ChrisCo's Cow

[ChrisCo]

A few folks out here have seen my build up thread over on another forum over the past 8 years...but since that forum is about dead now, and since I could probably use some input from the folks out here on how to improve on what I've got going, I'm porting my old thread over here. I'll be consolidating posts as much as possible during the port (I don't see any need to pad my post count)

The short story behind this build -- I picked up this rig back in July or August '08 (I left the Reiter cleanup to go get this thing), and I've been building it as time and money allows. There's never enough of either.

So, here we go...

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So, here's my official buildup thread for the '80 I got a couple of weeks ago. Here it is as it was when it came home:

I was looking for a project rig, and knew this little feller would need quite a bit of work... For example, here's what it looked like under the hood when it was parked in my driveway:

My daughter got a kick out of this wire that went nowhere (it was just dangling):

...when I started cleaning all of the crap out the inside, I was in for a shock -- the passenger seat was only held in by gravity, and the driver's seat only had one bolt holding it in

Clearly, the flatbed isn't very trail friendly, so it's going away. Before getting into tearing it apart, however, I decided to spend a little quality time with the pressure washer... There wasn't a whole lot in the way of dirt to be knocked off, but there was plenty of built up grease and muck...

After pressure washing the undercarrage and engine bay, and doing a little minor cleanup of the mess under the hood, here's what the bay looks like now (I love the mounting of the brand new battery :naughty: ). The "clean" bolts were added by me, to keep out water from the pressure washer :

After the cleanup, I started in on the dismantling of the flatbed. Unfortunately, due to having to remove about 7' worth of cabinets from my shop (in order to get the rig to fit in with the garage door closed), I only got as far as removing the deck off the flatbed:

This revieled some...entertaining () ...engineering. Case in point, the gas tank filler neck:

The method by which the bed is attached:

(it's welded - inside and out - to the body mounts )

Before I can get any further into the tear down, I've got to build some new cabinets in the shop (so I can get all of the crap out of the way of the work area :rofl: ). I'm hoping to have that done by Saturday evening, so I can get started on pilfering the steel in the flatbed

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Well, the '80 is finally in the shop. I said earlier that I'd ripped out about 7' worth of cabinets... I had a lot of crap in those cabinets, so I had to replace them with something... Now, the '80 is back in the shop, and should be seeing the saw within the next week or so.

Here's the '80 in the ChrisCo Garage v2.1:

I probably would have had the "bed" off of it had I not spent about 8 hours cleaning gutters today and yesterday :angryfire: Ah, well... Hopefully I'll start tearing it down this week.

 

[ChrisCo]

I made a little progress with the flat-bed removal this afternoon... This would a been a lot easier had I owned one of those plas-a-ma-bob cutter thingies "Metal" cutting Sawzalls blades don't like welds, and cutting disks cut fairly well, but are limited in tight areas (and wear darned fast, too )

Here's where it stands now:

(^^ that picture makes my shop look like a damned O.R.! Compare this pick with post #3 in this thread )

Here's the pile of square tube and what not that was removed...

While I was out in the shop, I took the time to clean up some of the plugged vacuum lines that were loose under the hood. As I was doing this, I realized I had a massive vacuum leak at the PCV valve (note the loose fitting item at the top of this picture). It's amazing how much better the engine runs when it's not sucking in gobs more air than it should be :thumbup:

I'm planning to go pick up the parts for power steering this weekend, and will most likely order the TG Hi-Steer setup in the next few weeks.

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...and, just like that, she was gone.

Unfortunately, I ended up having to chop the front-most bed/body mounts in order to get that C-channel removed

I guess I'll just have to fab up a new one somehow

On the plus side, a half an hour of pressure washing the newly exposed parts of the rig, I found that what I'd originally thought was some sort of ghetto-fab gas tank was actually an after-market add on tank

I was told it was a 21 gallon tank. It'll be replaced, 'cuz it's a little too close to the drive shaft for my taste.

I also made a trip to Olympic 4x4 this afternoon, and picked this up:

Now I need to find a power steering pump, and order my TG hi-steer setup (I'll be doing that in a week or two).

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<que cheesy '80s "this is your brain on drugs" voice>

This is your carb:

This is your carb after ChrisCo has gotten ahold of it:

</cheesy voice>

I told you I hated carbs

Seriously, tho. While I was out and about yesterday, I picked up a rebuild kit. I got it torn down this afternoon... let's see if I can get it put back together now :lol: Here's some of the fun stuff I found in there:

I'm not sure exactly what this was on the butterfly... It looked like hair, or some sort of wadded up spider web, or something...

Other than that, just a little bit of gunk in the bowl:

The only carb cleaner I've got is in a spray can, so I couldn't dip/soak the parts in there Instead, I dunked 'em in the parts cleaner, and scrubbed the parts down with brass and nylon brissled brushes. If I get the chance tomorrow, I'll run into town, and see if I can pick up a non-spray can of carb cleaner to soak the parts in...

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I got the carb rebuilt, and reinstalled... but the rig runs about the same as it did before... Oh, well... As least I have an intimate understanding of the carb now

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I also stripped the carpet and seats from the interior (there's a little minor rust to take care of, but nothing devistating). I cleaned up a bunch of unneeded wiring -- most of which wasn't even hooked up to anything. I've still got to straighten out all of the half-dozen or so leads coming directly off the battery, tho...

While I was in town for some unrelated consumerism last week, I stopped by and picked up a hunk of 2"x4"x3/16" wall tubing for a new rear crossmember (they didn't have any of the 1.5"x3"x1/8" wall tubing I was looking for). I'd picked up two pieces, anticipating that I'd want to rebuild the front crossmember at some point in the future, and wanted matching parts. Unfortunately, due to an alergy-medication induced haze, I'd managed to transpose some numbers in my head... Instead of getting what should have been two 3' 5" pieces, I told him I needed two 35" long pieces :cussing: He gave me a 25% discount for paying in cash, so I made an ATM run, and he cut the pieces down to the size I told him to cut 'em to. I realized my 'tardness on the way back :cussing: That's what I get for shopping for steel when I'm doped up on allergy medicine.

...so, to recover from my stupidity, I used a bit of the 1.5"x3" tubing I had around the shop (all the pieces of which were a hair too short for what I needed in the first place -- grrrr) to splice the two chunks of 2"x4"x3/16" together... A couple of dozen (or there 'bouts) roset welds, and a bunch of cleanup, and you can't tell the difference:

I'll be sealing the ends of the tube next weekend...

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For reference, here's the lop job that was done on the frame before I got it:

You can't really tell from this ^^^ pic, but driver's side frame rail actually had a sharp-ish and jagged edge to it. Plus, the exhaust hanger mount had a point sticking out, and my thigh found it every darned time I walked past it...and I've got the cut to prove it

I knew I was a little rusty in my metal-stickin-together-n skilz, but this is just lame... I gotta' grind and reweld this one next weekend, too:

Would you believe me if I said I did that 'cuz the sun was in my eyes? :lol: I don't drink, so I certainly wasn't :friday: when I did that :rofl:

 

[ChrisCo]

Last week, I ordered some parts from Trail Gear (via some other forum's own long gone member), and Brown delivered them today... well, most of them:

I didn't realize there were three seperate boxes to be delivered, and UPS doesn't hang around for coffee when they "drop" packages off out here in the back 40...so, I didn't get the chance to tell him he forgot one of the packages Based on the status of the shipment, I'm guessing that he realized his mistake when he got back to Redmond Package 3 of 3 is rescheduled for redelivery tomorrow :lol:

To the credit of the Dude in Brown who brought my stuff today, he did at least ensure I knew he had made the delivery... He heard me working out in the back yard, and hollered to let me know he'd left the stuff at the front door. Most of the Browns that come out here literally drop (or throw) the stuff and run

In the packages that were delivered, I found:

1 x-over steering setup:

...and one knuckle rebuild kit + Rock-rings:

The one package the missed delivering is the one I really didn't need to order, but got out of convenience...and, the one that is holding me up from doing anything else at the moment... It had the frame brace kit for the power steering :cussing: Yeah, I can make my own, but for the price, I'm not sure I could have bought the materials I needed to DIY it...

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I worked from home yesterday, and had a 2 hour meeting to listen in on. Since the kiddo had a friend over, I went out to the shop to listen in.

I realized it'd been a while since I've given the '80 some attention... so after cleaning up the shop a little, I started dismantling the front end. The initial idea was to just get the high steer setup put on. However, I've got a knuckle service kit sitting on the bench, and I'm gonna' have to pull the axle for the RUF I'm going to be putting together over the next few weeks, so I went ahead and pulled the bugger:

Since I'll be in there anyhoo, I'll probably replace the pinion seal on the axle, too, as it looks to be bleeding gear oil a little at a time (same goes for the front output on the t-case ). I'm thinking I may order some new studs for the knuckles, along with some new cone washers... I guess I should do it right if I'm going to do it at all...

Oh, yeah... I also found out that the front has 1/4" spacers. They'll probably be going into the freebie pile when I get new wheels...

Check out how flat those 28 year old springs are...

I'd seen these weird pieces of metal (one on each side), but I hadn't bothered to really pay much attention to 'em...'till tonight. The one on the driver's side is right in the way of where I need to mount the power steering box

Ah, well... I'm probably going to rebuild the front hanger, too. I guess I just get to start doing a little frame cleanup earlier than anticipated :dontknow:


The axle is currently sitting in the shop, soaking up degreaser for the night. I'll be dragging it out to hoze it down tomorrow evening, then I'll start the tear down.

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I finally had a chance to get out and spend a day in the shop, working on the '80. I actually got about a day and a half, but I had a bunch of little things to take care of yesterday, so I didn't make a whole lot of progress on the rig...

I stopped by Olympic 4x4 (really nice folks over there, btw) yesterday afternoon, and picked up a power steering pump + brackets + hoses. My main point for stopping by was for a set of 63" springs from a chebby, but they didn't have any (Car-Part.com showed they had two pairs ). Guess I'll have to go a different route...

Anyhoo... I started out this morning lopping off the brackets that were on the front-driver's side of the frame... They're ugly, and in the way of the power steering box I'll be putting in soon...

Before:

After:

Knowing I need to get a new front spring hanger fabbed up before trying to mount the steering box, I opted to continue work on rebuilding the front axle. I'd already completely disassenbled the driver's side knuckle, and gave a thorough cleaning to everything that wasn't being replaced (and some things that are :dontknow: )... While I still had the grider out, I decided to lop off the brackets on the top of the axle.

I forgot to snap a pic before cutting, so here's a shot of the axle before I removed the driver's side knuckle:

After:

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While I was in the cuttin' business, I decided to go ahead and (finally) remove the stock rear-most cross member... I also cleaned up the surface off of the new cross member, and slapped a bit of paint on there:

When I come back and cap the ends of the crossmember, I'll probably also add some gusseting where the crossmember intersects the frame, but my focus today was to get it covered.

With all of the cutting and grinding out of the way, I decided to move ahead with the axle/knuckle rebuild. This time, I decided to take my time, and take photos of each step. If all goes as planned, I'll have a knuckle/axle rebuild write up when all is said and done :friday:

After pulling the passenger side knuckle, I went ahead and pulled the third member:

Yup, that's a third member Nothing seemed out of the norm here...but, the passenger side spindle is a different story Check out the galling from the bearings:

In that first pic, it looks like there's a crack there... It's not a crack, just a good ol' gash.

I didn't find any discoloring, but it's certainly scarred. I'll clean up the bearings super well, and give 'em a good inspection. This side seemed a bit harder to turn than it should have, so I went ahead and had Topher order up a set of bearings for me... If the bearings are toast, I should be covered :thumbup:

Once the axle was all broken down, I pressed the old bearing races out of the balls, and pressed the new ones in:

This is the first time I'd used the press on anything that could cost me a bunch of $$$ to replace, so I was a little spooked at first. That, and holting an axle housing up to the press solo was entertaining. I ended up slinging a length of chain up and over the rafters of the shop, and using that chain to support one end of the housing, as I worked on the other end. This helped me to position the axle, but it didn't prevent me from scaring the poo out of myself as the races POPPED into the holes. They weren't perfectly straight when I started pressing them in, and they straightened up with a loud bang.

