malteserunner

iTrader: (1)

Glad to hear that about the Airsoft BB's. I just bought some to do all 5 tires on my 4Runner. I'm tired of having to re-balance them after wheeling. The tires tend to rotate on the wheels when aired down, causing them to get unbalanced. This doesn't happen every wheeling trip, but often enough to be bothersome.

Can't wait to see more progress on your suspension!

edeslaur

Rear 3rd will be on a UPS truck today, looks like they had low levels of V6 cores.

Our high school is doing a group 25th-ish high school reunion this weekend where about 6+ years of grads will be invited. It used to be a small school. So it'll be another week until I tear into it.

I'm eagerly looking forward to having a locked truck again.

Been watching some of the Corral Canyon runs, I see I'll need sliders sooner than later. I'll need sliders
(no Toys, but some guys I know, which means I'll end up there. )

edeslaur

Blazeland extended steering bits (used) - check
Blazeland control arms (used) - check
Extended brake lines for both ends - check
Carquest T100 axles- check
Moog ball joints ($$) - check
shocks - on the way - check
Black magic coil springs - check
Sway-away torsion bars (used) - check
rear 3rd member w/ 4.88s and ARB - check
front 3rd member w/ 4.88s and ARB - check
big ARB compressor - check

So... why aren't I done yet? I was ill over the weekend. The upside is my 4Runner is still driveable today. ;-)

I even had a lift lined up - here's hoping I don't need to do it in my driveway this weekend!

edeslaur

Argh... still no shocks.

On top of that, I've been having a problem with the turbo coming loose. If you're read my blog, you know the long and painful backstory of the shop which did the work. Well, the turbo's lost a stud, the other 3 keep coming loose, so the turbo is coming off the exhaust (and no boost!). On top of that, the exhaust manifold had a stud about ready to fall out.

I broke down near Tucson, AZ the first time I took it out. A shop down there redid the intake side for loose and missing bolts, guess I should have had them check out the exhaust side at the same time.

Lift project on hold until I get the turbo sorted (will need to pull it, replace the studs, put it back in). I'll probably safety-wire them at the same time so they quit backing out.

Oh joy. Should have that sorted this week/weekend. Sorry for the additional delays, guys. I'm jonesing to get this done!

space-junk

iTrader: (1)

definately keeping my eye on this thread... im a little bummed that the LT kits for tacomas are soooo dang expensive... but ive settled on a mid travel setup...

until i can get my hands on another mid 90s yota, blazeland porn will suit me fine...

B-yodaful

Any build with Blazeland in it I'm in Subscribed

edeslaur

Well, after about 45 minutes of typing, my palm hit the trackpad and shifted focus to the window making it so when I hit <backspace>, there went all my work as my browser navigated me back a page. Hey Admins, can you enable the "Gee, are you really sure you want to navigate away from this page? Really?" flag? Please?

Because of that, I'll be doing multiple posts.

edeslaur

After some personal issues caused some delays, last week SWMBO's truck decided to scramble the internals of its transmission.

I also got a new laptop and haven't finished transferring the Picasa metadata (faces, etc.) so pictures will get inserted later since I don't want to have these two diverge until I get that done. It is, sadly, not as easy as it should be if you used Windows to transfer your user settings/data.

With SWMBO's truck fixed, I was determined to work on the 4Runner this week. I'm tired of driving it with 4.10s and 285/16s (33s). And no lift. And no lockers.

First things first tho. SWMBO's truck needed an oil change. Mobile 1 full synthetic, new Wix filter, little bit of grease and checked the air filter, we were done in no time. Definitely needs a tire rotation, but it can wait a bit longer.

Then the pool has gone all green. Very green. %$*&$%. I just cleaned and checked the filters 2 weeks ago, but it's on the side of the house and I don't run out there to look at it every day. Pull the filter apart, find and replace a torn o-ring on the manifold (that shouldn't cause this, but just in case...), backflush it a couple of times, kick it off just doing the jacuzzi and go start on the 4Runner. Came back 20 minutes later, the jacuzzi was still green. WTF. Turn it off and decide it can wait too since it's now going to take at least an hour to sort out. Sigh.

