Thanks for the good words, guys. When I look at the whole project ahead, it seems like I'm getting nowhere. That's why I give myself weekly goals. Next week's goal is to lift all the drivetrain brackets, get all the welding done so I can clean the whole thing up the following week and paint it before I start to rebuild. I might not achieve next weeks goal though because I'm going up north 4wheeling from thursday to the following tuesday, which will be awesome (always is) but I lose a weeks worth of work on this truck. I'm pretty sure Toyota mixed heroin into the steel of these trucks, because every night I'm not working on the 4runner I'm jonesing to get back at it.

 

I know how ya feel Dutch spending weeks away from home is a killer.
glad to hear your going wheeling hope you have a great time.

 

tht is great. lol

glad to see you got alot done.

 

Thanks Twisted, and yeah Jason it's sure to be a good time, I'll probably post a few pics even though it's not build related. The land up there is unbelievable.

So yeah, no chance of me meeting my goal for the week, but you can't win everytime. Too much going on at the moment. Here's a short update of what I did get done since I last posted.
I didn't have the right tools with me to take really exact measurements of the motor mounts for the lift brackets I'll need to make, but I took some rough ones anyway and scribbled them down on a piece of paper. I saw a pic of some engine lift brackets a while back. The guy had made two plates the same shape as the motor mount plate, and mitred a section of steel and welded it between the two plates to make one shim that bolts to the frame bracket, goes straight up, and also bolts to the mounts on the engine. Seemed pretty straight forward. I took what spare time I had at work in the shop (I work as a steel fabricator) and made some up to see if my measurements were close enough to the real thing.

I laid out the measurements on a piece of 1/4 X 4" flatbar. I was half in the bag when I made my rough sketch, so my drawing wasn't the greatest. I ended up sleeping on the couch at the inlaws that night. Check out this professional drafting job:

The plates listed on the bottom left are ones I'll be using to lift two of the crossmembers. I'll probably make a whole new transmission crossmember because the factory one is so darn thick you lose a ton of clearance right there. I'm not sure I'll be able to really go crazy offroading with this truck after it's done, because it'll be my daily driver, but I'm a firm believer of building things right the first time. And who knows, maybe I'll strike it rich buy a brand new 4runner, and drive the crap out of the 2 old ones I have right now. Enough dreaming.
I cut the plate on the saw to ensure I'd have square corners to measure off of.

I lose the thickness of the saw blade each cut, but I was ok with it being shy of my measurements by 1/16 considering I was already unsure of my drawing to begin with.

There's a shot after I laid out the holes and centre punched them.
This is the hydraulic punch on the shops Ironworker. Pretty sure this model has 90 tons of pressure:




Beats the heck out of drilling.


I used the shears on the Ironworker to chop the corners. Shears aren't as accurate as the saw but they're really quick and you don't have to set angles, you just line it up by eye. Here are a couple pics of the shears for those of you who haven't seen them before:


Kind of hard to see what's going on there, but the first pic is the guideplate in front of the shears, and the red plate is the adjustable guard that holds the steel plate down while the shears cut the metal like scissors do with paper. The second pic is the actual blades inside the guard. I did actually get a chance to check out the finished plates on the motor mounts, but completely forgot to take pics because I was only there to get prepped for the 4wheeling vacation, not work on the truck. They lined up fine with the holes and the corners were cut pretty close to the mount profile, but the bottom edges didn't quite rest on the tabs that stick out of the motor mounts, and I'm thinking that's probably important. I'll have to either slot the holes a tiny bit or make slightly larger plates. I'm kinda kicking myself now for not trusting my measurements. If I had added the 1/16" to my measurements for each plate before I cut the steel in the saw the plates probably would have lined right up. I still have to get the angle to cut the spacer steel that'll go in between the two 1/4" plates on each mount because my father in law didn't have a protractor or anything else that would work for me. I'm probably not explaining this very well but I don't have a clue where to find the pics for the finished product any more.

Jump to next drivetrain lift post >>

 

Man I would love to build my own lift mounts but my plans always turn out better in my head LOL. Good work man keep it up.