For the record, a 1 11/16 socket + short piece of pipe worked perfect for pressing these races out.

 

[ChrisCo]

After all of that was done, it was time to wind down a little, so I did a little clean up...but I still wasn't quite ready to call it quits... so I decided to take advantage of having the axle broken down, and plumb in the breather. I thought I had a 1/8" NPT tap, and I'd planned to re-tap the hole, but I didn't... In lieu of the 1/8" NPT tap, I opted to modify the stock breather a little, to (hopefully) make it a bit more solid for mounting a hose on.

I didn't snap a photo of the breather disassembled, with all of the pieces laid out... but, I did get a few photos of how I modified it. I started by taking the main part of the breather, and chucking it into the drill press:

With the drill press set to its highest speed, I used a file to chamfer the edge enough to make a barb:

The end result was a nice barb on the breather which will (hopefully) grab the breather hose better than it would without the barb:

I'll toss some hose and a clamp on there later, and see if it wants to hold. If not, I'll go find a 1/8" NPT tap, and go with the original plan. Yeah, I could just go get that N*ss*n part, but what fun would that be? :lol:

I'm hoping to get started on the RUF next weekend.

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That's 222lbs worth of TG springs, hangers, bumpstops, spring perces, diff guards, shock hoops, and brake lines right there My rig is going to be a rollin' friggin' billboard for Trail Gear :lol:

The '80 should be back on all fours soon. After I get all fo this installed, I need to:

Finish the power steering
Setup the York OBA
Get and install some shocks
Get wheels + tires

...then phase I will be done, and hopefully it'll see the trails for some light-duty wheelin' :friday: Then for phase II, I need to:

Build a front bumper + receiver
Build a cage and flatbed (This is only at the bottom of the list due to my needing to get a tube bender first)
Rewire all of the electrical
IFS components to widen the front axle
Later model rear axle (to match the wider front)
Lockers
Maybe narrow/dove the nose

...then for phase III, I'm considering an engine swap, crawler, etc...

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At least I got out to the shop for a little while this weekend. Yesterday was spent cutting down a Christmas tree and hanging lights on the house... Today was spent finishing the lights (and cleaning gutters while I was hanging up on the ladder).

In between the Christmas stuff, I managed to get a little bit of work done on the '80... I got the front springs temporarily installed (I need to put together a new hanger, so I can move the axle forward just a bit), and I'll probably swap out the shackles on the front. This first pic also shows where I managed to get a bit of work done on removing the stock shock mounts, too...

I also got the TG diff guard installed on the front axle, and the housing painted.

I'm hoping to get a few hours in the shop this week to put the guts back into the axle. I've still got a few parts I need to pick up before I can slip the axle under there for good. Specifically, I need to pick up some U bolts, all of the IFS components to go a bit wider in the front, and I'm sure a few more things I haven't thought about yet

I'll probably put it all together with the stock parts for now, 'cuz I need to get this thing moble enough to get it out of the shop for a while (so I can do the other 4 or 5 littler projects I need to get done :laughing6: )

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OK, I got to spend a couple of hours in the shop this evening. I'd forgotten to hit a couple (or three) parts with paint, so I started with this. First up was the third member:

Next up was the knuckles:

Afterward attacking the wet paint with a hair drier for a few minutes, I removed the third member, cleaned up the inside of the diff cover, scraped off any paint and other crap was on the housing to third. I then added RTV for the gasket:

...and dropped the third into place...allowing all that gooie RTV goodness mush it's way out under the weight of the third:

Then I placed the lock washers in place, and placed a little bit of medium duty thread lock (a.k.a. Blue Locktite) to each of the 10 nuts, and torqued 'em down to 34 ft lbs. All buttoned up, and RTV spewage all wiped up:

I know it was getting close to time to call it a night, but I still wanted to get something more accomplished, so I installed the axle seals. I don't have a seal driver, so I did a bit of a DIY version of a driver... A 24mm socket, a (32?)mm (I'll have to verify later) deep walled socket, a (19?)mm socket (smaller than the 24mm for sure), a short extention (so as to not smack the crap outta' my hand), and a dead blow hammer. Here's the basic rundown of how I did it:

The tools:

The seal:

The 24mm socket slips nice and snug into the seal:

...and, the whole contraption together (minus the extention):

I didn't have a free hand to work the camera and put the contraption together, so I'll just describe it. With the 24mm socket in the seal, as shown above, I placed the seal into position in the axle, and tapped on the extention with the hammer 'till it was in position.

The seal didn't seat perfectly straight (mostly, but not perfectly), so I used the smaller 19mm socket to finish tapping it into position... The final product:

I finished up the other end of the axle, and called it a night.

Tomorrow evening I'll start working on getting the knuckles put back together, and hopefully finish the axle before Friday.

 

[ChrisCo]

When I went out to the shop this evening, something seemed amiss... I looked around a little, and something was missing...

Hey! Where'd my axle go??? Oh, there it is!

So, I'd spent a fair amount of time out in the shop Thursday evening, and got the passenger side put back together. I spent today running into town for u-bolts, and finished up the driver's side. Here's the mostly finished product:

Sorry, that's the best shot I could get of it With everything put back together, it was a touch too wide for me to turn for a good shot.

The axle is under there only temporarily. TG missed shipping the bushings with the springs, so I had to put 'em together with the bushings that were in the old springs. TG shipped me the new bushings pronto, so I need to get them installed. I also need to fab up a new front spring hanger (and I still need to pick up the metal for that), do a little more cleanup on the frame from removal of the stock shock mounts, get the new shock hoops welded into place, and get the IFS steering box mounted. However, 'till I get around to getting all of that done, I wanted the springs to have some weight on 'em.

As I was cleaning up the bench top, I come across this...

uh oh -- This was supposed to go into the axle The good news is that I know exactly where this piece is supposed to go, and it's really easy to get to... it went here:

Let see... Aside from all of the crap I'd already mentioned needing to do, I also need to get ahold of some IFS hubs and calipers, new LC rotors, get the power steering pump hooked up, and probably extend the steering shaft a little... For now, I'm just happy to see it off the jackstands for the first time in three months

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Some days it just doesn't pay to go out to the shop

I started out this morning intending on getting the steering box mounted. First up was to finish cleaning up the frame rail where I'd removed the stock shock tower. Then, I had to do a little trimming to fit the box on the frame. Since I was going to need to cut the wheel wells for the shock towers, I went ahead and cut on the driver's side that while I was at it:

The plan was to clearance the radiator support as little as necessary. The most obvious part that needed to be cut was the radiator support. Well, haste led to waste here. Instead of removing the radiator, and cutting with it out of the rig, I chose to try to "carefully" trim it with the sawzall. It grabbed, and resulted in this

I was optimistic that it was just bent fins 'till the coolant came pouring out

OK, drain and remove the radiator, and move on. I used a 3 1/8" hole saw to cut into the body, just above the frame:

Aside from bending a 1/4" pilot bit dontknow, everything went as expected for this part.

Not being entirely confident in how far foward I am going to mount the steering box, I putzed around the shop doing little things. In preparation of trimming the passenger side wheel well to place the shock tower, I removed the battery. The "hold down" consisted of three bungy cords :lol: I tore it all apart, and found this:

OK, I'm not up to tackling this today, so move on. I'd removed the steering shaft 'cuz it kept getting in the way as I was cleaning up the driver's side frame. It was crudded over in grease, dirt, brake fluid, etc, so I thought I'd clean it up a little. First it went for a swim in the parts cleaner, followed by a good scrubbing with a wire brush. Since the u-joint had been submerged in the parts cleaner, I decided to go ahead and pull it apart, and grease it up really well.

That was easier said than done. Two of the caps came off no problem, but the other two were being stuborned. After several minutes of trying to carefully "tap" the caps loose, I finally chocked the u-joint into the press. This worked for removing one of the caps, but (for some reason) resulted in the other cap being pushed completely clear of the flange...and, for some reason, it refused to go back into the flange straight.

After about an hour of pressing and hammering to get the cap to go in straight, I finally realized that sliding the other cap back on should help straighten it out. So, I slide the removed cap into the flange, and start working on it again. A couple of whacks with the hammer, and this happened:

At this point, I just gave up. I cleaned up shop, and went in for the night. Now let's see if I can get ahold of a radiator and steering box coupler grrrrrr

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hehe I got a couple of good days in the shop this weekend (finally), and managed to get the power steering box mounted. Finally, it's steerable...again

The weekend started out finishing up a little cleanup on the passenger side. First up was a little trimming to fit the shock mounts, then I moved on to grinding down what was left of the old shock tower... While I was down there, I noticed something odd about the passenger side motor mount:

I dunno if this is normal for an '80 pickup, but I zipped a bead to more positively attach it

 

[ChrisCo]

There's not a whole lot of write-ups available on mounting the IFS power steering box on a pre-IFS pickup. As such, I'm chronicaling my adventures in the hopes that it may help someone else down the line.

In all of the research I'd done on this topic, the recurring theme I'd come across was:

• You want to mount the box as far forward (on the frame) as possible
• You're gonna' have to chop the nose and body mount a little

To a point, there is a direct trade off between the amount you cut out of the body mount, and how far forward you can mount the box. The farther you move the box forward, the more you'll have to cut. I opted to try to minimizing the cut on the body mount.

I started by using a 3 1/8" hole saw to clearance the nose:

Afterwards, I did a bazillion or two "dry-fits" of the mounting plate and IFS steering box on the frame, to ensure everything jived. Ultimately, the clearancing ended up like this:

With the positioning all figured out, I marked the position of the two holes that go through the frame, and started drilling. The OD of the tubes that were supplied with the mounting kit (I've got the Trail Gear setup) is 3/4". Since the tubes are intended to butt up against the inside of the outside plate, the holes through the frame need to match. The holes in the inner plate are larger, and the tubes are intended to go through the inner plate.

All I had on hand in the way of hole saws was 1" or bigger... but I do have a 3/4" standard drill bit, so I started with a small (1/4") pilot hole, and stepped up from there.

I didn't think to get a pic of where the holes were drilled 'till after I'd already tacked the plates in place, and did a mock-up. After doing the mockup, I pulled the outer plate back off for a pic:

...and, here's the mock-up (note that I did a bit of trimming on the inner fender, too, to clear the box):

The frame on an '80 Toyota pickup flares out a bit at the very front, but the TG mounting plate wasn't bent to follow the flare:

I didn't want a gap in there, so I used a big C clamp to pull the inner plate in to match the contour of the frame. However, I was concerned that this bend in the inner plate may lead to the tubes being misaligned, so after doing the final mockup, I removed the steering box, then used the C clamp to hold the inner plate to the contour again. I then lined up the tubes, and used the bolts to hold them in place while tacked them to the inner plate. I pulled the inner plate off to weld the tubes in place:

After welding the tubes in place, I grabbed a 1/2" drill bit out of the drawer, and reamed out each of the tubes (I didn't want any problems when it came time to mount the box). Since my welder is only a 125v unit, I also beveled the plates a little.

Put it all back on the frame, hold in place with a C clamp, and tack the plates in place one last time

...and start welding. After making a single pass of all of the welds, I took a dinner break, then came back to finish the job. With my wee li'l welder, I had to multi-pass the crap out of everything, and that took a while. Have I mentioned that I hate overhead welding yet? No major injuries from this instance, so I'll move on to the finished welds, and painted plates:

Now, I'm not real sure what happened, and I can only assume that the heat from the welding caused some distortion...but, after finishing the welding, I found that the mounting holes didn't quite line up anymore. They weren't off by much (between 1/16" and 1/8"), but it was enough to make me have to cut into the body mount a little more in order for the holes in the box to line up with the holes in the mounting plates... So, I busted out the saws all and a cutting disk, and got busy:

...and, after doing a little deburring, and hitting it with a bit of paint, here's the IFS steering box in it's final destination:

Woo-hoo! I can finally steer again! Now I've got to get the power steering pump mounted...and mount the shock hoops, and redo the electrical, and fix that hole in the floorboard, and...

