Builds The never-ending build: My 80 Series (5 Viewers)

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H8 Roads said:
Well it certainly was fun to drive the cruiser around for a few weeks but it really was in need of lower diff gears. Since they were now laying in my garage it was time to start tearing things apart...again. This was starting to get old but since I had got myself in this deep it had to be done. Luckily I had done some research before removing the third members. I learned that you have to engage the lockers before removing them. It would have been a slight disappointment if I would have tried to do it without this step. Everthing came apart fairly easy.

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When I pulled the rear hubs off they were full of gear oil. I had read that these full floaters actually have axle seals to keep this out and the wheel bearings were supposed to be greased like the front. As far as I know this is the only full float axle set up this way. Others are meant to be lubed by the gear oil. I actually decided upon reassemble to leave the seals out and let the gear oil do the work. My wheel seals had not been leaking before so I thought this would be ok to do. I actually found that some other people were doing the same thing. Seems like there was a 50/50 opinion on which way to go. My justification is that there is one more seal in there to fail and I would rather just start with gear oil then have a seal fail and mix with the grease. Probably wouldn't hurt anything as my old bearings seemed fine. For me this seemed the way to go. I have only had it around the block a few times but it seems to be fine and not leaking. I will keep an eye on this and keep my fingers crossed that the bearings will be getting lubed properly.

I have a buddy that has all the tools to set up gears. I usually just borrow the tools and do them myself but at this point in the build my time was limited. I asked my friend if he would be interested in doing them for me. He said 200 bucks for both sets. That was too good to pass up. It ended up that I went to his house and we both tackled it together. It was really nice to have two sets of hands on these things. They fought us a little bit but we are both very particular, especially when it comes to this. We worked with them until we thought they were just right. I made him take the money anyway for helping me. He was a great help. Can't wait to break them in!

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Where did you get your gears and what ratio are you using? Sorry if I missed it. I was scanning as I'm in a bit of a hurry this morning.
 
Jroc561 said:
Killer build man, love your approach of move fast and break stuff. Also dig that you kept the flares on
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Appreciate it! Sometimes you just have to make decisions and start cutting. lol. I figure I can weld it back together. Keeping the flares was something I really wanted to do. I love it.
 
Online Olympian said:
Where did you get your gears and what ratio are you using? Sorry if I missed it. I was scanning as I'm in a bit of a hurry this morning.
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I actually can’t find anything either. Apparently I forgot to mention that when I was explaining about the install. The gears are 5.29s from Nitro-Gear & axle. I can't remember now what supplier I bought them from. I got the package that has the gear sets and all new bearings. I think they include gaskets also.
 
H8 Roads said:
I actually can’t find anything either. Apparently I forgot to mention that when I was explaining about the install. The gears are 5.29s from Nitro-Gear & axle. I can't remember now what supplier I bought them from. I got the package that has the gear sets and all new bearings. I think they include gaskets also.
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Right on. They are located 10 miles from my house and the owner is not only one of my good friend from high schools land lord but also his brother in law. I couldn't believe that a world famous operation like his was in a building right on my old commute to work. I passed it every day looking over at his cool rigs never knowing how impressive and famous the operation was.
 
A picture of one of my other rigs with his sticker. It came on the truck and as faded and torn as it is. It has to stay on the truck. I'm actually trying to sell this rig today. Meeting a potential buyer at noon.

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Online Olympian said:
Right on. They are located 10 miles from my house and the owner is not only one of my good friend from high schools land lord but also his brother in law. I couldn't believe that a world famous operation like his was in a building right on my old commute to work. I passed it every day looking over at his cool rigs never knowing how impressive and famous the operation was.
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That's amazing! I'm so jealous. Where I live there isn't really anything like that even close at all.
 
What do you think of the Huracan Fabrication tailgate storage? I believe it is the most affordable commercial product and wanted know if you would recommend it, or if you would have gone for something else like a Wagon Gear or Baertrax? Thanks.
 
Once I was set on the location of everything it was time to break out the welder. I started on the axle first. I stitch welded the truss on trying not to get things to hot and warp the housing. I know that some use techniques to weld a continuous bead but again I'm no professional. I'm not the best welder but my stuff has a reputation of staying together. Ha.

I also ordered a diff guard from RuffStuff. Only thing I might add at some point is a guard on the very bottom of the diff section. I kind of wish I would have done this when I had the axle out because its so much easier to do when I can flip it upside down.

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Now I just had to wait on my 14 inch travel Radflo coilovers so that I could mock up my mounts. I splurged and got the 2.0 hydraulic bumps stops to match! I could not wait to see these things in person!

While I was waiting patiently for the UPS man to show up I was also waiting for someone else to show up. My child! We decided to wait to find out the gender so we were really excited for this little he or she to arrive. It was getting really close now. Could be any day. Well the day had come! My wife wasn't quite sure but she thought that today was the day! I loaded up the 4runner and we headed to the hospital. Sure enough the doctor determined that we were staying! Holy cow! Our lives were about to change dramatically. By the end of the day we were holding our beautiful and healthy baby BOY!

Well now nothing else seemed exciting but my coilovers did finally arrive. Wow!! These things are the real deal.

Radflo 14 inch travel coilovers
2.0 hydraulic bump stops
4 springs - each side 14"/14" 300/400

I actually do have to get different springs. They are too short for my set up. With any preload on them the lift is way to much. This is kind of a bummer but I will tackle that when the time comes.

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Now, of course, my sleep and time were both scarce during this time. Fortunately you guys don't have to wait for weeks to continue this story. Ha. In between walks with my wife, son, and dogs on beautiful evenings (and all the other duties of parenthood) I was able to work on the cruiser little bits at a time.

The brackets that I had ordered to mount the coilovers to the axle were not going to work. I ended up making my own. I do have a pretty sweet connection for making custom parts. My buddy works at a local machine shop and happens to be one of the CNC specialist. I make my stuff out of cardboard and he transfers that to the computer then cuts it out on the CNC table. Then we do the bends with hydraulic machines. Beats the heck out of my old fashion way of cutting stuff from scratch with a grinder and trying to bend things in my press. Or even more ridiculous and pay full price to have it made. ;)

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Tachycardic said:
What do you think of the Huracan Fabrication tailgate storage? I believe it is the most affordable commercial product and wanted know if you would recommend it, or if you would have gone for something else like a Wagon Gear or Baertrax? Thanks.
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I would totally recommend this product. I like them all and was originally looking at the Wagon Gear but just couldn't justify the price. For the money I think you get a very well built product. It also comes with some nice padding/sound proofing material that has a sticky back to put into the bottom to help save the tailgate from getting damaged by things bouncing around in there. I love it.
 
H8 Roads said:
Thanks. I was going through things in order but I might finish what I've done with the 3 link then move onto the other stuff I've done. I kind of jumped around during the build due to waiting on parts or time restraints, etc.
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Do it in order so there’s no spoilers!
 
You're posting all this from memory? Wow, that's even more impressive than the build itself. I barely remember when I changed my oil last lol
 
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