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

Thank you that's super helpful! I'll pull the carrier out and check the pattern on the pinion. I'm currently sitting at .040" pinion depth with .012" backlash. The rebuild kit I have only has increments of .005" for the pinion depth. I should mention it's for a Sterling 10.5 too.

 

Triple sticks installed! One thing I didn't realize is the entire factory T case needs to be dismantled to allow for factory low in 2wd. There is a ball pin that locks out low gear that can only be removed by separating the case halves. I'll get to that one day but for now I'm gonna live with it how it is.

 

Managed to fit the triple shifters and the factory stick shift boot all in the factory bezel! I removed the OEM rubber, cut the t-case shifter out of it, moved the trans shifter to the small side, and squeezed the triple shifter boot in the larger side. Doing so also allowed me to use the factory mounting holes too!


Brake lines are now hooked up to the master cylinder. I purchased the adapters from Skys offroad and I did need to drill about 1/16" in to the master cylinder so the adapters would sit flush. This was due to the fact the adapters are not threaded all the way to the nut. When they weren't sitting flush the factory flanges weren't sealing properly. Now everything is snug and I don't see why they won't hold pressure.

 

Both differentials are DONE! I have a pattern I'm happy with and everything is torqued to spec.




I installed the rear axles and wheel hubs so it's basically ready to go. I have 5 gallons of 75W-140 gear oil on the way so I should be able to fill them up within the week.

I accidentally ordered the wrong U-Joints for the front axle so I'm waiting for those to show up to finish the front. They should also be here within the week.

Now that the axles are pretty much dialed I decided to move on to cooling. As you may know I purchased an universal radiator from Champion. Looks like it's going to fit perfectly! I went to town cutting more sheet metal from my core support and got it sitting where I like it:


It has fan clearance with room to run hoses. There is space for the hood to close with clearance and it doesn't hang below the core support which is exactly what I wanted:



The radiator mounting is only temporary to drive it a couple miles to my buddies house where I can start tubing the front end.

 

Front axle is DONE! Finally got the U joints I needed and was able to finish slapping everything together last night. I was able to bolt a tire to it for the 1st time in over a year too. Man is this thing gonna be wide...





I was also able to drop off my driveshaft with all the dimensions for a new one and get all the brake lines I need made. I'm thinking it'll be running within the next month.

 

IT MOVES!!

 

Haven't made a proper post here in a while. As you can see by my last post the truck was running! It ran for 2 days until I ran in to a few issues, but let's back up a bit and go through what needed to be done to get it to that point.

Braking (sorry for the lack of images):
1st things 1st I needed to stop! My driveway is very steep and the last thing I wanted was for the truck to roll down the driveway and smash in to my neighbors house at full speed. The brakes were pretty straight forward. I made 1 hard line for the rear axle and had my local hose shop make me 5 steel braided lines. The 2 front ones are 30" going from a 10mm female fitting to a 3/8 banjo fitting. The rear axle came out to 28" going from a 10mm female to a 10mm male fitting. Then I have 2 steel braided lines for the rear calipers so I can move them around to replace the rear rotors if needed. They are each 12" going from 10mm female to 3/8" banjo fitting. I had my wife help me bleed the whole system which took about 30 mins. After some testing we were able to stop the wheels from spinning and it felt like I had good pressure in the pedal! I figured the brakes were done.

Cooling:
The radiator mounting is very temporary but the hoses are not! I managed to find the exact silicone hoses I needed on Amazon. I needed 4 90° bends. 2 of them are 1.25"-1.25", one is 1.25"-1.5", the other is 1.25"-1.75". I also purchased a 1.25" aluminum tube to connect everything. The hoses fit surprisingly perfect!




Of course everything is hose clamped together and it seems to hold pressure well and my temps are right where they should be! In total I put in about 3 gals of fluid which seems about right for a completely empty cooling system.