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It seems like every time I plan to spend the weekend working on my rig, something comes up and derails the plan This weekend was an exception (yippie!).

The plan was to finish getting the power steering pump mounted. I managed to get 99% there

When I got my steering box and pump, I got the mounting brackets and everything. They came off of a 22r rig, and I was really hoping they'd just bolt up directly... I'd read several articles that said that you could mount up a 22R's PS pump brackets on a 20r head...but, that it depended on which version of the head you've got. I have the version that doesn't work:

...there's a distributor in the way Oh, well. It just wouldn't be a project if it all bolted up, huh? :laughing6:

The good news is, there's a big ol' emtpy spot on the passenger side of the engine:

There's plenty of room there to mount the York and the PS pump. So, before I go and start dinking with the mount itself, I wanted to tear into the York, and do a little preimptive work. First up, Yorks have a hole that runs from the case to near the crank shaft. If you don't plug it, it'll allow oil to weep out... You can plug this hole from inside of the case, or on the outside of the case. Due to not having a screw or bolt that'd work to plug it from the inside... I don't have any after pics ,but here's a pic of the hole itself:

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I also decided to use my handy-dandy pipe taps, and modified the input and output flanges a little:

The first thing I did was to cut off the (charging?) nipples that were on the back of the flanges, tapped 'em to 1/8" NPT, and plugged them. Next up, I threaded the insides of the flanges to accept a 1/4" NPT (I think -- I can't remember anymore )

With that taken care of, I shifted back to working on the mount. I'd inherited a large chunk of 4"x6"x3/16" box tubing a couple of years ago, and it just happens that it fits the outside of the York's case perfectly, so I cut it open, and proceeded to manhandle it into this shape:

I have the stock mounting plate handy, so placing the holes was fairly easy. After drilling the holes, and test fitting it all together, I realized that the taller side was going to be on the top of the mount...and, I'd have to pull the whole unit to check the oil. To avoid this, I opted to drill an access hole into the mount. First step, measure for location:

Transfter the measurements to the mount:

Attack with 1 1/2" hole saw, and you get:

 

[ChrisCo]

Now to get it attached to the engine... There was a mounting bracket of some sort already in place (I'm guessing it was for the stock A/C compressor), so decided to I use it as the attachment point. I lopped of a couple of short pieces of angle iron, and drilled 3/8" holes in 'em... Test fit:

After several more test fits, I ended up with:

There wasn't a whole lot of metal to connect the angle to the mount, so I added a gusset for a little extra strength:

----

I wanted to avoid getting a custom high pressure line made up, so my original plan was to relocate the alternator from the driver's side over to the passenger's side, then mount the PS pump in the alternator's stock location. After pulling the alternator, fenagling with it a little while, fenagling some more, having lunch, looking at it a bit more...you get the point... After an hour or two of dinking with it, I wasn't sold on the idea of relocating the alternator... I decided to see if I could reshape the contortion of tubing they call the stock power steering line:

If I break it in the process -- no big deal. At this point, I'm expecting to get a new one made up anyhow. After about 15 minutes of careful use of a hand held tube bender, I ended up with this:

That wasn't as bad as I'd expected. OK, the alternator can stay in it's current location...so, back in it goes... Next up was to spend some time figuring out the best routing. This is what I came up with:

Now to figure out how the heck I'm going to mount the pump (which was the whole point to working out in the shop this weekend to begin with :lol: ) I had an idea of how I'd wanted to do it (clearly, up on top of the York), but I was a bit concerned about the clearance between pulley and the radiator hose. After a little more looking, fenagling, thinking, stoking the wood stove, etc, etc, etc... I had an idea of how I wanted to do it. Scooting the pump out away from the engine just a little would allow me so use the PS pump to tension the belt, and still allow for plenty of room for the hose.

Next, I moved on to the actual mount itself. The mouting holes on the front of the pump are on the same plane, but they're not on the back... I wasn't looking forward to trying to figure out how to bend a plate of steel to the perfect shape to fit the back of the pump...then it dawned on me -- Toyota has already done that for me! So, I grabbed the stock mouting bracketry, and chopped off the front and back sides of the mount.

The front side of the bracket had some bends in it to make the pulley align correctly. I didn't need these bends, so I used my 20 ton press to flatten out the plate. After some creative cutting, I ended up with an almost tear-drop shaped bracket for the front. Sorry, I didn't stop to grab any pics, but I'd be happy to snap some later, if anyone needs 'em.

For the back, I (again) used the stock bracketry, but I had to do a little more work in order to be able to use it... I had a problem in that the back of the bracket was (I'm guessing for alignment purposes) was shorter than the front side...so, it was about 1.5-2" too short to use. Still not wanting to figure out how to bend any steel to match the contours of the bracket and/or pump, I decided to not bend anything . Instead, I tacked a small piece of angle iron on the bottom, and gained all of the extra length I needed:

After a little welding, drilling, and cleanup, I ended up with:

I made up some mounting ears that I then welded to the top plate of the York mount... I didn't get any pictures these either, as I was trying to get as much done as possible today... Again, I can get some later -- and I probably will when I take it all part for paint anyhow...

EDIT: Here's pics of the front and back plates for the power steering pump mount:

The piece on the right if the front plate, and the left is the back plate.
I then mounted up the power steering reservoir, and dry-fit everything in their proper places:

I'm still not 100% convinced that I like how the high pressure line ended up (it may get reworked). I also still need to figure out how I'm going to work the tentioning device... If I can find one, I'll pick up a turnbuckle, and just use that (makes life super-simple for tentioning ). If not, I'll have to figure something out.

I'm hoping to have fully functioning power steering (and partially functioning OBA) by the end of next weekend. I still need to go measure for, and pick up a belt for the York and PS setup, too...

----

I'm not sure how, but I spent all day out in the shop (minus a somewhat quick trip to Monroe), and it seems like I got hardly anything done I did manage to get a belt that fit, and got everything installed for the last time...for a while.

I didn't like the clearance between the PS pulley and the radiator, so I reworked the pivot point for the PS pump just a bit... Between the rework, and trading for a belt that was 2" longer, I've got plenty of room between the pulley and the hose now.

...but, I may have another problem... The new reworked pivot point was about an inch lower. Between that, and the longer belt, the pump swings way farther out than it did before...resulting in very little belt contact on the York

I'm hoping that it's not going to be a problem... I guess I'll find out when I get the York all plumbed in. If it's going to be a problem, I expect it'll be after it's built up a little pressure.

I forgot to grab a transmission cooler while I was in town today, so I'll probably run into town and grab one tomorrow... I'll get it plumbed in, and get the reservoir setup in it's new location (I didn't like where it was).


----

WOO-HOO! Power steering at last!

I looked all over the place for 3 1/2" exhaust tubing last week, but couldn't find any I ended up stopping by Homeless Depot, and picked up a sheet of metal (I forget what gauge -- it's about 1/16" thick).

First step: Figure out the dimensions... The PS reservior was 3 5/8" around (or something like that), and the R=Dxpi (or, in this case, length of cut = 3 3/8" x 3.14) worked out to just under 13". I wanted to extend the reservior by about 5 inches, so I marked a 13x5" block to cut out of the sheet metal:

Next up, chop the stock reservior in half. I randomly chose a cut point. OK, not so randomly. I chose a point that'd leave me with plenty of overlap between the stock reservoir and extension... Here's the cut:

...and, in the interest of getting something done... fast forward an hour or so, and you end up with this:

...zoomed out...

I also replaced the 52+" belt with a slightly shorter one (a shade over 51")...

I still need to bleed the system...but it's already better than before :rockon:

 

[ChrisCo]

...is a royal PITA!

I spent a little time out in the shop this afternoon with the intent of martacking the axles. I started on the long side (as a matter of convenience only -- it was on the same side of the shop as the toolbox ). Using the 2"-pipe-and-coupler method to remove the birf (I can't find the writeup I found on this now ), the long side came apart easily. I tacked the axle, and reassembled.

I tried the same technique on the short-side, and managed to break the jaw off of my 6" Wilton vise in the process :cussing: After that, I tried the slam-the-pipe-into-the-ground method to seperate it... no dice. I tried wolloping it with a dead blow hammer...again, no dice. That's hard work! lol

The good news is that both axles are tacked now.

----

It's been a while since I've done anything on my rig... While visiting Mr. Crash yesterday evening (and checking out his current project), I realized just how long it's been...so, I went out to the shop this evening to make a mess

I'm at a bit of a stopping point on the front end right now, waiting for parts and some fabbin'...and I was tired of seeing the rig draggin' ass in the shop. I finally decided to do something about it. I've got TG 4" springs and new hangers for the back, so the old springs need to go. Since I had the axle out, I figured I'd give it a good once-over.

Step 1: Take a photo of everything before removing anything...

Step 2: Drain the oil, and inspect the drain plug:

I see something chunky in there For a size comparison, here's the crud in the open end of a 10mm wrench. Yes, they're solid chunks:

Fearing that I'd find a partially thrashed diff, I tore it down for an inspection. Looks like someone tried to fit a square peg into a round diff housing

Closeup of the results:

That bottom gash produced a good 1/4" bump on the outsize of the diff :dontknow: The good news is I didn't see anything wrong with the gears. The debris that was attached to the drain plug seems to be related to the square-peg-in-round-housing process.

I'm considering stepping up to an IFS rear axle, so I think I'll resist the urge to weld the TG diff armor on to this diff (for now). I'll just clean it up, and paint it.

More tomorrow...I hope.


----

I got a little more work done today... Got the rear axle cleaned up, and put back together...and removed a bunch of stuff off the back end of the frame:

(must resist urge to go truggy...all it'd take is two cuts with a saws-all...must...resist...)

The gas tank, all of the electrical, the exhaust, and the front-most bed mounts (in addition to the obvious springs) were removed. Now the butt end is light enough to lift up by hand :lol:


-----

Got the new spring hangers in place today, along with some caps to cover the ends of the rear cross member (and tie it in a little more with the frame):

There's hardly any weight on the back right now, so it's still sitting a bit high... This is with the back end standing on it's own (no droop):

By comparison, here is how it sat before the new springs... The rear tires are off the ground, and this is full droop with the old springs :lol:

I still need to move the shackle mounts back a couple of inches... I'll do that in a few days...

----

 

[ChrisCo]

I've been off for a week of vacation for the past week. I'd only gotten a couple of days in to working on the rig A while back, I'd received my new wiring harness from Summit Racing. The harness itself was OK, but it seems that the fuse box was intended to be mounted in the glove compartment... The way the wires were originally mounted, they would have been sticking into the driver's left knee if they weren't re-routed.

Amazingly, the wiring wasn't too horribly bad to begin with...just lots of redneck engineering and splices...but, I ripped it all out anyhoo. The new harness is rough-routed, and I'm tracking down all of the connections


----

Well, for the first time since the end of July (or very beginning of August -- I don't recall exactly), the rig fired up this afternoon

I was having problems getting anything from the coil for a few days, so (after a bunch of troubleshooting and staring at schematics) I opted to do the igniter bypass ala Pirate. After doing the swap, and verifying that spark was being delivered through the dizzy, I gave 'er a small drink of starter fluid, and she started right up on the first crank. Now I need to get an exhaust put on there, 'cuz I the sound of a 20r running straight off the header just isn't cool

Most of the wiring is roughed in now. I'm hoping to get the in-cab wiring done this weekend (just need to get the tach straightened out, and install the OBA switch and CB). I'll be picking up some convoluted tubing sometime this week, and will post up pics when done.

