'92 2wd to low SAS 4x4 conversion

[Muttle]

since I've been messing around more with my Tow rig as of late not much has been done to the Toy in my shop.
Figured I should probably do something with it, so I swapped out the oil pans.

2wd pan on top, 4wd bottom

4wd oil pickup tube installed. The bolt for the brace closest to the camera is longer than a 2wd one due to the spacer on the pickup tube.

4wd pan painted and installed

With the oil pan installed I gained an inch of clearance between the top of the axle and bottom of the pan.
I'd also like to say the springs have settled another 1/4 inch over the past month or so of the truck sitting there.

Christmas came early for me today with Rickashay dropping off some wheels.

Had to throw one on, of course. Just the right amount of poke IMO

Also if any fellow Canadians are interested in funding my long list of projects, I currently am selling my Tundra.

 

[Adventurous]

This is the first time I have seen this thread and I'm excited to see where it goes. Do you have any pictures of the old truck on 37s? I'd love to see the evolution of your rigs.

 

[Muttle]

Here is the basic progression of my old truck.
when I bought it

4"lift springs and 38.5" super swampers

reworking suspension

truck on 37's chev 63"springs and RUf front springs.

 

[Muttle]

I decided to head to my shop to try and do something with the truck today.
Plasma cutter 1, transmission cross-member 0

Lots of room now to slide the transmission in now.

I will have to clean up the frame rails in a couple days, as I forgot to grab some stuff from my toolbox at work.
then I will throw the transmission in there to measure out for the new crossmember.

I also painted up my caliper brackets and new pitman arm.

tossed the Steering box in the stock location, to get an idea of how its going to sit. It appears though I will have to extend my steering shaft no matter how I orient the box.

 

[OSV]

this is an important time to be making decisions about what the largest tire size is that you'll be running... you will have crossover steering of course?

centering the axle on the middle spring pin hole, and putting the box in the stock location like that, puts the tire into the firewall... people who do that end up having to cut out the firewall, when moving up in tire size.

the smarter way to do it is to redrill the spring perches on the axle, at the minimum, so that the axle is as far forward as possible... maybe even lengthen the spring perch? do people do that?

of course it all depends on how far forward the spring pin hole on the springs is, to begin with.

what you should end up with is a scenario where the steering box is crammed so far forward that you have to cut out part of the body sheet metal crossbar.

this is a shot of a frame reinforcement that i did, be sure and do something like this... you can't see it, the body sheet metal is slightly cut out for the box, but it still wasn't enough for 37's with the axle moved forward, i had to get an expensive shorter steering arm, which farks up the steering ratios... this is on an '86 sas that i bought, i installed the trail gear front axle housing.

when you put in the steering box reinforcement plates, make sure to use plates that are long enough to go all the way forward to the front frame crossmember, and weld the plates to that... frame cracking is very common in this area, which is why i reinforced mine in the pic, it was already cracking... this can get so bad that the entire frame breaks off in that area.

 

[Muttle]

this is an important time to be making decisions about what the largest tire size is that you'll be running... you will have crossover steering of course?

centering the axle on the middle spring pin hole, and putting the box in the stock location like that, puts the tire into the firewall... people who do that end up having to cut out the firewall, when moving up in tire size.

the smarter way to do it is to redrill the spring perches on the axle, at the minimum, so that the axle is as far forward as possible... maybe even lengthen the spring perch? do people do that?

of course it all depends on how far forward the spring pin hole on the springs is, to begin with.

what you should end up with is a scenario where the steering box is crammed so far forward that you have to cut out part of the body sheet metal crossbar.

this is a shot of a frame reinforcement that i did, be sure and do something like this... you can't see it, the body sheet metal is slightly cut out for the box, but it still wasn't enough for 37's with the axle moved forward, i had to get an expensive shorter steering arm, which farks up the steering ratios... this is on an '86 sas that i bought, i installed the trail gear front axle housing.

when you put in the steering box reinforcement plates, make sure to use plates that are long enough to go all the way forward to the front frame crossmember, and weld the plates to that... frame cracking is very common in this area, which is why i reinforced mine in the pic, it was already cracking... this can get so bad that the entire frame breaks off in that area.

