Build Dusty the mini truck that wishes it was a Land Cruiser

[gpfj40]

So I’ve started another project. Given the focus on Land Cruisers here on Mud, I’m not sure how interesting you guys will find this. Here’s the basics:

86 IFS 4x4 22r regular cab mini truck
Swap in 60 series front/rear axles
split case from 60 series
TH350, full manual reverse valve body
LQ4 6.0L gen 3 V8
3 link front/4 link rear on coils, really focused on keeping it drivable on the road
tube bed/box....maybe an exo cage
planning on 37’s hoping for 40’s

The goal is to build a rig that I’m not going to paint, is MUCH lighter than my cruiser, has too much power for the mud holes and snow around here; all while being able to drive down the road with out body roll oversteer caused white knuckling. Land Cruiser axles are tougher than mini truck stuff and 40 series cruisers are getting really hard to find in Canada with out rust or that are less than $10k. Also cutting up a 40 to buggy it out doesn’t seem to be the best way to go about my goals so this is the way I’m going. The project started at the end of November (2 months ago)

How it looked when I brought it home:

Here is where I was at this weekend, engine/trans/tcase are now mounted, front 3 link almost done.

If there is interest I’ll fill in the gap and keep updating......

 

[White Stripe]

Sweet! Looks like a solid start.

 

[SMG]

Following ,

 

[CreeperSleeper]

I'm diggin this!

 

[gpfj40]

The first step was to get it insured, inspected and road worthy. The guy I bought it off had though about making a camper out of it and had installed 18” long 2x4 .120 tubing to extend the frame. i cut that plus a few inches of toy frame off, it was a long box so losing 6” from stock is going to be about right. I glued in a new rear cross member/bumper and cut some holes for grommet trailer lights. These are cheap and easy to replace when trail damaged. I also cut the crossmember out that serves as the winch point for the stock spare. The gas tank will end up behind the axle to make room for the 4 links, and the ifs width mini truck axle and leaves will be swapped out, but first I need to do the driveline swap and front 3 link. I forgot to take a pic of the finished rear end.

Then I pulled the 22r/5 speed/tcase to sell to recoup some cash. The truck only had 158k km and is surprisingly rust free for a Canadian truck. And when I say rust free I mean free from the kind of deep rust that causes these frames to fold in half, there is little more than surface rust. I only stripped 2 bolts taking this apart and they were exhaust pipe bolts!

Then I installed some 3” tubing pieces to made a 3” body lift to make room under the trans tunnel for the goodness that was destined to be stuffed in there.

Then out came the IFS and some temp tube supports where welded to the front crossmember. The height is ride height minus 5”. I needed to keep it lower that ride height to made my picker and floor jack more functional.

And all of the toy bracketry was cleaned off. I used an oxy/acetylene torch for a lot of it which made it quicker and a lot less grinder dust than just grinding.

Then came the initial LQ4 test fit. There was more room than I was expecting. One of the goals in this project is to keep the f/r weight as balanced as possible so I am attempting to stuff the engine as far back as possible and put the rad/battery(s) in the bed. At this point I traced the engine to the firewall so I could take a hammer to it the next time it was out.

Next up is the front axle test fit and tire test fit.

 

[gpfj40]

I just realized I sort of lost track of where the stock ifs axle centre was cause was never really considering that reference point. I put the 60 series front axle in jack stands at full bump and proceeded to see how far I could get it forward. This tire is my 35” spare, this stock rim has more back spacing than what I will end up with.

I started trimming the sheet metal under the head light for clearance..... I figured this is close enough for now, wheel spacers or IFS hub swap can give me more width if the smaller backspace doesn’t do it. The body mount may need to be trimmed too. When turned the other way the back of the tire clears the frame. There should be room for 38s and maybe even 40’s if I get aggressive with the clearancing.

Here is my first attempt at motor mounts. The rubber isolator is the stock Toyota part repositioned.

There is some definite interference with the stock cast alum truck pan, after hours of web searching I settled on a ordering a Jegs steel pan which I plan on cutting the side bulge off and welding up to allow for yoke clearance. More on that later.