I've been keeping tabs of what connects to what, and will be posting those up, too, when I'm done (just in case anyone else decides to swap out their harness for a domestic-oriented wiring harness).


----

For the first time in a long time, I was able to get out to the shop today, and put in a full day's work without being interrupted (for the most part, anyhow). I've been done with most of the rewire job for a couple of weeks, and just putting the final touches on it. Today was spent getting the dash reinstalled, and taking care of the loose ends.

While looking for loose ends in the engine compartment, I came across this plug on the back of the carb:

It'd been disconnected since I'd bought the rig. I had no clue what it was, but it looked to me like it was supposed to have power supplied to it...so (out of curiosity) I plugged in the battery charger, and gave it a bit of juice. The result was a faint "click". Hmmm.... ok. Now I'm intrigued.

I've had a problem with this rig not wanting to idle any less than 1000-1200 rpm without dieing. As posted in this thread, I previously rebuilt the carb (hoping to resolve the problem). It didn't. In fact, it made zero noticable difference at all, and the A/F adjustment screw still did absolutely nothing, and I could actually remove the screw all together with no change in the way the engine ran. It smelt like it was running rich, but I couldn't adjust it at all. I'd come to the conclusion that this must be related to the desmogging, and I'd honestly given up on it ever running any better.

So, now there's something going "click" in the carb when this thing is given some power, and it'd never been connected before. Let's start the beast up, and see what happens when I give this thing some power. Presto! The revs picked up, and it smoothed out. It immediately smelt better, too. OK, this thing is getting permanently wired it! Bust out the solder gun and wire it up.

To my surprise, after getting this thing plugged in, my mixture screw is working, and I was able to get the idle down to steady and smooth 750 rpm! It sounds and smells a bunch better, to! WOO-HOO!

Here's how I've setup the GM ignition module:

...and the new fuse box:

I've still got to get the CB, rock lights, radio (not sure if I'll even put one in there yet), and air compressor switch wired up. I've got everything on the bed ready to hook up, and connected through a single connector (so it can be disconnected). I've got a few extra circuits left over that I'm sure I'll find some use for eventually.

I'm just glad to be this far along with the wiring, and ready to get back to less electrical-related tasks...like, fixing the brakes, mounting the shocks, building the flatbed...adding gear oil to the axles :lol:


----

I may be wrong on this but he plug on the carb may be the electric choke?

That was my first thought, too...and, I almost ran it through a switch because of that. It ran so well plugged in that I just hardwired it...but, thanks for the reminder, 'cuz I've been meaning to look in the books I've got, to see if I can figure out what it is...


Chilton's shows it as a "Solenoid valve". Haynes doesn't have a diagram in it

Time to go see what I can dig up about this valve...


----

OK, from what I'm gathering from the interweb, it looks like that's the "Idle Stop Solenoid", and is supposed to be connected to a 12v switched power source.

----

Got the dash put back together today. Last weekend, I finished 1 of 2 pieces of dash panel. Yesterday, I finished the second, and painted 'em up. CB and OBA switch installed, and the 4 extra circuits cleaned up and tucked up out of the way.

New dash panels:

The blue paint on the heat/fan controls is RC car paint. It didn't stick to the plastic all that well, so I'll have to pick up an enamel paint pen when I head into town tomorrow.

Now I just need to wrap all of the wiring under the hood, and I'll be done with the wiring for good... at least, all of the wiring on the front of the rig. The back end is still untouched, as there's nothing to connect at the moment.

btw, the pic only makes the CB look crooked in the dash. It isn't really.

...and, the reason for the new dash panel is that the P/O trashed it to stuff a full sized radio in there.


----

Spent the afternoon fabbing up some new spring plates. The material I'd used for the front spring plates was too thin, and bent when I torqued down the u-bolts. The new ones are 3/8" thick, cut out of some big ol' T bar a neighbor gave me a few months ago. They're spring plates... They're not worthy of pics


----

Short day in the shop today. I put together a new coil -> dizzy wire, and rerouted it such that it's no longer dangling over the steering shaft. I'll probably do a 1-wire alt setup at some point, to avoid having any wires hanging over the steering shaft at all.

I also managed to get the rear bump stops installed this afternoon. Nothing special -- they're just bolted to the top of the spring plates.

I finally remembered to copy over my wiring notes copied to my laptop before shutting down the shop PC today. I've uploaded it to my site:

http://chrisco.texas-222.com/80Toyota/1980 Toyota Pickup Wiring Notes.ods

You can open this with OpenOffice (native) or MS Excel. There are four worksheets in there:

• Instrument Cluster - This worksheet contains the color, function, and polarity of each of the wires connected via the two plugs in the back of the cluster. The Polarity column notes how it work (either by having power supplied to it, or by grounding it).
• Steering Column Main - This worksheet contains a diagram of the big plug coming off of the steering column, as well as the colors and functions of each of the wires connected to it. This sheet also contains notes on what it connects to on the cheapo-Summit wiring harness.
• Steering Column Igniton - This worksheet contains a diagram of the small plug coming off of the steering column (which is for the ignition switch only). It doesn't note which wire connects where, as it's fairly obvious which wire goes where when you're connecting the new harness.
• Alternator Connections - This worksheet is basically just notes on how I got the charge light to work with the new wiring harness.
  

Hopefully this will be of use to someone else other than myself. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about anything I've got in there...

EDIT:

I can't remember if I'd already noted which harness I'm using, and I'm too lazy to go back and look, so I'll note it here

I installed Summit Racing's 18 Circuit Universal Wiring Harness (Summit part # SUM-890020)


----

Dinked around with the rig a little this weekend. Nothing major -- just a bunch of little things, like (finally) refilling the axles with oil, reconnected the rear brake lines, decluttering the engine bay a little more, routing the positive cable, etc, etc, etc...

Friday evening, I got out to the shop reconnected the rear brake line, and filled the axles with oil. I found that the BPV is shot, and (if allowed to dangle loose) will squirt brake fluid when you step on the brake pedal After filling the axles, I figured out crawl under and check the level in the t-case. I couldn't feel any through the filler hole, so I topped it off. This morning, I went out to the shop to find a puddle under the rig, and this on the front output flange of the t-case:

I guess I need to start looking into a replacement seal. Not a big deal, but it's irritating that I just dumped a bunch of fresh oil into the case just to have to drain it again in short order

Since I was already rolling around on the floor, I decided to go ahead and route the cable from the power cable from the battery to the starter. Nothing fancy, or even worthy of posting a picture of... I just routed it under the cab, somewhat long the frame, and over to the driver's side via the cross member that runs directly behind the cab. I did sleeve the cable with 1/2" heater hose, though, to protect it from abrasion.

I also spent some time this afternoon de-cluttering the engine bay a bit more. Specifically, I ripped out as many of the vacuum lines as I could -- leaving only the line to the dizzy and the EGR (not sure that it's actually doing any good at this point anyway). Here's a pic from shortly after I got the rig:

...and, here it is as of right now, after rewiring, and massive amounts of cleanup:

It was too early to quit for the day, but I really didn't want to get started on something that was going to be a multi-day thing...so, I busted out the Motive pressure bleeder, and bled the brakes (it's amazing how crappy 28 y/o brake fluid looks :lol: ).

I also decided to look into a suggestion Carol had made a few weeks ago, after seeing where I'd used some ultra-flat black paint to cover some bare spots on the back of the cab:

I'm not sure I actually like the black. I've already got a ton of it going on elsewhere, and I'm really not a fan of the black-out motif

 

[ChrisCo]

OK, it's not flat black anymore...

I primered a couple of weeks ago, but just got around to taking pics today.

Huh? What's the See the really spiffy graphics on the frame there under the front fender? Oh, yeah. Good eye.

I've had a set of Trail Gear shock hoops for way too long, and I just never got around to getting 'em put on. I didn't want to mount 'em directly to the frame, and I've just been too damn lazy to get off my duff and make up the plates go over the frame. Well, I finally got around to doing it today.

Those super custom graphics are actually the beginning of the plates. I started by making a rough template of the shape of the frame out of a cardboard box I had around the shop:

Transferred that to a piece of 4"x6'x3/16" that I scavenged from the flatbed that was on this rig when I got it:

Cut out the rough shape...

Fast forward an hour or so, add a little copy-n-paste, and presto-chango! There's a pair of frame plates:

I got the first one clamped into place:

...but, then I'd decided they needed some speed holes (so I could add some rosette welds). I drilled three 3/4" holes in the plates pretty much randomly. I should have measured:

Oh, well. I'm not turning back now. Weld it in...

This was the first good chance I've had to play with the new welder (Lincoln 180). It took me a few welds to get used to it, 'cuz it's got a LOT more zzzzzz than the old Lincoln 135 (110v) unit had. It sounds much better than than the old welder ever did, and makes a much larger bead, too. That larger bead makes welding upside down a bit more challenging, tho...which is exactly why there aren't any close-up shots of the plates or welds :lol:


----

Mr. Brown showed up with some new toys...

Hopefully I'll have a couple of free days this weekend to try to get 'em installed...

----

...my back hurts now... 36x12.5x15 Swampers on 10" rims are heavy!

Looks like I'll have to do a little fender trimming soon:

Before and after:

Now I gotta' get busy on the flat bed...

 

[ChrisCo]

I didn't get a whole lot accomplished on the '80 this weekend... Yesterday was spent doing my Saturday of doing my week day job. Today was just a beautiful day, so all of the neighbors were out...which means that a good part of today was spent yackin' at the neighbors as they came over to check out the new shoes (go figure). When I finally got rid of the neighbors, and finished the little odds and ends around the house, I got a start on a couple of minor projects.

First up was to finish painting the back of the cab. I spent about an hour sanding out the chips and bubbles in the paint on the back, and hit it with primer:

Not a big deal, but that's one project finished...for now. On to the next one: Fixing the rusted out floorboard.

Here's what the floorboard looked like to start with:

Step 1: Remove all the coating that was on the floorboard. I'm not sure if this was put on at the factory, or not...but it had to go. I used an air hammer with a chisel to pop the crud off of there.

This is what it looked like afterwards.

Step 2: Cut out the section to be replaced.

Step 3: Bend a new piece of sheet metal to the same shape as the piece we cut out.

Step 4: Test fit to find that you forgot to take into account the thickness of the cut off wheel

Step 5: Repeat step 3, this time leaving a little extra width. Trim to fit snug.

(The spot welds are there because the sheet metal I had on hand was exactly half as thick as the floorboard...so I doubled it up.)

Step 6: Remove the paint around the area being patched.

Step 7: Weld it into place.

I'm glad to have the hole filled, but I'm embarrassed by the welding I was using .035 flux wire on the lowest heat setting, but was still blowing through and left me chasing holes. I've decided that I need to run over to Central to get a bottle of gas sometime this week...before finishing the other patch.

----

I think I'd previously mentioned that I wanted to get the back of the cab all painted before I started on the bed... I got the back of the cab painted simi-flat white last Sunday. I ran out after that, and had to pick up another couple of cans on Monday.

Today, I got help from the kiddo in masking off the rest of the windows, and let her design the cow spots. She hates it when I take pictures of 'er lol

Afterwards, I filled in the non-spot parts of the paint.

We ran out of newspaper for masking, so we had to take a break from it for the day. Tomorrow, I'll either run to the store for more paper, or otherwise improvise... Doesn't seem to me like a lot of progress, but it sure felt like a lot of work masking everything off lol

----

Mooooooooooving right along, and it's ready for the re-veal. It's looking beefy!

This weekend I'll start working mounting the fuel cell, building a battery box, and start work on the bed...and trimming the front fenders...and whatever else I get the time to do.

