I think LOR is butt hurt cause no one gave him loves. Come back bro! We are sorry!

 

Yeah dude! What up with the marbles in the tranny? That cant be a fun sound.

 

for sure man. how'd your truck do? the pics look great

thanks man, I ordered a kit from summit (was pretty cheap) but If I need any more i'll hit ya up for sure! yea I like the big bend campground, milder temps next to the river and close to town. hopefully I can make it out with you guys

thanks ed, yesir 37's indeed

haha

haven't had time to dive into this yet, hoping to pull the case tonight. already have a spare tranny to throw in but I'm pretty sure a t-case rebuild is in order

 

Edit: I talked to budbuilt on the phone today and they were very helpful
I've had a budbuilt crossmember on my truck for about a year now. My initial review of the company was that they build great products but they were a little slow (took a month to get my crossmember after ordering.) recently i've run into another issue with them. while trying to remove my skid plate, i found that 2 of the 4 allen-head bolts would not budge. I tried every allen wrench i could find but inevitably, the heads stripped before they would crack loose. Consequently, i spent the better part of an evening drilling out 2 of the bolts. I have dealt with this before, the first time i removed the skid plate the bolts were difficult to break free so i put a little grease on the counter-sink portion of the plate to keep them from binding. this obviously wasn't a long-term fix. I believe this is a design flaw with this product since i've read at least a couple other posts where people have had similar issues. There may be an easy fix, budbuilt reccommended stainless bolts so i'm going to try them out. I think other brands do use the same type of bolts, so I’m not sure if there’s better options out there, but hopefully this helps someone

 

I've heard multiple people have fitment/hardware problems with BudBuilt just like you are having here. Its for that reason that I'm going with Sky's Dual Case member instead.

 

I bought a used Budbuilt and I had similar issue, I broke off an Allen wrench in there trying to loosen them. Stupid me used the ball end and it snapped the Allen wrench right at the ball. I could not find a tapered Allen bolt to fit at any of my local HW stores, so I emailed Budbuilt and they sent me a bolt for free. I'm not a Mechanical Engineer, so I'm not sure of all the options for bolt heads, but I guess the Allen head is about all they can reasonably source for a recessed bolt like that, I don't like Allen head bolts and I wish they used something different, but I still like the Budbuilt and their customer service is pretty good. I imagine that if I ever have to remove mine, I'll run into the same issue as you and have to drill them out.

 

since returning from moab, i've been tearing into my truck to resolve several issues:
1. transmission/transfer case noise
2. steering is loose
3. rear shocks aren't dampening enough

1. I've known my transmission was on its last leg for a while now, so i've had a spare waiting to go in. I couldn’t tell if all of the noise was coming from the tranny, or if the t-case was making noise too. Plus the front output had more play than I was comfortable with, so I decided to go ahead and tear it down while I had it out. I was reluctant to do so after seeing pictures of how many small parts are in these things, but I’m glad I did. I followed marlin’s instructions and it was very easy and straight forward. Turns out, everything looked great inside, except for the spedo gear. This thing has been eating speed sensors since I’ve owned it and now I know why:
Old on right, new on left




You can see what its been doing to the speed sensor (old on right, new on left)



After a short call to marlin crawler, they had one lying around so i had a replacement on its way for a grand charge of 5$. Those guys are the best around for customer service! I also had them send me the front output bearing, and their ecoseal kit so I could freshen up the output seals.





Got that all buttoned up last night. While I was in there, I pulled the interlock pin so I can finally run the twin-stick I’ve had sitting around for 2 years now. Here it is all ready to go back in. Hopefully this “new” tranny is in better shape than my old one




2. When it comes to steering, I was really starting to get frustrated. After installing a new high-steer setup and completely rebuilding the axle I still had wandering and bumpsteer that made the truck dangerous to drive. I decided, as a sort of final attempt to fix this issue, to replace the shackle bushings… and I may have had a breakthrough. The shackle bolts were tight, but I found that the shackles had been rotating on the bolt, not on the bushing like they’re supposed to. This caused the holes in the shackles to wear, resulting in a TON of play. With the spring unloaded, I could grab the back of the leaf and move it about 6”!! So that meant I needed new shackles, but my truck budget has been exhausted for this year so I improvised. I added some weld to the bold and ground it down until the bolt fit snug in the shackle hole again. Then, some new bushings and hopefully this issue is resolved. (this is a short-term fix, new shackles are on the wish-list)

3. My rear shocks have always been a little under-damped, but for some reason this problem perpetuated after I did the high-steer. I’m thinking it has to do with the fact that I’m not running the “torque” rod on the front axle anymore, which made the front suspension much softer now. With the front softer, the rear is moving a lot more on the road. It was very bad on my last trip, felt like i didn't even have rear shocks! I looked at relocating the shocks more vertical, which would increase dampening, but I only had a couple inches to work with, I'd have to buy shorter shocks, and it would be a lot of work so I ruled that out.

\

So I looked into getting a heavier valved shock. Bilstein doesn’t have a ton of valving options for the 5125, so I’d have to go with the 7100 series and they come with a nice price tag! So I opted for the rancho 9000. I am a tried-and-true bilstein guy, but 7100 bilsteins are almost twice the price of rancho 9000s so I didn’t have a lot of choice here. I’ve ran rancho 9000’s before and I liked them just fine. In addition, I like the adjustability, especially for a rear shock since my load ranges from empty and topless, to loaded down with several hundred pounds of camping gear.

 

That speedometer drive gear looks nuts. That's such a crazy wear pattern. I wonder how that happened and if that's what wear in that thing always looks like.

That's awesome that Marlin sells transmission internals so reasonably.

I just bought shocks too. The FOX 2.0 IFP is a totally rebuildable, revalvable smooth body non emulsion shock.

 

I'm thinking the wear was caused by a loose flange nut on the rear output. 2 years ago, due to an unbalanced driveshaft, my rear flange nut worked loose, it was only hanging on by a thread or two when i found it. the output flange is all that holds the spedo gear from sliding out, so i'm thinking it made contact with the housing when that happened. glad it was an easy fix.
btw, it was on the t-case, not the transmission

 

 

Duh... Whoops. Hahaha. Truck looks good in that last shot.

 

good stuff!

Thanks for all the write-ups you've posted and the good pics too!

 

thanks!

thanks man! you've got a good thing going on yours too. my 1st truck was an 86 4runner that i bought from my dad, it was in amazing shape but i didn't know what i had so when i blew up the trans i sold it. still kicking myself about that one

 

ran chinaman over memorial day. Truck ran awesome, definitely diggin' the 37's

 

Dude! Thats some cool stuff right there!! I wish I could make it out your way to do some wheeling with you guys!

 

thanks man! come out anytime!

Got the twin sticks installed before the last trip. Had to cut the shifters down 2" to clear the trans shifter, i wasn't too happy about that since TG assured me it would fit with my tranny.... I Guess it shouldn't surprise me anymore with them. turned out well though

 

Short throw twin sticks! Lol. What tranny setup do you have in that? My FROR twins don't exactly work with my setup either. The range stick can't have a knob on it because the trans shifter hits it

 

Yea sounds about how mine were before i modified them. I'm still running a G54

 

Dude what was the trick to getting the 37s to fit without trimming fender? Truck is looking great by the way.

 

thanks man! the rear is trimmed about 2" back, and the front hits a bit at full lock, i haven't got around to fixing that yet