Baby Beast Evolution

[AxleIke]

Been a while since I've been on. But, figured I'd update with my new build. Its going slow, but so far, so good.

Specs:

1989 4runner
3.4L swapped by ORS
R151
dual cases with 4.7 in the rear
4.88 gears
ARB Front/Rear

Rear Axle: 1997 4runner
Front Axle: 1995 FZJ80 with HP third

Front suspension: 3 Link with 14" King Remote Resivoir Coilovers, with HellFire Fab high steer fabricated knuckles and arms

Rear suspension: 4 link rear with coils and 14" bilstein remote res shocks.

Tires are currently going to be 35" MTR Kevlars, that may change.

Looking at running a 15 gallon cell in the rear.

Lots of body work.

[AxleIke]

**Copied from other forums, sorry for the wierd read**

Finally made some progress. I got the wrecked hood, and outter fender off this weekend, and got my tcases out of my 87. I'm going to build the 89 because, aside from the front end damage, the body is in much better shape than my 87.

Tonight I got the front clip removed. I'm not sure how I'm going to button it up yet but the current thought is to build tubing supports for the body panels, and construct "inner fenders" out of some sheet metal to hold accessories, and electrical. Either way, it will likely retain full body width as this will be DD capable.

This weekend I hope to pull the r151 out of our turbo truck and get the r150 from this truck re-installed into the turbo truck so it can continue DD duties. We'll see how far I get on that.

Some pictures:

Truck as it sat when I brought it down:







Truck came with brand new MTR Kevlars on it in the 35x12.5 variety. I've read good things about them, so I plan to run these for a while, see how I like them:



And the nice front end components that will be sold, except for the CO's



And the lame progress:









and my first screw up. (I'm sure there will be many, many more)



Took me another hour to get all of that stripped, extentions cut, and everything re-soldered. So far, everything works again, so I got all the connections remade. Silly stuff like this tends to chap my ass, but, its all good. Just gotta keep my eyes on BOTH sides of the cut.

Ordered up the final few joints and bushings from both Poly and Ballistic to begin the front suspension. I'm still shopping around for a good price on tube. So far, best choice seems to be online, but I'm hoping a local yard will have what I need. I've decided to go with 2" OD, .375 wall lowers and 1.5" .250 wall upper, and panhard. Still, I have a bunch of work to do before I need the tube, so I've got plenty of time to look around.

At first I thought the front hoops would be able to be reused, but looking at the height now, it doesn't look good. Too bad, as they are nice units. ORS built the truck, and they did either a nice job building the hoops, or a nice install on Total Chaos' hoops. However, I think they are going to be too low to acommodate the ride height I'm trying to achieve. We'll see.

Hopefully I'll have more this weekend.

[AxleIke]

Got a bunch of errands run this weekend, as well as the house cleaned and taxes done.

Bought a bunch of steel on Friday, and today I picked up the rest from my folks place.



Lower link material is .250 wall 2" OD DOM. May also sleeve this inside with .120 wall tube, just for the heck of it. We'll see. To me, this 2" seems SUPER strong, but I've thought that before.



Also on Friday, I got a screaming deal on this. Refurbed Milwaukee portable band saw. Oh man, does it cut REALLY nice, super clean, and very quiet. Don't even need hearing protection.



I cleaned off the R151 and transfercase at the local carwash. Took 20 bucks, and its still not perfect, but its a TON better than it was, and the little bits of extra crap I can take off pretty quickly.





On Saturday I got the fuel and exhuast systems removed, so I'm close to having my blank canvas.





Lastly, I picked up my axle from my folks place. I'm super excited to get this baby under the truck. Obviously, it will also need a visit to the car wash first.

[AxleIke]

Last weekend, I got the 80 axle all cleaned up, all the brackets, etc.. plasma's off, and the axles/birfs/knuckles cleaned up. Took a long time, as everything was quite rusted. However, the birfs, bells and knuckles all look good, and there was plenty of good grease left inside.





Last week, I got some mock up knuckles from HellFire Fab-Works. Billy is a GREAT guy to work with, and has been really cool in all our communications. These are mock up ONLY, and are simply to allow me to set up the steering, and panhard angles before the new knuckles come out.



To get everyone on the same page, these are what the actual knuckles will be like, once the next batch is done being cast:





Next, I tore down my old dual cases, and found this lovely gem awaiting me:



Looks like that area isn't seeing oiling as it should. Everything else in the case was clean.

I cleaned up the r151 case and installed that as my new crawl box. Nothing is sealed and no oil is in, as everything will need to be pulled again, so I can install 23 spline stuff from Marlin. For mock up, this will work just fine.



Then, everything got bolted back together. I always forget how LONG this thing is.



Got everything in the truck, and started messing with drivetrain angles.



Then I spent about 2 hours with a tape measure, and a beer, sitting on the floor staring at this thing.

This is where it sits.



On my other runner, I cut out the floor, and did a full flat bottom. I hated the noise of that thing, and the lack of a center console, as well as the position it forced the seats to be in.

This has the 3.4 at a 3 deg back angle, stock appears to be 5. I'm tempted to leave it here. However, the loss of clearance is what has kept me from calling this final.

On the one hand, in order to triangulate the lowers on the front, to cut down on over-steer, I will need to drop the lowers slightly below frame level to keep them from hitting on the frame rails at full bump (theoretically. The bump may not be that severe, or even possible given the engine position)

However, this is far lower than those will need to be.

Anyway, this will result in some more thinking, and deciding what compromises are acceptable.

[AxleIke]

Not a lot of time to work this weekend, but I got all of the IFS carefully removed so it can be shipped out, and started cutting. I'm not looking forward to the grinding.

All of the IFS out:





And 10 minutes with the plasma got rid of everything on one side. Got later, and I don't like to be loud late.





Hopefully I'll have more time next weekend, and can get the rest cleaned up.

[slosurfer]

awesome!! This is going to be sweet!

How much will you want for the Total Chaos stuff?

[Obi..]

I hate you in a love/hate sort of way man.

Let's see this, I'm jealous!

[AxleIke]

awesome!! This is going to be sweet!

How much will you want for the Total Chaos stuff?

Thanks man! Unfortunately, the TC stuff is already sold.

[AxleIke]

I hate you in a love/hate sort of way man.

Let's see this, I'm jealous!

LOL. Thanks man! I'll be making more progress soon.

[slosurfer]

awesome!! This is going to be sweet!

How much will you want for the Total Chaos stuff?

Thanks man! Unfortunately, the TC stuff is already sold.

Cool! That's probably better anyways, I don't have to figure out how to pay for it... LOL!