Onto the 4Runner!

I've been averaging about 13.5mpg (mileage corrected) with this setup and that was getting old too. Until I realized that was already better than both of my last trucks, even AFTER they got gears.

I was feeling under the weather this morning, so I didn't get started until about 1PM with anything (oil change, pool, none of it). But no way I was going another weekend without at least getting the gears installed. And how much more work would a couple of control arms be, anyways?

My 11yo son, Andrew, was ready to help. He's constantly tinkering with his bicycles, moving things from one to the other, so he's always a help.

We started by fixing one of the jack stands. Its ratchet-mech shield had broken off the last time we used it. I broke out the welder, and Andrew welded the left side of the shield after I showed him how to weld the right side. It's amazing how the paint on that orange thing lit up.

He's looking forward to helping with the welding for the fab work needed for the rear Zuk mod.

As a reminder, I got 14" 150#/in springs. I was worried they were a little tall and strong, but this past week I scored a used NWP fuel tank. Even at 17mpg, the range on this thing wasn't good enough with the stock 17 gallon tank, so I'd started asking around. It'll be here next week.

edeslaur

Since the rear was the easiest, we started with that.

Andrew jacked up the truck, put it on jackstands, and pulled off the rear tires while I drained the rear pumpkin and pulled the driveshaft.

The truck ate the last set of front pads I'd put on it. This usually means the rear brakes aren't doing much.

When I got the rear drums off, I found the shoes had a lot of material, but the material had a lot of heat cracking. Which was a surprise since the drums looked great and didn't have any heat marks at all, or any scoring. Cheap shoes was my best guess. I'm going to put rear discs on here as soon as I get the $$ for a full-float kit (so I can flat-tow it), but I'm a big fan of good-working brakes, so that wasn't going to do.

One surprise when removing the axles was that I had to disconnect the rear brake lines since the backing plate is sandwiched between the bearing and the flange. I'm used to Ford 9" semifloats where you go through the axle flange to remove the nuts and the backing plate is separate from the axle assembly.

For 223K miles, the gears in the rear 3rd looked great. The fluid came out in decent condition with very little metal on the drain plug. The original owner took great care of this truck. I checked the splines on the axle shafts, and they were straight and in great shape. Awesome.

The new carrier is a V6 carrier. My truck is a turbo and the 3rd casing has the same extra ribbing found on the V6 carrier. Given my build goals, having beef is part of the plan. Extra $$, but worth the peace of mind.

It was a snug fit getting the new carrier into the housing. I went slowly and easily as the last thing I wanted to do was damage the copper air line for the ARB. With some gentle persuasion and careful twisting, it snicked into place.

Air tools are a godsend when you're faced with that many nuts and bolts, and it was quickly secured. We pushed the axles back in, secured the backing plates, and attached the brake lines.

Next up was to attach the driveshaft. Err, the flange bolt pattern is bigger than my driveshaft's. Well, that's not good.

I considered swapping flanges, but really didn't want to mess with the staked pinion nut (I hate reusing those and prefer a new one), and then I figured I'd have to make sure I had the preload right, and then, and then...

While tinkering with it, I realized the driveshaft self-centers in the flange. Ooohhh... This'll be easy!

I found that I did not have the 25/64th (9.9 mm) drill bit I needed. And I needed rear brake shoes anyways.

Since SWMBO and the girls were out shopping/working with the oldest's car, we rolled the rear tires into the garage, tossed the tools in there too, and headed for town in SWMBO's truck. Since it's nice, we cleaned up. A bit. Sorta.

True Value had a nice and expensive drill bit.
Carquest had some cheap shoes that I liked.
I already had plenty of brake fluid and brake cleaner
We were missing something... Ah, lunch! We didn't have lunch!

