Builds My First 4x4 Build - 94 Triple Locked (1 Viewer)

[BayArea80]

4/20/18:

Slowly but surely the pile of parts was getting smaller. Today, I would gain back a bunch of space by finally installing my front bumper. This is a Trail Gear tube bumper with their "stinger"

Here it is in all it's new glory. What a change the front bumper makes!

4/21/18:

The morning started with the removal of the next group of factory parts, the running boards. Overall, piece of cake, but there were a couple bolts on the rearmost bracket that were a complete pain to get to. On the bright side, now I could turn lock to lock again!

Oh...and today was the day I finally went to go shake down the truck! Months of work and I finally got to go have some fun at the local SRVA. It's a tiny little spot that would bore most, but it's close by.

 

[nukegoat]

Neat

 

[BayArea80]

4/22:

My window felt had long rotted away in the southern California sun, so those were replaced. Hopefully this cuts down on the wind noise.

Before:

After:

4/24: So after the coolant flush a leak developed. So out came the old clamp and in went a new Breeze clamp! Why does our coolant look like purple drank when dry??

After:

 

[BayArea80]

4/28: No working on the truck this weekend as I was headed to a buddy's bachelor party. Of all the places to be without my truck, we were celebrating in MOAB! We did get to drive around Hells Gates in some RZR's, so I can't really complain. I didn't take too many photos as I was mostly recording as we were going over the various obstacles.

Stopped by when we saw a crowd waiting around for a buggy getting ready to attempt the bowl. It took forever so we just left. There was a smaller bowl right around the corner from this we got to try. I am thoroughly impressed by these RZR's!

Did I mention that Utah has some of the most spectacular views?

 

[BayArea80]

5/2: More parts showed up today. This is my missing steering column cover and the various window moldings that have since cracked and peeled on the exterior of the truck.

5/4: Went to go start up the truck today and noticed it was running poorly. I got a CEL that indicated a faulty O2 sensor. However, the engine was running so rough that I decided to go check around for other possibly culprits. What I found was that the injector for cylinder #6 had failed, high resistance across the pins. If you haven't had to get to it, injector #6 is a b*tch to get to...

5/6: While I figured out what the plan of attack was for the injector, I went ahead and installed a few other things I had accumulated.

First, my new Comeup 9.5rsi winch. Fully sealed, synthetic line, wireless remote, and battery monitor. Everything packaged nicely.

Here it is mocked up. It would have to come out again as I was going to have some work done to the front bumper. Also worthwhile to note is that the mounting holes for the fairlead had to be elongated to allow for the fairlead to mount flush. The top interfered with bumper tube.

5/8: Cut the plug off the factory front seats and wired them into the Audi seats. Just power and ground, nothing fancy.

5/9: The truck was off to @eurosonic and Stellar Built for some fab work. Since I did not have the injectors sorted out yet, I opted to use my AAA account and have the truck towed up. Stellar would pull the injectors and have them sent out to RC Engineering for servicing while they were doing the rest of the work on the truck while I was off on a work trip.

 

[keithlc]

Nice truck mate and build looks huge !

 

[BayArea80]

Nice truck mate and build looks huge !

Thanks! Stay tuned for more!

 

[SupraTuRD]

We need MOAR!

 

[BayArea80]

We need MOAR!

Ask and you shall receive!

5/5/18 (forgot from above):

I finally had some time to use the bracket @I Lean made for me, it fits great! I went with a Cerwin Vegas VPAS10 in the stock location. Much like most other that have done a similar have said, this helps to round out the stereo but I definitely wouldn't mind some more bump.

5/16/18:

Started to get some updated photos from @eurosonic First up was adding a couple recovery points to the Trail Gear from bumper:

Next was adding some plates on the top side of the bumper. (Credit goes to @bryson for the great ideas!) The minor difference between his and mine is that my top plate goes all the way to the end of the tube.

5/21/18:

Sliders are next. I went with Stellar Built's "Super Sliders" with the dimple die plate in the center. These are built out of DOM and have 4 mounting points.

5/22/18:

I had purchased a 4x4 Labs rear bumper and dual swing out kit during the group buy. I had it shipped to @eurosonic to put together and to build me some accessory mounts.

My requests were: a high mounted tire carrier, dual jerry can holder, and a hi-lift mount. It probably would have been simpler to buy the full kit, but what's the fun in that? They started by building the main hoops and tire carrier (sorry for the IG story screenshot). Since I was hanging a 37 off of it, they made the carrier extra beefy!

