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

I like them! They do make a TON of noise when they get old but for the 1st 5/8ths of their life they were great.

 

Some big updates for me in the last month!

1st off it appears my DIY regear has been a success!! I just drained the gear oil after my 500 mile break in period and there were no unusual sized chunks of metal or an abundance of shavings. Everything is quite and there are no weird noises on deceleration! I DO NOT recommend doing gears yourself simply due to the time it takes. If you don't have a press or you only have 1 weekend to work on it do not even try, you will be miserable.

I had 2 free weeks before I started my 1st big boy job so I took advantage of that and did my gears. I learned a ton and I know I could do it again if need be, but I will never touch gears again haha!

I started off completely ruining one of the main bearings by pressing on the 7.5" bearing on the 8" pinion. This would've been an easy fix but due to the size difference I couldn't use the tool to remove it. I had to use the grinder until I was able to smack it off







I was worried about the mark but the guys at Yotamasters said it would probably be fine. You guys also said send it for science, so that's what I did. So far no issues........

After about 20 times back and forth I managed to get a pattern I was happy with:





The front now has a Sparton locker so I am fully locked finally! I was able to source a new E-locker motor which works twice as good as my old one.

My pattern was confirmed to be good by a few members on TW as well as Brandon from Yotamasters. He said they are a little on the deep side but that's usually better because of the added strength on the lower part of the teeth.

Then I just slapped 'er together and drove it to work for a week to get it up to 500 miles!

 

And now I am finally able to start the process of stuffing 37's in it!

I started with the wheels. I prepped them and got them welded. If you're in the SoCal area hit up my friend @TKOffroad! He is an amazing welder! He works for the Nguyen brothers and loves doing what he does. I don't trust anyone else with welding.





Notice the lip around the tire, this needed to be completely flat.



After about 30 mins with a flappy wheel.

I will admit, I am not a huge fan of the DIY beadlocks. They weigh a TON and require a bunch of work to get them ready. They will give you lung cancer and if the welding doesn't, the grinding will. I won't be buying DIY's again and I may sell these for some alloys, but for now I'll run them and maybe I'll fall in love with them...



And now on to the cutting!



Started by unbolting everything I could from both sides of the truck! The plan is to tube the front to allow for much more room in the wheel well.

Then the cutting began. See the inner wheel well in the last picture?





BYE! Now you don't.

I went with 2 cuts, one at the radiator support and another at the firewall.

After all that was gone my buddy and I went to town welding on some reinforcing parts. I went with an Eimkeith top coil bucket reinforcement and a trail gear coil bucket gusseting kit.





Hopefully this keeps the frame from cracking with the bigger tires.

While my buddy was welding away on those I started cleaning up my cam tab gussets. We are developing a hexagonal alignment kit so we were eager to try it out on my truck.







No spoilers yet but I will say we are super excited to release this product!



And just for motivation I stuck the 37 in the void to see how it'll work.

I think there is hope!

Major things that still need to be done:
-Welding in the tubes
-Mounting fenders, evap, cruise control, etc.
-Firewall tub
-Front bumper modification
-Battery relocation
-Tubbing the rear
-Finishing the wheels
-Rebuilding coilovers
-Re-wiring lights
-Finding better wheel spacers
-Getting limit straps installed
-I'm sure there is more haha

I'll be working on it every day until it's done, wish me luck!

 

Started getting in to clearancing for the 37's. We found a 1.25" wheel spacers with my -6mm offset wheels puts the tire in a pretty good place.



At full compression I hit a lot of stuff, but some time with cutting tools should make it juussstt barely fit.

 

Did some chopping this week. Getting 37' to fit without long travel or a body lift is pretty much impossible. I have cut the max I can without completely relocating my front body mount. I have decided to run a 1" body lift from Paranoid Fabrications to make a little more room for these guys. The kit hasn't showed up yet so all clearancing is done on the stock BM bushings. It is also possible I will need to notch the frame but I am going to see how tight the truck turns after i get everything put together.







Keep in mind this is with a 1.25" wheel spacer. I could run a 2" spacer to fix the frame issue but then I would need to cut in to my body more. It's kinda a catch 22 and it really comes down to what would be easier to cut. At this point the frame will be easier because we are starting to run in to electrical circuitry in the cab and I also don't want to do a body mount chop. Also note I had to cut 5.5" off my front bumper for these guys to fit and 1" off my sliders. I actually like the shorter bumper look!

After I decided I couldn't cut in to the cab any more I went ahead and started adding the new sheet metal. I went with 16 gauge steel but if I were to do it again I would have gone with 18 gauge to make it a little easier to form.



It still requires some fine tuning with the mini sludge hammer but so far I am pretty happy with the results and how it's coming out!

 

Alright I didn't take a ton of pictures but I got thew truck done and successfully completed it's first trip on the big bois! This will mostly be a photo dump:


Beadlocks came out nice. Ended up selling them because they are too heavy to balance... Aluminum wheels are in my future


Backing out of the driveway!


Aligned to factory spec! That's great because it proves my octagon kit works.


1st little flex. Everything looked and felt good so I decided to go for it on the 700 mile trip!


Made it up north!

Checking out the view before getting on the trail

Takes 3 times as long to air down 37's







Amazing sunset!

And we made it back home in one piece!

I went with the HardlineLandCo to the Norcal x Socal event. I only made it for 1 trail, Bald Mountain, but the truck performed amazingly and didn't break down! I was able to go up some pretty gnarly obstacles with ease and really liked the 37's. There are some things that can be improved but I am extremely happy with how the truck came out. I can't wait for my next trip!

 

Truck looks badass with 37's!

 

Great build thread! Thanks for taking the time to document everything. And just when I thought good build threads no longer existed.