 

[ChrisCo]

I got out there and did a little work today. First up on my list of things to do was to trim the front fenders. That took all of about 2 minutes :lol:

I did a couple of odds and ends in preparation for future projects (well, part of the tube/flatbed project to be exact)...then I set out to get the gas tank and battery mounted.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to mount the tank since before I'd even ordered it. I didn't want it taking up any space in the bed, and I wanted easy access to the filler. I really wanted it mounted completely below the bed, but I didn't want the tank hanging down too low. I couldn't come up with any mounting configurations that I really liked. Then, after an hour or so of mocking up multiple mounting configurations, I realized that (with the -8AN to -4AN adapters on the ports) the ports are the tallest part of the tank. Obviously, I don't want the ports sticking up above the tank to get knocked off, so I just gave up on finding any fancy schmancy mounting configuration, and just made a simple box frame:

I'll have to work around it when I put the bed together.

The battery is only temporarily mounted like that. I'll be getting a pair of sealed/spill proof batteries sometime in the near future. The plan at this point is to mount them stacked, on their sides, in the same location as where the battery is currently at.

And, yes. The tank is sitting higher on one side in the pic. It's a little on the snug side, and I just hadn't pushed it all the way down into the tray when I took the pic.


----

This weekend's update:

I really didn't want the aluminum tank sitting in direct contact with the steel, due to galvanic corrosion. I'd heard it can do bad thing back when I was investigating tub swaps for my old Land Cruiser, so I really wanted to put some sort of insulator in between 'em... I had no idea what I was going to use, so while I was in town Friday, I stopped by Lowes and wondered around 'till I found the garage door seals. It's supposed to be rolled up in a tube like shape on the bottom of a garage door, but it comes as a roll of ~2.5" flat rubber. Perfect!

Now I had to deal with the fact that the tray was really a bit too narrow for the tank...let alone adding in the insulator...so yesterday, I set out to give myself a little more room. I removed the tray from the truck, then cut it in half. I then spliced in a 1/2" or 3/4" (I didn't really measure) piece of material in there, and zipped it back up. A little bit of grinding, and you'd never know it was spliced.

The next task was to figure out how to secure it. I didn't think to take pictures of it before I bolted it down and put gasoline into the tank...so, I'll just have to explain what I did. I wanted to make sure that I was able to easily remove the tank if I need to, so I wanted some sort of hinge or something on the top. I ended up with a something kind of like a modified battery hold-down. It consists of a piece of metal running up the back of the tray, with a hinge on top, and another strap running across the top. To keep it all tight, I used welded a length of 3/8" all-thread to the tray, and bolted it all together. It's not the prettiest thing I've ever created, but it certainly works well. I slipped a piece of the insulator under the top straps, too. Hopefully this pic will help illustrate what I am trying to explain

Since I'm no longer doing the ghetto "red gas can strapped down using ratchet straps as a gas tank" thing, I decided to take it for a spin around the block, to see how everything was jiving while in motion. The power steering is awesome, and my rough alignment seemed to be just fine. The brakes are a bit soft (they need bled), and the heater works awesome! I need to upgrade the alt, 'cuz running the heater blower, lights, and wipers at the same time made a very noticeable impact on the engine.

I can see that I am going to have to regear. Even in 4-low, I couldn't get it to crawl itself into motion without giving it some gas (my two Tacomas, and my FJ-40 all could handle a no-gas take of in 4-low). I also have to get some weight onto the back, 'cuz between flat spots the size of Texas on the 36" Swampers, no shocks, and still like-new 4" springs...it's a rough ride. When I pulled out of the drive way, my rear view mirror was set for me to see out the back window. After hitting the speed bumps in the 'hood, it was showing me the passenger seat :lol:

I also need to come up with some sort of OH SHAT handle, 'cuz grabbing thin metal that runs along the top of the door is getting old fast :lol:


----

I finally got a day that wasn't taken with yard work, computer work, or going to town...so, I finished up the sliders:

I should be able to get 'em mounted tomorrow.


I say "finally", as though I hadn't had any time out in the shop in a while. In reality, I haven't had a whole lot of time out there, but I have had a little in the past month or so. I ditched the engine-bender-stand, and built a dedicated bender stand. These were the first use of the new stand...and in reality, they were the first real use of the bender I've had since April '09 :blush:

----

Here's one slider tacked into place.

They ended up lining up nicely with the fender and outter-most part of the door:

----

Welp, I guess slow progress is better than no progress. A while back, I'd bent up several pieces of tube that'd eventually be turned into the hoops. I finally got around finishing that up, and them sleeved and welded this weekend.

I'm not real happy with how I ended up mounting the hoops, but I couldn't figure out a way to mount them to the frame and still have the look I was going for (following the shape of the cab).

I plan to run an X across the forward most hoop (against the cab). I don't have any plans of *testing* this setup, but in the case it's ever needed, I hope it'll hold up fairly well.

I need more practice with both the bender and the welder...


----

Slow progress. I can't afford to waste any tube on learning, so I'm trying to be being super careful -- measuring 5 times before cutting, eyeballing things, etc. It only took me 6 hours to make 4 bends and 2 notches :wacko:

----

Made a little progress today. I relocated the top rails up an inch or so (needed the room for tail lights) and made the lower rails for the bed. I didn't really plan on doing the bottom rail like this (at the back), but this is how it worked out.

I'm hoping to get the "inner fenders" and maybe the spare tire mount done tomorrow.

 

[ChrisCo]

I got to spend a little time yesterday and today dinking around in the shop. I was tired of rolling the spare out of my way every time I needed get into the cabinet or toolbox it was leaned against...so I moved on to building the tire carrier. I didn't really like how the fuel cell was so open to being hit by anything being carried in the bed, so I decided to use the spare as a "headache rack" of sorts. This is what I worked out:

For now, I'm just using a ratchet strap to keep the tire in place. I'll come up with a more solid locking mechanism later.

I know it looks like it hangs low. It actually sits slightly higher than the bottom of the frame. I don't think there'll be any issue with drive line interference, tho. I don't the suspension will compress far enough to make contact. I guess I'll find out when I finally get it out and flex it up a bit.


----

Anyone got the instructions for this thing?

Last weekend, I bent up some "wheel wells" of sorts. Today, I tore down the pieces, and started doing some of the final welds. I only got it about half way back together this evening.

----

Got most of the welds done on the bed today. There are still a few minor welds that need to be finished, but not much.

After I get the remaining welds done, I'll be figuring out the bed floor and skins. I'm thinking 12 or 14 gauge sheet steel should be sufficient. I've got to find an affordable source for it now.

----

Found a little time to play around in the shop today (without getting inturrupted, that is). I need to pick up another stick or two of tube before I can make any further progress on the bed, so I moved on to other things.

I didn't like the little HoboFright aluminum 3-way manifold I had for the OBA setup, so I built one myself:

----

Man, it seems like I've done a ton of work over the past few weekends, with nothing really to show for it

Let's see... Several weeks ago, I plumbed the York into the manifold:

I also updated the exhaust a little bit. I had originally put an el-cheapo turbo muffler on it... It was too loud for my taste...and it was just held on with bailing wire (it was only supposed to be temporary â€" that was a year or more ago :lol. I'd read a while back that a Cherry-Bomb run into a turbo muffler sounded OK, so I spent a whole $25 on a Cherry-Bomb, plus a little more for miscellaneous pieces of exhaust tubing. I slipped the Cherry-Bomb in between the header and the turbo muffler. It sounds a lot better, but still a bit louder than I'd really prefer in the higher RPMs. Oh, well, it’s good enough.

The shocks are just dangling from where I was doing some planning, and yes -- the rear axle will be rotated to fix that driveline angle at some point in the future. And, the first thing I did today was to finish welding the sliders on...finally.

Now that the bed is framed in, I decided to finish up the wiring in the back last weekend. I'd picked up some trailer lights to use for the tail lights the week prior, and got the wiring routed last weekend... The only problem is that I thought the new harness I'd installed had integrated stop/turn lights, and I’d planned the tail lights around that. It doesn't, so I had to pick up one of those trailer-wiring-converter things to convert the wiring over to an integrated setup.

With the price of gas the past few weeks, I can’t afford to run into Monroe for one little part, so I decided to wait until Monday to pick up the converter. In the mean time, I decided that it'd be nice to have some flood lights on the back, in case I ever needed to light up a work area or camp site, so I dug out a couple of flood lights that’s been floating around the shop for several years, a couple of pieces of angle iron for mounting tabs, and the welder… This is what I come up with:

They work great, but I still need run them through a relay (they're wired directly through the switch right now).


I picked up the trailer wiring converter last Monday, and I spent several hours out in the shop this evening getting it installed. After getting it wired up, all connections soldered, and wiring run through the loom, I temporarily hooked up the trailer lights so I could test to see if it was working. Flip on the hazards -- The front work, but nothing from the back. Well, hell… Test the parking lights -- they work. Flashers still on, let’s test the brake lights. They work…but they flash! Odd. Turn hazards off, try turn signals. Same behavior as the flashers. OK, flashers back on, turn signal off, walk back to see if there’s something obviously wrong in at the converter. Just as I walk around the back of the truck, a big billow of smoke floats up from the converter…and it’s getting thicker. After an OH S**T moment, I ripped the lights loose while en route to the driver’s side door to shut everything down.

I never did figure out what the hell caused the sudden meltdown, but now the turn signals won’t work at all while the converter is connected…yet the hazards will work (the same as it did before). I guess I’ll just pick up another converter while in town next week… I’m going to try to at least get the lights mounted tomorrow, so all I’ll have to worry about next weekend is the converter…again.


----

Well, there went $750 (not including the tools I've ordered to do the install). I figure it's worth the learning opportunity, so I'm going to DIY it... 5.29s + install kit + solid spacer + spool for the rear.

----

Santa Brown showed up today with toys to keep me busy for the next week or so...

----

Well, crap. What have I gotten myself into?

Got everything cleaned up...

...and put back together for the initial pattern checking.

I reused the original spacers to start with, just to see where 'bouts it puts the pattern. I'll add/remove as necessary later. It was getting late, so I packed up and haven't checked the pattern yet. I'll get around to that tomorrow or Friday.

 

[ChrisCo]

Spent a couple of hours out in the shop this evening... I think I've about got the pattern down where I like it for this punkin'. <-- Taking this back after reviewing the pics...

Started with .077 (the original shim alone).

Drive @ 077:

Coast @ 077:

Using Zuk's page as a reference, It seemed going a little deeper may result in a better pattern...so I added an .015 shim.

Drive @ 092:

Coast @ 092:

Too much, I think... Pulled the original shim, and stacked shims to .080:

Drive @ 080:

Coast @ 080:

Looking at the pics all lined up now, I think I need to go back to a hair less than 077... Maybe 070 or so. I don't have a whole lot of shims to choose from, so I can only get it so close...



As an aside, a short piece of 1.75x.120 DOM works perfect for pressing the pinion bearing on... It lines up nicely with the inner part of the bearing.

----

that first won looked the best

Yeah. I was a bit tired last night, and honestly was a little tired of dealing with it (the pics helped me to realize that last night ). After looking at the pics, I wasn't impressed, so I went out this afternoon and set it up with less shim... Here's what I came up with:


Drive @ 064:

Coast @ 064:

Drive @ 070:

Coast @ 070:

Drive @ 074:

Coast @ 074:

I decided to go with 74. After it was all buttoned up, here's what it ended up looking like:

Final Drive @ 074:

Final Coast @ 074:

I'll be swapping this one into the rear axle sometime this weekend, and starting on the front axle.


----

No pics, but I got the other diff setup, and both diffs put in their respective axles... Once I get the calipers mounted on the front axle (I somehow forgot to mount them in my tired stuper this evening), and fill the front diff with oil, I'll get it out in the neighborhood to see how much of a difference the 5.29s make.

Oh, and the front diff setup exactly the same as the rear diff... 0.074 pinion spacing.

