4RunningColorado

Ike

your builds rock man. I really want to improve my stock IFS to handle more and not need so many alignments ect or bent iddler arms...Where is the best cheapes way to begin?

I saw that you basically cutt your torsion bars then reinforced them with dome steel tubing what sizes what gauge ect ect???

Basically where do I start and how much??? I can weld a bit and make some cutts ect ect...

AxleIke

Best and cheapest are mutually exclusive. You can have the best, or you can have the cheapest, but you cannot have both.

Cheapest way to upgrade the idler arm is to run the brass bushings from SDORI or others who sell them. Next is to brace the arm.

I did not ever cut my torsion bars. You must be thinking of someone else. Though, I'm not sure how that is done, but I'm not a metallurgist either.

For all my stuff I used .250 wall DOM. Not sure what it is running these days, I just used stuff I had laying around from other projects. Using the stock geometry, you could just replace the idler arm bushings. If you want to cut everything off, and move the steering forward like I did, you can use the 80 series rod ends like I did. Others have left things stock and used heims.

Any joint you go with will cost you 30 ish dollars plus the insert and jam nut. You'll need 4. so, 180-200 bucks depending on what you get. Bushings are like 60. Unless you plan on going with your own idler design or the total chaos like I did, the DOM and beefy links are not worth it.

Cheapest way to do get better steering life is to replace all the stock stuff with new, OEM stock stuff, and run the brass bushings.

4RunningColorado

Ike,

Thanks for your response. I'm going to order bushings and a truss online should run me less than 130$ with taxes and shipping... One more question does the brace/truss for the idler arm prevent the idler arm fro
Bending??? Do you the will hold up out on the trails???

AxleIke

My idler arm braced held up fairly well until I went to 35's. Then I got the total chaos one and its been great.

AxleIke

Finally made some progress. I got the wrecked hood, and outter fender off this weekend, and got my tcases out of my 87. I'm going to build the 89 because, aside from the front end damage, the body is in much better shape than my 87.

Tonight I got the front clip removed. I'm not sure how I'm going to button it up yet but the current thought is to build tubing supports for the body panels, and construct "inner fenders" out of some sheet metal to hold accessories, and electrical. Either way, it will likely retain full body width as this will be DD capable.

This weekend I hope to pull the r151 out of our turbo truck and get the r150 from this truck re-installed into the turbo truck so it can continue DD duties. We'll see how far I get on that.

Some pictures:

Truck as it sat when I brought it down:







Truck came with brand new MTR Kevlars on it in the 35x12.5 variety. I've read good things about them, so I plan to run these for a while, see how I like them:



And the nice front end components that will be sold, except for the CO's



And the lame progress:









and my first screw up. (I'm sure there will be many, many more)



Took me another hour to get all of that stripped, extentions cut, and everything re-soldered. So far, everything works again, so I got all the connections remade. Silly stuff like this tends to chap my ass, but, its all good. Just gotta keep my eyes on BOTH sides of the cut.

Ordered up the final few joints and bushings from both Poly and Ballistic to begin the front suspension. I'm still shopping around for a good price on tube. So far, best choice seems to be online, but I'm hoping a local yard will have what I need. I've decided to go with 2" OD, .375 wall lowers and 1.5" .250 wall upper, and panhard. Still, I have a bunch of work to do before I need the tube, so I've got plenty of time to look around.

At first I thought the front hoops would be able to be reused, but looking at the height now, it doesn't look good. Too bad, as they are nice units. ORS built the truck, and they did either a nice job building the hoops, or a nice install on Total Chaos' hoops. However, I think they are going to be too low to acommodate the ride height I'm trying to achieve. We'll see.

Hopefully I'll have more this weekend.

mightymouse

iTrader: (6)

scribed. Always nice when you start a thread ike. I've always liked your rig.

scuba

Ike, take it from me, I think you'll love the kevlars. Mine have held up great sp far with about 3 months, 6k miles, and 3 wheelin trips. I've seen hardly 1-1.5/32's wear. No chunking on them like I've seen too many BFG's do.

Still tuned in for more updates

AxleIke

Good to hear Scuba. That seems to be most people's experience, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they run.

Zelephant

This is going to be sooooo painful watching you chop up that beautiful long-travel rig for just another SAS. I know it's what you want and you know what your doing, but it's tough to accept!



I don't know if I can watch!

AxleIke

LOL. The LT is going to another home.

AxleIke

Got the r151 out of the turbo truck and the r150 put back in. The blistering lower starter bolt snapped off, which is going to be so much fun to remove. HOwever, the starter seats fine and the truck can start and run with just the threaded shank acting as a dowel.

Also have to swap the rear flanges over, and cut the tunnel at the back and patch the front to account for the offset. Lot of work, but should result in a good trans and tcase for Baby Beast.

Anyone know why the R151 shifter won't work in an r150? The bolt patterns are the same, but the r151 shifter won't engage the rear gears (1,3,5). I reseated the ball in the socket 3 times, before popping in the R150, which worked like a charm. The reason I want to use the R151 shifter is that it has a different bend and angle to it that fits the cab better.

Thanks for any insight.

Lysmachia

I really hope Troy and I will get to see you guys (and the progress) when we are out there in June. And I hope...hope..hope Tippy will be back with us (To stay in Steamboat)!

yotasavg

Which TC kit is the front end? Can it be used with torsion bars?

Mountain Cop

As has been said, this is going to be a fun one to watch.

As far as the front end goes, why not take the time to make a one piece fiberglass front end and just an inner DOM frame/upper shock mount with sheet metal inner fender/mounting locations? I know, it is a lot of work, but I haven't seen anyone do it yet, and it would be sick. You could event cage the front end in that way and modify the frame to allow for '85-like uptravel.

Are you going to cut the tunnel and flatbelly this one as well?

rattlewagon

Im excited for this one too. Build on!

AxleIke

yes but its been tenatively sold with about 3 people in line if it falls through.

AxleIke

I haven't decided on the tunnel. For now, I can raise the drive train quite a ways without cutting, but I'll see what I want to do. The thing I didn't like about the tunnel cut was the noise. However, I picked up some sound/heat shielding mat from summit to riviet to the bottom of the truck, so that may make a difference.

The front frame modification is a possibility, but its also a ton of work. I'm still considering that.

But no, I will not be glassing anything. Sheet metal is easy to find in the yards these days, and I don't have the patience to deal with making fiberglass look good. I'm going to tube out the front end, and hang the sheet metal from that, trimmed up for better clearance.

AxleIke

Thanks man!

AxleIke

The answer to the shifter dilemma is both yes and no.

I got the R151 shifter to work in the R150. The issue is that the shifters are rotated 180 deg wrt the base plate. THe shifter sits rearward of center on the shift plate on the R150, and forward of center on the R151. I tried just flipping the whole unit 180 deg, but this did not work, as stated, because the R151 would bind on the shift plate before being able to shift into the rearward gears (1,3,5).

The solution was to remove the shifter from the baseplate, rotate it 180 degrees, and then re attach. Works great now, and the shifter sits nicely on the passenger side of the cab. Same had to be done with the tcase shifter.

As for bending the shifters, I was able to bend the trans shifter using my press, but not by hand. I did this because the R151 was angled too far back (done so because that trans shifter opening is 3" forward, so the shifter would be easily reachable. With the R150, the shifter was almost hitting the seat. So I bent it so the shifter would sit a bit forward.

It took a lot of pressure before it would bend.

SCToy

Can't recall whose build I saw it on, but someone cut the shifter then bent it. Then filled the cut with weld. Looked very controlled and easy to bend from a specific location.