 

You guys need to stop it with the 37s. My 35s are starting to feel small

 

Thanks man! So far they the truck is holding up pretty well too! My daily is broken so the truck has been getting me to work and back and it can easily go 85MPH no problems haha

 

I try when I have time. There is so much I haven't documented that I probably could but then I'd be on TW all day....

 

The desire for a bigger tire is a dangerous bug to catch............

 

1st day back from my trip I sold the wheels. DIY steel wheels work great for low speed crawlers but are AWFUL on high speed IFS trucks. They could not get not balanced, they were heavy, they were rusting (even with 5 coats of paint), they had to go.

Funny story I had a buyer lined up for my steelies and I also had a seller lined up for a new set of aluminum wheels. Sometime between me selling the wheels and messaging the seller he decided to keep the aluminum ones..... So my truck sat wheeless for 2 weeks until I was able to locate a new set of wheels. I lucked out and found the exact set I was going to buy earlier, so I guess it all worked out in the end.



I ended up going with some Pro Comp beadlocks. Great price ($1100) and they just work. I am not a huge fan of black on black but whatever. When my next set of tires is due I'll pay to get them powder coated.


As a side note, I had my scariest moment working on a car ever. When putting the new tires on I forgot to put it in 4wd and when I lowered the truck it fell off the rear jack stands. Thankfully I was in front of the vehicle and it fell backwards, but yeah. You really don't know how heavy vehicles are and how quickly your life could change. I don't want to think what could have happened if I was behind the vehicle when it fell...



Anyway, the wheels are awesome! They mounted SO EASILY and balanced PERFECTLY!!!



My wife and I celebrated getting Frank running again by taking another 500 mile road trip up to my new favorite secrete meadow. Despite the drums being warped from dropping it on the ground, it ran great!

 

Love my pro comp beadlocks, you are going to love them as well!! No leaks and surprisingly beefy for being, well pro comp LOL!!!

 

I have 1 leak in my front passenger wheel but that could honestly be from my tires. Either way they have been great! I can drive over 85+mph with the 37's haha

 

How happy have you been with the front auto locker and 4.88s? Been going back and forth with 4.88 or 5.29 and an auto locker up front or trutrac

 

VERY happy, it's night and day! It makes 4wd a little squirrely because the front pulls pretty hard but when you're going slow in the rocks its perfect. I would either go with the spartan or a selectable locker. LSD's are neat but never really work right when you need them to imo.

As far as gearing, that all depends on what tire size you're running, manual or auto, and what you plan to do. With my maunal truck on 37's and 4.88 gears it's the exact ratio as my stock 31's with 4.10's. This means I can cruise on the highway and still have some good torque in the trails. If I went 5.29 I'd need to drive slower or suffer getting worse MPG's but I'd have more torque in the dirt.

My friend with an auto trans has 4.88's and 35's and he is very happy with it. Personally if you're going anything less then 37's stop at 4.88 gears or you will hate driving anywhere.

 

Little update on the truck. If you've read my build thread you know at one point I had a Dana 44 I was going to swap in. I ended up selling it because I needed to get a steering rack. I never really did anything with it because I wasn't really sure if that was the axle I wanted to spend my time on, and I think I made the right choice. The Dana 44 was cool but I don't really like how they look on the truck, if I was gonna do all this work I was gonna go big.

So that brings me to my new purchase:

A Dana 60 from a Ford F250 Super Duty. The guy selling it only wanted $500 with everything included in the picture! That's the same price I paid for the D44!

I already know this is a better choice and I am actually excited to get started swapping this in! I am also looking for a 14 bolt for the rear. They are pretty common but I'm just waiting for the right price.

I'm gonna do what I can when I can so this will take some time but I think this is gonna be pretty fun...

 

This is a heavy boi!

When I bought the D60 the seller helped me put it in my truck using a tractor, so I knew their was no way I was lifting it out alone. I was hoping some friends could help me lift it but it was too awkward for us to carry. I decided my best option was to take it apart in my truck bed until I could lift it. The axle is a little rusty from spending it's life in Oklahoma but I was glad to see it is all just Surface rust. I guess the truck it came from only had around 90k miles before someone T-Boned it, so that''s nice! My 1/2" Milwaukee impact made taking it apart a breeze. The only issue I ran in to was the pesky snap rings. I could not get those things out! I broke my snap ring pliers, multiple screwdrivers, and my long reach needle nosers.


I know these pliers are strong enough because I have taken those snap rings out of D60's before! I could see the rings moving they just wouldn't open wide enough to pull out. I think someone put a thicker ring in there at some point.

Once I was able to get the axle apart getting it out of the truck was too easy. Each part I took off was like 30 lbs so after taking all the parts off the axle it became significantly lighter. My wife and I were able to lift it out of my truck and I slid it in to the garage for the night.

The real fun began the next morning. I started by removing the carrier and pinion gear. These gears are HUGE compared to my Toyota ones! I'm getting 5.38's later so if anyone needs some OEM 4.10 gears let me know!



Then it was time to grind. As anyone who has done this will know, the Ford Dana 60 has a bunch of unnecessary crap on it. I know their are some nice kits that utilize the factory mounting hardware but those kits limit flex and are just so bulky. I want to run a 3 Link kit on this axle so the crap had to go. I spent the next 6 hours getting familiar with my grinder.



This section was just a huge chunk of solid steel. ^





I figured out the best strategy is to just take small chunks off until it's gone. Some places are tricky to get a grinder in but if you can slowly eat away until it is all gone.



I still have a lot of cleaning to do with the flappy wheel but I am happy with the progress so far. I'm hoping to have it all cleaned up next weekend.

 

Get a cheap 4 or 500 dollar plasma cutter. Will save you so much time.