Here is the first proposed hi lift mount. I ended up scratching this idea as I did not like how it suck past the roof. Check out the sweet mount they cut out with their CNC.

5/25/18:

I had been traveling the week prior so I was really excited to go and see the truck in person and I was not disappointed! Here is the finished product. The hi lift mounting provisions are now positioned under the tire carrier (the two studs with knobs). The guys built a custom jerry can holder.

So remember how I had the truck towed up? Well RC Engineering was supposed to ship the injectors back overnight to Stellar so that they could have the truck ready by the time I came back. However, they shipped them ground, so the truck was stranded. I ended up grabbing a rental car and making the 1.5hr drive home for the night.

5/26/18:

I made my way back to Stellar in the morning to await the arrival of the injectors. They finally showed up just before lunch. Here's the thing...the one failed injector...RC had told me that the coil was fried and they would send an aftermarket replacement. Guess what...they forgot to send the replacement injector. So that meant that I was again stranded...I eventually sucked it up and called AAA again and got the truck towed home. There goes 2 out of my 4 tows for the year....

The downside is that I did not get to enjoy the comforts of my new seats! I can share more details on how we fitted the seats if anyone is interested. Talk about an upgrade over the factory seats that had chunks missing from them!

 

[FPCastle]

Definitely want to hear more about the seats!!

 

[BayArea80]

This post will be a bit of a picture dump related to the work Stellar Built did:

Jerry can holder:

I really like how tight the accessory hoops are to the body and how it has a nice flow to it.

 

[BayArea80]

Definitely want to hear more about the seats!!

First thing, first. I have to give credit to those before me that took the initiative to try installing different seats in the 80. If you are thinking about getting rid of your old seats, give this thread a visit: COMPILED - 80 Series Seat Swap Thread

In particular, I want to give credit to @milemarker60 for being the one that inspired this. See post #145 and how sweet his A4 S-Line seats look. what seats can I put in my Landcruiser I do have to say I think the A4 seats look more at home in the 80 as they are less sporty.

That being said, having sat in my buddy's S4 and knowing how well I fit in those, I opted for that instead. The S4 and S5 seats are the same, so I expected that they would fit.

Stellar Built made easy work of the front brackets with their CNC. A straight bar with a couple of bent tabs to bolt into the factory locations were cut out and bent. Then they were bolted in place.

The rear supports were ground off the factory seats and loosely bolted in place.

The Audi seats have locating pins and the seat was placed with the locating pins set into the stock brackets. Then seat was squared up and then tacked into place, both in the front and rear.

From there the brackets were welded up solid to the Audi rails.

So the install was not without any hiccups:

1. The Audi seat belt receivers are bolted in place with a special bolt, it requires a triple-square bit to remove them. It's like an extra fancy torx.
2. The Toyota seat belts, specifically the latch plates, do not clip into the Audi buckles. The guide by @milemarker60 indicated that they just shaved down the latch plate and it would clip in. Well I shaved it down and it is not long enough to depress the locking lever inside the buckle. I ended up going to Pick-n-Pull and found a temporary solution. I am using the rear seat belt buckles out of a late 90's Toyota Camry. What that means is that they do not match my interior and that they do not stay in place like normal belt receivers do on front seats. These are fabric between the buckle and the bracket so they just flop over like they would on the rear seat. That being said, they work just find and I did not need to shave down my latch plate.

All in all I am super happy with the decision. $375 for the seats and a couple hundred for the seat brackets. Good luck beating that deal! I will eventually get to wiring up the heater elements, but for now I am good without.

 

[FPCastle]

First thing, first. I have to give credit to those before me that took the initiative to try installing different seats in the 80. If you are thinking about getting rid of your old seats, give this thread a visit: COMPILED - 80 Series Seat Swap Thread

In particular, I want to give credit to @milemarker60 for being the one that inspired this. See post #145 and how sweet his A4 S-Line seats look. what seats can I put in my Landcruiser I do have to say I think the A4 seats look more at home in the 80 as they are less sporty.

That being said, having sat in my buddy's S4 and knowing how well I fit in those, I opted for that instead. The S4 and S5 seats are the same, so I expected that they would fit.

Stellar Built made easy work of the front brackets with their CNC. A straight bar with a couple of bent tabs to bolt into the factory locations were cut out and bent. Then they were bolted in place.

The rear supports were ground off the factory seats and loosely bolted in place.

