solid pinion spacer in the diff and swapped out the rear u joint. found that was in fact the source of my issues, as it was so stiff it hardly moved.



want to add, a lot of people ask the "was it worth it" comment. That for me will get a biased answer. Was it worth it for me? Fuck ya it was. I got to go hang out with Brady and Konsta all weekend and work on my truck and drink beer and shoot guns! That in itself was awesome. A side effect of that now is that i can now full stuff 35s. and let me say, ill never go back to 33s. 35s look 10x better, they ride better too. To be fair though I will go back to 33s, but thats just because i still have them. I love the new tires, and after i whore them around i want to save the wear and tear till it counts. So after a couple weeks the 33s go back on till the next wheeling trip.

Now i will admit i took a power loss, and only with this not ideal gearing a manual would be better for highway. Basically lost 7 mph off my hwy cruising speed (was about 77ish before), because there is now a weird gap in power with the auto, where it cruises at 65mph at like 2250-2500 rpms, but to hold say 70 the rpms jump and shift around a lot. Ill have to experiment with turning off OD to see if that helps. Around town, i usually accelerate slow enough and drive relaxed enough i hardly notice it. on ramps though...

 

You forgot to mention that while you and I were cutting the passenger side with grinders that Konsta cut like 75% of the drivers side with the plasma cutter.

 

New it would the damn u joint.

Cool man. I hope they still fit good after a new alignment...im kinda worried mine won't after one ha

 

I put his driveshaft in the vice to start swapping the u joint for him and that was when I really noticed how fucked it was... haha

With the way we did Mark's I imagine any rubbing issues he may have after an alignment can be fixed with a BFH. Haha

On the plus side after we put the C/O's and parked him on the hill so he was teetering on 2 wheels, he is too light to fully stuff his front end so that will help with rubbing on the trail. Haha

 

Yea but once he adds a winch and actually gets a damn skid plate, he will flex easy.

yea mine was too. Was making horrible noises.

 

Yeah but he probably won't have any of that for a while I'm sure.

 

When I get another one I'll tell em to match the drivers side to the passenger side.

Haha he just wanted an excuse to use the plas.

I have embraced the same

 

Saw the title and was like wtf I didn't post in that thread ooooh....

 

Looks awesome welcome to the dirty five club! You going to paint these rims black?

 

My picture bomb from the weekend. Some of these are the same as Mark's above, but that's because I took all the pics and sent them to him. haha

 

you didn't have ear plugs in?!

 

Now get a winch to fill that underbite!

 

Truck looks sick! How thick is the metal you welded onto the floorboard? Is the person who owns the white truck a member on here?