 

Hope You had a good time on your trip Dutch.

 

looks good man

 

So yeah, back from vacation. I'm going to post a couple pics. They're not really build related, but the pipe dream is that someday I can do some wheeling with the 4runner up there. Everyone just brings 4wheelers because you can load 4-6 of them per truck depending on the trailer. It's an 8-10hr drive north to the camp depending on the traffic so the gas would be killer just to drive one extra truck up there, but a man can hope. I can't remember what I've said about this place, but it's the father-in-law's hunting camp. I've gone up there to hunt moose and bear, and every year we go up on the may long weekend to just 4wheel for 4 or 5 days straight.
Check this place out. It's all logging cuts, most plots are 160 by 160 acres and you can drive all day (or days for that matter) long on trails without seeing another person, or the same trail until you start heading back. This is what most of the main trails look like:

and they lead to a lot of trails that look more like this:





There are a bunch of areas with sandy ramps and dunes:

And gravel pits to play in:


We went in to check out a cut that was still being logged:

You can go to the top of a hill and turn around and see nothing but this:

I took this one in case I ever decide to make half doors for the 4runner:

It's a pic of the inside of a kubota enclosed utility vehicle. The door set up is super simple, square tubing frame, simple latch system and a shock. Might be worth looking into doing something like that instead of trying to rework a 4runner door, but who knows. Either way I'll have the pic for reference for later.

Anyways, as I said they weren't really 4runner related, but it's got to be the perfect place to bring one. Now that my week long delay is over I'm hoping to jump back on schedule and do some fab work on the truck this week.

 

Looks like a good place to explore Dutch glad ya had a good time, OK now back to work haha.

 

I couldn't agree more. I didn't get as much done tonight as I was hoping, especially after being away from the project for so long. He'res a bit of an update.

Had a nice surprise when I got home at lunch, package was at the post office so I picked it up and brought it back to the lunch room at the shop to check it out.

It's that metal flake stuff I ordered a while ago. I could have sworn I ordered emerald green and not the Lime Green I'm staring at here so I'll have to check to see what it looks like after mixing it with some clear coat. There were no directions in the pack, so I'll have to look it up sometime.

Ok so here's a look at those brackets I made earlier for my engine mount shims. They dont' line up perfectly because if you remember I took the measurements without the right tools and after a few too many beers to be precise. They would probably work, because the plates actually do rest on the tabs on the bottom. That's important because it takes the strain off the bolts, otherwise I'm assuming the bolts could shear. I figured I'd take better measurements and make new plates tomorrow anyway.
This is how I found the angle to cut my tube shims at. I did this last week already but forgot to take a pic:

I'll give all the angles and crap later when I'm happy with my mount shims so people won't have to jump from page to page to get the whole plan.
And here's a couple pics to show what it'll sorta look like when I'm done:


I'm thinking I should put tabs on the top plate of the shim to take the stress off the bolts there, too.
Ok so then I moved on to the horseshoe crossmember.
It's gotta be lifted If I lift the drivetrain or the rear drive shaft will hit it, and having it higher will make running the exhaust easier, too. So I marked where it was before I began:

I cut all the welds holding the crossmember to the frame one by one:

And then lifted the crossmember like this:

I'll bring a shim to put between the top flange of the crossmember and the frame. It can act sort of like a gusset as well. That was as far as I got that night so I'll have to pick up the pace if I have a hope of being at the sandblasting stage this weekend.

Jump to next drivetrain lift post >>

 

So it was supposed to be moss green. I'm not a big fan of lime green so this blows. The shipping was more than the bottle of metal flake was, so I'm probably stuck with this crap.

 

Glad to see you are back. That looks like a great place to go. Around here all of the good places are getting developed. Never would of imagined this 20 years ago.

Biggest game we got is deer. Have tried elk and would like to try moose sometime.

Camping is great, and having 4 wheelers would make it that much better. Done both, just not at the same time.