The Audi seats have locating pins and the seat was placed with the locating pins set into the stock brackets. Then seat was squared up and then tacked into place, both in the front and rear.

From there the brackets were welded up solid to the Audi rails.

So the install was not without any hiccups:

1. The Audi seat belt receivers are bolted in place with a special bolt, it requires a triple-square bit to remove them. It's like an extra fancy torx.
2. The Toyota seat belts, specifically the latch plates, do not clip into the Audi buckles. The guide by @milemarker60 indicated that they just shaved down the latch plate and it would clip in. Well I shaved it down and it is not long enough to depress the locking lever inside the buckle. I ended up going to Pick-n-Pull and found a temporary solution. I am using the rear seat belt buckles out of a late 90's Toyota Camry. What that means is that they do not match my interior and that they do not stay in place like normal belt receivers do on front seats. These are fabric between the buckle and the bracket so they just flop over like they would on the rear seat. That being said, they work just find and I did not need to shave down my latch plate.

All in all I am super happy with the decision. $375 for the seats and a couple hundred for the seat brackets. Good luck beating that deal! I will eventually get to wiring up the heater elements, but for now I am good without.

Awesome! Thanks for the info. This is definitely on the list of upcoming projects.

 

[mudgudgeon]

5/8: Cut the plug off the factory front seats and wired them into the Audi seats. Just power and ground, nothing fancy.

Hey @BayArea80 can you confirm all you needed to get seats powered up was power and ground wires? Nothing else?

 

[Nicholas787]

@mudgudgeon thats right. Power and ground should do all the motors. Heater wiring is separate again if you have that

 

[BayArea80]

Ok...it's been several months since I have updated this thread and I had only gotten to May...so I have a bunch of catching up to do starting now.

6/1/18:

RC Engineering was able to source a stock injector, cleaned it, and shipped it to me and off I went getting them reinstalled. While I was in there, I also replaced the fuel filter and I can say for certain that if you have your intake manifold apart, go and change your fuel filter while you are in there.

After getting the truck fired up, I went for a test drive and the truck immediately sounded different. There was a loud chattering sound coming from the drivetrain. This is different from the sound that your DS makes due to the angles, but just in case I threw in my new Tom Woods DC shaft.

That did not help and so off it went and in 4L the truck went so I would see if the sound persisted with the front DS off and it did. So long story short, I never did exactly pin down what was wrong, but when I drained the transfer case the fluid had a glittery look to it.

So that was enough for me to determine that something was wrong in the transfer case and within a day I had a replacement from Rancho Toyota Recycling for $275. If you want to hear what it sounded like, you can see the thread I posted about it: Loud Chattering & Whining coming from drivetrain


6/9/18:

After a trip to Harbor Freight to get a transmission jack, under the truck I went to replace the transfer case. All things considered, this was a pretty straightforward job. Once the new case went in everything was nice and quiet…phew!

A few things I would note to those who plan to do this in the future:

1. Get the transmission jack and find a friend to help you. The transfer case is heavy and you can seriously hurt yourself if you are not careful.
   
2. Invest in a set of long box wrenches. Those DS bolts can be tight and you also want to be able to torque them back down well.
   
3. Disconnect the low range shift linkage from the shifter (cotter pin side) so that you do not have to re-index the linkage.
   
4. Disconnect the part of the exhaust that wraps over the frame from the cats to the muffler.
   
5. When installing the transfer case, make sure the shift linkage is in a position where it doesn’t get pinned against the transmission tunnel (ask me how I know)

Out with the old:

 

[BayArea80]

6/16/2018:


Now that I got the truck running again, it was time to address all the newly fabricated components. As the truck no longer fits in the garage, it sat outside and saw some rain which resulted in some surface rust. Not a huge deal but it did add a few hours of prep before I could lay down some paint. I decided to go with spray painting not because it was cheaper, but because I expect that I will be scratching them up regularly so being able to quickly touch them up is ideal. Frankly I would have much rather dropped them off for powdercoating, but thinking more long term. Oh and word to the wise, cover up the whole side of the truck when spray painting, otherwise you still end up with overspray that you have to take a clay bar to afterwards.

Here's a finished shot of the bumper after installing my Factor55 FlatLink E. I really love the way this all come together!

 

[Box Rocket]

Good stuff.

 

[cme4lyt]

Beautiful build, I’m gonna have to come look sometime, swap some ‘build stories’

 

[BayArea80]

Beautiful build, I’m gonna have to come look sometime, swap some ‘build stories’

Thank you! Hit me up and we’ll set something up.