By now it was about 4 and Andrew had been doing a great job so I decided to treat him, so off we went.

When we got back, we both crawled under. While I worked on the flange, Andrew filled the rear diff.

I decided to offset the new holes 45 degrees from the existing holes in the flange, so I marked the first hole and drilled it. The driveshaft seated nice and snug in the center hole of the flange, enough I'd have to work it out.

Even so, I ran a bolt into the first hole, marked the second hole (the one directly across from the bolt), spun the shaft back over to the bolt, and pulled the bolt. Just as I set the bolt and air-ratchet on the ground, "CLONG!" went the driveshaft as it came loose from the flange and dropped on my right eyebrow. Oww. I squirmed for a few seconds, then started cracking up. Andrew generously didn't start laughing until he was able to determine which way I was going with it. At nearly midnight, I now have a nice goose-egg which I need to take a picture of.

I would not be making this mistake again... LOL And, sure enough, the driveshaft would not longer sit in the flange by itself. Three more holes and the rear driveshaft was on. Sweet!

Next, we swapped on the new brake shoes. Andrew has only experienced disc brakes, so this was his first set of drum brakes. He had to put his back into it to get the spring retainers off the locating pins.

I'd forgotten how intricate Toy rear drums were with the horseshoe clip for the eBrake lever, and the way they route their springs makes it so my brake spring tools don't work. Good thing I have a great set of pliers for that with tiny teeth that don't hurt the springs.

When we moved to the driver's side, we found the backing plate adjustment hole plug was missing, which had allowed more sand than desired into that side. That sand found its way in there from our trip through Pinyon Canyon on a rainy day, where we splashed through miles of wet sand wash. I wish I had better pics, that trip was AWESOME. I'm totally doing that again next wet season.

edeslaur

Next up was bleeding the brakes.

I was surprised, and a bit shocked, to find the master cylinder nearly empty. I'd seen the right rear dripping the whole time into the oil pan, but I really expected that the master cylinder would be separated between front and rear.

Can someone confirm that if I lose a wheel cylinder or tear a line that I will still have functioning brakes at the other end of the truck?

edeslaur

Once the brakes were bled until the fluid ran clear, it was time to throw on the rear tires, drop it, and go.

"go" included cleaning up the tools and putting them back in the garage for a bit. Most of the meta shavings were on a couple of paper towels I'd put down, making it easy to toss them in the garbage.

With 4.88s and 285/75R16s (33s), the GPS told us the speedo was once again accurate. A nice side-effect was that OD was once again useful at speeds under 80mph.

No whines. No vibrations. No grinding feelings. No leaks. Success!!

To add a little icing, the brakes actually worked well again!

We racked up about 40 gentle miles, then ran back home as the sun was setting and the colors were dulling.

The next step was to clean up the remaining metal shavings. Out came the shop vac since a broom is not always effective with those little metal bits. As it was, I ended up with one in my heel (I often work barefoot). It came out at the end of the evening with a very minor assist from a needle.

Since it was going to be best hold the truck up by the frame, out came the big jackstands. I have a pair of these I use every once in a blue moon. I hate to store them in between, but have zero complaints when I need them.

Andrew jacked it up again and we set the stands on the frame. Andrew took off the front wheels while I laid out all the parts to make sure nothing was missing.

Hmmm... that was a lot of parts.

First up was relaxing the torsion bars. Passenger side, break the jam nut loose, add some impact wrench (Shhhh! No, you're not supposed to!), and brrrrrrr-ziiiiiii, it was off.

The driver's side has the cat running by it. It was still a mite warm, but not super-hot by now. The cat on this thing cools off pretty well. The muffler stays hot however. The shop who'd rebuilt the motor had, for some reason I'm still not sure of, removed the muffler heat shield when doing the 2.5" exhaust, causing the rear driver's seat to melt. Keep those shields up, Scotty!

