Builds The Trail Snail Build | Above Average Overlandish (1 Viewer)

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No cruiser updates, but I do have an E30 update.

New clutch, pressure plate, carrier bearing & rear main seal at the shop, once I got it home I tackled reupholstering the front seats. This thing is going to get a full respray, euro bumpers, euro weave BBS rims, full turbo etc etc. As if my land cruiser addiction wasn't clearing out my bank account enough.

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Also picked up this bad boy
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Glad everyone’s OK
Sorry for your loss😟
 
Thanks. It was tough but the day ended on a high note after I bought my other friend's e30 touring with an S52
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Had to replace the timing chain cover on the engine I'm rebuilding because the water pump housing was cracked, and I finally got that back from the machinist. So it's back to building
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Also sold my Audi finally. She was a good car for what I needed at the time, but now that I'm divorced I don't need a highway mile crusher to visit inlaws 5 hrs away all the time and it just didn't make sense to hold on to it any longer. So for those keeping count I'm now down to a reasonable fleet of 3 cars.
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Time-lapse of getting the bottom end done.


Lastly here's some more current picts of the my grey athletic shoe. In February she's going in for full body restoration, rust repair, and repaint. Also I've got custom upholstered seat covers being made to update the interior.
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Bmer shenanigans
Bm'er is in the body shop gettin some love. Full PDR, dent repair, rust rehab & repaint

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So couple of upkeep items are happening. First off the wiring harness for the CDL lock got packed with snow during a snow storm about a month ago and pushed the motor's wires next to the exhaust causing a direct short in that circuit. Unfortunately, from the factory its a 30amp fused circuit, so the direct short caused the wires to get hot and melt together at the CDL control box, so I had to repair the harness over the transfer case and the wires at the CDL control box in the drivers footwell.

The coolest thing about all of this is that this happened when I was stuck in a snow drift and I was attempting to turn on my 4wd (for those who don't know I'm one of those part-time 4wd guys). When I pushed the button I noticed my volt meter drop from 14.4v to 10v and instantly knew there was a wiring issue, well before all of the wiring went up in smoke the CDL motor was able to move the clutch sleeve (this is the center diff locker for you full-time 4wd guys) nearly into place. How did I know this? well because I heard it grinding away as I engaged drive again. The sleeve was not fully engaged on the splines so it wasn't transferring power to the front axle, it was however making a horrid grinding sound. I eventually was able to limp it to my buddy barn and hotwire the CDL motor to get it to fully disengage so I could drive home.

The sleeve in orange is what I'm talking about
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So I pulled everything apart this week expecting a lot of glittery oil and carnage and was actually pleasantly surprised, it wasn't as bad as I was fearing. The clutch sleeve has tapered teeth on one side for engaging the splines on the center differential assembly, which, if I had oriented the sleeve correctly when I did the part-time 4wd conversion, would've likely prevented this whole issue (except for the wiring issue). Since I had installed the sleeve in the wrong orientation the splined gears didn't have the taper on the leading edge that engages with the center diff assembly, so the shift fork and motor were attempting to pull the clutch sleeve into engagement but couldn't. And the act of it sitting in that position grinding away kind of mushroomed the splines making it impossible to engage. The deformations were minor but enough to prevent engagement, so 10 mins with my die grinder and a needle tip and voila.

I hope to put this learning experience behind me forever. What a pain in the asss.
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Next, I noticed the 3 wires from the CDL position sensor all had broken insulation where they went into the case and they were only hanging on by a couple of strands, so I replaced them with new wires.
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Lastly, I am rebuilding/balancing my driveshafts, replacing my front 3-links heim joints that have worn out over the years, and planning out the return of Air conditioning
 
3 Link? I don’t think I realized this before. Could you direct me to the page here that shows the 3 link project? Thanks
 
I don’t have anything really formal on the 3-link. It was done by a good friend of mine as a trade for some work I did for him and unfortunately he passed away.

I’ll try to get something posted showing how he did it, and what I want to do to improve it. Overall it works extremely well there’s just some geometry issues with how the frame side mounts are set up that cause the heims to always be resting out of plane with the link.
 
I don’t have anything really formal on the 3-link. It was done by a good friend of mine as a trade for some work I did for him and unfortunately he passed away.

I’ll try to get something posted showing how he did it, and what I want to do to improve it. Overall it works extremely well there’s just some geometry issues with how the frame side mounts are set up that cause the heims to always be resting out of plane with the link.
I would be interested in seeing this as well 😉
 
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Uhhhg. my rear UCA's and LCA's are loose again.... What a pain in the ass.
OEM or after market ?
I sure you are torquing them to spec with the rig sitting on the ground.
I never had this issue and my rig get beat on 🤷‍♂️ running beefed-up OEM
 
I have OME adjustable UCA's and SPC lowers. Its the bolts and nuts that have loosened up on the frame mount and axle mount for the UCA's and the frame mount for the LCA's. I think its wallowed out the sleeve in the bushing somewhat and its definitely worn the bolt. Not sure why Mr. T spec'd a bolt with a shoulder that's only 5mm long from the bolt head that's 18mm diameter shoulder on it when the rest of the bold is 16.8-17mm diameter... It creates space for movement.
 
Fixed and tightened up all my rear control arms. Also realized that I'm an idiot, when I checked my angles I realized I set the pinion the wrong way last time. So the transfer case was at 88.1 down and the diff was at 88.3 up...... IDIOT... no wonder the last shaft vibrated itself to death in 5,000 miles... that and using it as a rock slider didn't help. So I set it properly to match the T-case and what do you know? it drives nice and smoothly now! :princess:
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Also wrapped my first steering wheel.
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not the best, not the worst.
 
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Ok so I've done a lot of maintenance on the ol' trail snail, nothing too exciting to warrant photos. All oils changed, tires rotated, hand brake adjusted, brakes flushed, headlights re-aimed, drive shafts rebuilt & balanced.

Then I did some fun stuff, I wired in this wifi programmable dome light dimmer relay into the dome light circuit. Also, I stuck a 5050 SMD warm White LED chip on
@Outsane 's Dual color map light board and ran wires from that to the dome light relay in the drivers side foot well kick panel so the map light now comes on along with the dome lights when a door is opened. I set the dimmer relay to 10 seconds after doors close to dim to off, or instantly dim to off when the ignition is switched on. Cool little mod that adds a modern-day feel to the vehicle. Oh I also added those same 505 SMD Warm White LED's to the foot wells.

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I'm also adding red 2835 SMD LED's to the footwell too, they turn on when the parking lights are on. I placed a 2.2k Ω resistor in line to dim them down to a very low ambient lighting level. Again, this in conjunction with the red night light from the Outsane switchable map light (which I further dimmed down with a strip of tint just adds another modern car feature to the old girl. Makes it a nice pleasant place to spend time in at night. (waiting on amazon to put the drivers footwell light in).

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