----

36" tires + 5.29 gears = :good:

----


I really need to put some work into the front suspension now. The longer-than-stock TG springs have the front shackles sitting on the frame. I was going to try skooting the axle forward a bit while I had it out a couple of weeks ago, but the steering box's position won't allow for that now. I'm hoping a set of boomerange-style shackles will help the situation, but I may end up having to completely rework the steering box setup

----

Sky boomerang shackles == :good:

Ordered up a set Sunday evening, got 'em this evening. Had 'em on the front of the Cow within a couple of hours (only because I was still doing my day job when they showed up :tease. With the longer TG 4" springs, they sit perfect to me, with the part that connects to the frame sitting vertical, and plenty of clearance between the spring and the frame.

Finally, the front end actually has a suspension :lol:, and I don't have to relocate the steering box


----

I had to pull the Cow out of it's stall long enough for me to check the KDP on the Dodge, so I took it down the block while I had it out. It feels really funny to have a suspension under the front end :lol:

Oh, and the spool in the back feels weird, too :crazy:

 

[ChrisCo]

Got to spend a few hours out in the shop yesterday. Zipped out some plates to mount my tail lights (I'm really diggin' the plazzz!). I was wanting to mount the lights in between the tubes, but the gap ended up a bit smaller than I'd planned on. No problem... I'll "french" the plates into the tube

It's just roughed in for now. I'll be pulling it back apart to clean up the cuts after I get the other three (one tail light and two backup lights) roughed in.


----

Got the bulk of the driver's side done. I still need to come up with some sort of cover for the back side of the lights.

I need to finish the passenger side, too. I've got the mounts tacked in, but I think I may need to remove it and reposition the brake light because it looks a little crooked...


----

95% done with the tail lights. I added a license plate light today and got the passenger side done. I also added my antenna mount while I was working in the area. Here's the outcome:

I still need to put together some covers for the back side of the lights. They're standing wide open right now, and I don't want it filling up with mud and muck.

----

SHOCKING!!!

I'd started out the evening planning to install a fuel preasure regulator, but decided that I wanted to put it on inside of the frame opposite of the area where shock tower would go. I didn't want to have to relocate it later on if it were in the way of the shock tower braces, so I put the shock tower on instead. I'll do the driver's side next, then install the regulator...

----

I got the driver's side shock hoop done today, along with getting the fuel pressure regulator installed. I've got the fuel pressure set to 4.5 lbs (because that's what I seem to remember from the "Gettin' it with a stock carb" thread in Pirate -- gotta' go verify that later). No pics of the work 'cuz it looks pretty much the same as is illustrated in post #199

Let's see... Quick punch list time. Here's what I can think of that has to be done before it gets out to stretch it's legs:

- Setup the vent line on the fuel cell (I need to order up a cheap-o vent setup from Scummit)
- Fab up some covers for the back of the tail lights
- Finish welding the rear shackle hangers (I was afraid I'd have to relocate them by the time I got the front done, so I just tacked 'em on)
- Fab up new rear shackles (I've got our multi-hole-trail-shackles on there for now)
- Setup some sort of e-brake (it's missing the back half of the stock setup)
- Install air tank + air lines
- Finish the spare tire carrier
- Front drive shaft
- Rear shock mounts (need to pick up some more tube for this)
- Brakes in the rear (I've never touched 'em)
- Bleed the brakes...again.
- Flush and replace the clutch master/slave since the fluid is black
- Fab up some sort of front bumper
- Finish fabbing up bumpstop extensions all the way around
- Find a stock air filter setup (to replace the rinky-dink thing that's on there now)
- Renew the tabs

Other things to be done are:

- Finish the bed (need more tube for this, too)
- Finish the heat exchanger/hot water heater (need to find a 12" section of 2" copper tubing, since I really don't want to spend $120 for a 10' section from Blowes)
- Setup a filler neck for the fuel cell
- Dual Optimas
- Fab up some toolboxes to carry all of my trail crap
- Plumb in my "tool center" (air + hot/cold water + 12v + 120v power outlets)
- Tunes (marine amp + aux jack on the dash)
- Winch
- H/O alternator
- Half doors
- ...

Ugh... I need more scotch after that...

:beer:

----

I could probably come up with a list almost as long for my daily driver... I just choose not to

I think I enjoy the build more than the final outcome...then again, maybe I'm just saying that because I haven't wheeled since 2008


----

Went out and spent the evening screwing around in the shop. Got the air tank installed (finally). Now I need to figure out how I'm going to mount the chuck. I just realized that since I'd made my list back on 12/29, I've also added the vent for the fuel cell, too.

----

Damn. Not a whole lot of progress on the Cow this year I finish welding the rear shackle hangers a while back, and added an Optima yellow-top... I also picked up an el cheap-o marine amp and speakers a while back. I've got the MP3-input jack on the dash, and the amp mounted under the dash. I've still got to wire in the amp and speakers...but I'm holding off with the speakers until I start the interior work.

I also noticed that the speedo wasn't working the last time I did a lap around the block (during the last snow fall ). I disassembled the whole dash to get the gauge cluster out, only to realize that the cable was disconnected and I could have just reached up under the dash to plug it back in -- d'oh!

We're in the middle of a "major" project release at work...and our "leadership" team has seen a complete turn over in the past few months, so I'm coding my ass off to keep up with expectations of new managers I don't expect to get much of a chance to work on the Cow much till summer

Damn work. Always getting in the way of my play lol

----

Cripes... 2 months since my last update and the only thing I've done with the the Cow is move it out of the shop several times so I can work on Mopars and do some minor refurb/lighting work on my trailer. We finally hit code-complete at work last Thursday, and I'm heading to a tropical island for a week of much needed vacation next month... After that I'm hoping to start throwing some more junk at the Cow. I'd really like to at least make it over to Tahuya sometime this summer (I'd LOVE to take it down to Naches this year if I can manage it).

I pulled the Cow back into it's stall (my shop ) after working on my Dodge last weekend, and sat there at the workbench and looked it over while enjoying a cold brew. As I'm thinking through what all still needs to done, I got to thinking about how I'm going to do the cage...then I though... I wonder what it'd look like as a removable hard top convertible? I don't mean just lopping the top off, either... I mean a legit conversion to a hard-top convertible. It sure would make building the cage a lot easier if that darned top wasn't in the way So, I've been thinking over how to put together a mating surface between the cuts. I keep thinking about the narrow flange that my FJ40 had for mounting the hard-top. I can easily fab up a flange out of some 1x1 tubing or even some 3/4" L bar. Hmm....

Just what I need...another project lol


----

Between work, family, and a lack of funds (damn vacations and commuter cars :lol, I haven't done anything worthwhile on the Cow in a loooong time. That combined with a general lack of interest in wheeling over the past few years, and us trying to GTFO of Gold Barf at some point in the next year or so, I'm thinking about lightening my load a bit by getting rid of the Cow

Anyone interested in giving an old Cow a good home? I might even be interested in doing a package deal with the Cow and a freshly overhauled (new decking, Herculiner "paint" job, and new lighting all the way around) 10k# 20' flatbed trailer for the right offer.

uke:


----

The Brown Van Santa Man brought a new toy this afternoon. I've got a length of 2.5" sched 40 pipe out in the shop to go with this in making the front driveline. The Cow may actually become 4 wheel drive this weekend...for the first time in 4 years :biggrin:

----

Well, Saturday was spent in town with the wife, and most of Sunday was spent helping a neighbor figure out something on his wife's car...so the only thing I accomplished was reassembling the CV joint for the shaft (I took it apart and bored out the holes for the cap just slightly to allow me to use the same u-joints as the other end of the driveline), redrilled the flange on the diff to accept the newer style yoke, and got the tubing cut away from the end pieces of the drive shaft.

I thought I'd read (I'll confirm later tonight) that the original driveline tubing was supposed to be slid inside of the sched 40 pipe, but it wasn't necessary for the pipe I got. It's a perfect (albeit a tad loose) fit for the flanges on the driveshaft ends. I'll post up some pics when I get it together.


----

Well, this may prove to be a problem:

When combined with the CV joint, the new drive shaft piece makes the driveshaft (without tubing!!) about 1.5" too long...when fully compressed I need to have 3" of compression on the shaft, and I don't want to go and start hacking up my new drive shaft parts...so I need to lengthen my driveline about 4.5" or 5" between the front axle and the t-case. I guess it's time to start looking in to dual cases...or a drivetrain swap (I've been kicking around the idea of doing a Toy 3.4 or Chevy V6 and auto anyway)...or both. This just gives me a legit reason to do so...

----

According to Marlin's site, a W56 is about 5" longer than the L43 that's in there now, so a 5 speed swap may be in order instead... If I can find a good deal on a transmission + transfer case, I'll probably go duals, too. that'll take care of the length problem...in the front at least lol

----

Welp, the Cow is registered and tabbed again...for the first time since 2008 :lol:

I'll be heading down to Enumclaw Saturday morning to pick up the tube I'd ordered to finish up the bed, make a front bumper, and possibly a cage (at some point). I'm still keeping an eye out for a good deal on a W56 and transfer case.

(this post was from 2013)

----

Well, two small steps forward... Got the new tabs on, and got a cross bar put into place to mount the rear shocks.

Tomorrow...after I get through working on Chrismas' Heep...I'll cut some mounting tabs for the rear shocks, and (hopefully) get 'em installed...finally.

 

[ChrisCo]

How do you get the tire out?

There's plenty of room to pull it out of there, but you have to get up in the bed to do it. Here's the best pic I can find of how much room there is:

I am considering changing the whole setup, though. The more I see it, the less comfortable I am with how low it hangs. I'm thinking the spare may end up laying flat on the bed, and the area where the tire is at now will become storage. We'll see.

After playing mechanic on the wife and kid's rides, I had enough time today to cut out the mounting tabs for the rear shocks...but that's about it.


----

Got the rear shocks mounted this evening...

----

Well, I got a couple of things done on the Cow today... I cut out the "cradle" I'd previously had the tire sitting in, and added a hoop to the front of the bed:

Yes, the left side is a little crooked, but the pictures make it look worse than it really is... Doesn't matter, either way, though... it'll be covered lol


----

Well, it wasn't much, but I did manage to squeeze in a little bit of time for the Cow this yesterday (after I got sick of cleaning up the shop, garage, and yard)... I fabbed up new rear shackles and (finally!) replaced the slightly-undersized grade 5 hardware I was using on the rear springs with some nice new, greasable, and correctly-fitting shackle bolts from Marlin.

Oh, and drilling a bunch of 3/4" holes through 3/8" material is a royal PITA without a good sharp bit :redneck:

----

Ugh... 1 step forward, 2 steps back (literally)...

I finally got around to installing the new brake shoes that'd been sitting in a box in the Cow for 6 months (the step forward). I managed to hork up one of the wheel cylinders in the process (I'm still not sure how the hell I did that). I found that while moving the Cow out of the shop so I could pull the 300 in to the shop to replace a couple of the stock paper 6x9s...When I went to move the Cow back in to the shop, the damn fuel pump decided to stop working.

Ugh.


----

Well, crap.I ordered a set of wheel cylinders from RockAuto...they ended up being the wrong ones s'ok, though... I found the problem with and fixed the one that was leaking... Bled the brakes and all is well again. No more leaky cylinders, and brakes work great again.

----

Got the new fuel pump installed yesterday. *Much* quieter than the POS I got a Schmucks last year (or the year before -- I forget now).

The Cow runs a LOT smoother when the temps are in the 80s lol

----

Got bored this evening and decided to lower the rig a little bit... I took the bottom leaf out of each spring. Seems to have lowered it about 1.5-2". I forgot to measure the belly height afterwards. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

----

Got a little progress made on the bed. Put on the floor, then herculined it...and painted the tube:

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Welp... Got the bovine loaded on the trailer to bring over to its new stall last Sunday. This is pic worthy, since it's the first time that the Dodge, the Cow, and the trailer have all been put together in the way they've been intended to be for 5 freakin' years...