View attachment 294329

This truck will be getting 33's and yes, you are correct it will have high steer (cross over). As of right now the axle is roughly 1" forward of the stock location which will help keep the tire out of the firewall. That also allows me to keep the box roughly in the same spot as stock. As you can see by the picture the box will have to be dropped lower and rotated to get maximum clearance for the Drag link and Tie rod during suspension travel. Final location of the box will be decided once all the steering is attached to the axle.

The box will not have to be moved into the core support due to the axle not being moved far enough forward to really mess up steering geometry. With big tires you are correct, I would have to clearance the core support for the steering box ( I had to do that with my old truck when I moved the axle forward roughly 2"). Some people out there do extend spring perches, most of them extend the rear of it to try and reduce axle wrap on their front axles ( mostly for rock crawling). I will be bracing the spring hanger as I do know they can crack, although it takes a great deal of abuse to do that from my experience.

 

[Muttle]

Mounted up my scrap tires on the wheels so I have something to test fit / mock up.

lifted the truck up so I can slide the transmission under. Also test fit wheels/ tires.

The truck is pretty close to being at ride height here. Currently 22.5 " to bottom of the frame. Roughly calculating missing parts / fluids the truck is still missing 500lbs of sprung weight which should lower the truck at least another 2 inches. That gives me still plenty of height to play with when I decide to build a bed rack and install an RTT.

The tire / wheel combo will be move outward 1/4" more once I get spacers to match the front axle track width.

 

[Muttle]

Put my extended studs in the rear axle. Same ones as are in my front hubs.

Pulled the seat and vinyl floor out to cut the shifter hole out for the transfercase.

Something looked amiss to me

offending object removed

My salute to the one of the previous owners attempt at rust repair with Fiberglass

Removed the sounds deadening from the passenger side to make sure I wasn't doing a cab swap. Perfect as I expected

I know of a Parts 4runner, so I'm going to try and pick that up soon. Hate set backs like this, especially since the cab looked solid when I bought it. One good thing is the rust only made it to the top layer of the floor around the body mount, so the major structure is still solid

 

[Muttle]

Truck has taken a rusty dump on the floor lately

Have 99% of the useless floor out now, I was able to save more floor than I expected. Just have to finish cleaning up the surface rust and seal it up after the new floor is in.

Had some parts show up. EGR block off plates, 1/4"slip wheel spacers, New Lug nuts, oil filter relocation kit, new front spindles and bearings.

The Filter relocation kit info stated it took Fram filter for a Ford. First off I hate Fram filters, and prefer to use Toyota Parts where I can. So I did some digging and as it turned out the thread pitch was the same for both the Toyota and Fram filter, I was a little worried about the sealing area being to small on the Toyota filter. As it turns out it was unwarranted. Boom filter on.

Back in July I heard a rumor at work that Nitto had a back order on tires in certain sizes, as it turns out the size I wanted was included in that back order.
With no clear time frame on when the order was going to be filled I figured I better order my tires just in case. Two months later they showed. YIPPY!!!!
The next day I peeled the mock up tires off and started putting new stuff in.

There are many types of valve stems for wheels. The one below on the left is a standard short stem that most people have installed in their tires. The one on the right is the much shorter stem I used. In the tire industry it is known as a 412 valve stem, they are mostly used in ATV's and garden tractor tires.

The slightly longer stem was installed in these wheels previously and the end stuck just outside the rim. As you can see the new stem is nicely out of harms way.

Now a couple posts up you will remember I put longer wheel studs in the rear axle. I did this because I knew I was going to run a slip wheel spacer in the rear and needed more thread engagement. With the spacers and wheels installed I have more than 10 threads of engagement with the lugnuts now.

