SCCRMUM- a Lexus Mountain Goat

So right before I left I had installed a Frontrunner drop down tray to install on the barn door. I've seen a few GX's install them in the same location... not sure if they had a bit of trick compared to what I did but I used the included swing nutsert things against the plastic door clad. Where I found it most center/level to cover the orignal net compartment left the top left bolt in particular right on a molded corner, horrible for the nutsert thing to back against. I had to buy longer, non matching bolts that were long enough to pass through the back of the pocket, which is about 1" deep. Eventually that top left nutsert fell through the elongated hole and into the door so I pulled the door panel. Muchhhh easier to work with that way. This Frontrunner table is BEEF, probably 10lbs of steel and wood. A bit of weight for the plastic door clad and it's interior panel clip things. Took it wheeling the next day and rough dirt tracks bounced it around enough that it pulled kept pulling the door panel off on the right side. There is also a single screw, not clip, on one of the ends of the strap that was inside the little net pocket that the shelf covers. It couldn't be reached once the table was mounted, and the table had to be mounted with the panel off to control the nutsert things on the pocket (left) side. Before I left I ordered all new panel clips from Partsouq and also longer matching black allen head bolts for the left side of the pocket from McMaster. I decided that when I back I was going to drill the backing of the table so I can pass the screw/tool through and screw down the panel to the door in the middle of the pocket behind the table back. I dug the screw out of the recyling bin because I am anti-horde and threw it out. I set it aside but by the time I returned 3 weeks later I seem to have lost it so I ran to Lowes and got a Metric M2.4 automotive body bolt (self tapping). The threads were just a touch small in diameter so it didn't really tighten down into the plastic nutsert in the door like I hoped but the next largest bolt/washer wouldn't fit through the 1/2" hole I drilled but a cunt hair. We'll see how it fairs. The fresh panel clips are much tighter and stronger it seems so if it ever falls again I'll just measure out for self tapping screws and run sheet metal bolts through the table, pass though the panel, and thread into the inner sheet metal of the door itself so that the panel isn't bearing any weight. Without punching through the exterior sheet metal, of course!

Here are some pics:


Fresh new clips!


Here's the little strap bracket thing, the self tapping screw is in the top hole:


And here's the receiving plastic nutsert in the door


















With that done, I plan to install most of the rear suspension this week. I have Friday off so I may start then and into Saturday if needed. I'm going to install the rear upper and lower links, the lift springs/coil conversion, and rear jounces. No shocks still... waiting on those. I'll just be stretching out he stock shocks in the mean time, and leaving the front in the meantime until the 6112s show up as well. Figure it won't hurt that much to roll cholo for a week just to break up the job a bit!

I also noticed this when I was walking into the garage just now, so it looks like it's okay that I can't lift the front yet because I need to get new high angle boots or all new CVs delivered before I tear the front end apart... at least it happened before I got all new suspension put together just to find out it has to come apart again...









It looks like an ogre orgy under there Any input on just doing boots: http://www.offroadsolutions.com/products/high-angle-inner-cv-boot/ versus replacing the whole CVs from CVJ? http://www.cvjreman.com/

New OEM is $870 shipped for the pair from Lexus Parts Now....

 

If it’s simply a torn boot, try the @SDHQ boots and space them out an additional 1/2” so they don’t rub. I had both mine done at a local shop for $50 here in the big city. They inspected, cleaned and greased them too.

 

sub'd

 

Yesterday I spent some great time hanging out with @JeepAndrew while he made quick work of my Southern Style Offroad coil spring conversions. The way they are built, they bolt in. The rear jounces need to strike right there, so unfortunatly there's a bolt head in the way, but fortunatly there is an other-wise perfect strike pad for the jounces. Andrew cut the bolt heads off, beveled both the bolt studs and the hole, and laid some beautiful rose welds and then planed the surface. This weekend I plan to get the rear springs, rear links, and rear jounces in. I'll be stretching out the stock shocks until my Billys show up and rolling cholo style, face down, ass up until I get the front done.

 

Yesterday I had a great time with great people, mind blowing asian BBQ pork, brews, and way more time than it should have been wrenching. @05tacomabro @Cal671 @rpeazy808 @Brindybot @DukesTaco @TaylorU and I wrenched away on a few trucks. We did the Metaltech 4x4 upper and lower rear links, SSO coil spring conversion, Dobinsons medium duty progressive springs, and SPC Jounceshocks in the rear of my truck.

The longest punch in the proverbial dick was that Metaltech managed to send 1 wrong bushing insert out of the 4 in a sealed package for one of the upper links. This lead to a 3 hour tour around east Tucson looking for a universal energy suspension bushing to match and ended with a $30 1" drill bit to bore out the incorrect bushing. Funny, the bushings seemed pretty hard until they wer being raped by a drill.... was a bit hard to keep the bushing still without deforming and causing a not-round hole. @05tacomabro and I made it happen pretty well, and he even gave me a small file for me to cut some grease grooves in the ID.

