Airkewled's 2006 DCSB

Nope, that's the reason. 4 link I believe is more bettah, but like you said, gas tank is in the way and I'm not keen on putting a fuel cell in the bed yet. Maybe some point in this trucks future as she matures; who knows.

 

Coated the inside of the frame rails with a product from Rustolium "Rust Reformer". Says it converts it and encapsulates it. I put it on drippy thick. Then I got my passenger side frame stitched back together where rust had separated the riveted front half to back half.

Then we got the frame plates tacked in, a beard lit on fire (again), put in bolts and welded nuts on the backside where it had previously held the front spring perch and a plate for the plate for the upper frame side link.

Saying this, feels like 1hr of work but it was not

 

Inside of the frame plated and double sheered? IDK what to call it but ran a longer bolt through the frame side lower link mount, sleeved and recessed the bolt through the frame. All the beef?

Here's the sleeve and recess cup. This is so there's not a bolt poking into places I might need room. Probably not a thing on the passenger side but I was worried about clearance with the gas tank on the driver side.






So all the frame is boxed in except for the one section under the cab.


All the tubes sanded and marked for cutting


Then a 3 step process. 1 Bevel the tube, 2, root pass, 3 cover pass. Okay, 3.5 steps because I also hit it with the flap disc and tube sander to clean it up.








All would have been well, except I accidentally welded one set of heavy wall bungs onto the upper link which only needs regular wall bungs. No harm for the upper link, but that meant I'd either have to run the regular on one of my lower links or wait for new ones... Threads are the same, and it'd probably be fine, but with the heavy wall, the flange? part is taller so there's more meat to weld to the thicker 1/4 wall stuff of the lower links. So yeah, minor ef up but I'll wait for replacements.

 

this build is moving fast! Great work!

 

While I waited for my bungs to show up I installed the conversion u-joint onto the driveshaft. The yoke on the axle is for a 1350 and the Toyota is a 1310, so they make this cool conversion u-joint that is included with the fusion4x4 axle if you want.



Here you can see the difference between the 1310 and 1350 in size


All freshy fresh


And installed. Like 5 minutes later ... okay maybe a day, I decide to move the axle back 2" and the driveshaft slip falls out. So new driveshaft anyways but.. mkay



Beginning to check flex, measure more, prepare myself for what's to come


Mocking. Hmm, that's the full height of the tower.. How can I? So I emailed Filthy, Ben is the boss. Set your axle at full compression. Then you'll know where your shock needs to be.


I'm naïve right? Here I'm thinking, "Oh I'll just poke it through this little hole here" Um yeah, no.


That's cute brother. I mean, really nice fitment, but yeah




Now you're getting it. Needed way more clearance to get the tower more inboard. The yellow lines you can see on the bed, turned out to be great reference lines. This is center of the bed mount holes which also ends up being center of the frame rails.


More measuring and cutting. Also, companies please stop with the branding. I paid you full price for these and you're not compensating me sh** for advertising. This was a pita to fill in this BS. I'll be a GD if I'm going to pay someone to be their billboard.


More mocking. Here we're trying to get the profile of the top of the frame rail which is NOT a straight line here. Thanks for not making my life easy Toyota.


Things tacked in place and many cycles of adjusting - cycle it full up, full down, what hits, cut, re-tack, repeat. I'll omit there here but these are things the YT channels do not show or else they're some kind of GOD that nails things first go.





Between the previous photo and this one I've realized that full stuff straight up both wheels IS DIFFERENT than full stuff on articulation; one wheel full up one wheel full down. So I've had to cut out the tower and graft in some metal to raise them up as I was prematurely hitting bump on the shock before full bump on the "bump stop". Adult words. Much time spent.


Looking good


Moving on to the other side. Which went WAY faster. I already had a template to go off of. Didn't have to figure out how far forward, how far back, how far inboard, bump, droop. It was just check that my measurements were good side to side, tack, check that things cleared. Some things didn't, so moved the frame side panhard. Re-check things but over all... way easier.


Angle finder.... "make the beep" anyone? Project Binky fans?


I really did use the full height of these towers though. So the ears that give it IDK lateral? support were not long enough, so I made it so they were.


That's more light it.


Both in, looking good.


Bed off for the night because the next day is Monday which means no helper to help me take this thing on/off.


Towers finish welded in. Not lying, its nerve racking a bit to weld things in that would be a huge problem and cost to remove.



Need to get the gas tank back in. These plastic clip things that hold the hard lines. Brittle as phuk. They're all broke, I've new ones on order but for the time being, I zip tied them tidy. The lines also are typically on the inside of the frame rail but since I boxed it in, now they are not so I re-bent the brake ones, and the other one, it is like a vent line PCV? I don't know but goes to the charcoal canister and was too stiff for me to re-bend so I replaced it with low pressure gas line.


