Builds fj62 gets a lift (2 Viewers)

[franklin40]

fj62 gets a lift... now becoming more of a build thread

well i've been a long time reader of mud and have posted a few questions here and there. i have owned a fj40 for about 5 years and now an 1989 fj62 for about a year. now that i am done school and have stopped paying for exams i can start fixing up my trucks. so here is where i started. bone stock fj62 in pretty good shape. minor body rust and dents, front seats wearing but still not bad. otherwise surface rust on undercarriage but it was undercoated early on and still has pristine paint on some areas of the frame. it runs strong and clean, so i figure i have a solid place to start.

over the past two weeks (yes weeks not days arrgh) i have replaced the springs and rear shocks. it is something i am glad to have done but will never do again with only a pocke of tools (i have moved away for a year for a little extra training and all my garage is 3500 km away). it took way longer than it should and i had to buy a torch, grease gun, jack stands and grinder part way through to get those stinking frame side spring pins out (i already have all these at home but didn't think to bring them). well after cutting, banging and grinding and blood sweat (not so bad for tears). my 2 year old son learned his first swear word though through it all. make sure you have all the tools you need and a bunch of things you don't think you'll need before you start. riding your bike to canadian tire with a backpack is so time consuming!! and don't do it using the factory bottle jack either. have a good floor jack. it worked but soooo sketchy!!

what i found was two broken rear leafs on one pack, the long leaf on the other broken and very flat front springs. i put on old man emu heavies all 4 corners with man-a-fre anti inversion shackles and greaseable spring pins. i also put on extended swaybar links. once the springs were on though my rear shocks were to short to even attach much less travel. the front fit though they severely limit droop. well i then ordered a set of bilstein 5125 for the rear. if you ever hear that the 5/8 bushing goes on the 3/4 inch post easily with some grease and force don't believe it. i just spend four hours putting on two shocks and my bushings took a beating. BUY THE RIGHT BUSHINGS!! well after two weeks of not having a vehicle (i left the others at home as they wouldn't pass safety yet in ontario (yes another canadian here) i finally got to go for a ride. it was so much smoother. my wife even commented on how her teeth were still in her head so you know the springs are good. the only thing that is the trouble now is that i have a growl at low speeds and it starts to shake between 40-45 km/hr and then above it settles out. i had no noise or shakes before the new springs but now i do. any ideas? does this sound like a u joint that is worn that is now at a steeper angle? anyone else had this problem?

i guess the other trouble (non mechanical) i have found is that my rear end of the truck is about 5-6 inches higher than it was before and my dog will now need a ramp to get in and out. he is 170 lb mastiff and i had to lift his rear end into the truck because he can't jump. now it's to high for him to even get his front feet up. the heavies will ride nicely with his weight though. i'm quite thrilled overall right now but have to figure out this growl and then save up for 33s. i'll post some picture in the next few days though. i'll have to buy a star first i guess.

 

[franklin40]

>

i just did a measurement from before to after over the rear wheel well. it was 31 inches ground to body and now is 36 inches ground to body. i put a 3 inch lift on so you do the math as to how saggy the old springs were.

 

[franklin40]

and i guess my pictures aren't allowed until my star purchase goes through. i'll try again later.

 

[lcolon]

Congrats on the lift! I do use a dog ramp as well for my 2 Labs... I bought this one from Cabelas and am very happy with it. It is extremely sturdy (Petstep II in case the link does not work). I keep it in the back and throw it between the front two seats when I have the dogs in the truck. It will also fit inside of my Yakima clam shell (the large one) if necessary.

Cabela's: Petstep II Pet Ramp

Have Fun!

Luis

 

[franklin40]

here are a few photos if i can make this thing work.

 

[franklin40]

here are a few more. i can't wait to get tires!!

 

[FJ60Jason]

That looks awesome. Time for some 32x11.50's

 

[BG_TX]

Sounds like you had some hell replacing the lift, at least you won't have to mess with it again any time soon. Looks good, what tires are you looking at?

i'm quite thrilled overall right now but have to figure out this growl and then save up for 33s.

The growl may be ujoints... pinion angle look ok?

Unrelated: Have you installed an aftermarket ATF cooler? A cooler today saves your trans some day.

 

[Sixty's Guy]

Good one!

I have bilstein 5125 as well. Mine has 16mm pins and I had to grease the bush and pin to get them on. I can only imagine how much it would suck to put them over 19mm pins.

I noticed you didn't replace your steering damper either. Might be worth doing that......

Are those shackles longer than stock. They look maybe 1" longer? It would also be a good idea to get your caster checked and adjusted (with wedges).

 

[franklin40]

yeah the shackles are about an inch longer than stock. I don't have any tools to check my exact caster angle but it doesnt seem too bad. I have no death wobble at all. 70 mph and tight as anything. just a low vibration at 20 - 25 mph and then goes away. I'm going to grease my u joints and slip yolk to see of that makes a difference. I may look at u joints after. I like the idea of an aftermarket tranny cooler. I am going to look into it before tires. it's really my wife's truck. I have my 40 when I get home that will really be for off road. i want this to be more of an expedition rig. I am thinking 33 x 10.5 bf goodrich all terrain. I really like that look.

 

[franklin40]

by the way I just got back from a 4 hour drive with the new suspension and I am totally in love. I can't believe the difference. this set up is sooooo nice to drive. it's only going to get better too I think with tires and front shocks eventually.

