I picked up a 240 volt welder from a pawn shop for cheap. Luckily I had a 240 plug in the garage. Welder works good. Its a cheapo Chicago Electric Dual Mig welder, but it gets the job done once the settings are dialed in.

 

This is my buddy's sweet SR5 (non-daily). Its been through the Rubicon many times and everywhere else in Northern Nevada. He did the SAS some time ago, but recently bought a super clean 1989 4runner. He is going to cut off this suspension and basically roll it under the 4runner and weld in. He wanted room for his wife and kids to take off-roading.

 

This is the root of all evil! It is what was causing the hesitation issue. The smaller pipe was completely clogged. It provides coolant to the temp sensor block. I suspect that a previous owner had a blown head gasket and poured a bunch of stop leak to fix the problem. Either that or bad electrolysis. I swapped in a new pipe from the dealer and it finally solved the issue!!!

 

A nice B-day present from the wife last year. They work great! I ended up moving some of the storage pockets from the front to the back. These are the Smitty Built covers.

 

First family trip with the baby. Stayed in a cabin at twin lakes and went hiking to Burney Lake. Sorry no 4runner picks. Hit 200K with the 4runner, missed the milestone by 1 mile :-/

 

I got a steel cart for free from my neighbor. Was about 100 lbs of steel. I needed welding practice for the SAS, so last fall I started turning it into a shop table.

 

Another big project this past winter was a complete bathroom remodel. It was a nightmare. I didn't get to do any work on the rig.

 

We got some good snow this winter!

 

Finished the shop table. Its nice because anything I put on the table, I can weld without having to ground.

 

We have parts!!!

 

Axle rebuild. The knuckles were caked in grease! Had to use a pic to get it all off.

 

Truss isn't welded on yet, just set it in place and i got everything cleaned up.

 

I would recommend not painting the axle housing until after the welding the truss and diff armor. Low Range Off Road has a series of videos on you tube of how to rebuild a solid front axle. In the videos, they paint before welding the truss and diff guard. It took a lot of work to clean up the mess, then had to repaint the housing again anyway. I would paint under the diff armor and truss before welding (not painting where the welds go), then paint everything after, it will save you a lot of time.

I did some practice welds before hitting the axle.

 

I painted the knuckles with a metallic flake type of paint, turned out really nice.

 

You can see how the welding ruined the paint, so I had to repaint.

 

A lot more to come, will post more pics tonight. I have a lot of questions about the swap. I will be installing it the last week of this month (April). Should I post this swap in the SAS section or just keep posting here?

 

My brother trying his hand at some welding.

 

I got 30 spline birfs, which didn't fit on my 27 spline axle shafts. I ordered the 27 spline birfs, or so I thought. I called LOWR and they said I got the 30's, which wasn't correct. It was either send back the Birfields and wait for them to get to LOWR, then get the correct ones sent, or just upgrade to the 30's. I decided to upgrade.

 

After I put everything on, I couldn't spin the rotors. The Low Range Off Road backing plate eliminators were rubbing against the rotors, which locked them up. I tried to bend one back away from the rotor while it was assembled, but didn't work, I just mangled it.

I had to heat, then pound them down with a hammer to flatten them out. I called LOWR and all they said was sorry, that they knew they had some quality control issues with the backing plates. They didn't even offer to send me another one for the one I bent out of shape.

 

Repaint. I used VHT paint and got a much better shine than the first go around.