Looking good.


Oh, somewhere in here I painted the frame and all the frame boxing and welded in a plug where the spare tire holder thing had a hole that was in the same spot I want to run bolts for a small air tank.


Wit the towers in, I welded over the bolt holes for this ground point and wire loom bracket


So I made up a new plate with 3 nuts welded on it


And welded that to the tower. Now I even have an extra ground. Oh wait, I did this on both sides so lots of ground. That could come in handy if I ever need to move my battery. Foreshadowing.


Working on the axle, welded on some zip tie tabs from TMR fab and made a center bolt tab thing for a wire and air line bracket.




Painted it up. This is brush on rustolium which worked out pretty decent. I touched up places with rattle can for stuff I couldn't get a brush too.


Time to install brakes. Most of this just transfer right over from the old. One thing I was/am worried about is the e-brake line. I moved the axle back 2" so on length I'm close man... the place where the line is bolted to the cab is pretty close to the frame side lower link mount so I'm hoping I don't get much difference as it cycles but I really don't know.


I cut one of the brackets off and the other drilled some holes to zip tie it right to the link


Wasn't long enough to get it onto the floor. Nothing bad could happen here.


Then I needed to bend new hard lines for the brakes. This axle is wider than stock so I can't just re-use the stock ones. Wish I could say I nailed it first go, but no, I did not. The long side took me 3 tries and I didn't have enough line for a 4th try so glad it turned out.




And that's it for now. I think the gas tank is about ready to go in and new driveshaft should show up tomorrow.

 

Well I spent several hours yesterday catching up on this thread. WOW a lot of progress, especially over the past several months! Great photo trip for sure!

 

Sub'd, great work so far!!

 

So yeah, when it's just you, figure out how to hoist the gas tank. Actually worked pretty good.





And the skid on. Yes, that's a minty, never used Pelfrey Built unit there. For some reason I thought I had to drop the tank to install this... so had never gotten around to it. But no, you don't so whatever, it's on now.


Needed to extend the wheel speed sensors so added in about 12"


Made a bracket


There's the bracket holding the wheel speed sensor wires and the differential vent hose


Which I ran to the filler neck and terminated in one of those inline fuel filters you'd find on your dirt bike.


New drive shaft showed up. All the beef. 1350 joints all the way through along with a bigger output flange.


Yes, this is a one piece. IDK.. we will see how it goes.


Somehow I'm missing photos, but chopped the exhaust and made a little turn down and welded that on. This is 100% a temp deal until I can get A) it running, driving, B) down to the local shop here that can build up a custom exhaust that fits in there better and does the whole crossover behind the t-case for extra ground clearance thing.


Onto more "big tire problems". So I had one of those Expedition Essentials bedside mounts for my ARB twin... but now the tire hits it. So needed to modify it.


I'm pretty pleased with that. For a guy that had to read the manual when I dusted off the TIG machine, I'm total noob at it. Jody and Tim are my saving grace.






Good clearance now. and you can see I've mounted the manifold and solenoids on top for the lockers.



So now same problem here for the other side. If you recall where my battery normally would go is now mostly occupied by a tire at stuff and lock so JD Fab makes a bedside box that will fit a group 35 battery. Which is conveniently what I have. This guy makes good sh**, such good fitment I felt bad chopping it up.


You can see the problem here.


Chop chop.. ziiizzt ziiizzt.




And we have clearance again


Made up this lil ? nut washer thing? The kit has a bracket that bolts to the frame rail. It assumes you have a regular C channel and can reach in there. I do not. So cannot A) reach there, B) put a wrench or socket on a nut if I could. So this slides in the frame rail and won't be able to rotate around as I tighten the bolt.


Here we go. The base is just a block of wood with strategic cut outs for the nuts that poke through and with aluminum sides that have a lip that hold the battery from moving side to side.


So that's that.


Clearance now. No problem.


Super slick closed. No rattle at all. It's a nice latch that you can adjust the tension on.


So next up, we've got the air in, and battery in. I think we can whack chop the fenders now.

 

Cutting the rear fenders. Rough cut just enough to get them on, then jacked up the tire till it hit, marked a line and repeated this until I was at full stuff.





To get a more finished line I taped on welding rod which gave me a nice curve.


Then I could just use the flap disc and blend right up to the line.


Turned out good. Other side is same, so spare you that.




That is all.

 

I was excited to get the notification over the weekend for this! Keep feeding the forum!

 

Working on getting the bump stops in. First plate the frame with some 3/16



Tack in place. Things looking good. 3" bumps I think.


With things tacked in place, can remove the bed to work on the rest


Some quality CAD work here


All burned in.


Coated with Steel-it.


