Howdy,

I've been around a lot of forums and under many off-road vehicles in the past. Can't count how many side of the road fixes and on the trail repairs I've made in the past just to make it home in time to shower and work on Monday morning. Those days are behind me and I've been looking for a fun 4WD to make a camper/exhibition/kayak hauler for a little while. Always leaning towards the BJ70 series LandCruisers(I've owned 17 Cruiser of different vintage) which are unobtanium in the states I've started checking out the Monty/Raider and Troopers. Jeeps are too.. well, Jeep. I ran across one on my first search of CL and it was Socal1200r's being in VA. I was so impressed with his flowchart and book keeping on his project timeline and such that I gave him asking price.

It was a great jump-off point for me and I drove home smelling like gas and smiling the entire way. At that point he had put on a Weber 32/36, 31's on Toyota rims, misc stuff like shocks and steering stabilizer and a few more stock replacements.

Since picking it up 10 days ago I've done the following:

Adjusted the steering box- had a 10 to 2 o-clock play now one finger driving, swapped out the existing fog lights with a relay'd PIAA set I've had on a few rigs, had a bad sway problem which is layered-replaced the sway bar bushings with new rubber ones(will replace with urethane when they come in) and this helped 70% or so if the sway, the rest resides in the rear springs/bushings/slop that I will take care of with OME lift. I was pulling into Advance to get the bushings and when I made the turn and ran over a bump the coil wire popped off shutting down the vehicle except for a few hiccups but the end of the wire was on the opposite side of of the foam air filter from the coil thus igniting it and creating a huge smoke plume rolling out of the hood. Fun stuff on the first day of driving it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> I wanted a bit wider stance but didn't want to jump into rims as I havent made up my mind on whether I'm going bigger in tires so I picked up some 1.25" aluminum wheel spacers that helped stability a bit. Last but never least was trying to adjust the Weber. The Monty had plenty of power but I could smell fuel through the air filter and on the tailpipe after/during/before driving it no matter how long it sat. I tried to find a leak-nah. I tried to adjust the fuel/air mixture-nah. I did notice that it was dieseling as well and searched that thread. I came across all of the forum info on the problems and decided that a 35$ FPM was in order. After adapters and hose it was closer to $50. This was, in conjunction with the sway bushings and proper tire pressure, what made this little rig a totally different vehicle(Read, no more smell, no more dieseling, better mpg and the only chrome under the hood ;-) ). I've now had it over 800 miles and at 170k on the ticker the 2.6L is getting 21+ mpg on the highway and approx 19mpg mixed driving. Not to mention it's just fun to be in!

Near future upgrades: steel wheels with more off-set, OME full suspension, 4-Crawler 1" BL(already have just need time to do it). I'll throw up some before/after pics through the process. Working 70+ hours a week might make it slow going.

Thanks Socal1200r for the cool rig, It will be enjoyed

A pic from stopping by the 'rents on my drive.



Just after the wheel spacers:



Chris
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Nicely done and especially good job fixing the carb issue. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Welcome! I'm jealous of the mileage you're getting! I get 14 around town and 17 highway, but mine has a few more miles on it. I still wouldn't mind doing the Weber conversion. Those Toyota wheels look great on these trucks. I have higher offset steelies, and I actually don't like how they stick out with 31's on. I'd like to find some of the wheels YOU have and get slightly lower offset.

Super nice rig, man. Kudos!

Geocrasher: if I wasn't on the wrong coast I'd swap the rims right now!! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" /> Thanks DR.

So I decided to keep it all in one place on the build thread as I move on just to make it simple if I happen to have any information that can help.

This week I tackled a Body Lift from 4-Crawler. I've used his equipment before on two other rigs and liked the quality over the other brands so when I found out that this was the only "out of box" option I wasn't too concerned. I ordered the 1" Standard Hardware version and with shipping it was a cool $93.50. My rig is a 89 SWB 2.6L 5-Speed so it had 10 body mounts to deal with.