Oil Pan:
Now this one was interesting. About a year ago I helped one of my friends replace his engine. He purchased an engine from Japan and it came with a rear sump oil pan. He didn't want the pan so he gifted it to me along with the pickup tube. Now I just assumed it would be a fairly common pan in Japan and I'd be able to find some info about it, but boy was I wrong! I was only able to find 1 forum post about it: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f160/jdm-oil-pan-290304/. From what I can tell it's from a Toyota Gravia/Grand HiAce, part number 12101-62090. Beyond that there isn't much info on it. I believe the 5VZ was a very unpopular option in the HiAce. That said it all still bolted up and because of the shape it seems I'm able to use my factory dipstick. I'm sure someone has the proper dipstick for it (it wasn't included on the JDM motor) but sourcing it would be very difficult. I believe it takes the exact same amount of oil as the factory pan so as long as I'm on level ground I should be able to check the levels without any issues.




I actually like the shape of this one much more than the T100 pan. The large flat base and driver side indent makes it PERFECT for a SASing. If anyone ever comes across one I highly recommend picking it up!

Rear Shocks:
My rear shocks have a remote reservoir and I wasn't entirely sure where to route it. I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time playing with the fittings but I finally came up with something I'm happy with:




They don't stick out any more than the bump stops, the adjuster is accessible, and the logo is even visible!

Steering:
With the hydro lines ran I started the bleeding process. Unfortunately one thing that didn't even cross my mind was the amount of fluid the ram sucks in when turning left... It will suck the pump reservoir completely dry and overflow it when turning right. I found if I was on flat ground I was able to just barely squeeze by but regardless I ended up ordering a remote reservoir and a rebuild kit for my nice trail gear pump. Those will be going in as soon as they show up.


And of course the steering box is already an issue, lol. It has WAY too much play in it! It's about 1/4 of a turn of the steering wheel. I adjusted the screw on top as far as I could go but the play was way to uncomfortable to leave it how it was. I decided to just send it out to a reputable re-builder and let them check everything for me. So out the box and steering pump go...


Driveshaft (sorry for lack of images (again)):
I finally dropped off my driveshaft to be rebuilt and shortened. Man am I disappointed with it. I went to my local driveshaft builder who has GREAT reviews and TONS of recommendations. I told him exactly what I was working on, that I wanted 1350 U joints, and thicker tubing. Welp what I got back was a $600 disappointment. He only installed 1 1350 U joint at the axle side, reused the factory double cardan and u joints, and used the factory tube as well. He didn't swap out the center bearing like I asked and even left the old U joints installed. He told me "I would recommend replacing those u joints"... Then asked me if I was planning on ever tasking it on the freeway. Like wtf?? So after some back and fourth I paid the guy and left with my driveshaft. I ordered all new U joints and the center bearing to rebuild it myself. Overall very disappointed. When I have some more money I'll be replacing it with what I want and keeping this one as a spare (if it doesn't explode).

And now, my biggest issue:
After everything was installed I figured I should take it for a trip around the block to see how everything felt. Overall I'm stoked! The suspension felt great, the steering will feel great once I work out the bugs, the differentials sound amazing, and the engine worked like it hadn't been sitting for over a year. There was just 1 small problem, a terrible, terrible clicking sound coming from my crawl box! It was very prevalent when in low-low rang. I knew exactly what it was, a bad bearing in the crawl box. I reused the bearings I had from when I purchased the old T case for the reduction box. I guess after 40 years one of the bearings just went bad. Because of this I had to take out my t case and crawl box and pull it apart.


It didn't take me long to track down the bad bearing, it was one of the main ones holding in the reduction gears. I ordered a full bearing kit for the crawl box from Trail Gear and will get it all put back together when they show up. What a pain... The good news however is that the factory T case needed to be dismantled to allow factory low in 2WD. So now that it's out I may as well get that working.


All said and done I am actually very happy with everything! As annoying as those issues are I'm glad to be finding them BEFORE I go on a long trip. At this rate it should be ready to hit some trails before snow season! Once the steering and T cases are installed I'll be driving it to my buddies house for some front end tubing and getting it set up for a roll cage.

OH! I also have some goodies coming from Reika Wheels! I sell Reika wheels on my website and after some back and fourth with them I will be getting a custom beadlock set drilled out for my axles. I'll mount the 40's on those. I can't wait!!