The cat was still hot enough that if I kept my hand on it for more than a couple of seconds, it was time to take it off. And the jam nut on this side was ON. Wrench here, wrench there, puulllll! Nothing. To top it off, the edge of the heat shield for the cat is right where your hand will go when it breaks loose, probably opening it up.

To make things worse, it was now dark and still a bit warm under the truck, I was sweating so much my head-light wouldn't stay on my head. Andrew held the LED mini-mag on the nut while I worked on the problem. That's a pretty bright little torch.

The only way to tell the jam nut from the holding nut was the faint line between them as their flat edges were perfectly aligned. I could turn the bolt by hand and hold both nuts with a wrench against the frame, but that was sooo hard on the bolt I really didn't want to go the 2"+ that way. Plus I hadn't had my Wheaties, so it was going to wear me out. If this was my last resort, I would definitely not use the impact gun on it. That sucker puts out more than 600 ft/lbs at max setting, I wouldn't notice something was going wrong until it was way wrong.

Finally, I got smart and put a wrench on the bottom nut, braced it to the frame, and TIGHTENED the bolt with the air hammer (set to 2 of 5, which is about 80-90 ft/lbs). After a brief fight, the jam nut stayed where it was while the bottom nut moved away from it. Move the wrench to the jam nut, and the bolt was in my hands seconds later. Hoorah! Man, that took a while.

I used to be a lot faster, but nowadays I sit behind a desk and hold down a chair for hours on end.

For giggles, we found a yellow crayon and marked the control arm shims. Off came the bottom control arm bolts, the top control arm bolts, the steering arm adjusters, the front shocks, driveshaft (since the swaybar acts as a d-shaft hoop, no worries about getting clonked on the head!).

Around then we called it a night, put the tools and parts in the garage, closed up, and took a shower, cleaning up the thick grease off our arms and legs (shorts, of course!). By now it was about 10pm.

This morning, here's what's left
- swaybar
- brake lines
- axle shafts (gotta pull the c-clip in the hubs)
- 2 bolts holding the 3rd member in

Oh, and putting all this stuff back on.

We're watching monster trucks on TV while we wait for it to get late enough the air tools and radio won't aggravate the neighbors. 20 more minutes.

Before I go anywhere with the truck, I need the airlines attached to make sure we keep crap out of the air line bulkhead fittings. Our earlier drive used a zip tie and a nitrile glove, but I'm not good with that as a solution for much further than the first break-in run.

Onwards and upwards!

edeslaur

All right, the Blazeland portion, and the front gears/ARB are installed as of today. More details later, but I am totally shagged. I am no longer the young pup I once was. Good thing my son helped so much. He did a LOT on truck, really helping make it come together.

With 285/75R16s on stock Toyota steelies, the Blazeland hit at full stretch. A lot. And get much worse when turned. It wouldn't take more than a few feet to carve a big gash in the sidewall.

I took a grinding wheel to the edge of the upper control arm, making it flush with the uprights that go to the lower plate on the upper control arm. Pics later. The edge of the plate is now flush with the washers of the outermost plate bolts (gold), and matches the angle to the 2 upright pieces of plate going down to the lower plate.

That keeps it from hitting the tire at full droop with them pointed straight ahead. Barely. Like maybe by 1/8"

Any turning, tho, and I won't have a sidewall as the tire gets forced into the corners of the plate (front or rear). It only takes a few degrees.

I'm really prefer not to do spacers and I'm not considering a wider offset wheel for a couple of reasons. I'd need like 2" more offset, and that's quite a bit.

Sitting on the ground at the ride height I've chosen, there's plenty of clearance. I'll be taking a look at it next weekend to see what other options I might have.

There's no way to make the stock swaybar work, so I'll have to look into other options.

No driving until it gets align, which I'll probably do after I get the rear up. Lifting the rear is my priority, I can always just put some limiting straps on it to keep the tire sidewall from getting carved.