The Dobinson springs are YUGEEEEE. The passenger side drooped enough to put the spring in by hand with no compression. the driver side wouldn't droop enough, I think a combination of the upper link hitting gas tank, tight lower link, and brake line tension
My girlfriend and @Brindybot ran to oreillys and had to purchase spring compressors (will come in handy to assemble the 6112s). With the rear axle drooped that much, it swings forward enough that the coil spring runs into the gas tank skid (and probably the gas tank if the skid weren't there). The Dobinsons springs are quite large and *barely* fit into the coil seat on the bottom. a couple times it was forced off center of the mount and seat due to the gas tank skid and/or the spring compressors hitting the frame. The jounce plates just sandwich between the spring and the spring cup in the spring seat. on Toyota 120 chassis, the coil springs are not captive. If you flexed out enough, your spring would literally just fall out. Thus, the spring and the jounce sandwich plate just stay in under spring tension. For an idea, though, the axle was probably 4" lower than the fully extended shock length so all this interference and non-captivity is no issue when the suspension is all together and the droop is limited.

It took @05tacomabro , @Brindybot , and myself a solid hour or more just dicking around with getting the driver side spring in and everything seated correctly top and bottom. Gonna need me a good supply of beer next time the jounce needs to come out for service (though I've had a number of people tell me they've run the SPC/Light Racing JounceShocks for years and 6 digit miles without rebuild or failure).

@05tacomabro also did work on my brakeline brackets to give them more releif and travel

Overall, per usual wrenching, what should have taken about 4 hours took 12. Thank god for good food, good beer, and good company!

The really good looking photos to follow are from @rpeazy808 or my girlfriend





Everything in that dobinsons box is air suspension crap we ripped out.



Everything ready to go in


The bushing in question


Correct:


Incorrect:






"wut in tarnation"







And all together!










And finally, the end product! (pending picture... going out in the sunlight right now after I put pants on)

 

"Yup...that's a tent"

 

Leave the pants off... it's nice out!

Lol, twas good times buddy! I'm more thankful for my simple leaf spring suspension now. That was a good learning experience though and a fun but exhausting day!

 

looking good brother! Cant wait to see it out on the trail!

 

Mexi-rake. I feel like I'm staring straight down at pavement when I drive!

 

Truth!!!!
Why do they do that ?

Build the wal

 

Nice rig! Guess you are glad to be adopted by TW, looks like you made some friends.

By looking at all the work you did you could have knocked that timing belt/WP job out easily.

 

Subd. Nice rig!

 

definitely had the knowledge/ability, just not the tools nor garage space (nor friends with either of those!) when I bought it. I had just moved here a few weeks prior. It was a bit hard to swallow knowing I've done total longblock rebuilds before but at one time I had access and knowledge to do my own fab and welding too, which I'm stuck paying for right now until I get into a house with enough garage space to buy and fit shop tools

Though, with that said, even if I had the tools, my fab and weld wouldn't look nearly as good as @JeepAndrew 's work!

 

Roger that, nice work, keep us updated on the build.

 

Fedex left me a nice little present at the gate



Now literally just waiting for my 6112s and time to rebuild the whole front end. I want to have the suspension done and tire swing out done for Overland Expo next month as well as, mainly, a trip to Big Bend Ranch State Park the following weekend (memorial day weekend)

 

Sunday I stopped by @JeepAndrew 's and hung out for a little while since I was in the area and the GF was out shopping with a friend. He's gonna be making his first dimple die filler plates and they will be going on mah sliders. Can. Not. Wait.

He was throwing on sliders for a Pheonix guy



Monday I randomly, and luckily, peeked up her skirt walking back to it and saw this and almost pooped




Luckily I was in a parking lot across from Ace hardware and the GF was also with me with her car so we ran across to Ace. I got some faulty intel that it was an

$13 M12x1.25 mm Self-Locking Nylon Insert Hex Lock Nuts, Pack of 6

M12x1.25 and I was super pumped they had a flange nut like OEM! got back to the truck and turns out...The bolt is M14x1.5... so back across the street I went and had to get a stupid normal flat washer/lock washer/nut combo

Fun fact, my 6112 hook up came through, so those were in his hands yesterday and will be shipping from San Diego to me today or tomorrow. the 5160's should be following up next week or so. I also ordered steering rack bellows to go along with the new inner tie rods that will go on, Stoptech SS brake lines for the front to go with the 150 series rotors/calipers/pads, and SKF diff seals to go on with the new CVs. Thanks RockAuto!

Hopefully next update is slider install, swing out fab start, or the front end refresh

 

Your 120 is looking great!

 

Stopped in to see what makes your GX do it's thang... Sweet build man.

 

sooooo holy crap has it been a while. Processing photos is such a chore...