Unfortunately (?? or not), I wasn't about to go sit in Hwy 2 holiday traffic on Monday (and I needed to make room for it at the new place anyway)...so, it's been sitting out in front of the old place all week on the trailer. Hopefully it's all still there tomorrow when I go to bring it to the new place :wacko:

Is most of Tahuya still doable in 2wd?

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Sept 7, 2013:

Welp... I've spent the past hour or so going through the posts in this thread. Somehow I'd forgotten just how much work I've put into this thing.

I'm a little short on space at the new place, and parking my 4 vehicles (*MY* 4 vehicles, not including the wife and kid's rides...or the trailer) is a bit of a challenge. I also don't have 220v to run the big compressor, welder, and plasma here at the new place. I've been flip-flopping on whether or not I want to sell this thing to make some room (and some extra $$$). After going through this thread, it's hard to imagine letting it go at this point.

I need to get this thing operating in 4wd again (the first time since 2008!!! ) and hit some trails.

----

Got the pig...er, Cow moved over to the new place today. Weighed it along the way -- 2820lbs. Heaver than I'd expected, in a way...

Now I've got to figure out how the hell to make some room to work on it. I haven't even got the air compressor, engine hoist, or press in the garage yet

----

So... The new place has a big hill out front, so I've been concerned about putting the Cow out front with no e-brake...so, I since I had a little $ to spend this payday, I ordered up an All Pro T-Case Brake setup last night. I've heard good and bad things about 'em. I guess I'll find out (if it ever ships).

----

I installed some TG-style (read: knock off) diff breathers this evening

I'm hoping to pick up a W56 tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm still in the midst of getting the new place setup for me to work on anything at all right now, let alone install a new transmission or fab up anything yet.

----

Well, I was roaming around Snohomish today, and thought I'd stop by Olympic 4x4. These guys were standing out front of their shop, and as I pulled in to the driveway they jumped in to the back of my truck (and refused to leave!!). I had no choice but to pay for 'em

W56 and transfer case from an '86 4-runner (two different donor rigs). Yes, I ended up paying a bit of a premium at Olympic, but I'd rather pay a little extra and be able to take it back if it's horked up than get took by some schmuck on CL who says the trans and t-case is perfect, only to find out that one of them is trash.

When I got 'em home, I drained the remaining oil out of 'em. Neither of the drain plugs had any unusual chunks or anything that'd concern me... The oil in the transmission looked almost new. All of the gears feel right (as do the shifters), and from what I could see if the t-case gears, there's no chipped or missing teeth.

Now I need to get a few more parts before I can install it -- namely a shift fork, throw out bearing. I'm thinking I may just get a new clutch and clutch slave while I'm at it. I also need to get my fabbin' stuff up and running at the new place.

I'll be ordering one of these soon, too

Pickup & 4Runner Kits (1979-1995) | Marlin Crawler, Inc.

 

[ChrisCo]

Welp, there went this year's "bonus". Just ordered up a doubler kit and a couple of little odds and ends from Marlin, and a clutch kit from RockAuto. The transmission/t-case combo has now cost me more than half of the rig's original purchase price lol

Last thing I need now is a clutch fork. Going to stop by Toyota of Kirkland tomorrow morning to see how much KY I need to supply... Seems very few clutch forks are floating around on the open market
----

Well, poo. It looks like the t-case I picked up yesterday doesn't match up to the trans. It seems the shift rods are too long. Both are 21 spline, and both were from '86 4-Runners...but one was EFI and the other was carb'd. It seems the shift rods on the t-case is different lengths between the two

Guess I'll have to wait for Marlin or TG to get their top-shift conversion kits back into stock

----

Guess I'll have to wait for Marlin or TG to get their top-shift conversion kits back into stock

...or not. It looks like it's fairly simple to convert the longer shift rail to a short one, so (since I've pretty much maxed out my Cow-mod budget for the year) I'll have to give it a shot.

For reference:

ARGHH how do I get around this? - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

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Newest power mod. Good for at least 10000 ft lb of torque

Clocked crawlbox setup from Marlin, and a new Aisin clutch slave from RockAuto...

Unfortunately, my whole team is supposed to work this weekend in order to meet an already slipped schedule, so I probably won't get anything done on it till next weekend

----

Made a quick trip over to ToK to order up a new clutch fork this morning, and they already had a couple in stock :good:

New clutch is supposed to be delivered today. I'm working this weekend, so even if it *does* show up, I won't be able to do anything with it.

Oh, and All-Pro can go :swing: themselves. The t-case brake I ordered from them on 9/17 still hasn't showed up. I got a tracking # the day after I'd ordered, but it kept showing that UPS hadn't received the package. It wasn't till I asked their sales people where my parts were that I was told it didn't go out till the 25th. Yeah, I probably sound a bit petty complaining about having to wait a week before parts are sent, but if they don't have the parts sitting on the shelf ready to be shipped, they need to communicate that information instead of just leaving the customer hanging.

----

Well, FedEx delivered the clutch yesterday...sometime after 9pm :crazy:

So, I've still got a problem with the shift rails on the new t-case being too long. I've been hunting all over the interweb for the correct part numbers, but my MSFT-goo seems to be killing my GOOG-foo :biggrin: I can't find chit about it.

My first thought was to convert it to a top-shift t-case, but that'd leave a hole to be filled in the transmission. I also don't happen to have a spare top-shift shifter available. I'm considering lopping off a bit off of the hi/lo shift rail and welding back together. Anyone ever tried doing that before?


----

Welp. Got the new t-case torn down this evening and (almost) ready to get the MC07 installed. The gears look seem to be in good shape.

I need to either modify or replace the shift rail before I go any farther. Since I have a spare shift rail (the 2/4wd shift rail is not used), I think I'll try cutting and welding the spare to see how well it works out before I screw up the shift rail that I actually need.

No pics. My shop camera refused to cooperate, and my phone didn't seem to take the pictures that I thought it did

Found this a few days ago... Meant to post up a link to it:

1993 Toyota Pickup Service Manual

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T-case brake finally showed up today... Lets see how long it takes to get installed. I'm hoping the 10* clock on the e-case won't cause any problem with getting it mounted.

----

I got to spend a few hours out in the garage this evening. Got the adapter mounted to the reduction box, and did a few little odds and ends to get ready to remove the transmission/t-case from the Cow. Hoping to get them pulled out of the Cow tomorrow, and get the shift rail shortened up so I can get it all put together this weekend.

----

Cut ~3/4" out of the hi/lo shift rail and got it welded back together without a problem. Got the crawl box bolted to the new transmission. Waiting till tomorrow to pull the old trans out, and mount up the old t-case to the new transmission and crawl box.

----

Well, crap. None of my jacks can reach the bottom of the transmission in the Cow. Guess I'll have to pick up a transmission jack next week...

----

Deflated the tires AND ended up building a box to take up the slack between the top of the (motorcycle) jack and the transmission. Had to air back up to get it out from under the rig, tho :redneck:

----

Crawler all put together and ready go in to the rig...after I pull the shifters that is...and after I get the crossmember/skidplate figured out

----

Just thought I'd pass this along in case it might help someone else in the future -- my rig is an '80, so it had the input shaft with splines that weren't the same as the '81+ models... This page explains that you can grind the splines down to fit.

toyota duals some ts dont work - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

Even with grinding, the t-case didn't really want to just drop in to place...but, after tightening down the 6 t-case-to-adapter bolts, it eventually all sealed up just fine.

You don't have to grind much, btw... Just enough to flatten out the points on the back part of the input shaft and make them even with the front part of the shaft.

----

Just dropped $360 (with shipping) for one of these with a skid plate:

Front Range Off-Road Fabrication

----

The new FROR skid plate and cross member showed up Friday evening. I haven't gotten them installed yet, but I did get this done this evening:

I've got to graft the All-Pro t-case brake into the cross member before I can install it. Maybe next weekend.

I also installed a new Aisin clutch before getting the new transmission bolted up. The one that was in there was perfectly fine (actually looked almost new). I'll keep it for a spare, or sell it cheap if I decide it's taking up too much space.

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Got the cross member hung today (yay!). I wanted to get the drive train mounted up as high as possible, and ended up having to cut a bunch more than I'd originally planned:

That's OK, though... Here's how the belly ended up (sorry about the crappy pic -- it was the best that my stupid camera would take):

I probably could have tucked it up a bit higher, but my jack was topped out and I was OK with there it sat

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Well, for the first time in I don't know how long, the Cow now has a front drive shaft

TG driveline kit w/sched 40 and stock CV joint at the t-case. It's not perfect, but it'll work for the front DS on a wheeler. I did have to trim a little bit (~3/4" or so) off of the right side the skid in order to fit the CV joint.

Next up -- reinstall the exhaust and reroute the fuel lines (since I had to remove both in order to put the FROR cross member in).

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Today I got the exhaust re-hung, and got the e-brake connected (the first time this thing has had an e-brake since I got it!). I also drilled out the smaller (8mm??) bolt holes on the t-case output flange to 10mm, and filled the trans with oil.

On a whim, I picked up some oil to do an oil change on the Cow yesterday... It's only been about 3 or 4 years since I last gave it an oil change. This is what came out

The specs for this guy say it takes 5qts w/filter. This is how much came out:

Doesn't seem like a whole lot of extra, and it doesn't seem to have lost any coolant. Likewise, I don't seem to have any oil in the coolant. It is possible that this is just the result of having only been run to warm up a few times a year (i.e.: condensation in the crank case)?

I'm really not wanting to pulling the head off of this thing and taking it to be machined...

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Just did a (wet) compression test -- 170, 180, 175, and 170 (1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively). The plugs were all dry, with the exception of a little bit of oil on the #4 plug threads. I'm thinking I'll just order up a head gasket kit anyway (they're only $40 from RockAuto). I'd rather replace it without a real need to than to really need to and ignore it.

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Hmmm...

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Welp...

On the plus side, the rig is moving under it's own power again. It's FWD only right now, but still.

The new setup is a bit different than the old setup... I was just trying to see if it was working, and let off the clutch like I would with the old setup, but it was in compound low. It grabbed a good bit sooner than the old setup, and scared the crap out of me in the process 'cuz it jerked a lot harder than it ever did it the old setup...and it was about 6' away from the 300 (with the Chrysler directly in it's path) lol


Don't really know why I did it, but I pulled the oil fill cap while I had it running earlier. It has more blow-by than my Cummins with nearly 200k miles on it I don't remember it having massive blow-by before, but I also don't recall if I've ever pulled the oil cap while it was running, either... Now I'm worried that there's more than just a blown head gasket. If I end up having to rebuild the engine, I'll probably just put a Chevy V6 in there (which I really don't want to do at this point).

 

[ChrisCo]

Let the Cow out of its stall long enough to turn it around and pull it right back in to the stall to be decapitated...

I was expecting to find a complete blow-out on the head gasket...but, oddly, it seemed fine. This is where it was leaking:

The corresponding mating surface on the head is on the upper-left:

(yes, I was out of space on the workbench and had to resort to laying parts on the floor :lol

I've got a short piece of machined O1 steel from when I was still making knives... I keep it floating around the shop because it's really handy for a precision straight edge. I did find a bit of a dip in the area where the leak was at. Unfortunately, the piece of O1 is a little bit on the short side (12" IIRC), so I really couldn't get a good read on the status of the whole head. Regardless, I'll have it decked anyway.

Anyone know of a good machine shop in the Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue area?


Oh, and I was really expecting to find gnarly cylinder walls, but they're in really good shape! No ridges, no scrapes... You can even see hash marks (I was told that the engine was rebuilt shortly before I bought it, but didn't really believe 'em).

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Decided to check again this morning using a longer straight edge, some feeler gauges, and different lighting. It looks like what I thought were gaps due to the head being a bit warped last night were actually just light showing under the straight edge through the oil and coolant ports -- d'oh! Using the feeler gauges, I couldn't get a .010 gauge to slide between the straight edge and the mating surface anywhere. I checked all along the length of the straight edge in several places both length wise, and diagonally across the head (both ways). I don't see any signs of cracks or any other reason that'd cause the gasket to leak, so maybe it was just a crappy gasket and/or incorrectly torqued head studs?

