Morph

[AxleIke]

After a brief delay with welder issues (Miller ROCKS, took REALLY good care of me), I Got back to work.

Frame side brackets and Axle side panhard mount all burned in:

[AxleIke]

I drilled out the holes at work on a drill press.

This was slow. A lot of stacking/creative leaning, to get things to line up properly, and actually sit without falling:



Even still, I'm going to have to pound this bracket a little once its welded to the frame. Both tabs are leaning about 1/32 or so inboard. Not good. But, easy to fix. However, it means that gussets will have to be done on the truck.

Imagine that the firebrick is actually the frame rail, and that you are looking down on the set up from above (ie through the truck, xray vision style). You can see how the bracket mounts, and how the arm comes off of it.

[AxleIke]

A good weekend.

I realized I hadn't exactly explained my suspension before, so here goes:

This is a total experiment. I'm going to see how it works. It may work well, and be really cool, or it may suck huge, and have to get changed next winter.

The good part is, if it does need to be changed, I can convert to either a true 3 link, and jeep 3 link, or a different radius arm set up. I'll be out about 65 bucks if that happens.

The idea came from staring at an 80 series land cruiser and listening to the owner complain about his front radius arms being rock magnets.

After staring for a few minutes, I thought to my self, "wow, those do hang down far. But, if you flipped them on top of the axle, they'd have a TON of clearance." And, so, I kept turning it over in my head, and finally picked up a set of used arms from Slee Offroad for 50 bucks.

I stuck them up under my truck, and was happy to see that not only did they give me virtually nothing hanging below the axle (the rear mount hangs down 1/2", and is smooth), but, when tucked above the bottom of the frame, they were higher up than my leaf spring. Much better clearance all around.

Anyway, obviously I see the issues with this, and there are a few, as well as the fact that it would be much easier to link it, and call it good. However, I like different. I figure I'll see where this goes, and go back to the norm if it doesn't work out.

Back to the pictures

On Saturday, with the help of a buddy, I got things measured, and remeasured, and remeasured, ad nauseam. However, things turned out straight, so thats good.



Setting the pinion angle



Axle strapped down so it wouldn't move.



Tacked in the radius arms. Looking good so far.



That's as far as we got. Troy came over today, and helped me get the rest going.

Panhard in:



Spring buckets in:



Small snag, due to a dumb mistake. I calculated a loaded truck rear axle weight to be 1200 lbs. I wasn't far off. However, I miscalculated. If the truck has a 1200 lb weight on the axle, then each spring has 600 lbs. Bummer. So, I got 18" 300lb/inch springs, thinking they'd compress around 4". Wrong. Loaded, they'll get about 2. So, sending these back, and getting a set of 16". That should be about perfect.



Before Troy left, we hauled out his spare, which is the tire and rim set up I hope to run. I like it!



I booger welded in the frame brackets tonight. I don't know what it is, but I can't for the life of me make pretty welds upside down. Practice makes perfect I'm sure, and I've gotten all the tips and tricks. I just suck at it. Oh well.

[corax]

It's hard to lay a nice bead of weld when you're getting burned to by the sparks and slag . . . I like the idea though - what are you doing with the gas tank? cutting the spare tire cross member for a flat tank?

[slosurfer]

Neat idea, I can't wait to see it tested out.

Where are the shocks getting mounted?

[AxleIke]

Keith, Gas tank is going behind the axle- cutting out the rear crossmember, and putting in another farther back.

Chris, I don't have the shocks figured out yet. I may go low, and close to the tire, like a 2nd gen 4runner, but I also may put them outside the frame, through the rear fender. We'll see.

[AxleIke]

Shane, I'm having trouble following your post.

I had seen Action Jackson's thread a long time ago. Good refresher read. The arms were from a junk 80 slee had and was selling parts from. Trying to sell off as much as he could before shipping it to a yard.

I don't think the driveshaft will bind, but I'll be checking it. The axle moves some, but not that much. When it droops, the pinion rotates up, which is good, as it should keep good driveshaft angles. We'll see.

Don't understand the 3 versus 5 reference?

[strykersd]

Don't understand the 3 versus 5 reference?

I think he was referring to the stock 4-link that came in 2nd gen 4runners, with panhard bar making it the 5th point connecting to the frame. But this was an originally leaf sprung 4runner. So after all this, any chance of a SAS?

[Scuba]

DAAAYYMMMN, Looks good ike, Cant wait to see it buttoned up !

[AxleIke]

Don't understand the 3 versus 5 reference?

I think he was referring to the stock 4-link that came in 2nd gen 4runners, with panhard bar making it the 5th point connecting to the frame. But this was an originally leaf sprung 4runner. So after all this, any chance of a SAS?

Ah. Yes, this is a first gen, so OFF with spring wrapping leaf springs, and on with this deal.

SAS is in the future. I cannot afford to build the axle that I want, and I refuse to put stock crap that is no stronger than IFS under the front. I have an FJ80 front that will be getting links after I can afford longs and highsteer.