Hello all,

I`m new here and I just wanted to introduce myself and my rig. I`m from Northern Ontario Canada and I am a computer geek by day and a wannabe fabricator by night. Nevertheless I`ve managed to do all the modifications to my `88 4Runner myself. (with a little help from friends of course) Among the modifications are a SAS using an `84 axle that I rebuilt myself using a knuckle rebuild kit and Hy-steer crossover steering kit from All-Pro off-road. My springs are 3" Downey units and my hangers are stock Toyota pieces with some minor modifications. Front bumper is an ARB unit housing a Milemarker hydraulic winch and sporting some extra lighting and my hi-lift jack. Rear bumper is homemade using 4" square tubing and mounted on receivers welded to the frame. (I wanted a modular system so I can make myself a huge rack and/or motorcycle carrier in the future)
I always wanted a roof rack but found the prices to be quite prohibitive (especialy from north of the border) so I decided to make it myself. The material cost me all of $50 and the bender cost me $60. At the time I thought this was going to be a steal but after putting some 20 hours into it (including the lights) I now know why they are so expensive!

Anyways, here are some pics. Let me know what you guys think. Also, i`ll be glad to answer any questions you may have.

This is a picture of it way back in `96. It still had IFS back then and it rode on 31" BFGs.


Then in `97 I decided to take care of some minor rusting and a badly degraded tailgate. By then my BFGs were worn and I wanted to upgrade to 33s so I decided to do a body lift. Well everything just snowballed from there and the truck stayed in the garage until this past May long weekend! For most of this time it looked like this.


Finally last year my best friends got some trucks of their own and I decided it was time to get back into 4 wheeling. I got my hands on an `84 front axle and purchased the neccessary hardware to complete my SAS. I had already purchased 33" Bridgestone Dueler MTs (4 years ago!) and had them mounted to some steel 15X10 wheels that I sandblasted and painted black.


I didn`t like the way the front end sat after finishing the SAS so even before testing it, I re-engineered the front hangers to give me more clearance between the spring pack and the sector shaft.
Before


After


Where I had 2.5 inches of clearance, I now have 6.


With this setup I had what I consider "acceptable" flex.




Those pics were snapped the night the truck was going back into the shop to finish the bodywork and paint. My friends and I were planning a trail ride on the Saturday of the May long weekend and this was Thursday night! My friend and I worked until two in the morning to get it to this point
before we quit for the night. Mid afternoon Friday (after work) we finished sanding and preping and finaly sprayed it. That night our buddy flew in from California to spend the weekend so we picked him up at the airport and went out for supper and a few beers while the paint dried. The urethane enamel we sprayed needed 16 hours to fully cure but only 4 hours until it was dry enough to peel the masking so that I could begin reassembling the truck. We stayed up until 3am putting the interior back in and the roof rack on. We ran out of time so the interior trim was put aside and my Bushwacker Cut-out fender flares were not installed either. The next morning I was awake by 7am to try and get the rest of the necessary items taken care of. Here is what the truck looked like an hour before we left for our trail ride.
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/Fresh%20paint%201.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/fresh%20paint%202.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/fresh%20paint%203.jpg[/img]

We finaly set out on our ride and I stopped for a background shot before the paint got messed up.
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/mlw%20ride%201.jpg[/img]

It was a good thing I did because by the time we reached our destination, the truck was scratched permanently and missing a few mechanical components!
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/are%20these%20mine.jpg[/img]

Yes that`s the rear driveshaft in my right hand and my rear shocks in the other. Too much throttle on a steep uphill wrapped the axle so much that the rear u-joint bottomed out and the rear pinion sheared completely.
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/broken%20pinion.jpg[/img]

Nevertheless, I was still able to keep going and my flex allowed me to crawl over significant obstacles like the tree stump under the left front wheel in the picture where I am holding the driveshaft. This was despite the fact that I have open diffs at each end. (thus having one wheel drive at the time) By comparison, my friend Marc`s Suzuki Sidekick is running a Dana 44 front and Ford 9" rear with spools in each and my friend Simon`s Toyota Xtracab was running a welded IFS and Lockright rear. (with 36" Super Swampers) In retrospect, forgeting to add a load leaf to the rear spring packs was not the best idea. The flex was there but I would have needed to make some torque rods to control axlewrap.
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/bent%20packs%201.jpg[/img]

The truck is back in the shop again while I effect the necessary repairs and modifications to prevent this from happening again.
[img]http://www.personainternet.com/sdennie/toughguy/truck/back%20in%20the%20shop.jpg[/img]

Funny side note: With the roof rack on, I have to air the tires down to get the truck though the garage door! Doh!

I should have this thing back on the road by next week if I can get my new spring packs in time. I`ve already swapped out the rear axle and am rethinking my rear shock mounts as well as fabbing a control arm to prevent axlewrap.

Sorry for the long winded post. I guess I just got a little carried away!

Toughguy

Nice post and nice Monster Garage Vehicle!!
That last "incident" looks expensive!
I like the shot before you tore up the new paint in front of the mound.
Kenny S>

wow.....that axle wrap did a number <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

I brought the springs to a local spring shop to have them straightened out and a load leaf custom made and installed. That is costing me $150 CDN.