I checked the mating surface on the block with the straight edge and feeler gauges, too... No problems at all that I could find...granted, I couldn't do as thorough of a job checking the block due to pistons sticking up slightly above the surface

Thoughts?

I also did the gas-in-the-combustion-chamber test to check the valves this morning... They all held the gas just fine (yay).

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Now an update on something other than the head gasket...

While installing the dual t-cases, FROR x-member, and Alpo...er, All-Pro t-case brake, I had to remove the fuel lines. With the exception of a short stretch of original fuel line, I'd previously used rubber hose to run the lines. I never really liked that setup, so I ordered up some nice 1/4" stainless steel fuel line, AN fittings, and a 37* flare tool (for those who don't already know this, AN fittings use 37* flares instead of the normal 45* flares you get with most common flare tools)

After getting the coiled SS line all straightened out, then getting it all bent to shape for the way I wanted to run the line, I started to flare the ends. So, I begin trying to flare the ends...and notice that the point of the flaring tool is crumbling :msp_cursing:

Till that point, it'd never crossed my mind how hard SS is to work with, nor did it really cross my mind that I go the cheapest flare tool I could from Summit Racing. So, after a little research, I found that it was less expensive to order up 20' of aluminum line and another (even cheaper) flaring tool. The new fuel line showed up last week, and (clearly) got the new fuel lines run.

Anyone have any use for some 1/4" SS tubing (20' cut into 3 pieces -- I forget how long each piece is)?

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Got the head re-installed and picked up a new dizzy cap. It runs a LOT better now (not sure how much of that is the HG, or how much is the dizzy cap ). It had a bit of a miss before, but it's smooth as can be at idle now. It still sputters a bit when I get on the gas right off idle, but that may be related to the year-old gas that's in it.

Since I had the cooling system drained for the HG change, I ordered and installed a 10-plate heat exchanger for the on-board shower setup. I've gotta' figure out how I'm going to run the water lines.

I also cut the stock rear d-shaft down by 9" as a get-by so I can move the rig around the driveway without having to keep it in 4wd. Gotta' look into having a new d-shaft made up soon.

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This thing done yet?

Nope I've spent pretty much every weekend this year working on fixing up our old place in Gold Bar to get it up on the market. It was supposed to go on the market in March, but (after turning the water back on) I found that my attempt at winterizing the place failed miserably Every pipe in the back half of the house was busted, so I got to rip out a bunch of ruined drywall (including nearly the entire dining room ceiling) and fix the plumbing.

I did take a break from the normal routine this afternoon to give the Cow a bit of attention. I'd started putting together a new transmission hump a month or so back, but family came to town and other crap got in the way, so it got left on the work bench. I finally got out there and finished it up, and got it tacked into place.

I'm hoping to get it fully welded in place by next weekend. Afterwards, I'll be beginning the internal cage. I'm hoping to get a new rear drive shaft, winch, and materials to build a front bumper in September (bonus time).

This thing is the worlds slowest build... I've only been working on it for like six years now :shok:

btw, I meant to look when I was out there on Saturday, but completely forgot... Is your RTI ramp still at your old place? If it is, do you mind if I use it to flex out the Cow to get the measurements for the drive shaft?

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HA! Here it is 3+ months later, and I still haven't finished the trans hump yet. I did get the middle all welded in, but I have only gotten one side of the x-member cover fabbed up (but not yet welded in). The good news is that I got my house in Gold Bar all straightened out and on the market, so as soon as I get all caught up on the crap that I've had to push out for the past 9 months, I'll be getting busy on this thing again...


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I managed to get a little bit of work done on the Cow today. Got the transmission hump about half done, and I have the templates all setup to cut out the remaining pieces for the other side. I'm hoping to get the rest done over the holiday.

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95% done with the tunnel now. It ain't the pertiest, but it's functional (and certainly stiffens up the floor pan compared to the gaping hole that was there before )

I thought I was 100% done, but after snapping this photo I realized that I missed welding a spot at the front of the tunnel. Oh, well... I'll take care of that tomorrow (if I have enough shielding gas).

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Got the main hoop for the internal cage bent up Saturday night/Sunday afternoon. As much as I hate to waste the tube, I'm thinking about reworking this. I wanted it to follow the inside-body lines, but I've got a 4" gap between the outside of the widest part of the uprights and the side of the body I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did, though, considering I hadn't bent tube in about two and a half years or so...

Another reason I'm thinking about rebuilding this is to be able to relocate where they mount. Right now, I've got it setup to be welded directly to the frame...but it doesn't leave me any room to drop it down to fully weld the tube. That'd be so much easier to do if there wasn't a roof on this thing :crazy:

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It's been a few months since I've updated this thread... Since my last post, I've re-bent the main hoop, and got the A-pillars bent up...

Took a break last month to celebrate 21 years with the ol' lady. Came back and got as busy as time and responsibilities allow... I was trying really hard to avoid splicing the tube for the cage, but when I got back from Hawaii, I sat in the cab and saw this...

Yep. I completely forgot to account for one plane Oh, well. I can't afford to waste the tube, so I cut and spliced the A-pillars in three places to fix it (all splices are with 1.5" .020 DOM, 6" long pieces, with rosette and butt welds). Here's what it looks like now (just loosely clamped into place in the cab -- it'll be straighter when it's done):

I also got two stretchers put in (one on the bottom of the main hoop, one on the top between the A-pillars):

I've still got a few more stretchers to put together, then it'll be time to weld it up... I still don't know how the heck I'm going to get it fully welded... Right now, the feet of the cage are all on the body mounts, so I can't exactly drop it through the floor. Oh well... I'll figure it out.

 

[ChrisCo]

Dammit! Just as I'm getting the Cow to a point that I *think* it might go wheeling sometime in the next couple of years (house hunting is taking priority right now), someone goes and leaves this in my garage...

Yes, this is yet another long term project...but the Cow WILL wheel before this is installed.

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...in a drunken, angry stupor, I half-assed put this bugger up for sale on Facebook last weekend. Thankfully, I'd sobered up and deleted the post before I got any prospective buyers. I've had a week to think over my drunken stupidity from last weekend, and put together a punch list of what's *really* necessary before this thing sees the trails (at least, for a shakedown run):

- Seats
- Seat belts/harness
- Finish the cage
- Rear drive shaft
- Renewed tabs
- Basic once-over of all of the basic systems (brakes, etc)

All of the rest of the half-finished projects can wait...

..so, with that in mind... I ordered up a set of Corbeau Baja RS seats w/sliders last week. I'm hoping they get here in time for me to install during my annual Christmas "vacation". That'll allow me to finish the cage (finally). All that'll truly stand between this rig and the trails is the rear drive shaft. I have a little $$$ to spend on that right now, so that may be ordered up in the next couple of weeks.

I'm setting a goal for myself to have this thing ready for (at a minimum) a mild trail shake down run @ Tahuya by February (being realistic here, given the trend of this build-up).

I haven't wheeled since 2008. I need some trail time with friends.

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mmm... Corbeau seats...

Corbeau Baja RS suspension seats to be exact. Comfy!!! Just loosely sitting in place right now. The sliders/brackets came in yesterday. I'm hoping to get them at least mocked up into place tomorrow.

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Well, I'd planned to get to work mounting the seats after the 'hawks game this afternoon, but in the process of trying to figure out how the heck to do that, I found something that needs to be reworked on the B pillar (really bad fitment). I also need to cut into my schnazzy transmission hump/floorboard setup a bit in order to get the seats a bit lower.

No worries. I just moved on to finally notching and loosely fitting the lateral brace for the A pillars...

I think that the first part of next weekend will be spent replacing the existing (but unused) hot tub wiring (60a/220v breaker) with a couple of 220v plugs in the garage so I can run the welder, air compressor, and plasma without having the door to the house partially opened. I'm tired of coordinating my "shop" time with the laundry :wacko: This will be temporary, of course, since we're in a rental :msp_wink:

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Mr. Brown brought more toys for the Cow the other day:

Probably overkill for what the Cow will see...but just in case

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I think that the first part of next weekend will be spent replacing the existing (but unused) hot tub wiring (60a/220v breaker) with a couple of 220v plugs in the garage so I can run the welder, air compressor, and plasma without having the door to the house partially opened.

ChrisCo

WRONG! Instead of setting up the plugs to allow me to weld and what not, I ended up spending all weekend swapping out the ball joints and front brakes on the tow pig. What a pain in the ash that was.


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ChrisCo's Welding -- Now 100% (Shared) Dryer plug free!

Yippie! I can now weld (and run the air compressor and plasma) without having to coordinate with the laundry :lol:

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I finally got started reworking the B-pillar this afternoon... I got the problem that I'd found fixed, and tweaked the stretchers between the A and B pillars a bit to allow me to actually get in the rig with the seats in. I still need to notch the stretchers and tack them in (I had to quit early today due to a sinus headache -- ugh).

After getting the stretchers tacked into place, I'll start cutting out my schnazzy transmission hump to clear the seats. That should start tomorrow.

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Finally got to cranking on this guy again over the past couple of days. I got the B-pillar cross brace re-positioned, moved the lower A/B pillar braces moved down a few inches, and reused the tubing from my original attempt at the B-pillar to bend up a couple of seat mounting brackets, and got the driver's side seat mostly bolted into place...

The seat is only bolted down in the back on the last pic there. I worked on fabbing up a bracket for it to bolt to in the front, but screwed up my measurements I got the bracket fabbed up, and drilled the holes perfectly, but with the way the bracket lined up -- there wasn't enough clearance to put the nut on the bolt. That's OK -- I'm not really liking how the front bracket turned out anyway (hence the lack of pictures of the fully finished product ), so I'll cut it back out tomorrow and start over.

I may end up reworking the rear mount, too, since the whole thing turned out slightly taller than I'd planned. I don't have a lot of headroom as it is, and the way it sits now I can bash my head on the roll bar without trying too hard. I've got a fair bit of room under the seat right now, and I'd like to take that for headroom.

With any luck, I'll have both seats mounted this weekend. The Corbeau Baja RS seats are crazy compfy, btw.

I need to screw with the rear transfer case shifter a bit this weekend, too. I noticed that it didn't want to go into 2wd while I was working on the seat positioning. I'm hoping it's just bound up from the last time I'd moved it around the driveway (I had to put it into 4wd to get it up the hill :crazy. I'm really hoping it's not that shift rail that I had to modify when I installed the crawler.

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Well, today was a bit of a setback. I got the driver's seat mounted, but I didn't like how it sat. It's too far up, and I was able to hit my head on the cage without even trying...so, I pulled it all out and reworked the B-pillar a bit to give myself a bit more room. It seems to have worked so far, but I won't know for sure until I get some new seat mounts made up...which will hopefully be sometime tomorrow (before or after the game -- or both )

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I really didn't feel like doing this today. I've been fighting a cold the past couple of days, thanks to my having to be a baddass and riding the motorcycle to work in 36 degree weather...but, I didn't want to just sit around feeling sick all afternoon...

...so I got back out to the garage to get the seat mounting figured out today. I tried to get some work done on it yesterday, but I didn't like how it was turning out, so I scrapped it and went back to my original idea.

I ended up trimming a good bit more of the transmission hump, bending the original mounts a bit more, and splicing a bit of the original tube that I'd used for the mount (I had to shorten one part and stretch another)...but I think I finally have the seat in the right place.

I managed to get the back of the seat dropped down about 3/4 to 1 inch, and made a good bit more room to bolt the seat down. In the process, I also managed to get the seat situated such that I'm comfortable, and there's only one spot that I can hit my head on the cage in a somewhat extreme case.

Yes, the seat is sitting a little crooked right now.

 

[ChrisCo]

There, all current up to here. Now crash can stop popping over to that other forum asking if it's done yet :haha: