Adventures in 4Runner'ing

[DouglasVB]

[IMG]http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/14/a333cc0b40b2112a74029e91b53061a5.jpg[/IMG]

I did a little clear coating tonight of the tube doors. At the last minute I decided to go with clear coat rather than color match the truck because of how great the raw metal looks. The clear coat turned out REALLY well. Tomorrow I'll install the tube doors. I've for the quick release hinges for both the stock and tube doors. Will be really slick. My buddy who welds came over and checked out the welding work we need to do. We'll probably take it into the shop Friday afternoon to weld on the sliders and the baby stinger on the bumper. Also we need to weld on mounts for antennas and for the wire rope brush guards. I need to track down appropriate metal for that. While we are at it, we might put on some flat bar that can later be used to mount lights. I need to be prepared in case there is another spooky Halloween run this year!

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[HoneyBadger]

I think it will look good, too! I'm surprised how light all of that steel is. According to the FedEx tracking information, everything only weighs 145 lbs. Taking off the stock front bumper and related hardware and the stock doors probably will be about 50-70 lbs of weight. To make up the rest of the weight difference, I'll jump on a tread mill more often

LoL

Looking forward to seeing it all out together.

 

[DouglasVB]

What a day! What a lovely day!



There are those who know true happiness and there are those without tube doors.



Zen and the Art of Tube Doors.

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[DouglasVB]

Thanks to Justin, I now am on my way to having the parts necessary to do a solid axle swap this winter. Still need to go through and inventory everything but I have most of the bracketry and hangers (minus the shock towers), the axle housing, the birfields, knuckles, disk brake assemblies, some leaf springs that may or may not be a good idea to use, and other things that I'm forgetting. I'll need to get a differential, a front axle rebuild kit, shocks, Ford F350 shock towers, and a few other odds and ends. Oh and a couple poly bushings unless Justin finds them in his garage that I can only imagine is like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Looking at my choices for moving this forward, I think I want a high pinion differential for the front. I'm still debating between 33" and 35" tires with the primary factor being how much more tippy the truck will be between the two tire sizes. The secondary factor is tire price. I'm leaning toward 35" and keeping the SAS build low rather than a massive jacked-to-the-sky approach. It looks like the FJ80's reverse-rotation-high-pinion differential should work up front. Did those come with an E-locker?

I don't know what shocks to get or how long they should be. TBD, etc.

It looks like the Marlin Crawler kit for rebuilding a front axle will be in order: https://www.marlincrawler.com/axle/...ts/service-front-hilux/front-axle-service-kit

I'll need wheel spacers to match the front axle to the rear axle width.

I'll need the high steer setup.

I'm planning to get a Marlin Crawler Box (as discussed here before).

Drive shafts will need to be built to the correct length, etc.

Still not sure if I'll go with 4.88:1 or 5.29:1 gears. I've read some less than great things about 5.29:1 gears grenading at inopportune moments.

I'm going to stick with my 22RE motor for at least a year of the SAS setup. Might look at a diesel conversion down the road or follow the siren song of the 3.4L super charged setup. Either way, I'll keep the transmission manual.

Once I have some garage room, I'll lay everything out and inventory what I've got in the SAS department.

My plan is to do the swap between November and March, with time set aside for testing before the high mountain 4x4 roads melt out next spring. My buddy who lives nearby will do the welding, assuming his welds are good (going to have him weld the stinger on my bumper first so y'all can critique the weld before I have him do more serious welds).

 

[AxleIke]

Yes the 80 series diffs came with elockers.

5.29s are fine. I think you are referring to 5.71s which people get frightened of for no reason. It's Internet hype. Zuk has a good write up:

5.71 vs 4.10

 

[DouglasVB]

Yes the 80 series diffs came with elockers.

5.29s are fine. I think you are referring to 5.71s which people get frightened of for no reason. It's Internet hype. Zuk has a good write up:

5.71 vs 4.10

Hmm interesting. I'll have to look into tooth measurements a bit more and run some calculations (my undergrad degree is finally useful!) to see the difference in tooth face pressure between the different gear options. Mainly because I'm curious now.