Installed the driveshaft. I didn't have this when I put the exhaust in, so glad it's not rubbing.

 

So with the bumps in, I could put the bed back on and install the rear coils, throw the tires on and get her on her own weight. I had a small idiot moment when I put all 4 wheels on and wasn't getting the squat I was hoping for out of the rear. It was behaving like it was pretty light, like 500 lbs per each rear corner light. I called up Ben at Filthy and he thought the same but solvable. After more looking and poking, I realized that while I had put all 4 on and set the truck back on the ground, I had not pulled the front jack stands so while it was on tire, it wasn't fully on tire... so I had a lever arm action thing going on with part of the engine weight, thus making the rear feel real light. In the end, it seems like the spring package of 200/150 is going to be perfect.





Onto more work with the electrical, getting the rear mounted battery all hooked up. This is my 1/0 ground cable getting ready to hook to the ground point at the base of the coil towers.


I added a piece of kydex above the fuse holder for piece of mind. I can't think of what scenario happens for the battery to bounce up and hit that, but um, piece of mind.


I swear, it's the brackets that separate us from the monkeys. Made a little L bracket with welded nut here for a P-clip to keep the 1/0 battery positive wire from rubbing on the sharp edge of the cross member.


Again with the "brackets" well sort of a bracket. I needed a bolt for a ground cable here. So made up this piece with a nut welded on the backside then through a hold in the bottom of the crossmember held it in place and welded it in.




And nice #1 ground cable to the transfer case. I read on another thread that having this helped with remote batteries and this makes sense so the starter can get all the current.


All buttoned up back here with the battery box and cables secured with some more p-clips


Clear now to put the passenger side rear fender on. So these bolts, if you've removed your bed or fenders you know these. These are the ones that are sandwiched between the bed and the cab and to access these, you unbolt the bed and set it caddy waumpus so you can get a 10mm on them. Well with the towers sitting through the bed, that's no longer an option.


So I installed nutzerts making these go in from the fender well. Basically re-orientating them 180˚




Worked out great. Easy access. I'm sure in assembly, it's easier to assemble the bed with them the other way, but this is way easier for removing the bedsides.


And tada, rear fender on, top trim cap, taillight even. Been a while.


So that was the passenger side, where I needed to get the wiring done before I could install the bedside, for the driver side, that's the air side so need to plumb that. 3 wires need to come through the firewall and into the engine bay for this. 1 to energize the compressor and 1 each for the locker solenoids. Pulled the driver rear seat, drilled a hole and put in a grommet.


Tidy like




People ask, how much of a lift kit are you installing. hahahahah. A lot of work for a 1" lift.




I know, I'm working on the air and plumbing but minor squirrel moment. Worked up some shock reservoir mounts. I use the paint can to make sure I have the mounts lined up.




Mounted to the factory rails


Back to air. Ran the front up through the frame and cross member.


More brackets. Same as I did on the other side, but this for the air line


All the air lines hooked up and plumbed.


So with that done, could install the driver side rear fender and such


Pulled the truck outside and hosed it off and turned it around so I could put the front by the tool box and welder for the rest of the things that need to happen in the engine bay.


Like this. I have a Power Trays mount for my switch pro but yeah, of course, like most things, it needs a bit of modification so the air strut clears it. I did get the kit with the strut spacers, but they are like 1/2" ? and I needed 1". No problem


I just cut it and welded in 1" extra


And you can see it here. Clears the strut but just by a little bit


So with that in place, I've got a target for the compressor and locker wires when they poke through.

 

Is there such thing as "your tires are too big?" I think not. That thing is looking sweet! A lotta work, hope you had a cold one and a chance to sit back and enjoy the view!

 

IDK if you remember where I left off with the air intake situation but I was trying to replicate the box deal that I thought was maybe a water trap. In anycase, turns out I don't have room for that so abandoned that prototype.

I found that by rotating the OE intake piping, I could get it to line up with the higher intake port on the fender and would only need a section of straight flex hose to hook it all up.

So making up some bracketry to do this.




The keen observer will note that I have rubber isolated this mount just as the factory is.




Once I knew exactly what was going to be happening, I finish welded things in place and seam sealed the things to keep moisture from getting in between the layers of sheetmetal


I mean, of course I painted.






And that's the intake all settled.




So this cracks me up. The bumper did align nicely with the fenders before all this started. Crazy to see how much it very much interferes now. Some modifications are needed and not that this is the final product for sure but just need to focus on getting this rolling down the road and the bumper situation can be mini projects after this.


Little trim and re-weld job


And there she's sittin. Charged the shocks to 150 and the bumps to 200 FWIW. We'll see how that works and adjust from there I guess.

 

Man that bumper really showed how much that trim line changed. Keep up the good work!