Yet another update on the looong, slow Vanagon transformation thread.
Geez. Where do I start.
Well, for starters I was called back to my job.
I know. I know. I should feel blessed or grateful or whatever but, "A", I am not a religious man, "B" this job sucks and "C" this means I cannot spend all day in the shop making this whole thing work.
Before I had all this time and no money and now I will have money but no time.
Anyway, I started back last Monday but not before selling some things and buying some other things.
I sold my motorcycle and that lifted, green Subaru shown above.
This gave me a little cash to play with until the paychecks start rolling in.
My time may be short in this state so I have decided to skip stage one and two and go straight to stage three.
As I mentioned in my second post in this thread, stage three gets pretty involved.
I can not elaborate too much at this time but I did get a couple of the more serious bits needed for old Bruce's transformation.
Hmm that phrase does not paint a pretty picture in my head but I digress.
I think I managed to find the crustiest FJ80 axles this side of the Mississippi.
They are both equipped with factory Toyota E-lockers but will likely need a thorough tear-down and clean up before they can be called into service.
However, as they say across the pond, they were cheap as chips and left me with a fair deal of cash from my axle budget for cleanup and repairs.
I will be stripping all of the factory mounts from the housings for nearly everything so I figured why not bust out the sawz all (AKA reciprocating saw) and whack off.... remove some of the offending bits before I even get them off the trailer.
Heck the rear already looks better.
I will lug them off the trailer sometime this week and really start tearing them apart.
While I was at it I also managed to score another important piece of the 4x4 puzzle.
No rig can claim true off-road-capable-status without a proper transfer case and for the money you would be hard pressed to find a better case than the Land Rover LT230.
It is gear driven with an aluminum case and its 3.32:1 low range is about as good as it gets outside of a Jeep Rubicon or Atlas case.
Its 1.2:1 high range means I won't have to re-gear the axles for the meager tire size I plan on running.
I should also point out that these are available all over the place because the poor old Discoverys that they came from usually quit running and are abandon long before the transfer case is even broken in.
Yes. That is a dis against the D1 and D2.
"How dare he" you say.
Well, I owned one and Land Rover should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this abomination on the public; at least the US versions anyway.
Mine would not work for more than two weeks at a time before needing serious repair.
Ok maybe I got a crappy one but.... well there I go getting all off topic again.
Back to the topic at hand.
As some of the more astute viewers may have noticed in the pic, I have opened the back side of the case that is usually reserved for a PTO output and will be making that my new input from trans to case.
I have to fab up a couple of parts but this will give me the proper passenger side drop in a rear engine configuration that I will need when the axles are under the rig.
I have some more parts coming and will likely update this when they get here but for now I need to focus on getting the axles cleaned up and transfer case ready to rock.
Until next time...
P.S. I am looking for a 96-2000 Toyota 4Runner rear E-locker if anyone has one lying around.