Removed the fuel filler screws. On loosening all of the mounts I only ran into two unique things that will be regurgitated from other posts that I found on here (THANKS GUYS!); the rear corner body mounts that are only accessible by removing the tail lights and the front ones that require removing the metallic tape coving the top of the bolt on the front two. Once all of these were loose around the vehicle I grabbed my floor jack and built a quick "Body Lift Tool" that I've been using on every one I've ever done (over 20 for sure). I slide the floor jack under the side of the body between the frame rail and the rocker panel, place a 2x4 about 2.5' long above it and measure the distance between the completely lowered jack and the wood. I then cut two more 2x4 pieces that length and make a short "T" with some wood screws. This distributes the weight of the body over a large area and doesn't require the use of HiLift jacks. Easy-Peasy.

Next I lifted the Driver's side first just enough to get the puck inserted on the inner rear body mount. I removed each bolt one at a time and placed the puck after each one and new longer hardware. This is when I ran into my first hiccup; the bolts on the body mounts that reside beneath the taillights are 1" longer than the rest. All of my 4-Crawler hardware was the same length. I left the shorter bolt in place to help hold everything together and duplicated on the passenger side. A quick trip to Lowe's and I had two longer bolts for the ripe price of $3.50.

With it being only a 1" BL I didn't have to invert the bolts under the taillights or the ones in front of the rear tires.

The rear bumper is of course lower so I removed the step plates to fit it back to it's factory holes. I believe I will modify the mounts to move the bumper up instead of cutting around the steps. This was it keeps the wiring, fuel tank and other out of site and matches back up to the body line. This will take a little cutting and welding tho.

Shifter felt low before the lift so this didn't matter much. The brake lines on the front moved slightly but not even enough to pull out the grommets. The fuel hose still reached with slight pressure.

Here is a pic of the after as there is a pic of before above. only noticeable on the bumper lines and clearance above the front tire. Sorry for the exposure but the sun was coming up this morning.



Until next time which should be the rear springs, Fr and Rear shocks. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

As a side note, the long bolts in the back can still be put in top down with a 2" lift. You have to feed them up in the access hole first (from inside the tail light cavity), then drop them down through the mount holes.

Cool! Thanks

Haven't had much time to post up or work on the rig but I did get a few things done and I'm headed out on a trip this afternoon so I thought I'd update.

Dash trim bezel was cracked and the stereo was on the lower level which made it hell to get to so I decided to cut a new one. 16 gauge 12x18 sheet of steel from Lowe's for 14$ and some fine tooth jig blades did the trick. While I was at I removed the lower pocket that was stained and nasty to soak and realize that wouldn't change anything so I painted it as well. Raising the Stereo 4" really helps in reaching it! I have aspirations for some fiberglass kick panels and custom sub but I'll hit that when the weather gets colder.



After the BL I also put the Bumper back on but wanted to raise it up. Some cheap Northern Tool drill bits fought me tooth and nail but I got it on. A re-do to straighten it up later is in order but it's solid and back to matching the body lines. Headed to the mountains chasing the remnants of Sandy to hit my head on some rocks. This is my small camper with this much gear weighs about 850lbs. Tows nicely!



Next update: Front KYB's, Rear OME's and OME leafs spring install. Stay tuned...

Looking good Chris. When you do the KYB's keep in mind they will expand almost instantly (1-2 sec) after you cut the straps they come with & they're a pain to recompress. So that said, try to cut the straps during the actual install. i.e. only after the old shock is out and you've positioned the new shock to where you can insert them into position within a second of cutting the straps.

Otherwise, its a pain to re-compress & install them. I made this mistake once and ended up having to rig up some parachute cord and a big screw driver that I used to twist the cord in order to compress the shock. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" />

Been there/Done that <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" /> I jacked up the truck on one side and let it down on the shock to compress it back and used some rope as well. Of the many I've installed I'll never forget the 3+ hours it took to get one shock on <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" />