Nice!

 

yea, its finally happening!
I'm still pondering your tacoma brake idea... i like the sound of it but i don't like the sound of buying new 17" wheels and tires

 

Checked out your classified for the turbo runner, that's a nice looking, low mileage rig! I know what you were going through contemplating building a second vehicle it's tough. That's how I felt when I had my 83' even though it was a dd, it seemed like it was nickel and dimein me, take my funds and time away from my 4runner. Now even with my trailer build it's tough throwing money at 2 projects, lol.
I hope it sells quick for you, it will be nice to get some of the bigger projects knocked out on your 4runner!

 

Thanks ed, yea it is a nice rig I hate to sell it but one of them's got to go... but if it doesn't sell soon though i may change my mind about which one haha

Recently i've noticed that when it rains/snows i get a small pool of water on the floorboards...both drivers and passenger side. I can't figure out how its getting in so i thought I'd throw a shot out to see if this is a common issue that people have dealt with and if so how i may go about finding the leak. My next idea is to wait until dark and put a bunch of lights in the cab, then take off the fender to see if there's a crack somewhere. lot of work though

 

Well, I think there are a couple of places these trucks can leak. Windshield area and kickpanels. On mine, there were rusted out holes in both the driver and pass side kickpanels. If you look up under the front wheel wells, right where the wiring goes thru the inner fender, see if there are any rust holes. If not, then maybe your windshield is leaking.

 

thanks cory, gives me some ideas to start. i half suspect the windshield cuz i had it replaced a couple years ago.

 

Its time for an update:
got started on my axle build last night.

Cut off all the mounts and tabs by the knuckle and saved them for later.



Tried the Harbor Freight pipe cutter and it broke after less than 5 minutes, so ended up using a cutoff wheel



Test Fit of the Mayem Metal Works 3" spacer (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/toyot...right-way.html)




Clearanced the bottom of the axle. Stole the idea from 4Crawler (http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/AxlePlate.shtml)





Made my own 1/4" slide plate







Before burning it in, i welded some nuts inside for the bottom stud holes, since they will be converted to bolts. This step was probably overkill, but i hate stripped threads!



then





Also burned in the spacer and ground everything smooth:





That was a decent evening! I'm ready to weld the knuckle ball back on, just waiting to hear back from 4x4labs about my caster angle.

 

I am a little jealous of your welding skills, it is something I am working on and not coming along as fast as I would like. Looks good at what you are doing.

On your windshield leak, I have seen 3 different trucks that had leaks. All three of mine that I worked on was on the bottom. There is always other places that they can leak but from my experience it is on bottom of the windshield.

I would suggest pulling your windshield and cleaning it down to bare metal. If you take it to the windshield shop alot of times they just add glue on top of the old glue. Then they can use a rust sealer or maybe you could apply POR to it. It will be pitted fairly bad but it can be sealed over. The windshield shop I use, they put a metal strip over where it was rotted out and sealed it up. Hasnt leaked yet.

The sides and bottom really pits up and where I have seen most issues.


Also pull the cowl infront of your windshield and make sure there is no debris stacked up in the cowl and causing some rotting in that area.

 

thanks terry that's some good info, i need to research how to take off the cowl in front of the windshield so i can inspect the bottom of the seal.

 

Very cool project, nice work on the axel build! Can't wait to see some more pics!

 

thanks ed.
Ordered my Highsteer kit today! Hoping to finish the axle by the end of the week. then its time to pull the truck in and start the swap!

 

Seconded on the weld jealousy. I would go bonkers and my truck would weigh 5500lbs though. I'm afraid. Good stuff here fella!

 

You need to remove the wipers and with a very stubby screw driver you have 3 Phillips screws to remove and one each side of the cowl there are two tabs (driver/passenger sides) that a flat blade screw driver can be used to lift them up. Then the cowl just slides forward and up.

 

haha thanks man, yea its hard to not go steel crazy on these things but the engineer in me wants to keep it light

nice, thanks terry i'll give it a shot!

 

Hey man diff mod looks great! Just letting you know that the Moab trip has been set in stone for September 5th through September 12th. Hope you can make it!

 

cool, i'll try my best!

Update:
Worked on the axle this weekend, didn't get as far as i'd hoped cuz it took a while to set up all the angles.

Got the Short side knuckle ball welded back on. Set it at 9* of rotation from stock. I'll explain more later.

I cut a 3/16" grove to get a deep weld, then did a 2nd pass (the first pass was prettier, i promise )


then I moved on to the spring perch. Got it cut off (short side is a real pain since it sits on the side of the diff housing)



and then ground everything smooth:



Then prepped the new spring perches. I've been disappointed with many of the popular spring perches on the market since they sit so high off the axle. I really want to keep this thing as low as possible, so I went with rock-tactics low-profile perches. (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/suspe...g-perches.html) They are cut very well, but require a little welding since they do a relief cut to get the low-pro design



took me a couple hours to get the short side perch in position. Even though i relocated the perch 1.5" toward the short side, I still ran into the same issue as above where the spring perch is mounted on an angle where it rides up on the diff housing. Because of this, i had to cut the perch a little to get it to set level, but all-in-all it wasn't too bad.



red line shows the stock location of the perch. Moved it 1.5" toward the knuckle to account for the spacer


I don't know how guys rotate the knuckles without relocating the spring perches, it would have been much harder if i had to put it back in the stock location since the closer you get to the diff, the housing flattens out on the front and the perch rides up on the diff housing, causing all kinds of crazy angle issues.
Here's how I set the pinion and caster angles: knuckles 9* more than stock, spring perch 6* more than stock (pinion angle). So the difference (3*) will be added to the caster angle. I only did 6* on the pinion angle so that i can run a hp someday if i stumble across one for less than a million dollars.
Side note, these spring perch's sit about 1/16" LOWER than the stock ones! (7/16" lower than the stock short-side perch since it sits 3/8" higher than the long-side one) highly recommend them.

 

Wow great work!

 

Man that axle looks killer! Way better than adding spacers. Definitely the best option I've seen if you want to stay with the 8" axle and can weld.

 

got a present from 4x4 labs today:

 

Maybe I missed something, why are you moving the perches out? Did widen your spring hanger/shackles?