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This build thread will be less about the SAS and more about improvements made after the swap was done. It'll have more pictures and less talk...if you have any questions about anything, fire away and I can give you more details. I was looking for a Toyota to build and ran across this truck. The previous owner had been working on it for awhile and once he had the swap completed, he needed to sell it for some cash. Lucky me! Most of the hard work was done, but the truck wasn't setup how I wanted. It was a little tall, had no armor, and I questioned whether rock crawling was really in the picture when the truck was transformed. I'll post more pictures as progress continues!
Here's how I bought it:
Last edited by MJDesignOffRoad; 08-02-2018 at 02:17 PM.
Here are some under the hood pics. (no show truck pictures here LoL)
ARB Compressor and air connection.
Replaced the power steering pump, box, and lines. The radiator had ports for an auto trans cooler...so I used them to keep a little heat out of the steering.
Running a Switch Pro 9100 to handle the accessories. It's a little pricey, but sure makes for a clean install not having fused links and relays all over the place!
Anyone swap out headlights to LED's and not know about Toyota's fantastic idea to run one hot and two grounds??? Yeah it took a few minutes (and a couple YouTube videos) to figure this out... I tracked the high/low beam grounds back to the fuse box and intercepted the high beam. I decided to use the Switch Pro to supply power to the high beam rather than making some sort of adapter. This way the LED headlights plug in like normal and voltage can be sent to the high beams from the factory wiring. It's a little inconvenient not having it switched like normal...but...the Switch Pro lets you program a strobe feature if you double tap the switch, so next time someone leaves their high beams on, it's seizure time.
Also added some rock lights up front while I was tackling the headlights
Suspension improvements are still in the works. So far the truck has been lowered (yeah I said it...) about 2-3 inches. The truck had some nasty driveline vibrations from the big angle (nevermind the angle shim was installed backwards). The front has been more of a chore. Front driveline is too long, poly bumpstops were too long, and the truck still had the IFS oil pan. I ordered a 2wd oil pan, pickup tube, and splash tray to get the sump out of the way. It blew my mind how hard it was for a dealership to get these parts... Then Toyota sent me parts for a 3.4 instead of 3.0...yep... Long story short, My 3.0 has a pan and pickup tube from a 3.4 T100 (pretty sure the pan is the same), but had to use the splash tray from the 3.0 since there were no holes tapped into the main bearing girdle to hold the pickup tube in place. Pickup tube is magically attached to the splash tray (i'm too ashamed to publicly admit how these two are help together...but it works...and has for awhile LoL). I may have been a little irritated with having wrong parts that I didn't get more pictures of the pan install...sorry.
Front suspension improvements. Out with the hard poly bumpstops...hello Bilstein!!!
Then add a little too much skinny pedal and some whoops...
So, wanna guess how much the front axle moved around after spending a few hours in the desert driving around a whooped out wash and climbing on some rocks? About this much:
LUCKILY nothing got damaged other than the pad getting chewed up. No matter how much you move things with a jack to check clearance, things move a bit more and the ubolt nuts caught the bump stop...a few times.
Hit the drawing board and made a solution for the bumpstops. We designed a new ubolt plate thick enough the bumpstop won't get caught up on the ubolt nuts and added a little extra room off the side for when the axle is really articulated.
Also made an Acetal (Delrin) bushing kit for the springs and shackles. It made a HUGE difference on the front end. Keeps the axle from moving around so much and also made it much more manageable at higher speeds. No longer need to give it half a revolution on the steering wheel to keep it in the lane on the freeway.
Seconded! Digging everything so far. Looking forward to more!
Thanks! There isn't much space to put air bumps with leafs up front, so it seemed like the logical place. When I put bigger shocks on I may have to move the mounting tabs out a little, but the current location works fine with the Bilstein shocks.
08-02-2018, 12:40 PM