I'm leaning toward getting E-locker equipped difs for both front and rear (do they come in a high pinion configuration for the front?) so that I don't need to mess around with air hoses (I prefer working with and repairing wires to air hoses) under the truck. Travis mentioned on Saturday at the Rally that he's run his E-locker through all sorts of water and mud abuse and it hasn't failed him yet (water infiltration and failure would be my primary concern). Also the price is right.

 

[DaveInDenver]

so that I don't need to mess around with air hoses (I prefer working with and repairing wires to air hoses) under the truck.

Of all the reasons to dislike them this is one that shouldn't be a worry. Back when I still had Air Locker I carried a few feet of extra blue nylon tubing and an assortment of push fittings for hasty repairs. It's quicker to chop out a kinked or melted section of tubing and repair it than to solder in new wire. If it's anything more complex then it's not really a trail-side fix anyway. I still have a bunch of them I should probably get rid of since I don't need them for anything.

 

[nuclearlemon]

Of all the reasons to dislike them this is one that shouldn't be a worry. Back when I still had Air Locker I carried a few feet of extra blue nylon tubing and an assortment of push fittings for hasty repairs. It's quicker to chop out a kinked or melted section of tubing and repair it than to solder in new wire. If it's anything more complex then it's not really a trail-side fix anyway. I still have a bunch of them I should probably get rid of since I don't need them for anything.

air line over electrical is easier, but keep in mind, you still need to wire in switches and relays and the e lockers are not cheap. an 80 elocker front, if you can find it will run around $500-800 for the diff alone. the 80 front diffs are the only ones that will fit your runner. 80 rear diffs are 9.25 ring gears, way too big for a runner.

for the air line, i'm cheating and converting to 1/4" much more readily available and cheaper. but you still have to deal with an air source (which you will want to have for airing back up after running the trail anyways). you're still looking about the same price for a new airlocker, but easier to find.

 

[DouglasVB]

Good points, guys!

If I were to go for the ARB lockers front and rear, then what differentials should I be trying to chase down? After seeing Justin's high pinion setup on his front axle, I'm pretty keen for that.

So let's say I'm going with ARB lockers... Keep my current rear differential, find a high pinion front, put ARB front and rear, go with 5.29:1 gears for 35" tires, get a high pressure and high volume compressor setup (maybe the dual ARB compressors?), carry spare air hose and fittings for trail repairs (I used to do a lot of work with pneumatic power so I have some experience repairing this stuff). Anything I'm forgetting here?

Rear diff: keep current differential, replace gears, install ARB locker
Front diff: find high pinion differential (only on the 80 series or were there other years?), replace gears, install ARB locker

Do I have that all straight?

 

[DaveInDenver]

If you were going with Air Lockers I'd just keep the current housings. The ARBs replace the whole differential and are substantially stronger than the stock 4 cylinder guts. High pinion is similar to a V6 housing, which is slightly stronger since it has a few fins cast into it. But honestly it's not that big of a deal. In any configuration the Air Locker diffs are an improvement over stock diffs in strength.

High pinion, never had them but only used in Land Cruiser front axles. Hilux/4Runner/Pickup never had them. Gains some clearance I suppose but would upset a big advantage is being able to run front diff in back if you need to get home. That was never an option on 80 series since they use regular 9.5" Cruiser rear axles, so they could have a non-standard differential. Earlier Cruisers had the same diff front and rear. Plus I think high pinion use special gears, don't they?

I'd stick with the 50 billion other mini trucks happily getting 'er done with the original configuration. Most people blow birfields and hub locks before diffs, so I don't know that it's really necessary with a mini truck. In a bloated 80 series, sure, they need the help to keep from blowing them up. But your 4Runner weights like 1/10th as much as those bloated land whales.

 

[DouglasVB]

...would upset a big advantage is being able to run front diff in back if you need to get home...

That's a really good point.

 

[ScaldedDog]

My comments are written without any context with respect to how you plan to wheel and drive your rig...

The Hi pinion diffs are handy up front if you need to correct a pinion angle. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. (I'm running one for that reason.)

