Project: No end in sight

[fyresq]

...until I popped the cover and it looked like this....

So I sold the adapter, gave the t-case to poorboy, and scrapped the tranny gears. I still have the case, top cover, and stick if someone needs it

 

[fyresq]

So now I'm thinking that I might as well just do the v8 and tranny that I want. And in the meantime I bought some 37" MTR's and slapped those on. That's when the future wife comes out to the garage and says "it looks tall and skinny" :maddance: GDMT she was right. My eye travels to the corner of the shop to the dana 60, 14 bolt, and 5.38 gears and I say to myself "Self.......why don't you just build it the way you want it the first time?" So out comes the tranny, t-case, 1F motor, and the axles I had just built. What it really came down to was this: I still had to buy Long axles to keep from breaking with the 37's, had to buy gears, and had to buy lockers. With the 1 tons sitting there with gears already I figured it would almost be a wash.....and why do it twice...?
I sold the t-case to poorboypulling, gave the motor away, and sold the axles to Orangefj45 (Georg) from Stockton

 

[fyresq]

I then decided that full width axles on the cruiser wasn't for me so I took my axle down to WFO in Auburn and they cut down the longside tube on the front 60 to 64.5" WMS to match my stock spring width and resplined my longside axle to match. While they had it apart I had them put a detroit in with the 5.38's and slap on some of their highsteer arms with a knuckle rebuild. For whatever reason, I failed to take a picture of this.
For the 14 bolt I traded my hubs for dually hubs to make the rear 63" WMS and put in the detroit and gears at home. I then shaved it to a 13 bolt and I think I have more clearance than my front 60
I still have to do the disc conversion on the 14 bolt and finish the front outers
Here's a shot of the axle respline

 

[fyresq]

Since I didn't have enough time on my hands I bought a CJ7 to cruise and wheel in......until I changed the axles to widetracks with lockers F&R, put on steel braided lines, had the tranny rebuilt, redid the exhaust/intake manifold, converted it to Howell TBI, and just replaced the D20 with a D300 4:1. It's for sale now cause it was for the wife and she doesn't drive it....and I have the landcruiser to work on. Until it sells, I'll just wheel it a little I originally wanted a jeep but after working on both of them, the FJ40 is definately more stout and funner to work on.

 

[mcwinery]

nice job. Keep the post up.

 

[fyresq]

So I was putting my shafts for my front 60 together the other day and as luck would have it, I couldn't get a u-joint into one of the C's enough to get the clip on.....so I put it in the 20 ton press and proceeded to blow out the u-joint cap trying to squeeze out enough room to get the clip on :maddance: there's another $50 u-joint So I got another u-joint cause you can't just buy caps and tried to put it in again....a little more gently this time and again I couldn't get enough room. So I broke out the calipers and realized the C was bent slightly inward (maybe it got dropped )? So I broke out the BFH and didn't even move it. So I waited until I was at work today and decided to do a little "training" with the jaws of life and spread it just enough to get the clips in

60,000# jaws of life spreader - 1 , Dana 60 axle shaft - 0

 

[jimd4x4]

60,000# jaws of life spreader - 1 , Dana 60 axle shaft - 0


Careful how you brag. The Cruiser Gods may get even. and a or

 

[fyresq]

Back a few months......When I got my 60 front back from WFO and went to mount it up the pinion was almost negative and my castor was so bad my hi steer wouldn't go above my springs

I was bummed cause I had just spent time and money doing the shackle reversal and then cut down the front 60 to match the spring width since I had just messed with the new spring and shackle hangers and now I get to do it again. With the landcruiser axle this was an easy fix because I could adjust my pinion angle and caster to whatever I wanted by rewelding the spring perches and cut and turn the outers which I set at 13deg and +5 respectively. The problem with the dana 60 is that while you could technically rotate the outer c's to change caster, the 60 axle has a cast spring perch on the passenger side diff and you would have to do some major grinding and retapping to get it to work (plus you would pretty much destroy the housing for any other use).

 

[fyresq]

Here's a shot of the rear shackle hanger.....it just hangs down too far (causing a little more lift than I really want) and makes the pinion angle suck

 

[fyresq]

So my first change was to recess the spring hanger into the frame rather than underneath it and, while it seems simple in the pictures, took almost an entire day to cut off the old hangers, drill the big holes thru both sides, grind flat, cut and weld inner frame plates, make double sure the inner dom tubes were straight, mock it up, and then burn them in. Thank the lord for plasma cutters Doing this gave the front a stock spring hanger height or maybe slightly less which is a two inch drop from what it was. It should match the rear nicely since I'm putting in longer Fj55 springs and keeping the shackle hangers the same with 6" shackles which will be about a 45deg plus angle on those and give me a near stock ride height in the rear as well

 

[fyresq]

The shackle hanger change and some 8 degree steel shims (doubled) gave me a much better pinion angle (10-11deg) and a postive 2 caster and now looks like this

 

[fyresq]

Got the FJ55 rear springs mounted, put new bearings, races, seals, rotors, calipers and did a mock up mount of the axle today

 

[fyresq]

Got the rest of the front 60 outers built up with 35 spline stubs, new hub lockouts seals, races, bearings, rotors, studs, etc., etc.

 

[fyresq]

I also installed these outer seals made by Mad Mfg. After having toyota junk for so long I couldn't believe that there was no seal (besides the inner seal at the diff) to keep water, mud, and junk out of the axle tube

 

[fyresq]

Here's a shot of what a dana 60 30 spline stub looks like compared to a d44 19 spline (stolen from billavista)

and what the difference is between the dana 60 30 spline and 35 spline

 

[fyresq]

Here's how she sits now

 

[fyresq]

To address a weakness with the dana 60 front, I decided to tap a third stud in the cast spring perch since the two stock bolts are notorious for breaking or stripping under heavy use. For those that don't know, the Dana 60 has a cast spring perch (in my case on the passenger side - GM). Incidentally this is the easiest way to determine if a front axle is a dana 60 - it will only have 3 u bolts (stock) vs. toy axles, D44's, D30's. etc. which have 4 u-bolts. It always seems to impress people when you take a quick look and say - nope that isn't a dana 60 This is what the cast perch looks like:

 

[fyresq]

normally the top "u-bolt" plate looks like this in stock form. Because it is so thick it's a pain to tap a third stud so I got a custom one from Ruffstuffspecialties.com with the third hole already drilled.

new custom one with third hole

 

[fyresq]

Here's the difference between the D44 stud that I'm using which is fine thread 9/16's vs. the coarse thread D60 stud used in the other two holes. GM (don't know about the others) uses bolts rather than studs in stock form so the studs already make the setup a little more stout let alone with the third stud tapped in....

And a picture of the 3rd middle hole tapped

 

[fyresq]

And the finish......still have to cut down the studs a little