Then I cut out some brackets out of some 1/4” flat bar with the plasma torch and drill press. The hiems are from TMR, 7/8” x 7/8”, with misalignment spacers for 3/4” bolts. The threaded bungs are for 1” ID tube, planning on using 1.5” OD .250 wall DOM for the links. All of the hiems and link material will be the same through out and possibly even the same length for interchangeability if the calculator is kind to me. PVC tube is for mock up.

Here is the first go around with lower links and pan hard bar with cardboard mock up at ride height with 6” up travel, you can see I also added 1” spacer to lift the engine up for more clearance. The plan will be to notch the frame on the PS for the pan hard bar and have it come up between the oil pan and the crank pulley. The lower links are inboard of the frame about 4 inches, the link just contacts the tire at full lock. The plan is Y link steering, also tried both stock steering arms and hi steer arms, more on that later.

Here is the TH350 which is a K case. I believe this is the heaver casting with the cast dust cover that came in pick ups prior to 83. Note the 2 wd tail shaft.... that will need to be changed out.

Bought a used and working 8274 winch plus a parts winch. They came as a package for a sweet deal. The parts winch is missing the non drive side plate and the motor only turns out, not in, which is repairable as a future project.

 

[cruisermatt]

Awesome start. Cool to see another Blackbox being used. What's your planned top road speed? You are going to need deep diff gears to get 37's-40's rolling with the TH350 and then you won't have overdrive, plans for this?

I would advise you setup your engine mounts like this, with your gearing you are going to want to have bolts going all the way through your mounts.

And if I can make a recommendation for exhaust I've had good success with these Hooker swap manifolds, if you are interested in them I can get you a measurement of how far they stick out, looks like it might be tight for you frame-width wise.

 

[White Stripe]

Have you thought about widening the front axle housing? 4plus have axle tube inserts that make it very easy. That would give u 5 inches more width.

 

[gpfj40]

Awesome start. Cool to see another Blackbox being used. What's your planned top road speed? You are going to need deep diff gears to get 37's-40's rolling with the TH350 and then you won't have overdrive, plans for this?

I would advise you setup your engine mounts like this, with your gearing you are going to want to have bolts going all the way through your mounts.

View attachment 1396817


And if I can make a recommendation for exhaust I've had good success with these Hooker swap manifolds, if you are interested in them I can get you a measurement of how far they stick out, looks like it might be tight for you frame-width wise.

View attachment 1396818

I didn't figure out speed gears, just know my cruiser with 35s, 4.11, 1:1 in trans and t case was about 2050-2100rpm at 100km/hr. I figured that would be close enough to start with, might be close enough on 37, prob not on 40s. Deep gearing for wheeling can be accomplished doubling the black box 2.72:1 and the split case at 2.3:1 and given it's an auto. I can always go to 5.29 R&P. This is not a daily driver, just need to get to the trail.

Nice mounts, I wanted to stay away from this style so it is easier to pull the whole drive train as one. I did similar to yours in my cruiser and thought it wasn't handy and agree my first motor mounts aren't adequate, they've already changed, just haven't got there on this thread yet. The plan for exhaust manifolds is a pair of stockers from a ct525 crate engine. They are the version that has the O2 bung in between the middle 2 spark plugs. They are cheap and plentiful around here because guys put them in river boats and use zoomy headers. I believe they also came on C6 vetts.

 

[gpfj40]

After I was somewhat satisfied with my cardboard brackets and proposed pan hard location I cut some brackets and frame reinforcements to see if it might work out.

At this point I hung the winch plus another 100 pounds on the from end to see how the stock 80 series land cruiser coils would work out. Looks about right.

Then I mocked up the IFS steering box and I discovered I didn’t leave nearly enough room ahead of the pan hard link to mount the steering box with a 1 ton TRE on it. This led to shortening the links by 2 inches. Now there is enough room for the pitman arm/steering box, but the pan hard link will now interfere with the oil pan at full bump even before I notch the frame. CRAP.

At this point I was at crossroads with a bunch of choices:
-Motor mounts....ordered some Advance adaptor replacement bushings
-needed to have the t case in its final spot to see if the lower link frame brackets were going to work....needed the NWF Black Box to arrive to make this happen.
-oil pan interference.... needed the steel JEGS pan to arrive to move forward on solving this.

