I put off the build thread because this rig has always been last minute. I'm going to reserve a bunch of posts and try to get caught up in the next few hours so please be patient.

Keep in mind this rig is being built with parts that I feel are common at any parts store or I can get off the shelf next day anywhere I'm at.

Thanks,
Luke



This thread has about 1.5 years of catching up to do so first part will be all history.

I found this rig on craigslist after frantically looking for a vehicle to take on our camping/wheeling trip through Colorado. This is a trip where we drive all our rigs out and camp on the trail, then hopefully drive back home with little to no problems. From Iowa it ends up being about a 2000-2500 mile round trip.

Original plan was to put a windshield on the 83 and cruise out in basically a firewall buggy. But I blew up the 2nd freshly rebuilt 22RE motor in it just a couple weeks before the trip.

It was wrecked and had been sitting in a barn for a couple years. Almost 200,000 miles on it. All original. 97 Limited, auto, stock elocker rear.

I drove to eastern Iowa and $1200 later hauled it back home. It went off the highway on ice and slid into a pole destroying the driver side doors, B-pillar, and rocker. Everything else was in a good shape besides being really dirty.




I did have one more weekend event before our Colorado trip so I got the doors back on and wheeled it stock.






It was really boring wheeling a stock rig but that's what I had so I worked with it.




Of course the street tires sliced a sidewall.




I pulled the 36's off the 83 to see how much work it would take to fit. I wasn't about to buy another set of tires if I could make these work.




All stock suspension with the plastic crap ripped off.




Of course they rubbed some. So I clearanced the firewall and added a Daystar spacer kit. No reason to get fancy here. Cheap rig, cheap parts. It will all get cut off eventually.

 

I picked up some straight doors and B-pillar from the local salvage yard. They were a really bad job of painting burple over factory maroon color. Apparently they switched wiring after 97 because I had to swap regulators because factory plugs were different.




Cut the smashed up metal and put new in. Along with 3/16x3x4 rocker sliders.










Doors shut like new, ready to start stuffing the back with camping supplies and head out. I also packed a full size spare, a cheap compressor, a few tools, and spare front CV shaft.

With only about 50 miles of actual driving this rig we set out for Breckenridge area, almost 800 miles away. We left really early and made it to camp in one shot that night with no problems. Got up and went wheeling. Found out the 4wd didn't work anymore on the first trail. The front diff didn't want to engage. Trail was easy so we just kept in 2 low with the rear locker on occasionally. Only hard part was some loose rock but we just hammered down and made it with momentum.

Made it to the top of the North Fork Swan River trail. We are parked for lunch next to the Cabin on Wise Mountain.

 

Looking forward to this one. I have been following on facebook..quite the transition

 

We did another couple days wheeling back road mountain trails with the Jeep group then Tristan(co-driver) and I decided to break off and do our own thing. The rest of the group wanted to do easier trails and we wanted to do some actual wheeling. So that night we packed up camp and headed towards Buena Vista. We drove through the night, dodged gigantic antlered animals, and found the last room at the super 8 in Leadville.

Woke up and headed south. We found a hardware store in BV that had a come-along. We were on our own with no winch and figured that would help if we got stuck. We had all our camping gear and a case of MRE's so we were prepared to hike out if we needed help. We kept rolling towards Chinaman Gulch and were surprised that we were the only ones in the area.

Chinaman Gulch was a lot of fun, especially with the added challenge of stock suspension. We ended up bypassing the vacuum actuators for the front diff to get 4wd. For some reason they were acting up and didn't like the higher altitude. They started working like normal again when we got back to Iowa.



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...920_100810.jpg






Fun trail! Airing up and heading back to Leadville to party. Town looked cool so we got a hotel on the main road and partied all night with the locals.

 

We partied, and we partied hard. We woke up late and super hungover. Time to check out. Went to the gas station for hydration then found a parking lot to pass out in for a few hours. We woke up early afternoon next to the taco joint and thought we would try to eat something. It worked and we headed north taking back roads to Holy Cross trail.