So where did I leave off.... Front suspension. So I got my 6112s assembled. Fun fact for other Lex owners: you need to get 4R/FJ top hats, not GX top hats. GX top hat washers have a D shaped key hole to locate it since there is electronic damper junk mounted on top. The FJ/4R (read: Bilsteins and everything aftermarket) have a standard round hole and round, uncut shock shaft. So I had bore out the D shaped holes to round using my dremel. also, holy balls does assembling those coil overs suck. It was half skill half luck to get the coil and compressors located just right so that the compressors had enough coils that they could actually compress the spring enough, but then still have enough clearance when you release them that they dont bind and pinch between the coils and the shock body. UGH. I think I'll pay for someone to do that next time. Not to mention, I snapped my 3/8" driver adapter that I had for my little electric impact, AND the washers on the spring compressor where of such low quality that they ground into dust and left metal shavings all up in my seals...

Lexus spec D-shape hole


Toyota Spec not-D-shaped shaft:


Lovely metal shavings all up in my seals:


My broken driver adapter:



Now, everything is ready to replace the whole front end! I loaded everything up to head to @05tacomabro place for what I was optimistically thinking 2 days worth of work.... HAHAHAAHAHAHAH

 

So onto the actual front end work. Here's a before!



We stripped out everything. I had new inner and outer tie rods, tie rod boots, high angle CVs from CVJ, coilovers, SPC/LR jounces, JBA HD UCAs, fully rebuilt lower LCAs, GX460 brake rotors and calipers, Akebono pads, SS brake lines. I think that's it?

Anyways, The GX460 brakes are an upgrade. the rotors are 2mm thicker which prevent notorious rotor warp versus the 470 rotors. I keep telling people 2mm makes all the difference but... anyways, the calipers are also updated with new piston materials and/or clearances that fix sticking piston problems. Mine stuck a couple times here and there but unstuck. Figured I might as well replace them.

Oh, here's one reason I needed a front lift. Cause I don't give no fucks on Reddington road and mobbed through a wash with tired stock suspension. Thank god for 200lbs of steel plate! The pics just don't do justice. Check it out sometime when you see the truck in person haha. That was probably the same hit that I popped another welded nut inside the crossmember for the skid bolts. Thank god I could get enough tension on it that I got the bolt out. I'm now down 2 front skid bolts. I think I'll eventually shove some rivnuts in there so I can get it tight on all corners. Another day, another project....



So here is everything stripped out on the front end. I'm going to thank @05tacomabro and @Brindybot now and probably 100 more times <3



And thus it was time to chop off my bump stops Using the SPC/Light Racing template, we painted what was to be chopped.

Also a little side track, I skimmed the country for this Toyota bolt on kit after SPC came back and told me they were discontinued when I tried to make a wholesale order for them. I called them back one of the engineers there told me that they had enough parts left over to build rear kit for me but not front. I worked it out of him that a guy named Bryan from a company named Laternmark had bought some front kits a while back that may still have them. So I called up Bryan. Turns out Bryan started and owned Light Racing, sold to SPC, and then left the company after SPC took over to do his own thing. Not sour, I think he just didn't like not calling the shots at his (formarly) own company. Anyways, Bryan came back with a really high price referencing MSRP, which the MSRP is like almost 2k for the front alone. Fuck that. SPC doesn't run a MAP policy so drop ship retailers were selling them around the $1k mark. I finally got Bryan down to that price. Bryan was really cool to talk with, I spent like an hour on my lunch break shooting the shit with him about engineering and car design, etc. Used to work TRD and is currently a consultant for the Chevy ZR2 project. Cool guy.

I was then turning around to buy the rear kit direct with my dealer account from SPC but they came back and said they sold out of the left over kits between then and now. I asked who..guess who? Bryan. I don't think he meant to buy them out from under me but he bought out all of them after I told him they were discontinued but had enough for a few rear kits.

My dealer price was waaaaaaay lower than what Bryan would sell me the rear kit for. Couldn't swallow it. So I bought the jounces by themselves and SPC's universal coil spring sandwhich plate mount. It's literally what the 4R/FJ specific kit is made from. came out way less than the retail, still.

ANYWAYS. back on topic! Chop chop chop! @Brindybot is a precision weapon with a cutoff wheel.





and then: tada! a couple destroyed drill bits later, the jounce mount bolted right up.


Some more agonizingly longer-than-expected time later, the front corner was mostly re-installed:





now when putting together the LCA's, they had been used for a couple thousand miles on @05tacomabro truck before he removed them. When the tech removed them, they fucked the boots. SO. I ordered a myriad of Energy suspension boot kits and found that the Hummer H1 ball joint boot kit slips right over the torn Moog boots to give them two layers of protection since the H1 boots wouldnt quite seal to the bottom of the BJ unless the moog boot was in there to take up the slack.











That is pretty much it for mid-progress photos. Sarah wasn't around to document for me.

I did take this photo with my blackberry and used built in editing to make it look super instagrammy: