Hey, its cool to find than I am not he only one rocking airsoft BBs as tire balance. I will never go back to weights.[/QUOTE]

Ive read of ppl doing it, but so I thought I would try it out. Glad to hear that you like them in yours.

 

I used them from 2007-2012, the tire ware was amazing. I even convinced my brother ( Snowhite, here on YT ), and my mother too run airsoft BBs in their rigs. They both agree that the BBs are way better then any tire weight.

 

I made some progress on the rear suspension. I cut out all the brackets and and crossmembers. Ill have to make a new gas tank rear mount, but I figured it would look better that way then trying to cut part of the crossmember out. I tacked on the front spring hangers but I think they are too far back. As I went to line up my shackle hangers, I found that with the hanger at the end of the frame, I still had about a 20 degree slope on the 7" shackles I made. I plan to cut the tacks on the front hanger and move them forward some. Hopefully get that done this evening.

Here are some pics of the progress.

Brackets rough cut


Couple pics after all the grinding. I still need to run the flapper wheel over it and paint tho.






All the crap that I cut out


Springs mounted to the front hanger


It looks like I marked the center of my fender a little too far back too. Nothing that cant be fixed tho.

 

I'll let the pics do the talking here





It's finally on all 4s and on the 36s. The rear is a little low and a little too far back. I'm gonna order a AAL tomorrow. I'll move the spring hangers forward when I pull it apart to install the AAL. This has been a long time come. I'm excited.

 

Bada$$!!

 

Thanks

 

Looks awesome!!!

 

Thanks. It def put a huge smile on my face yesterday evening when I got to this point.

 

Well even after getting the rear end almost level with the front, my front shackle angle is still horrible. Now I have to decide if Im going to remove a leaf and/or push the spring hanger back some. Currently the spring hanger is mounted 3/4" forward.

Here's a pic of how it sits now


I think I may wait to do anything to it until I get the motor running and get most of the stuff back on the front. I figure I have about 250lbs to add to the front (winch and bumper included). I had a buddy about that size stand on the front with little movement.

 

Awesome build, just got done reading through it, not sure how I missed it up until this point, lol. I love the stance with the 36's, looks so tuff! Keep up the good work!

 

X2 on what ED said!!!yea I'm curious to how much weight difference I'll have with the engine swap,I'm waiting on ordering my shocks until I get it set in there.

 

Well after doing some looking at my 4runner I noticed that it looked like I was gonna have a clearance issue between the drag link and crank pulley since my drivetrain is low. I've come to realize that a body lift is helpful when using an auto trans.

So I decided to pull out the tractor and do some test flexing.







I coulda picked it up more but we stopped there. Looks like I will have enough clearance. So we pushed it inside and set to work on the front shackle angle. I decided to move the front hanger back from 3/4" forward to 1/4" forward. That put my shackle angle completely verticle, which I think will work fine seeing as how i still have some weight to add to it. I didn't take any pictures but I will later.

One thing about my tight clearances between the drag link and pulley is that I won't be able to run the steering stabilizer in the way trail gear shows. I actually may not put it on at all. I may just go ahead and order the parts to do hydroassist from surplus center. I figure I could prolly use the help turning those 36s

 

Looking good!

 

Looks really good, awesome flex!

I never ran a steering stabilizer either, been driving it for 2 years without any problems. I was thinking of eventually doing hydro-assist someday too, but I need to just get my power steering hooked up first, lol.

Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks

Yeah steering stabilizers are overrated lol.

Im gonna start ordering parts this week. I figure I might as well go ahead and get the more critical parts in since I never know what I might feel like working on next lol.

 

Love the look of it with no front end. Looks like one of those giant, dumb villain body gaurds from a bond movie

 

Thanks...I think lmfao.

I cant wait until I get to a point where I can clean this thing up and make it look better. Also, I just ordered a 22x19 radiator from Speedway Motors and a B&M Sport Shifter. I need to do some research and find the steering box rebuild kit. I plan to order one of those today also.

 

I hope your steering box re-build goes better than mine. lol. I have one leaky rebuilt box sitting in the garage

 

Well I hope so too.

 

Hydro assist!!!