Head still hurt here.




Trail started out narrow, only one way up. No one else in site we decided to keep climbing.




Screw it, we could take care of ourselves.








French Creek





Made it with no setbacks to Holy Cross City. Awesome site!

 

Kept on heading up the mountain to Cleveland Rock. Checked it out and thought that there might be a chance to get up it but no way to get back down. IFS was not fun to try and come down steep off camper rocks. And we were the only ones on the entire trail.

Tristan on Cleveland Rock




We turned around and headed back down the mountain. Going up was less stressful than going down. With no flex you feel all the off camber spots. But we made it out by taking our time.






Once you hit the point of no return sign that's on the way up you go right and it's just a dirt road.




Back on level ground we aired up and set the GPS for home, only 800 miles. It was around 8 at night and we decided to drive through the night.




We ended up sleeping for a few hours in the 4Runner at a truck stop then made it home early afternoon the next day. Awesome trip and never turned one wrench!

 

After Colorado I kept driving it almost daily and did a little wheeling out back. Here's how much stock suspension sucks for flex. The back is bump stopped about 3" over stock and rear lift spacers are 2.5".







Took it out wheeling in October at a local clubs Toys 4 Tots run.








Built a front bumper






I got tired of the 36's road manners so I picked up some 5 37" Nitto Trail Grapplers and mounted them up to my Raceline forged Liberators I stole from the 94 mid engine build. There goes the cheapness part of this rig, lol!

 

Got the Raceline and Nittos on just in time for a 400 mile trip to Attica for the Badland's annual Toys 4 Tots runs. I really like this event, super laid back and night life is always fun. I'm a sucker for hole in the wall bar hopping. And being in December sometimes it snows a bunch.




Hotel Attica, best place to stay if you like old hotels and want to walk to bars.




Rocks, trails, sand, Badland's has it all.








Got back, no issues. It snowed so me and my friend Scott in his Samurai did some wheeling out back.






I started selling Lifetime LED lights and swapped 21.5" LED light bar onto the front bumper. Great lights!




Spring came, time for some fence line clean up. 4Runner pretty much stayed this way all summer. I daily drove it to daycare and back everyday, never had to do anything but change oil and rotate tires.

 

Time for our Colorado trip again, this time in August. Of course I needed something to do in order to work nights up until departure time. Axle and suspension swap it is.

Time for tear down.






Really smashed the fuel tank up in Attica and been getting by with it. I could only get about half tank in at fill ups.

 

I wanted a better crossmember. Trail-Gear Tacoma crossmember fit perfect and is super stout.






Some front Tacoma frame plates with 86-95 IFS box mount kit and Tacoma SAS oil pan kit.




Trail-Gear 9's going in.






Ford Super Duty inner and outer knuckles. Machined for high steer, check them out here.




Trail-Gear Unit bearing hubs, 6x5.5.




Currie caliper mounts, re-drilled Dodge Ram rotors, Jeep JK/Caravan/Nitro calipers, Caravan brake lines. Not sure I have a pic, these are the cores, I got rebuilt ones from NAPA

 

Yukon 3rds, 5.43's, master install, Grizzy locker, Quick Performance Daytona pinion support, High Angle 9"/Toy flange.

[insert image here, sorry, got to find it first]


Yukon 35 spline inner shafts, Alloy USA 35 spline SD outers. Stock D60 inner Dodge short side, GM long side. Yukon Super Joints.




Super joint caps and new shafts are a tight fit. Many beers later and ready to go.




Tape measure time, set this up because I thought it looked cool.




Cut it up!




Weld!




Done!




Seals, washer, etc to put shafts and bearings together.




Inner axle seal housings included with 9" axle housings.

 

Suspension parts! All Artec Industries brackets.




Welded up




All Ruff Stuff 1.25" lowers/uppers and 7/8" for panhard. 3/4" for steering.




Test fit, tight clearances.