I pulled the engine and trans back out to swap the 2wd tail shaft while I waited for the BB. Auto trannys are somewhat of an enigma to me so part of this project was to learn about them. I bought a used 4x4 shaft from a tranny shop and went about swapping it by following a u tube video. It was surprisingly simpler than I had feared and the trans appeared to be in reasonable condition. I also installed a used reverse manual valve body while I had it apart. JEGS pan now installed.

The black box arrived and was installed:

Here are the AA pucks on new brackets, a much firmer set up and the trans bracket which is mounted to the NWF BB to TH350 adaptor. You will also note the lower link brackets needed to be unclamped from their mock up position and the floor needed to be cut out to get the t case in position which is not good for feasibility of the present link placement.

The pitman arm I had been waiting on finally arrived so I went about reaming it for the 1 ton drag link end so I could properly mock and clearance the steering.

This is roughly what my front suspension numbers looked like (was only estimating the upper link) at this point, and I was feeling like there was 3-4” of unused travel (pan hard interference) and the roll axis was too + roll oversteer. From what my web searching has told me that is what leads to that tail whip/snap when the body rolls a little at speed. Time to really rethink my plan.

My best guess after going about many different scenarios, was to bring the lower link frame mounts in towards the centre a few inches and drop them to the ground be 2-3 inches. The best way I can describe the way this appears to me is you need to have a degree of triangulation to offset every degree in drop if you want a neutral roll axis.......so this is where I’m headed:

 

[gpfj40]

To accomplish the new lower link placement which would improve my roll axis and make room for the t case I decided to create a ‘sub frame’ out of 2x2 188 wall square tube and cut some more brackets out of 1/4x8 flat bar.

New lower link angle at ride height:

Here is the newly stretched out pan hard link bracket which lines the link up with the gap between the pulley and the pan. I just moved the frame side bracket forward a similar amount.

With this solved I set out to build the upper link. Here is the first attempt. It was looking good.

Then I realized I didn’t have the starter mounted so there wasn’t going to be enough room so I redid the motor mount for a 3rd time. I will gusset the outside of this mount when I build the coil buckets.

I notched the frame and built a truss to get the up travel I was hoping for. I will finish boxing that notch in later on.

Then moved the bracket over on on the diff to make the link fit just between the bushing and the starter at full bump.

Some more full bump pics:

I pulled the oil pan and cut the necessary part off to clear the U joint and yoke.

I mocked this IFS shaft in place by slipping 2 square tubes on to it to keep it in place. At this point I realized my attempt to keep the upper and lower links the same length was not going to work because it was too tight around the CV joint and there was going to be no place for exhaust so I shortened the link and re mounted the bracket. You can see the shaft is really close to the trans pan, but when I get the shaft lengthened I’ll get the tube changed to 2” so it will be safe. I also built part of the PS exhaust to see if I had enough room. Its tight in there.

u joint/yoke to oil pan clearance

 

[Mace]

Pan-hard on the opposite side of the Steering box?

 

[gpfj40]

Pan-hard on the opposite side of the Steering box?

I guess my pics aren’t clearly illustrating what I’m doing, sorry about that. The pan hard is stuffed up to and inverted angle in some of these pics. The pan hard link attaches to the frame on the same side as the steering box. My next step is to cut and turn the knuckles, then I will be able to match the pan hard angle to the drag link angle at ride height and permanently mount the steering box. Hoping to do that this weekend.

 

[Mace]

Ahhh, now I see Cool

 

[gpfj40]

Here is the completed oil pan mod:

For the gas tank I went back and forth about buying a fuel cell but I always got held up at the fact I wanted to use a factory GM pump and pick up assembly. It didn’t seem right to buy a new cell and cut a hole in it so I cut a hole in the factory tank, welded a 3/16 steel ring I cut out to the tank, then drilled and tapped it to pull down on the another ring I cut out which will secure the factory GM pump assembly. I started out with m4 bolts but after twisting of 3 of them at different times I redrilled and tapped them to m6. The smaller factory bulk head just got welded up and retapped to m6 bolts to seal it up. The hose is Red Horse -6 AN push lock, the location of the tank was chose to move its weight rearward and make room for the rear 4 links. I also learned that newer GM senders are 40-240 ohms, when I thought they were 0-90 ohm which was the gauge I bought. Darn it. The easy fix will me to buy an after market 0-90 sender and attach it to the plastic pump sump in the same spot as the 40-240 ohm sender.....or just go with a gauge that is reads 7/16 of a tank when it is empty.