The "incident" also trashed one of my Rancho RS5000 shocks(part# RS5012)

so that`s another $65.

I already had a spare V6 rear axle so I pulled the outers from the one on my truck (to keep my new brakes, wheel cylinders, etc...) and installed them on the spare. It`s going to cost me the price of a new pinion seal ($10) for that.

When the pinion broke, the driveshaft flopped around with power still going to it. The yoke at the t-case flange snapped and took out the u-joint as well. Luckily I have spare flanges and yokes so I bought two new HD u-joints at $35 apiece.

Grand total is approx. $295 CDN. But what`s living if you can`t learn right?

Toughguy

Somebody clearly understands the "built not bought" philosophy. Great job on the bodywork and that's the first roof rack I've ever seen with intergrated brake lights, nice touch. Gotta also like a guy who is not afraid to use it to its capabilities and not just show it off at the strip mall. Cool ride man! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Creeper, comments like yours make all those long nights in the garage worthwhile. I say that because although I built the truck to be driven, the fact is that where I drive it there is seldom anybody around to compliment me on it.

I`m glad you like the brake lights. Those big floods on the back are wired into my reverse lights so that I can actualy see where I`m going when I`m wheeling at night. They are also on a bypass switch and can be angled downward to light things up a bit. Comes in handy when changing out u-joints on the trail and stuff. Just fold down the tailgate and voila, instant workbench.

Toughguy

Very nice work! Thanks for all the pics and welcome to the board. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Welcome to the board! Wow, what a great post. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> Nice rig, worth bustin' your butt for, and nice to see it doesn't stay on the pavement. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I guess if you have to air down to get into the garage that onboard air is in your future! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for sharing!

Oh yeah! The rear bumper is 3/16 wall thickness and is capped at each end. I`m hoping it can hold enough pressure to air up my tires from 10 to 20 psi (trail pressure/ street pressure). I`ll have to pull out my old physics textbook to look up the formulas for pressure/volume and see if it`s doable. I thought of fabbing up a mount for a york type air pump since my truck is not equipped with AC and there is plenty of clearance now that I have a 2" body lift. However, here`s the other problem.
I have approx. 25amps of extra lighting on the ARB and another 40 amps on the roof rack. I only have a 60 amp alternator! I`ve seen some dual alternator installs that put the secand alt. where the AC compressor would go. I also have 120vac inside the truck via a hardmounted power inverter and along with the stereo, CB, extra accesory power outlets, etc... it wasn`t hard to see that I not only needed more charging output, but that I also need more power capacity. Some of my concerns were met when my friend got his hands on a couple of commercialy rewound alternators that put out 90 amps. I want to mount this high output unit in the AC compressor location and have it charge a second battery that will power everything that is not factory on the truck. Since I no longer put the spare in the factory location at the back and under the truck, I have plenty of room here for not only the battery but also a small air compressor like the QuickAir ones you see advertised in the magazines. I will cut a hole out of the bottom of the truck in the cargo area and make two boxes that will be accesible via hinged lids from the inside of the truck. One will hold a huge deep cycle battery that will be charged by the 90A alternator and the other the compressor that will also be sound insulated. All non-factory accessories will be powered by the secondary battery leaving the factory system untouched. This way I think the truck will be more likely to get me home should either system fail. "GET BACK HOME" is the truck`s principle/motto (kinda like Nissan`s GO FARTHER campaign) and I already have two ignition systems for redundancy so this just follows the same theme.

My current power inverter is only a 250 watt unit but I will be getting a much bigger one in the future. Here is where I mounted it for the moment.


Here is a pic of the guages I installed in the dash. I thought about a pillar mount but I was afraid it would be in the way while wheeling.


Toughguy

It's doable, but do the math to convince yourself that it will work.. I use my sliders in the same manner..

A couple of folks posted alarmist posts about exploding sliders, etc on the dangers of doing this.

The concern expressed was air pressure loading on the tube end caps. Calculate the surface area of the end caps and multiply that by the maximum air pressure you will use. And if the end cap welds are questionable or unknown, reweld. You may need to do this anyway to get rid of pin hole leaks. On mine if I remember correctly I had about 1.5 sq in of area on the end caps so with 100 psi I would have 150 pounds of force exerted on the steel caps. Not too much of a load for 60,000 psi yield strength DOM steel to handle.. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

When I did the reading to research this whole subject, it turns out that the using relatively narrow diameter "tube tanks" versus larger diameter open diameter tanks was the technological break through that permitted widespread deployment of steam power plants without the explosion dangers of early tank type boiler systems.. Did a little reading on the history of Babcox/Wilcox who came up with this.

You might also notice that tractor/trailer size tanks used to transport liquid oxygen and other very high pressure compressed gases use multiple relatively small diameter "tube tanks" versus larger single tanks for the same safety reasons...

I also poured POR-15 inside the tubes to coat the internal walls to prevent rust that would occur due to condensation that will be present in any air compressor tank.