OH YEAH!

It's been slow at work lately and since I had to work today. I figured I would get a couple things done for the truck. Painted up my Brand new spindles.
Also installed my bearing races in the front hubs and painted them up as well.

Still waiting on some parts. Hopefully they will show soon so I can check some big things off the "To Do" list. Also need to pull the engine out again so I can Install all the EGR block off plates.

 

[Muttle]

Cross member showed up a couple days ago, I had originally planned on building my own but things change. I can always rework this later on down the road.
Cross member painted and bolted to the transfercase. bushings installed for mock up. Transmission is jacked up as far as it can go so the mounts don't rub the fuel lines while still giving plenty of room to weld the topside of the bracket. Will clean up the frame tomorrow and weld it all up.

 

[seanpistol]

Just a piece of "gee-wiz" info that might make ya feel better- engineers determined long ago that two threads are all that is needed for 100% hold. I'm with you and like to overdo everything.

 

[Muttle]

Just a piece of "gee-wiz" info that might make ya feel better- engineers determined long ago that two threads are all that is needed for 100% hold. I'm with you and like to overdo everything.

Agreed, that in lab setting I would hold a car up by 2 threads.In the real world, especially on my truck I wouldn't hang a dome light by 2 threads. hahaha
I go by the philosophy of "If you're going to build something, overbuild it". Besides, there is nothing worse than something breaking on your Toyota and someone else saying "If you would have bought a ( insert truck manufacture) that wouldn't of happened" . I prefer to be that guy. hahaha

 

[Muttle]

Haven't updated this in a while. I been working on it a bit but not as much as I should be.
floor section I cut out of my parts 4runner.

stole the steering shaft and box out of parts truck. The steering shaft is longer than the 2wd one with 2 slip sections which means I don't have to cut and extend the 2wd one.

4x4 steering shaft on top 2wd on bottom. 4x4 shaft is about 1.5" longer than the 2wd shaft.

4x4 shaft installed is long enough to connect to the steering box with the shorter 2wd rag joint. 4x4 rag joint is longer so I will have plenty of adjustment for steering box placement.
While changing out the steering shaft I installed a new steering shaft seal as the old one was torn and letting engine fumes into the cab.

finished grinding down the patch area to bare metal, sprayed the weld through primer down.

Chopped down my shock hoops, took 4" out of them. Drilling them for plug welds and install the sleeves into them for strength.

Bought some Ruff stuff diff guards. Welded,I smoothed out the bottom edge of the diff so it won't get hung up on anything. Tossed a coat of primer on it as well.

Started to slap the front axle together. Setting up knuckle bearing preload is annoying without a SST.

Due to this truck being a 2wd, the fuel tank is smaller than a 4x4 tank in height and length .So I had to section the skid plate, chopped just under 7" out of it and welded it back together.

Had my new suspension arrive. Comparison pic between stock and OME Heavy leaf springs

I had ordered OME bushing kit and grease-able shackles with the leafs. Was a little disappointed when I went to assemble everything and the bushing kit did not have the right size bushing for the front of the leaf spring , along with the rear shackles being wrong. Thankfully I had some poly bushings from my 63" spring swap that fit. OME bushing is yellow, black bushing is 10mm larger in diameter.

Picked up Leaf spring plates with integrated bump stop mounts.

all the fancy crap installed. Springs raised the truck quite a bit even running stock shackles. Will have to see how it sits with everything installed on the truck and it fully weighed down. Might have to pull a leaf if I find it to rough.

Started to weld in the floor pan. Now I remember why I kept putting it off, I hate body work. Chipped out the rest of the sound deadening in the cab so I can spray the floor with line-x once the truck is back on the road.

 

[Muttle]

Teaser pic for now.

 

[huntsonora]

Damn that looks good! More please...