 

[franklin40]

well I still haven't figured out the vibration problem yet but am starting with u-joints this week. I have a feeling my pinion angle may be the culprit. can any one tell me If they had to put longer center pins in to put in shims. recall they are OME heavies front and back. I also used the rubber pads again on the ubolt plate. will I have to discard this and get the bushing that is used to center it in the ubolt plate? I'm just trying to prepare everything I might need so as to not have my truck off the road for more than a day.

 

[franklin40]

so i still haven't solved the vibration problem. i took the truck into a shop yesterday to have the u-joints changed. they said they were fine and wouldn't change them. it's the first time i've had a shop refuse to replace a part even if it didn't need it. they also didn't charge me anything for checking them. good bunch of guys. so now i figure it's my pinion angle. shims are the next thing to try. i have the man a fre shackles which are a little longer than stock (can anyone tell me the pin to pin length of stock fj62 shackles as i have disposed of mine already). i'm going to do some measurements this weekend and figure out what degree do get. can anyone tell me give me some info on whether i need longer center pins in the springs when using shims? do i need to get rid of the rubber pads? i read somewhere that if you get rid of them you need to get a bushing of sorts to keep the pin centered in the spring plate. who sells these? thanks again everyone for your help.

 

[Elbert]

doubt its related to the pinion angle ... I have OME heavy / heavy on my truck... no issues with pinion angle or caster. You very well may have a problem but I doubt its related to the the install on the lift.

Give a better description of the vibration issue and you might get some good advice on what to look for from the group.

 

[franklin40]

my truck ran perfectly fine before i put the lift on. no vibrations, no feeling of tires out of balance, just had an alignment done prior (had to for saftey otherwise i'd do it after). after i put the springs on i am getting a low frequency vibration through the whole truck from 40 km/hr to 50km/hr (about 25-30 mph) and then it goes mostly away but when i listen closely it's still kind of there. there is no death wobble or steering problems. i didn't use any shims and my shackles are 5 inches pin to pin. my pinion both front and back are not parallel with the output shaft from the transfer case. in another thread about low frequency vibration there is a link to drive line 101 where it explains how different angles can cause vibration to occur and i think that may be my problem. i never took the drive shaft off or apart so it's not out of phase and i did nothing else to the truck at the time of the lift or since so the only variable that has changed is the height of the truck and pinion angles. i am not a mechanic so i guess there may be more than my eyes see but i have searched a lot here on mud and the physics of the u joints makes sense as to why if they aren't parallel it can cause vibration. it seems more likely than an unbalanced drive shaft and other than that i'm at loss as to where to go next. my front u joint angles are really out of wack as far as i can tell. i'll try to get some pictures tomorrow when it's light out.

 

[Elbert]

do you have all your bolts tight, and everything torqued that should be?

what are the symptoms of the vibrations, does it happen at certain speeds or all the time, does if flucuate, does it change with rpm or speed, doe it go away when the brakes are applied,.

the sping based suspension lifts (spring under axle) should not alter your pinion angle engouh to be an issue...it might cause minor caster issue if you used some crazy tall shackels.

 

[franklin40]

yeah all my bolts are tight. i don't know what else to add other than 40-50 km/hr low vibration that goes away above that speed, is always there at that speed accelerating, cruising, coasting and breaking. wasn't there before the new springs and i didn't do anything to the drive shaft to put it out of phase or balance. i haven't put it in 4x4 yet so i know that it's not the front drive shaft. after this lift does the front pinion often point up enough that the u joint off the axle has a bend so the apex is pointing up as well as the u joint coming off the transfer case having it's apex pointing up. this seems way off parallel which i though they should be? can anyone see if i screwed up my lift in any way from the pictures i showed. military wrap goes to the fixed frame side right? tried to get pictures but they don't really show anything but and oily under surface of the truck.

 

[dbenke]

You might need to go to a double cardin drive shaft. Sounds like there's too much angle on your drive shaft. You might be able to drop the rear cross member a bit. this will lessen the angle. Its cheap and worth a try.
I'm about to install a set of 5" alcans to my 62.
I did a new set of springs on a friend of mine's 62 and had the same problem that you did with getting the springs/pins out. On mine, they came right out. You need to really flex the springs alot (aka take it wheeling) before you try to take it apart.
This will break away all(?) of the rust, and the pins slide right out.

 

[62LostInMn]

Try removing the rear DS and run it thru the speed range with it in 4WD, I did this to identify a bad U-joint in the rear. It won't hurt anything to do this. If the vibration is gone, then it's either a U-joint or the pinion angle difference is too great. If it's still there then move on to the next likely suspect. I'm not sure what that is though, others here may have more input.

 

[franklin40]

well its obviously been a while since I posted anything on the vibration issues. I was talking to a much smarter friend than I am about it. when describing the symptoms he asked if I had greased the slip joint after the lift. yes I did. he suggested I may have over greased it and said I should take the zerk out to let the grease out. the tolerance at the slip joint is so small that it won't allow the grease to squeeze by and over packing it can lead to bad vibration transmission into the rest of he truck. I figured it was an easy thing to try. sure enough the vibration settled down about 50%. my guess is I still have a pinion angle problem that is causing a minor vibration but with the tight slip joint it was amplifying it a lot. hopefully I can still find the rest of the vibration but at least it's not so annoying to drive now. the symptoms have changed a little now too. it happens now primarily when under load and when slowing down. when coasting its really not so noticeable. it is also a smaller window of speed that it happens in (40-45km/hr).