I'm a bit disappointed, but I do believe the kit calls for 33/10.50s. I'm liking the 285s more better than past 33x10.50s I've had. And with the offset I have, I don't need 'glass fenders.

If anyone has a suggested ride height, please let me know. There's 4" difference between the tires just touching the ground and ride height after it's settled (drove it around the block). I was hoping for more height, and may crank the torsion bars up some more once I see how it rides. I should add another inch since, IIRC, you want 25% of your travel used in static sag? Is that right?

Ok, more later. I'm eating and going to BED!

edeslaur

I started looking at different Blazeland installs and it looks like the new kits use differently shaped upper a-arm extensions which are also rounded.

The seller for the set I bought told me it was an early set. Now to see if I can get a good shot and compare the two. I can either buy the new bolt-on plates from Blazeland or maybe alter these. Sweet!

edeslaur

Looks like the newer version of the upper control arm plates are longer than my existing ones. I need to measure my wheel backspacing and figure if the new ones work. N8 at Blazeland is being super cool about it.

Man that was a lot of work tho.

Got the ARB compressor installed and air lines routed and run. Electric next.

edeslaur

Hello, is this thing on?

edeslaur

So I'm really bummed - my phone went missing last week, along with all the pictures I'd been taking along the way.

Some rat $#^&#$ must have found it and "repurposed" it since it started going to voice mail immediately around mid-afternoon the day it went missing.

So... sorry for the tease, but no pics of much of the work. We're in luck, however, I did post a few to G+, so I'll be able to add those into the thread.

The used torsion bars I bought had the adjusters locked on.


I could wiggle them, but could not hammer them off with a dead-blow or with a sledge. And since I don't have a press...
I drilled out the backs (there's a pinhole there to let air in)
The wet shorts, btw, is sweat. It was very hot when I did this and, in my 40s now with a long term desk job, I sweat very easily.


Judicious application of a gear puller


And the torsion bar came free! That's sand. Lots and lots of sand. The PO had not left the rubber caps on the torsion bar, and they packed up. Needless to say, I reused the caps from the old torsion bars!


Pulling the control arms and front diff in the driveway in the heat was a lot of work.


This is what most of the front diff oil on the ground looks like. The front diff fell off the jack and flipped the oil pan upside down. It did not speed up the operation.


A little Dawn and a whole lot of scrubbing with a push broom when I was done and you can't even tell oil was spilled there.

edeslaur

Yesterday I did the 'Zuk mod on the rear. Today I've uploaded some of the pics in case this phone goes missing too. I learn.

The driver's side took an hour to sort out as I wanted to be careful. The passenger side took about 25 minutes.

I was going to swap the rear brake line for a longer one, but it proved unnecessary AND I was running up against our deadline to get to the drag strip.

It's only 1/8 mile, but we got to watch some fast vehicles. Including this cool diesel which was chewing up and spitting out some street cars. High 90s and mid 7-seconds.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video...47836688573205

One of the things I wanted to change from the normal mod was to put something between the frame and the spring to manage any wear.

I ran out to a "local" steel place (is 32 miles away local?). They had some neat stuff, but one of the things I found was this base-plate. I cut the sides off so it would fit between the uprights of the bump stop.


I didn't have time last night, but I'll bend the edges up and weld it to the frame when I do longer shackles and the rear brake line.

Some of you will remember I used 14" 125# springs.


I started with the driver's side because it doesn't have all those scary brake lines, gas tank, etc. behind it. I figured do the easy side first.

Once I got the bumpstop cut off, I found I needed to trim the front upright a bit more, then bend them out with my very large Crescent wrench and my 3' cheater pipe. I bent them out so I could barely screw the spring in about 1/2-way. I wanted them to stay tight. They're a bit too tight, you can hear the springs sproinging (sliding in and out) when it stretches out and flexes. More on that later when I look into it.


The driver's side went MUCH faster. Be VERY careful around those brake lines with your Sawzall. Remove your rear shock to allow the axle to drop as far as it can.