Same length links, everywhere. 2"x.250 DOM, 1.25" Heims.




Stick it together




Tight fit

 

40's










Time to find room for shocks.










PSC Hydro Assist




Axle assembled

 

Had to clearance inner fenders and other random pics.












Trail-Gear 1450 pump and bracket. Mount for air filter.




Fuse box and battery mount




Short 4cyl Tacoma radiator, I'll post part numbers later. Cooled just fine all the way through Colorado mountains, even when hood knocked the cap loose and sprayed coolant everywhere.

 

Rear axle matches the front. I used same rotors, calipers, and brake lines. I had to make a simple bracket to bolt up the calipers to the bearing ends. No offset and it fits perfect.



Toytec Superflex coils with those Daystar rear spacers and Ruffstuff offset axle side coil mounts for the rear. Trail-Gear D60 drive flanges.








Sitting on it's own the night before departure for another 2000+ mile trip through Colorado.




Amsoil tractor fluid for power steering.




Exhaust, Flowmaster Super 44, 2.5" tube. Sounds awesome for a V6!



Drove to town for food supplies. Alison and I challenged ourselves to make it through the 1 week camping trip with no cooler. Drives fine but sway is crazy around turns! Spool in back and no sway bar keeps ˟˟˟˟ in a bind until you straighten out. Oh well, I want to wheel Colorado so back home and start packing it is. (I originally went spool rear so I could break it in and use for spare 3rd, no time to swap out with trip so soon)

 

Pretty much an all nighter with about 12 miles test time we packed up and headed west really early morning




And met up with the rest of our crew. Scott was in a basically stock Samurai with spring over, Monty in an Explorer, and we were meeting up with JR in a 4BT Jeep YJ down the road. I wanted to take a break and rest a couple hours and give the new gears a rest but was convinced to move on.

 

Awesome work

 

That's all for tonight, lots more to come! :flipoff2:

 

Thanks! I'm sure you know whats coming than!


Updates usually hit my facebook page before the build thread, check it out here: www.facebook.com/frontier4x4

 

Ok, here we go again, trying to get caught up to current status.


We drove all day taking as many back highways as possible. We wanted to stay off the boring scenery of the interstate. And Scotturai was pretty much wound out at 60 mph and 4,300 RPM! 31's, stock t-case, and 5.13's.

We were all able to keep together and cruising right along. It was pretty hot out but we had the A/C running and staying cool. We made it to some town in Colorado and stopped for gas. I noticed I was leaking gear oil from the rear diff breather. I bought some extra oil from Napa and topped it back off.




We made it to Sterling that evening. Plan was to stay at North Sterling State Park north of town a few miles. After we got a few supplies in town we headed north a few miles to the park. On the way there was a big storm off in the distance that looked close. The park was dimly lit and once we found out how much it cost to camp there we decided to hotel it back in town. On they way back we found out that might be harder than expected. There was a concert in town and all the hotels were booked. We finally found the last two rooms at a Ramada and booked them. After a really long day we ordered pizza and got some rest.

Before we headed out the next morning we all did a once over on our vehicles. I decided to build a make shift catch can for my leaking rear diff breather out of a Coke bottle. I drilled a hole in the cap and zipped tied it to the rear crossmember and called it good. Torqued lug nuts down and check all bolts and fluids and we headed out east on 14 towards Ft. Collins.





I had never been to Colorado this way. I like the drive. No traffic and wide open. It was some cool terrain once it got hilly.




Breather was still pushing out fluid like crazy. At least I could dump it back in this way. (It's on the opposite side as the ring gear, with spool). Later after we got back I added a baffle inside, went with 1/4" line instead of 1/8", a higher catch can in the wheel well upside down so it can drain back, and it still does it. I will have to relocate it for this year.




We took the GPS' and advice for a bar and grill in Loveland and checked out their website for http://www.thewapitipub.com/loveland/. We ended up at a golf course that was totally misleading! I had to have a Samurai in honor of the Scotturai.