Next up was cutting down the lq4 harness. Not much detail here, it is covered lots of other places on the net. I will say the second time you do this it is super easy and I actually enjoy wiring I think....the planning and execution part of it. The fuse block is a littlefuse unit that is fully customizable with metripack 280 female ends, very nice piece. I set up the fuse block for 6 battery + and 6 ignition + but left them so I can just stick a another metripack connector up in it when I need a new circuit. As I learn about and use these high quality connectors like metripack and weather pack (and the proper crimpers) wiring has actually become enjoyable. Waiting on the oil pump pick up tube and ecu reflash (2nd time because I changed VSS plans) to fire it.

A little info about the VSS: As you likely know, these gen 3/4 GM engines need a vss even if you are running a manual or a old auto like I am. I guess the ecu needs to know if the vehicle is coming to a stop so it can switch fuel maps, or something like that. If you skip it they say the engine will stumble coming to a stop or leaving. My original plan was to stick a 40 tooth reluctor in the tail housing of the th350 but the governor gear made that a pain (there is lots more room in a 4l60e tail housing fyi). Then I was going to build a mount to mount the same 40 tooth reluctor on the back of the T case where the trans out put comes through the Tcase on all cruiser T cases. But given this is a split case that shaft is a little shorter than the older T cases so that became a pain too. I settled on the simplest solution of all, although it was hard to find. Dakota Digital makes an 8k pulse generator that goes into a gm speedo coupler, and an adaptor to make it go into a toyota speed cable coupler. I just needed to get my ecu reflashed to know the new 8k pulses per mile rather than the 128k pluses per mile the 40 tooth reluctor ring gives off. The guy doing the tuning said this will work fine given I’m not attempting to shift an electronic 4l60e, just manage the idle. I searched the net a lot on this topic, it seams the combo of lq4 LS, TH350 and split case is not that common, hopefully this works and anyone looking for info on this type of set up in the future will find this when they are searching.

I picked up a set of PBR 37-12.5R15 rockers used. Here is one mounted to what is going to be the spare rim and mounted for clearance testing and timing. I forgot to take a before triming pic, it went to full bump with no articulation without triming. When I dropped the DS down about 14” at the theoretical shock mount the PS tire got into the fender big time. I cleared out some fender sheetmetal with a sawzall and tin snips. The horizontal portion of the inner fender up at the front where the stock battery goes will need to be pounded up and the body mount will need to be trimmed about 1/2” but other than that clearance is good. Will defiantly be sticking with 37s, 40’s would be too much inner fender work.

Now that I’m happy with front clearances I did the cut n turn to get the castor correct with the diff pointed up. This was new to me but it went well with advice on 2 pass welding the tube from a welder bud of mine. Before:

Cut and turned and preped for the root weld:

After: This says 7*, my iPhone app says 6.5*. The truck is pointed up 2* in the position the green tube supports are holding it so I should be just 5.5* once the rear axle swap and 4 link is done.

Not straight but no undercut and just enough build up to be sure it is strong enough....or so I’m told.

Then I pulled the front axle out to final weld all the brackets. Still working on this, going to take my time to keep too much heat out of it.

Cleaned all of the grease and rust scale off the hubs etc and peeped for paint:

That brings this thread up to date to where I am at on the build, just a week past 3 months since I started on it. Maybe the updates will have more detail in real time going forward so I don’t have to rely on my 39 year old memory!!

Thanks for reading!

 

[lwb86]

whats the part number for that fuse box? was it sourced locally? Being from snomexico like you I have a hard time cross referencing part numbers from our friends down south

 

[gpfj40]

whats the part number for that fuse box? was it sourced locally? Being from snomexico like you I have a hard time cross referencing part numbers from our friends down south

868-163 Littelfuse HWB60 Base for Sealed PDM You have to order the clips seal and cover separately. Shipping options to Canada are expensive but fast, they have incredible selection of all things wiring too.