Once I got it cut off, I inserted my bottle jack between the frame and the leaf


BE CAREFUL when jacking. Only jack enough that the leaf touches the leaf-spring bracket pin. Any more and I could bend the leave spring.

Here's the trick to do this quickly. Get a spring compressor.

Barring a spring compressor being available, you COULD use the method below, but when you take off a finger or worse, just remember that I am NOT recommending it and that you would be stupid to do it this way. So don't do it. Like the Mythbusters say - don't try this at home!

Insert the top of the spring in the bumpstop perch


I needed a 2-hook tie-down and a ratchet strap in good condition.
Use the tie-down to the leaf-spring bracket to hold the spring upright and keep it from bowing out when the ratchet strap is tightened.
Loop the ratchet strap 3 or 4 coils down from the top of the spring and around the front of the leaf spring. I checked for sharp edges, then starrted ratcheting it down, cranking on the tie down as needed to keep it coming down straight.


Just get it close. There's way too much pressure required to make it short enough to get under the bumpstop sides. Then I slowly popped it in place with a prybar. Notice my fingers are hardly even in the picture.

Once it's in, I DID NOT let the strap go. It will hurt.
Instead I slowly released the jack, checking the spring was going in. Then I put the jack under the axle and slowly jacked it up until the spring seated. Then I kept jacking until the straps started to loosen up. I took them off, dropped the axle to the right height and installed my new shock.

My old shocks would have worked, but longer shackles will make it drop too far. And it needs longer shackles. The current shackle sits at a light angle when it's on level ground, so it's not topped out sitting there, but it definitely needs shackles.

What's the height difference? Huge. I needed my HiLift to jack the truck up high enough to get the jack stands under the frame with the wheels off the ground. But I was able to use my floor jack under the rear pumpkin to get the truck off the jackstands.

On the passenger side, the truck sits completely level, measuring to the bottom body line (crease in the side panels)

On the driver's side, it's about 1" lower in the rear. I haven't had a chance to figure it out yet, but I'll probably get in there this afternoon and sort that out. The springs both say they're the same, that's the only thing I can think of. Especially since the fuel tank is on the passenger side (heavier).

I'm hoping it's not a spring problem. Both boxes indicate they're the same.

It also handles surprisingly well in the corners. It used to oversteer because the rear was too soft, right now it feels pretty balanced, even without a swaybar. I still need to align the tires more than by eye (it doesn't drift and the steering wheel is straight, so goodie for me!)

The front also still hits the tires at full droop, I'll probably look at that this evening. We have company coming and it's still hot out, nearly 100 today. While I grew up in S. AZ with hotter days, 100 is pretty hot out here and I'm not longer acclimatized.

Here it is after about 14 hours of work!!


More to come!

edeslaur

I clearanced the front arms for the tires and relocated the outer bolts to match the newer upper control arm bracket style. The front is DONE.

ZUK

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the pics and explanation edeslaur- But based on using the jack to force the leafs down...and the straps to compress the coils a little, it seems you can still cut off most of the upper steel sides on the upper mount and the coil will go in so much easier(and won't make noise)....and not loosen up enough to ever come out on its own during full articulation? Something to think about

edeslaur

It looks like it's the corners of the brackets hitting the coils as they compress and stretch. I'll chamfer them a bit and see how it goes. I'm a bit wary of cutting too much.

On the upside, I almost nailed the alignment. I marked the control arm cams and eyeballed the toe. I was off by .35 degrees on the toe. Glad I had it checked as I don't like buying tires, but pleased with how close it got.

Here are a couple of after pics
Is that air under the front tire? Why YES, yes it is.


Front stretch (Blazeland, no swaybar)


Flex - the rear tire doesn't go in quite as far as before, but the coil is not fully compressed either. Notice how flat it still is. I picked the right spring. Through an educated guess, but a guess nevertheless!


The rear tire is just barely touching the ground


Rear flex after 'Zuk mod


Streeeeetch!