You are moving quick on your frame. Glad you had a good time. Vacations always go so quick.

 

Yeah vacation was good, Terry. Moose meat is pretty good, but it's one of those meats that can overpower the taste of whatever you're cooking it with, so I usually like to thaw it out for a night in salt water and let it soak for a bit to take the game taste away. Makes for a more mild taste. We usually like to cube it up and mix it in with a mushroom soup or something at the hunt camp. Bear meat's not that great, it usually goes straight to summer sausage or pepperettes.

So back to the build. I cut some HSS 2x2 to shim up my horsecollar crossmember. Mitred one end of each to clear the body mount and still pick up the flange of the crossmember:

and then welded it up when I was happy with the location:

and on the inside:

Really had to watch my heat on the vertical welds for fear of blowing through the frame. Was a bit of a pain because my father in law's welder is a pretty old one, but it'll do.
I did find one bad spot on the frame and I cut it out:

It's right on the back of the front crossmember. It just collects crap and never gets cleaned out and then rots. I'll have to remember to wash that out every year or so after the truck gets mobile so it doesn't happen again. I'm going to leave it open till after I sandblast and paint the frame so I can get in there better and then weld in a new plate like this:

Think I'll be taking tomorrow night off to hang out with the wife, still hoping to get to sandblasting this weekend, though. I felt like I got a lot done tonight, but now that I'm posting the pics I realise it wasn't that much.

Jump to next drivetrain lift post >>

 

every little bit is a little bit closer dutch you making progress by leaps and bounds in my Humble opinion, I like your idea for raiseing the cross member Im trying to figure in my mind how to do mine when the time comes, I was also thinking the same as you on a lip on the bottom edge othe the engine lift mounts wouldnt have to be much just somthing to support th motor mount a little.

 

Thanks Jason. It was the only way I could think to raise it, because it raises the front connection for the gas tank at the same time. I was even thinking about doing the spare tire crossmember the same way, but then I looked at it and figured it's also acting like a truss across the bottom of the frame where the rear leafs hook to the shackles, so I'm leaving it alone. If I'm ever in a situation where I need a ton of clearance, the tire can be off. If you use the same idea you wouldn't have to use square tube like I did, I only used it so I could pass my brake lines through it later instead of having to bend them around it. Yes. I'm that lazy.

Off topic, I'm horrible at the search engine on this site, does anyone in the great hive-mind that is Yotatech know a good thread for someone who's installed an Old Man Emu suspension kit? I was always planning on doing a suspension kit, but later on. Now that the frame is bare it would be so much easier to do it now if I can swing the bill (this is where my wife hides my visa). I'm really liking what I'm reading about the OME kits because ride quality seems to be the biggest thing mentioned but I'm unsure of myself when it comes to swapping out torsion bars, having never done anything of the sort.

 

I dont know much about welding and such, but it is looking good. Something I wish I knew, and one day when I get a shop will try to learn, so Im not much help there.

I will see what I can find for you on the Old Man Emu in the morning. I got somethings I need to look up.

 

Thanks Terry. And with the right amount of practice, anyone can weld. I've been getting paid for it for over a decade, so that should prove that any idiot can do it, lol. Any info you can find on the OME kit would be appreciated.

 

Sounds like the right way to go on that cross member kinda takes care of a lot of things at once, my only concern for me is being able to get in there to weld it but I suppose I could lift one side at a time a little higher just to get in there to do it. Thanks dutch

 

I already mentioned this to jason, but for anyone else who's following along, If you have enough room to get in with a grinder to cut the factory welds you should have enough room to get in and weld it after it's shimmed up. One thing I would add as a suggestion: whatever you use as a shim, go for something with some meat to it. Not just for strength. If you go with a thick enough piece of steel as a shim you can concentrate your heat on the shim while welding and just wash your puddle across to the crossmember steadily to avoid blowing through the crossmember's thinner guage material. The edges will probably be extra thin after grinding off the factory welds. I used a 1/8" thick cut off wheel and held it flat with the frame to avoid gouging the frame.

 

its looking good man