Ok I finally got rid of that lame panhard bar on my 94' 4Runner. I spent 2 day's doing it and it seems to work great on my test drive last night. I made an upper link with 7/8" hiems to the frame pivots and a big 1" heim at the diff. with 1-1/2" .188 wall chromoly.
It really freed up the rear suspension and on my test drive my Runner seemed to be more responsive and seemed to have less slop in the rear end. I 'am going to take it out for a off road trip this weekend to put it through the abuse test.
I also notice that I now have alot of room in the back to do a better shock set up.
I still have the stock lower links but I will be doing those next and at the same time making them an 1" longer.

 

 

Pics please!

 

I have never been able to get photos to upload (I think it's becuase of my AOL) But I will try again. Okay there they are, let me know what you guys think and I will get back after this weekends off road trip.

 

Wow this is sweet!

I thought three-link was two control arms and a panhard, now I see it can be like that (Land Rover style).

What benefits do you get? More travel? I'm a little profane in this...

David

 

The key to making a 3-Link set up like this one is to use hiems so pivot points are solid with no slop in the movement, that will keep the rear in a striaght line. Travel went from 9" to 12" and I think it's because the rubber stock bushings use to bind at full drop out and know it's really freed up. I also notice that there is even less wheel wrap making take- off's even smoooooother.
The other thing I really like is my rear end doesn't swing over to the right side when it droops out and back to the left side on up travel where it use to let the drive shaft rub my fuel tank it now goes striaght up and down.
This set up has open the door for even more possibilites for better shock mounting, like losing my Downey coils and shocks and going to coil-overs now that I have the room. And that cross-member that held the pan hard upper mount can be completly removed opening up some space for a aux fuel tank. As you can til I been doing alot of dreaming.
It only took me 2 days to build but 3 months of planing and buying all the parts to do 3 of these.

 

i'm liking the design. glad to see someone was able to properly link the rear of a 2nd gen without moving that damn gas tank. can't wait to see more pics.

 

I thought about doing just that buy once you get into moving the tank then you might as will make the links 3ft longer and then I was going to have to bring 18" travel shocks through the floor, build a full cage to help support the shocks and then it hit me that changing to a 3 link set up was all I needed. Plus my kids would like it if I kept the rear seats instead of the shocks coming through the floor. But the roll cage might be somthing I could do.

 

Dang I really like your rig! Not to hijack your thread, but how much lift do you have in the front to fit the 35's? Do you have any more pics of your rig?

Thanks!

 

The only lift I have is 1-1/2" body lift that I made. A little crank in the SAW torsions on the front and Downey HD coils in the rear. To clear 35's I trimed a little from the fenders and just recently added front glass.

 

It might be the pic but your shocks look like rock magnets as they seem to mount awful low off the axle.

Nice looking truck, even if it is red.

 

Look how close they are to the drums, your gonna have to work pretty hard to get hung up on them.

Very nice job, did you get the inspiration from a tracker/sidekick?

 

Here's some more PHOTOS of my Runner.

 

You might think so. there in the stock location other then I extended them up. and because there close to the tire 4Runners don't seem to have a problem with rocks hitting them and now I have alot of room to run coil-over shocks.

 

No I got it from our race truck.

 

Who is O.R.V.P.?

Thanks

 

Also, you said you have enough parts to make 3 of these? How much would one run me?

Thanks

 

O.R.V.P. is Off Road Vehicle Products.

 

That is awesome. Nice, nice work man. I'll be looking fwd to updates on how it performs! Great stuff

 

Yeah we built 3 of these and the one is spoken for and the other will be for sale after I get some good off road testing done to make sure all is good. And if things go well I will start offering them to yotatech members. I would even like to make them for 96-02 & 03-05 4Runners.