Builds LX450 crawler build thread (1 Viewer)

[GregS86]

Background: I work at a road race prep shop in Fort Worth, TX as a tech and fabricator. My brother has a JKU Rubicon with 40's/etc. and I wanted something to go four wheeling with him with. He lets me drive it four wheeling often, but I wanted something of my own that I could build/break, also the whole sibling rivalry aspect. I wanted something different than a Jeep, I feel they're way overpriced for what they are, everything's been done a million times, and a Rubicon was out of my price range. I suppose it was really someone I met at Bridgeport, TX four wheeling that turned me onto the idea of an FJ80, so the search began. I found several good deals(looking nationwide), but I kept on missing them by a day or the seller would change his mind.

Purchase: I ended up finding a silver/gold(?) 96 LX450 with 287k miles on the app 5miles for a good price(steal?). Note to sellers; not a good place to list a niche vehicle. Paint was in pretty good shape, seems the paint/clear on these doesn't hold up well. Front seats were re-covered at some point and are in great shape, rear seat bottom needs to be re-covered. CEL was on, CDL wouldn't engage in 4 low, driver's seat didn't move front/back, the driver's tilt switch tab was broken off, and I found out the rear door lock actuators didn't work after I bought it. Had a pioneer touch screen/buetooth head unit installed but it's glitchy. Vehicle was super stock, minus the head unit.



Flexing out HARD.

Plans: The plans are for this to be a daily driver(although I'm sure that'll get old quick) and a rock crawler. 37-40" tires, 3 link front suspension, coilover up front and possibly all around, ARB air lockers, chromoly axle shafts, 5.29(?) gears, high steer knuckles, bumpers, skid plates, rock sliders, etc...

Getting started: I bought the vehicle on Sept 4th, 2017, Labor Day. After some late night Googling I found a labor day sale for 10% off ARB that was about to expire, so I bought the front/rear air lockers and an ARB front bumper on spur of the moment decision. The ARB bumper probably isn't the best for rock crawling, but I've always liked the way they've looked. I Also ditched the spare tire and spare tire cross member, weight savings!




Just screwing around, 23.5" of articulation


My brother's Jeep goes a little higher... 34.5" of articulation



That's all for tonight...

 

[tominboise]

Awesome - love some LX rock crawling. Better plan on gears and such if you going to run 37-40" tires. Otherwise it will be slow(er) then the normally slow 80 series.

 

[bryson]

Nice! Tell your brother his Jeep is cute.

 

[GregS86]

With the center diff lock not engaging I followed a troubleshooting guide I believe I found on here, I found one of the gear position switches in the transfer case was bad after removing it and testing continuity through it's travel. I ordered a neutral switch from NAPA for approximately $35 installed it... and still not working. I then tested the second gear position switch in the transfer case, it was bad as well. Same neutral switch ordered from NAPA, replaced, and now the CDL works.

The CEL was for P0401, exhaust gas recirculation flow insufficient detected. I had one of my employees pull the EGR valve, it appeared to be working, we cleared out a clogged tube with a drill bill and reinstalled. The CEL came back on some miles later. Did some reading and many people had luck with changing the vacuum switching valve(VSV), I got a generic one from an auto parts store for ~$50, trimmed a tab off the VSV electrical connector and installed. No CEL since, so it seems the VSv fixed it.

For the rear door lock actuators I had one of my employees remove the rear door lock actuators, he found the motors were burnt up. I ordered some motors off of eBay( Mabuchi Door Lock Motor/Actuator; Long 20mm Shaft FC-280PC-22125 280PT 20150 USA | eBay , Mabuchi FC-280PC-22125. These motors have a smooth shaft, the factory ones have a partially splined shaft to grab the worm gear. I tapped the worm gear off, applied loc-tite retaining compound to the motor shaft and the inside of the worm gear, slid it down so 4mm of the shaft was exposed on the end and let dry for a day. He originally installed them so the wires coming off the motor were as they were from the factory which ended up with the actuators working the opposite of the front door. He took them back apart, swapped polarity, and all is good now.

He also removed the factory door speakers, the cone foam was completely gone/seperated on all of them. He installed some Pioneer speakers I purchased from Crutchfield for $100, he had to use ~1" spacers in the rear door. At some point I might try to address the dash speakers and the center console woofer, but it's not a priority at this moment.

With the CDL working I took it out to the Bridgeport Northwest OHV park. I was quite surprised with what it was capable of doing with open diffs and aired down(15psi) highway tires.

 

[GregS86]

As usual, pics don't do justice, I didn't take very many pics because... well a stock LC looks pretty boring offroad. Beatup the exhaust and cats, that will be addressed shortly.

 

[GregS86]

Time to fab up a rear bumper, also purchased some 3/16" and 1/4" plate which I nearly poked my eye out with as I was unhooking the trailer, still have a scar on my forehead and below my eye, we'll see if that goes away or not. Also bought some tubing for rock sliders, control arms, tie rods, etc...




Shortening up the rear overhang by removing the rear crossmember and taking another ~2.5" off, 3.5" total removed IIRC.

 

[GregS86]

Now for for some additional armor that wasn't originally planned.



[url=https://gregsmithracing.smugmug.com/FJFZJ80/n-VMQ8vs/i-nmM4VD7/A] [/URL]

 

[GregS86]

Originally I hadn't planned on those skid plates, in hindsight I would've changed the design some so it was a smooth surface all the way to the back of the bumper. I might put some ~3/4" HDPE infront of the lip on the underside to keep from getting hung up on rocks there. I also hadn't accounted for chassis flexing, someone told me that when I flex out it would pop the fenders/cladding off. I did test it out and all was good, the front ends of bumper moved a tiny amount, the skid plates make contact with the pinch weld and reinforce it enough like it doesn't seem like this will be an issue.

