Time to let the cat out of the bag. Some of you may have picked up on the hints here and there, but I started my SAS Back on May 6th.

Specifications:
4" SAS kit for Front
5" leaf spring kit for Rear
5.29 HP elocker front
5.29 ARB rear
CV front drive shaft from high angle driveshafts
Stock toyota axle for now
33x10.5 for now
Stock auto tranny single tcase

I hear the UPS guy was pissed when he delivered the kits, the wife said he was cussing.





So I started rebuilding the 84 axle I have. First thing I did after wrestling it onto jackstands was drain the differential grease. Wait...did I say grease...um yeah...


Later, Geoff and I were admiring how the steering stops were bent as if the tires were forced to turn left way too far...hmmm. Accident?

Me: "Hey Geoff, does the housing look bent to you?"

Geoff: "Yup."

Back to pirate to search for a used housing. Later, I went to pick up some manual hubs from a guy. We were chit chatting and I brought up that I was in need of a new housing. Well, the guy has two housing just laying around. Score.

On May 6th Geoff, Randy and I started cutting on the rear. We're working on this at my friend Randy's place up in Oakdale on the weekends. That's a 90 minute drive for me, one way.

First, we unbolted everything. These land cruiser springs were much easier to remove than to install.


We also dropped the gas tank to gain welding access to the frame and to fix my malfuntioning fual sender. I knew I had a dent in the stock skidplate, but I didn't know my gas tank was dented this much! No wonder I'm getting fewer miles out of my tank these days...


All these brackes had to come off. Geoff had fun plasma cutting.


Here they are:


After an hour or two of grinding, the axle is clean.


This is just one of the grinding wheels Geoff used. This used to be a 4.5 inch wheel.


Randy cutting:


Leaf springs hung. Trying to see where the axle should sit.


Prep'ing the front axle with a gusset supplied with the kits.


Here's the fuel sender:


I went back the next weekend and Randy and I got the gas tank back in and the shocks mounted. I forgot the U-bolt plates at home because I was painting them, so we couldn't quite get it rolling.

This past weekend Geoff and I went back to Randy's and started on the front. Whoever says the rear is easier than the front is lying!!!! The front was way harder than the rear to prep. For anybody doing a SAS, I recommend you unbolt all the suspension parts first, before you cut off the brackets. It makes it way easier to do things and we even had a plasma cutter. We had the rear axle taken out and prep'd in probably 6 hours. It took us all day to get the ifs out. Cutting those holes for the shackle hangers suck, even with a plasma.

Here it is with the rear done:


The front about to come off:


Geoff having way too much fun with the sledgehammer


Eureka! It's finally off. It took all day to get this far.


The frame is cleaned up and things are ready to be bolted up.


And there it is


We still have a little more to bolt up on the front. One of the U-bolts is too short so they're sending me a new one.

I also found out my new housing is bent too so I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with that yet. If the axle seals don't leak it'll be fine, but if they do I'll try to sledge hammer it.

We'll be going up there again in two weeks, hopefully it will be done well before the mammoth trip.

When this is all done I'll post up how much it all cost and how many man hours it took. So far we're up to 154 hours.

 

WOW, so I guess the fact that I have not heard back about how the front sits means you are taking care of business.

Yet another one to be wrapped ahead of me.

Start and finish, that is key. The longer it drags the more you will hate it.

Take a measurement from the front crossmember to the ground on 33's for comparison's sake.

 

Is your current front housing bent from something previous (wreck) or did you by chance warp it welding on the truss?

Isn't all that stuff fun?

I echo Cheese's comments, get it finished as fast as you can, the suspension stuff as the longer you drag it out, the more you will hate it.

 

Ain't rolling yet, ran out of time last weekend. We figure it'll take 2 solid weekends to bolt up the rest of the axle stuff and wrap up the little details like the tcase cooler mount, LSPV mount, bumpstops, etc.

Don't know why the housing is bent. I'm pretty sure we didn't warp it because we took all day to weld it up. The long side axle goes in just fine, the short side needed some persuasion with a grinder and a hammer. I'm pretty sure I toasted the seal trying to figure out what was wrong, so I plan on replacing it and being a little more gentle the 2nd time. If that fails, then I'll sledge it...nothing to loose now.

 

Oh and I've got a couple more projects up my sleeve too, one of which can be seen in one of the pictures above. I'll post about those later, but they'll be good ones.

 

Steve--looks really good!!

Mine is coming along nicely too. I have the axle rebuilt, now I just need time to cut the ifs off and hang things.

Where are you putting the trans cooler and trasfercase cooler?

 

I plan to put the tranny cooler in front with it's own fan near one of the signal lights.

The tcase cooler looks like it'll fit at the stock location if I space it inboard an inch or two.

What are you using for your front driveshaft and are you going HP?

 

I am working on the driveshaft last. I may rework mine, or start over. I am running a stock 85 front axle with 4.88 gears and a lockrite later on (found a deal the day after gears were installed..will install later)

Will probably be running custom spring pack with rears up front and YJ leaves to get the proper height.

Mine is a budget build...thanks to my friend with the plasma cutter and welder.

 

looks good. nice progress. might want to box those steering stops or weld a nut inside them... before you hang the axle...

 

Very nice....It must be a good feeling man. Hope it keeps going well.

 

looks good, I hated doing the rear, grinding all those brakes off the axle and the frame suck!! and I even had a plama too! but well worth it

BTW those 33 10.5 are going to look hilarious!

 

Looking good.

 

Welcome to the dark side.

 

Hey, Hey...I will be running my 33x10.5's too!! They wont look bad. Look at Roger Brown, he ran 33x9.5's on his solid axle.....

 

Marc P, are you coming to the dark side too?

 

He still runs 33s, not sure of the width though. He's also got some 35 MTRs he finally mounted and runs occasionally.

 

looking good man. you'll love it when it's all finished. I know i did.

 

dude that is awesome. i plan on doig that soon. im assuming the front axle is an 84 or 85, is that an 8" 4cyl or what? also did you use the all pro standard font and rear kits?

i editted this post because after doing more research i realize how stupid i was being.

 

To do coil springs correctly takes time and money. Operative word is correctly. You can get by with just longer springs to match the front lift, but then the stock linkages are still there. The geometry is thrown off and the on-road and off-road handling suffers. It gets tippy. Also, the stock linkages aren't made for that kind of travel and eventually things break.

The next step up are the all pro linkages which can help with strength but I'm leary about handling. The linkages cost almost the same as the leaf kit.

Leaves are tried and true and simple.

Flygenstein has commented several times on how linked suspension can unpredictably unload doing off camber stuff.

 

With coil springs front and rear...you'll see most w/ in cab controllable winches front and rear for the unloading on off-camber stuff...saw it this weekend on some buggies.