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Finish gusseting, welding up the brackets and building the links with DOM, paint and assembly was in order. The diff, however, needed some attention. New R&P and bearings will bring it back to life. Lots of other work needed finishing before paint though. The t-case crossmember had to be fit...

By comparison, the rear suspension is fairly simple. Three link with panhard, OME lifted FJ80 springs, NOS FJ80 spring buckets, Fox stem top shocks, stock FJ80 axle housing and 4.11's with ARB. Making everything fit though... notice the notch in the frame for shock clearance?

Axle install and final mock up before finishing the rear suspension.

Axle assemebly from a pile of parts.

Tease... Busy is more like it. Here are a ton of pics though. I'm not going to be very wordy here, just enjoy the pics. Had to modify the Hellfire knuckles to make installation and removal of the RCV birfs easier. The hole in the knuckle needed to be opened up. I did this on my 4000 year old mill.

Major updates coming. The front end including suspension, axle, brakes, engine and bodywork is all back together. Fabrication on the rear suspension should be completed today and the skid plate hopefully by tomorrow. At that point, the rear portion of the frame can be painted, the rear axle...

I'll make the switch eventually. The owner lives in San Francisco, actually in the city, and the truck needs to fit in his garage so even without a roof rack, it's going to be a tight fit. And we have used the Nitro truck from time to time as a reference. The FJ40 buggy I built last year had...

Now that's a monster truck.

Thanks. Well the right way to finish the edge would be to bend and shape a 90 degree piece of 16 or 18 ga steel. Plug weld and seam weld at the edge. This method is very time consuming, but nets you a fender at least as strong as the OEM fender lip. I did a write-up on a similar body mod to a...

I use a 6" cutoff wheel on a hand held electric grinder. It takes a steady hand, but with patience, it's a one shot deal. No trimming to do after the cut, only gentle cleanup. Thanks again.

That's all I got. I hope after refreshing the page that the pics come out all right. Otherwise, I've tried everyhting I know to get them oriented properly. Building the front axle today and tomorrow. Lots of fitting and tweaking there too. The diff has to be fit to the housing, the knuckles...

Now for the cleaning, painting and reassembly. You can see the aforementioned body mounts in the first couple of pics. Battery box with new cables. Power steering hoses, using -6AN adapters at the pump and box with Aeroquip hose and hose ends. The hose gets heat shrink wrapped to...

Flattery will get you nowhere... Thanks.

Teardown, clean, frame paint, reassembly (final). But wait. Didn't want to get metal grindings on my new paint, so we cut the fenders first. I'll add that we aren't completely sure if this cut is going to be enough, so it will be in cut only form until the truck is driven and flexed out. Then...

Stainless steel brake lines were used at all corners of the truck including between the body and frame. Maybe this is common to early Cruisers (I have never seen it before), but the brake lines between the body and frame are isolated by soft lines to allow greater flex. I like the idea, but...

Look at that sexy steering stabilizer. No, it's not going to be used, it's for mock up purposes only. The stock brake booster would probably have worked, but a better pedal feel and more power is simple enough to get by swapping in the FJ80 master and booster. It's important to note that the...

Front End Coompletion In an effort to speed things along, I chose to focus my efforts on the front end of the truck, from suspension to wiring, plumbing, body, etc. The rear is going to be simple by comparison and I needed to consolidate the growing pile of parts for this project. Well it...

It is crack, I know. Build threads have to be pic heavy, or they're not worth reading. Photobucket sucks and I wish I weren't so invested in them. It takes 8 clicks to add one photo to a forum, but I'm stuck there so I should just quit bitching. The pickup will be on the block before summer's...

If you can get him to answer his phone, there's Dave'z Offroad in Placerville. He always has a ton of these trucks laying around.

Life could be worse, huh?