Frankenstein Build: Stock -> 37's on IFS -> SAS

Yeah for sure. Any toyota motor would be 10x easier. Ill take hooking up the smog any day of the week over all the bullshit Ive gone through. Don't forget about those seals or you will be in a world of shit.

 

Had a brain blast in my sleep last night! I figured if I cut a hole in my truss I could lower the upper link about 1".




Before:


After:

 

It worked!


4.5" of up travel right on the money.

 

Started getting a rough estimate of where I want the coilovers to sit. I'm shooting for 90°-90° at ride height. I got as close as I could holding tubes and tacking but next week I'll pull them out, notch them, and fine tune the angles.

I have 4.5" of shaft at ride height



Full droop the angles get a little wonky but that's expected for a 3 link


Surprisingly I still have room in the engine bay with everything still installed:


Oh and dropping the upper link fixed everything. Now the 1st thing I hit is my oil pan. If I want more up travel my only other option is moving the engine.

 

A friend of mine I think either shaved or changed his oil pan for more clearance, I can check his thread.

Post #87:

https://www.pirate4x4.com/threads/godzilla-2-0.2423298/page-5

 

I was thinking of doing this. I actually took the oil pan out to get that last 1/2" if travel.
I'll need to modify it somehow, either by cutting it or smacking it with a hammer.

 

Decided to take a break with the 3 link and work on the steering linkages. I originally purchased a SAS steering conversion kit from Trail Gear but because my frame sits so high the angles weren't working out. I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it but then it hit me, what if I just extended the factory steering column?? I would need to extend the lower column shaft in the middle so I could keep the factory splines. Then I could use the U-Joints provided in the TG kit:


I did some tests with PVC before I cut it to determined if it would work. After a few tweaks with the tube length I went for it:


Ended up extending it about 15" with a 17" piece of tube. The OD on the Toyota shaft is 1". The only tube I had with me with 1" ID was some .250 wall stuff. A little overkill but it's what I had. I tacked a test piece in temporarily to make sure it was gonna work:


And it worked great!!


I have plenty of room for a bigger T100 brake booster, it turns smooth, and the adjustable rod supplied with the TG kit will ensure I can take everything apart and dial in my steering box position. Overall pretty stoked with how this came out. The only thing lift is to swap out the 1/4 wall tube with some .120 wall stuff and finish welding it up!


When I got home I CAD'd up some lower shock mounts. These are designed to slide over the lower link mounts and push out the shock so it doesn't interfere with my frame.


It will look something like this but with the offset bolt hole:

 

Got the last few parts I need for the 3 link this week. That included shock hoops and an axle side panhard mount. My welds are slowly improving. Not the best I've seen but not too shabby




Once I get the 3 link finished (finally) I'll be able to start on this guy:

 

Got the ol crawl box in!


Overall it went pretty smooth except for a few hiccups.

1st problem I ran in to was that my donor T-Case was set up for forward shift. No worries, just had to make a small modification to the shift fork:


Then I broke the cutoff wheel attachment for my die grinder and spent way too long making a new one on the lathe. I have little to no experience with a lathe so the fact I got a functioning (albeit ugly) tool is amazing!




Once the die grinder was operational again I got back to the crawl box. Everything was going smooth until I went to drop in the 4.7 gears and realized they interfered with the reduction box casting. At 1st I was going to grind down all the interfering areas but then it hit me! I remembered a few weeks ago while I was cleaning up my grandpas lathe cabinet that I found a rotary table for the mill. I had just watched a This Old Tony video about rotary tables and I had been looking for an excuse to use it. This seemed like the perfect time and place!

Pulled it out of the box for probably the 1st time in 30 years and got it all set up on the mill:


Once I got everything centered I went for it and I think the results came out fantastic!




Took off about 1/8"-3/16" of material to get the gears to clear. I'm very glad I went with the rotary table because that would've taken forever with the grinder and it looks professional.