 

[GregS86]

The low hanging cats, muffler(resonator?), and under frame cross under weren't going to last long out on the trail, so time to ditch those and hopefully lose some weight.


I was a little too lazy and cheap to go all the way up to the manifold, so I'll just tie into the existing merge.



I forgot to weigh the existing merge before i welded it onto the new exhaust, so call it roughly 60lbs.

New exhaust, 24lbs, so call it 35lbs saved.


I removed the tuned mass damper on the transfer case, so far I haven't noticed any ill effects

It's had been a minute since I TIG'ed SS, was a little rough at first but started picking it back up.

I wanted to get the car off the lift for the upcoming week so I just tacked a turn down on, I also wanted to get a feel for the sound.


In short, I'm not a fan of the sound; too loud, boomy, and it drones for days. I'm not trying to make it sound 'mean' or anything, I just want it quiet with good clearance. Not sure what I'm gonna do, I might add a second cat(which I left space for intentionally), a second muffler, or a resonator. The original plan was to run the exhaust over the rear axle, so I'll have space to add it back there. But for now, I'm ready to move onto another part of the project. I'll probably fab up either skid plates or rock sliders this weekend(now that I'm caught up with the build).

 

[nukegoat]

Id like to ditch my cats but I've managed to be fine with just a beefy skid plate under them. IMO the cats do a lot to suppress noise, which is an important goal for real offroading

 

[Broski]

• The ARB is not the bumper you want for rock crawling there are lots of bumpers out there with better approach angle. Just saying if you want to show you brother up.

 

[bryson]

Nice looking work! I wonder if your tolerances on the rear bumper/body will be an issue - it looks nice and tight, but these big pigs get their fair share of movement between the body and frame...

I like the exhaust, and will be watching, as I need to build some for myself.

What are your plans for sliders?

 

[nukegoat]

Nice looking work! I wonder if your tolerances on the rear bumper/body will be an issue - it looks nice and tight, but these big pigs get their fair share of movement between the body and frame...

I like the exhaust, and will be watching, as I need to build some for myself.

What are your plans for sliders?

Just let the body hit the bumper, IMO. It looks good to me.

 

[nukegoat]

And you are going to want to remove those fender flares

 

[tominboise]

Nice welding job and layout skills.

 

[Jungle80farmer]

Originally I hadn't planned on those skid plates, in hindsight I would've changed the design some so it was a smooth surface all the way to the back of the bumper. I might put some ~3/4" HDPE infront of the lip on the underside to keep from getting hung up on rocks there. I also hadn't accounted for chassis flexing, someone told me that when I flex out it would pop the fenders/cladding off. I did test it out and all was good, the front ends of bumper moved a tiny amount, the skid plates make contact with the pinch weld and reinforce it enough like it doesn't seem like this will be an issue.

Man that's a sweet looking bumper!

 

[GregS86]

Nice looking work! I wonder if your tolerances on the rear bumper/body will be an issue - it looks nice and tight, but these big pigs get their fair share of movement between the body and frame...

What are your plans for sliders?

So far in my testing I haven't had an issue, I think this bumper is far more stout than most.

I'll be making my own sliders, not sure exactly what my plan is though. There's a chance I might just run them off the body(running board mounts) and not the frame. Originally I wanted to make them stick out from the body as little as possible, but I don't think that's the best idea anymore.

And you are going to want to remove those fender flares

The plan is for them to stay, I don't want to deal with the scratches behind them or using bedliner/similar on the bottom half. Trimming of the sheet metal and flares will be involved. I've come across one guy with 37's and flares, not sure I've seen 40's and flares. I'd rather figure out myself than take someone's word for it that 'it won't work', no offense.

 

[GregS86]

Skid plate fab time; I wanted to make it as smooth as reasonably possible, keep the weight down(ha!), and ditch the factory trans cross member. Mostly made from 1/4" plate steel, took quite a bit longer than I expected, partially because I'm getting burned out from working 5 days a week and then 2 days a week on this truck. Everything sits where it did from the factory, saved 1.625" from ditching the factory cross member, although it drops down behind it for the transfercase.


For the transfercase skid plate I was originally going to go full width plate, but I was feeling too lazy to do it the way I originally wanted to so I went smaller and saved some weight



Combined weight of 77lbs, haven't weighed the factory cross member yet.



For the gas tank skid plate I'm thinking of just riv-nuting some 1/8" plate steel to it.

 

[jcardona1]

Good looking skid plate! How will you remove the front driveshaft though? Won't the transmission drop when you remove the skid?

 

[inkpot]

So far in my testing I haven't had an issue, I think this bumper is far more stout than most.

I'll be making my own sliders, not sure exactly what my plan is though. There's a chance I might just run them off the body(running board mounts) and not the frame. Originally I wanted to make them stick out from the body as little as possible, but I don't think that's the best idea anymore.


The plan is for them to stay, I don't want to deal with the scratches behind them or using bedliner/similar on the bottom half. Trimming of the sheet metal and flares will be involved. I've come across one guy with 37's and flares, not sure I've seen 40's and flares. I'd rather figure out myself than take someone's word for it that 'it won't work', no offense.

There are a bunch of us around here that run 37s and keep the flairs. We run so many brushy/unused trails that I have NO virgin paint anywhere. And we do have a few rocks around Arizona too.