93 4runner SAS

[Robinhood4x4]

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

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

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





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


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

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

Geoff: "Yup."

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

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

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


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


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


Here they are:


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


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


Randy cutting:


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


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


Here's the fuel sender:


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

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

Here it is with the rear done:


The front about to come off:


Geoff having way too much fun with the sledgehammer


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


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


And there it is


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

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

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

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

[Robinhood4x4]

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

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

[Robinhood4x4]

It's rolling!!! Just got the little things to do like bumpstops in the rear, get some bolts from the store for the shocks, make new mounts for my rear bumper, etc.

No pics yet, the camera is down in the shop and I am tired. Worked since 10am this morning until 11 pm straight.

[Robinhood4x4]

Here's the progress pictures, not too many this time. Mostly Randy and I worked on the little things. I had a list of 22 things to do and we got almost all of them done. Got the bumpstops, front and rear done, steering bolted up, shock hoops welded on, LSPV bolted back on, painted things, etc. By the way, the stock rear bumpstops look like they'll work perfectly, we just welded on an extension to the Ubolt plates. I'll post pictures of that later.

If I remember correctly, I'm about 27-28 inches from the ground to the pinchwelds. That's a 5" gain over what I had with IFS (cranked tbars and cruiser coils). The back is about 1/4" higher than the rear, but the front springs just got installed today and the back has had weight on it for 2 weeks so maybe they settled a little. I expect once I put my heavy rear bumper on it'll sag in the rear.

The only things left to do are make new brackets for my rear bumper, buy misc bolts for my front shocks, tcase cooler and rear bumper. I expect it'll be home next saturday, unless something catastrophic happens like the axle randomly falls off or I get really bad vibrations on the freeway or something.

Still need to get my front drive shaft modified by High Angle Drivelines. That'll be in a couple weeks I suspect.

By the way, the tranny cooler is not going to remain in the front like it is now, it's just there temporarily until I can mount it in front of the grill.

On to the pics:









I'll post up more pics next week of the little things like the bumpstops etc and also prettier pictures with my bumpers mounted and nothing hanging from random places.

[Robinhood4x4]

I'm going to get extended bolts and space the tcase cooler away from the frame about 1.5", same bolt holes. I think that should work, it just needs to clear the shackle bolt.

[Robinhood4x4]

It's done and it's home.

Just got the loose ends to tie up, like wire the elocker, get the front driveshaft made, etc.

Here I am welding up the new brackets for the rear bumper. I forgot my hat so I used a tshirt to keep the sparks out of my hair.


Here's all the IFS and rear coil stuff that got cut off, ready for the trip home. The truck was sagging pretty bad, completely on the bumpstops.




You can see the rear bumpstops we made using the stock bumpstop. We originally made the bumpstops with a 2-3 inch gap, but after settling there is now only about 1/2" of daylight. I'll remedy that later.




The total lift I got so far is 5" in the front and 4" in the rear, with the rear being 1" lower than the front. I suspect without my heavy rear bumper it would be level or slightly higher in the rear.

Here's how much it all cost. I have included everything from nuts and bolts to the gas I used getting to my friends house to work on the truck. SAS's ain't cheap.


This is how many man-hours it took the three of us to finish the front and rear




I do have a rear driveline vibration when coasting at 80-85 mph, which most people say is because the rear pinion angle is too low. So, I think I'll try longer shackles which will raise the saggy rear and hopefully fix the vibration.

On the freeway it obviously doesn't handle quite as well as before. I have a little bumpsteer and the steering isn't quite as responsive. For example, if wind blows me towards the edge of my lane it I need more steering input to re-center it. There's also a thunking noise when I swerve left and right. Not sure what that is yet.

I still have quite a list of things to do but at least it's driveable. Sorry, no flex shots, I live in the middle of a city.

Edit: And yes, the tranny cooler location is still temporary.

[Robinhood4x4]

I got quoted $280 for my front CV mods from HAD, so I figured modifying a front shaft for the rear would be about the same. But since I don't need long slip in the rear, just lengthening must be much cheaper than long slip and clearancing the front.

[Robinhood4x4]

ooks like I'm going CV in the rear. I added longer shackles which leveled the truck out and raised the pinion angle, but that didn't help with the vibes. My angles are near perfect for U-joints.

[Robinhood4x4]

The shocks don't have much compression travel because of the location I chose to mount the tops. The mounts are welded to the bottom of the stock cross member so that makes them pretty low. If I were to do it again, I would cut out that cross member or otherwise make a new cross member so I can attach the shocks higher up. I would gain at least a couple inches of compression that way.

The bumpstops are low to protect the shocks, don't want them bottoming out.

Originally we were aiming for approximately 3 inches of compression and 9 inches of extension. Those springs settled a little more than we thought. Since taking those pictures I've installed 7 inch long shackles so now I have about 2-3 inches of daylight between the bumpstops.

The hangers all came with the rear leaf kit.

[Robinhood4x4]

Update. I've been working on the truck every chance I get after work and on the weekends, getting the little things done. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

The locker is now wired, however it took a while to get the locker to work. It seems we didn't grind the housing enough so when I tried to unlock the locker the shift fork ran into the housing. I didn't figure that one out until I tore down the axle completely. A few minutes with the grinder and it worked fine. Now I know I can completely disassemble and reassemble an axle in less than 12 hours with many hours inbetween of walking the dogs and napping.

The good news from that ordeal is that I discovered my housing is indeed straight! When I originally installed the axle shafts I had tightened down the knuckles and the birfields wouldn't clear the ball. That led me to believe the housing was bent. Well, this time when I tore everything down I loosened the knuckles first and the birfield slid right out. Pirate says some housing you need to loosen the knuckle first and some you don't.

The winch is almost wired, I just need to find a cheap place to order more power cable. I'm thinking ebay.

I can clear my garage door by about 1 inch after removing the main beams across the roof rack. But those beams held my reverse lights so I've got to remount and rewire those.

I've also been working on my super secret LED rocklight project. Eight lights for about $40. I'll make a post about those later.

The rear has been lifted to match the front now with some 7" shackles from 4crawler. I was hoping that would also cure my vibration but it hasn't so I'll have to go with a CV driveline.

Adrian, ground to bottom of front crossmember is 27.25" and from outside of tire to outside of tire in the front is 69"