After that it all went together as expected:





My great grandpa was a machinist from the 1940's to the 1980's when he got laid off and replaced by CNC machines. He then moved to AZ and set up his own shop making one-off parts and sharpening tools on the side. When he passed away in 2000 my grandpa went to help my great grandma move back to CA to be closer to our family. While he was there he grabbed all the tools he could from the shop and brought them back with him. This included the mill, lathe, and thousands of end-mills, drill bits, lathe parts, files, etc. Many of the tools sat around and in pieces because my grandpa was busy with work and by the time he retired, too busy with his young grand children ( me included ).

Out of the 4 grandchildren, I'm the only one that developed an interest in tools and working on things in the garage, so that means I became the unofficial "shop manager". Up until a year ago I had been busy at school and a poor college student, so all I could really do was clean out the junk and organize things. Now that I have a job and more free time I've slowly been getting the tools up and running and making the garage a nice little workshop. I'm no machinist by any means but I can tell my grandpa is happy to see all his dad's old tools being used. He says my great grandpa would be thrilled that his interests are being carried on generations later. Not sure what this has to do with anything but wanted to say it, haha.

 

Cranked away this weekend and got some stuff done!

1st things 1st, it snowed at my house for the 1st time in my life! Now if you live anywhere but Southern California this may not seem that exciting, but fore this SoCal guy it was pretty exciting! My grandparents who have lived in the area for 60 years said they haven't ever seen it snow this much. So to celebrate we jumped in my buddies 4Runner and went "snow wheeling" in the local hills, something that we will probably never be able to do again in our lives. The snow lasted maybe 3 hours before it rained and washed it all away.




Here are the mountains now, we were wheeling in the bottom left of the image. Even the snow level now is pretty impressive.




After the snow fun I got back to work on the truck.

Started by cutting a hole in my floor to access both T-cases. I don't have a body lift so the only way I'm gonna be able to access the top bolts was by cutting this hole. I'm thinking I'm gonna buy one of the cool Triple Stick kits from RADesigns so I can keep my factory b̶e̶e̶r̶ cup holders. Any one run that kit? Thoughts?





I then decided it was time to start working on my steering box.
Went ahead and welded my double sheer kit to the pitman arm. Pretty happy with the fit and finish!




Got the steering box all apart as well. Thing was full of water but nothing was rusting, so I think we'll be ok.




And most importantly, THE THREE LINK AS BASICALLY DONE!! I was able to get my tubes bent by my buddy at Solo and everything (thankfully) clears!

Full bump, there is space between the A/C bracket and pan hard bar, and the high steer bar clears the pan hard mount:


Turned to the left the high steer bar comes up about 4" but as you can see nothing hits:


Full droop:


Ride height:


I also checked full articulation on each side and it all looked amazing. The drag link is done too but since my steering box is out of the truck I can't install it, but it should clear without any issues.

Super stoked to have the 3 link done! Now I can finally start moving on to other pieces of the truck, to which there are many:


One thing I've been working on with my buddy is a box-in kit for the rear. This may be something we sell on my website once we get it all dialed in:

 

I like the RAD setup. I reworked the shifters a bit, but they work well.

 

Awesome! I'll have to order a set then.

 

you'll have to open the trans tunnel quite a bit more than you currently have it to accommodate the triple shifters and to account for the rotation of the drivetrain when under load.

 

Oh good point! I'll be mounting the rear transfer case with poly bushings so it'll move a little less than factory but I'll keep that in mind.

 

Steering box is drilled and tapped! Need to finish rebuilding it but this was the part I was most nervous about.


Also got the springs installed in the coil overs. Looks like they fit ok. I had to clearance a little off the truss but overall looks pretty good! I'll have to weld the shock hoops in so I can put the full weight on the springs and see how they sit.

 

you're mounting the steering box forward of the headlight like that?

 

Oh no haha, not that far forward. You can see the mounting holes behind it, I just set it there for a picture lol. It sits right under the headlight normally.

 

Word. I was about to say, that would be....unique haha

 

Any updates?

 

Nothing exciting. I removed the axles to start re-gearing them, sent the links out for powder coating, and finished welding up the front and rear shock hoops to the frame. I'm also working on getting a rear bump stop kit installed but progress has been slow haha. I have lots of pictures but no interesting stories to go with them yet...