Spacers will fix the axle width problem cosmetically, but at the cost of an awful scrub radius, so the already anemic power steering system will be ineffective when wheeling. If you *know* you won't want something different later on, and can $wing it, have a Diamond built to your specific width.

I hate working on broken stuff on the trail. If you do, too, go with 30 spline longs, ARP studs, cryo'd hub gears and r/p gears, etc. You won't need all that with 35s, but you might not always want 35s...

Spend. Money. Once.

Have fun!

Mark

 

[Squishy!]

Oh, if money were no object...

I ran a bone stock Solid axle setup in my pickup with 5.29's, ARB locker, wheel spacers, no high pinion, and chromoly Longfield birfs, kept the truck light and ran the $#!* out of it. I was hard on the truck and NEVER broke. Seriously, ever. I wasn't nice to it either.

If you don't HAVE to upgrade, I say don't. As your driving skill improves, so will your daring, then you'll find the limits of your rig and build to match your skill. A sweet crawler right off the bat gets boring. Having a truck that keeps you engaged with every obstacle is a lot of fun and rewarding. Some of my favorite times were walking up crazy obstacles in my minimalist SAS'd truck that my dad was struggling to climb in the super built Chili. I learned to be a better driver because I slowly built my truck and pushed its limits every time I ran it. BTW I never had a crawl box in my pick-up. Clutch skills bro.

 

[DouglasVB]

I hate working on broken stuff on the trail. If you do, too, go with 30 spline longs, ARP studs, cryo'd hub gears and r/p gears, etc. You won't need all that with 35s, but you might not always want 35s...

I really need to get on developing a money tree.

Looks like it would be about $1k for a Diamond front axle assembly plus another $1.5k for the diff and locker. That's a bit more than I'm looking to invest at the moment

 

[DouglasVB]

But it is tempting!

 

[DouglasVB]

Clutch skills bro.

Dat burning clutch smell

I need to practice holding my foot at a constant angle compared to the truck floor while going over obstacles. The jarring always seems to disrupt my foot and make me slip too much or too little.

 

[Squishy!]

Air down and slow down. 29" tires won't break anything, but 35" will break stuff quick. Drive with the clutch, not with the gas.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Air down and slow down. 29" tires won't break anything, but 35" will break stuff quick. Drive with the clutch, not with the gas.

I never feather the clutch unless the engine is literally gasping (which of course happens a lot with the 22R-E, ha!), then it becomes a two heel/toe dance. But I don't drive anything hard anymore so it's not really an issue. I consciously tell myself to put my left foot on the floor specifically so I don't ride the clutch. This is a lot easier with low gears and with the 4.7 gearset I couldn't kill it. The tires will just sit there and spin, churn, bounce, but the engine just burps along at a couple of hundred RPM (don't do this, that torque surging will break stuff, just making a point). With stock gears it's not as easy, that's for sure.

 

[AxleIke]

There are both Elocked, and standard high pinion Toyota 8" front diffs. The elockers, as IGE said, are pretty pricey.

I've always run Air Lockers. I never have had a line break, but like Dave, carry the push fittings. Very easy to repair.

If you did any upgrade to the diffs, grab the ones from a V6 truck, but as said above, its really not needed unless you plan to try to run 40" tires on the 8" stuff.

Chromoly axles are a good idea. One, the stock ones in the axle you bought are likely pretty worn at this point. Two, you have to pull it apart and rebuild everything anyway, might as well do it then.

Lastly, the low pinion diff is a great option up front, since, as stated, you can run it in the back if needed. To correct pinion angle, and keep your caster correct, a cut and turn of the knuckles is pretty easy as long as you have a good welder, and a good angle gauge. Its what I would recommend no matter what you do. It will give you a truck that does not have death wobble and has a great pinion angle. It is fairly common to get death wobble on a SAS truck depending on how you set up the springs, the amount of lift you have, etc... I always recommend that people get the truck fully set up, drive it around a bit, and then set the pinion and caster by doing the cut and turn.

 

[AxleIke]

I also don't use the clutch. I just gear the truck down as I have spent time on the trail with a truck and a hot clutch. Took almost 3 hours to cool down enough that the truck could move again. Kinda a bummer way to spend time on the trail.