 

[gpfj40]

The intake pluming is going to interfere with the upper rad hose. I had heard about twisting the outlet neck on the Gen 3 truck pumps to make room for the intake so looked it up on the net a gave it a try. Here is the stock position:

I heated the cast aluminum around the base of the neck and twisted it with a combo if a chain vice grip and pipe wrench:

What you can’t see in that pic is the little gap the appeared in the joint of the SS neck and the cast alum. The force required to twist it deformed the tube. I ran rad hose from the inlet to the outlet on the main hose and the heater core, then blew a little compressed air into the steam vent, sprayed some soaping water on the suspect joint and boom.....bubbles.....and a wasted water pump. CRAP. I ordered a Gen 4 truck pump to replace it cause the outlet points the correct direction for my plan.

Changed out the alternator to a 135amp unit to help with winching, and a new belt in the new size for the larger alt.

More welding on the front axle including a Ruff Stuff ring gear bash guard. They are not kidding about how beefy this thing is, it took a while to get it hot enough with my touch to adjust the shape for the 9.5" diff from the 8” mini truck diff they are designed for. There are still a few more joints to finish up. Still considering knuckle gussets too.

The Jegs LS Swap oil pan needed a remote oil filter, which was a pain and extra cost. But since i needed a sheet metal pan I could mod for the front diff/yoke clearance I had no choice. I chose to use Russel Twist Lock fittings because I’ve had good luck with them in the past and they are really easy to use. The nipples on the pan are -10AN so that’s what I stuck with for this remote filter set up. The blue hose you can just see on the left on the power steering pump is looped back to the PS res in preparation for firing the engine.

Placed the harness and plugged it in. Added the alt charge wire I forgot about. Discovered I wired the fuel pump relay thinking the signal from the ecu is gnd when it is actually + so I had to fix that or the pump would just run. The ignition signal from the Toy fuse box didn’t work either, not sure what happened there so I chose a different circuit in the Toy fuse box to trigger the relay for the LS. Added a starter cable and tapped the Toy harness for the starter solenoid signal.

You might be wondering about the booster cables...... The batteries will be in the back so I connected all of the B+ wires on a single post near the fuse boxes and the booster cables are just feeding temp power to that post for testing/starting. Once the batteries go in the back the cables will run to a isolator/kill switch in the cab then to this post to power the truck.

Then she fired up! I pulled the engine from the donor truck about a year ago and it hadn’t even turned over since then. Unfortunately the aftermarket oil pressure gauge is not getting any signal, hopefully that is just a ground on the sender. Its really tight behind the intake between the firewall so it will have to wait until I pull the driveline out for final welding. After properly sealing the threads on the fuel pressure gauge I added to the rail -6 AN Push Lock fittings, there were no more leaks, fuel or oil. Unfortunately I can’t seem to link or post the start up vid, straight manifolds and all, via my mac or photo bucket. I guess .mov files aren’t the right type so you will just have to take my word for the fact it is loud!!!

 

[gpfj40]

Finished welding the front axle housing, added some gussets to the upper link mount. Painted it with knock off POR 15 called DOM 16, scuffed and primed/painted with rustoleum. I went this way because I wanted something harder to take the gravel the axle sees.

I welded up my front links. 2 pass into a deep V. First pass:

2nd pass:

Painted the same as the axle, DOM 16, primer, then rustoleum:

I tore the 3rd down, then rock auto called and said my order with the new side bearings for the ARB was screwed up and would be re shipped so I couldn't go any further than cleaning and painting. The stock 4.10 gears look good so I have no fear in reusing them.

Since I am waiting on parts for putting the axle back together I started the rock slider on both sides out of 2” x .120 DOM with 3 frame ties. The tube extends past the cab on both the front and the back to make room for the future intersecting exo cage tubes. One of these pics shows the mock up with a piece of 1.5” I had in the garage. The rest of the exo cage will be 1.5” .120 wall DOM. The front exo tie in will run under the fender and come out at the cowl just as it turns up the A pillar, or so I hope. There will likely be an angle kick out on the outside of the slider tube to protect from rubbing trees, which is the most likely source of body damage around here, but that will happen after the rest of the exo cage is done.

 

[arnott1t]

Rad build.