 

Does it feel like there’s a lot of force from that cast MC at the end of the adapter adding more leverage against the firewall? I have the same adapter (but with a different GM mc recommended on Sky’s website for the adapter) that seems like it might be a lot for the welded nuts / thin material of the firewall to secure with fast and serious off-road use. Besides that I’m ready to install it and make my brake lines asap.

 

I have that same oil pan, I bought it off someone on pirate4x4 a long time ago. Now I know what it came off of lol

 

Not as far as I can tell. It really just feels like my stock master and I can't tell if it's flaxing around or not.

It's actually good you have the recommended MC because I had to do some modifications to that aluminum connecting rod thing to make mine work lol.

 

WTF, you paid $600 for shaft that was not built to your spec? I wouldn't give them a penny, that's BS.

 

Yup... he didn't charge me for anything he didn't do but it seemed like he didn't really want to do the job how I asked. When I confronted him he had all sorts of excuses, it would cost me $1500, parts are hard to get right now, the Toyota driveshaft is plenty strong, yadda, yadda, etc. etc.

 

Yoda tube is plenty strong? LMFAO, it's less than 0.080 wall. Most offroad owners switched to 0.120 and I opted to go 0.156wallx2.75OD to be safe

Got to love how a shop will only do what they pleased

 

If I had a way to keep everything straight I'd just make my own drive shaft and only have them balance it. Super annoying and I know it's a time bomb.

 

Any update on your progress?

 

Man I haven't updated this thread in a minute lol. I have been so busy with side work I haven't really touched it until the last couple weeks. It has been sitting in the driveway because of some other builds I was working on.

I do have some interesting updates I just need to take some pictures. You will love the struggle I'm going through with my double cardan joint

My big project I'm currently working on is getting myself into a shop in January. I've been going through tools and whatnot in preparation for the move!

 

I can't wait to see this done, should be really fun. Any updates after the move?

 

Not sure what your struggles are but I know @ToyRyd04 found someone who can make it.

 

X2

https://makodriveshafts.com/product...ota-2-362-x-2-362?_pos=5&_sid=4df1dca49&_ss=r

 

Where to begin...

I guess 1st and foremost, I have a shop! This is what's been taking up most of my free time. I didn't get into the shop I thought we were going to in January but in February another shop in the same complex opened up and we were able to get that one. We're still working on getting settled in but so far everything is going pretty smooth! We spent a few weeks painting the shop, putting lights up, running electrical, and moving in all our junk. We've pretty much been booked up every weekend for the last few months which is a great problem to have.
Here are some pics from our 1st week:




Not the biggest shop in the world but it's a lot more space than my garage and we have space to work on multiple trucks at a time in all weather conditions! If anyone is in the SoCal area and wants some work done, hit me up! I'd be happy to schedule you in.

As far as the Tacoma is concerned, not much has happened with it in the last few months due to the shop consuming most of my free time. The last thing I worked on was that double cardan joint. I forgot how much of a pain these are to work on. I managed to knock one of the roller pins out of the center ball and snap it in half while trying to assemble the joint.
You can see the broken pin on the left:


After a few hours fighting it and beating the crap out of it I was able to get everything installed with a new center ball and u-joints.


I'm still not happy with this drive shaft but at least it'll work for a while. I'll be getting a beefier one as soon as I can.

As for the future of the Taco, it will be completed this summer, hopefully. We had 3 big projects we were working on in our garages for customers before we got into a shop. Those were all put on hold until we could move them into the shop. Now that we're set up we've been cranking those projects out. Once those are done we're moving the Taco to the shop to get the front end tubed and finish everything else. I need the tools we have in the shop like the tube bender, notcher, and welder so there isn't much more I can do in my garage until then.

In the meantime I've been working on my 4Runner, going on trips with my wife, and I bought another money pit; a 1946 Jeep CJ2A. The Jeep is a project for the wife we've been slowly working on together. It came completely dissembled so I'm going through every single nut and bolt to bring it back to life.

I'll update as things progress on the Taco or if you want to see more from my other projects I can post those too!