SMKYTXN'S 2011 DCFBFTMFW Solid Axle Swap

Nice crossmember. I can only imagine the amount of time that went into getting that to work nicely with the link brackets.

Both the tow rig and the wheeler have leafs on all four corners so I must be impoverished

 

You pauper you....

 

Thanks for the tip on the Tundra oil fill neck @Torspd. This should be able to add oil without pulling the cross member now.




The link mounts and cross member mount are now fully welded out and primed. Everything looks so much better in rusty red primer.

 

Please Share PN#

 

The Tundra one is shorter I assume?

 

You poor popper

There's the beef! Great progress, and glad to see it worked out to your expectations.

 

Correct

 

I'll see if I still have the bag at the shop tomorrow. I just stopped by the dealer and asked them for a filler neck for a Tundra.

 

This build continues getting better and better. That crossmember is a massive piece of beef. Really good work all around

 

So I guess bigger isn’t always better!

 

Zinger!

 

The axle is pretty much ready to go back under the truck at this point, but I'm going to hold off until I get the rest of my steering components in.

The major pieces of the steering are the orbital, column, steering shaft, reservoir, pump, and cooler. The pump I bought from Howe won't work, so I sent my original pump back to them so they can modify it to work with my system. They'll be porting it and adding the correct an fittings. That also means my stock length belt will work, so that's a bonus.

The reservoir is supposed to be as close to the pump as possible, so that won't be going in till I get the pump back. There's also no point in putting the cooler in yet either.

I'm still waiting on parts for the steering column, so I'm stuck there as well. Oh well, time for a break for Christmas and then back to it next week.

 

Damn that looks pretty.

Damn great work man...

 

A lot of hurry up and wait.

 

Well, Christmas was fun, but it's time to get back to work. I got home Tuesday with a nice case of food poisoning so yesterday was a bit slow as far as progress goes. I did manage to press out the new 14bolt studs and press in new ones. Of course the new studs I put in when I assembled the axle the first time turned out to be too short. The new harbor freight 20ton press made this job a lot more enjoyable than beating them in by hammer like I did last time.


I also painted the brake calipers, installed the wheel spacers, added an additional leaf to the pack, and bolted the tires back on. All of that to realize I should have moved the calipers to the front of the axle so my shock tabs would fit on the back of the axle tube. Doh!

Today was all about the traction bar. She's pretty much finished except for paint. Fun fact! This is the third traction bar I've built for Smokey. The one that @Boomtacoma01 helped me put together last time is now out of commission.

 

Oil filter housing: 12185-38011
Oil filler cap: 12180-0h032

There's a gasket as well, but I lost the bag for that one. You can peel the gasket out of your old housing as well since it's the same. Oh, and you don't really need the cap since the old one fits the new housing.

 

Dude. Your welding is on point. Badass job on getting it down.

 

Time is counting down! Tick, tock, tick, tock

 

Thanks Kase!

Don't remind me. I'm already cutting items from the to do list that aren't critical.