Project Space Shuttle - 5.0 powered '84 FJ60 on Coilovers

[FordFascist]

Yes that is a GT500 under the cover.

No, I don't drive the Super Duty every day. It's here to tow s***, soak up insurance premiums and otherwise occupy space. I don't get the concept of daily driving something like that. For what the tires are going to cost to replace I could buy a used commuter and drive it off a cliff every three years and still come out ahead.

@FordFascist can you quantify/explain how much better your new suspension rides or performs? Maybe hard to say objectively because of your hard work but I'm def interested to hear what you feel like you gain on & off road

It rides a ton better, the ride is far less jarring than before. It rides very well. Very compliantly. I should say that this is not an indictment of leafs, as my rock crawler rides awesome and is on leafs all around. Your ride quality has much more to do with spring rate than with link type. Longer leafs mean more travel, less axle wrap, less spring rate for the same ride height.

Before everyone jumps on the 3 link bandwagon, spring-over, shackle reversal with 50+" front springs would net you an awesome quality of ride. Did I mention you're probably going to save thousands of dollars doing this?

Here's a link:

That said, I do not have enough shock valving on the rear of the FJ60 so it has a bit of oscillation on the bumps in the back. It's not bad on the street, but my first experience running the dunes at Pismo meant the rear had a tendency to bounce at speed. It would handle better with much more dampning as a rising rear is an unusual driving experience.

I think I'm going to upgrade to Bilstein 7100s with a base 360/80 NM valve stack and see where I can go from there. The front seems to be close for now, though I'm thinking I'll probably be served tuning those as well. Though I can't really tackle the front until the back end of this is more manageable - I'm just not feeling the urge to spend $500 right now on another set of shocks.

 

[RBA]

Wow, I'm in awe of the work and knowledge that went into this. Way above my technical prowess. I'm just trying to install a freaking OME lift by myself. Well done sir!

 

[FordFascist]

I got another wild hair today and decided that I am not going to live by popular wisdom. There was no way I felt I was going to spend $200+ on Aussie mirrors. Nor was I going to spend that on '62 mirrors. Did I mention my current mirrors sucked and were tiny?

I should mention I did this mod at noon today and it was 90 degrees outside. So in between the bouts of swearing I at least got to work on my tan.

I decided I was going to try 73-87 Chevy K series mirrors. They appear to have worked. The only thing I had to do which was painful was drill 2 mounting holes per side and put in a 6 x 1.0 mm rivnut. I reused the forward existing mirror threaded hole.

And I did need to tweak the mirror post slightly as the mirror lense wasn't perfectly level right out of the box. It was pretty easy though. I turned the glass section of the mirror down so I had a place to push on, clamped a 1/2 extension in the vice and used it to support the door side of the mirror tube. I then applied light pressure to get the angle just right. Now I have big mirrors that cost $46 for the pair from Amazon. I can break 5 sets and still be ahead.

 

[cruisermatt]

They look good on your truck because it's big and there's no chrome.

It wouldn't look good on a stick truck though.

 

[FordFascist]

I had too little rear shock dampning on this thing. So since I can't leave well enough alone, I opted to change them a bit so I can have a bit better manners when driving over bumps in the desert. I should also add that the freeways in the bay area are so beat to hell that often times the fire roads out in the desert are smoother.

If you all recall I had the shocks canted in at about a 35-40* angle. This reduced their effectiveness.

So instead of investing a bunch of money in higher valved shocks, I opted to move the mounts. I lose a bit of ground clearance on the axle (though this isn't a rock crawler) but I'm still happy with the results. The lower mounts are for an 8.8 Ford in a Jeep Wrangler, so they are plenty strong. Upper mounts are canted Ebay units for a 1.75" tube. You'll notice everything is much dirtier, because I'm now driving this every day.


Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's getting dark too soon. Though it's still in the mid 80's out here..

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Did correcting the angle correct your dampening issue?

 

[FordFascist]

Did correcting the angle correct your dampening issue?

Yes, for the most part. The back end is far more stable on the road now. I haven't had the chance to test this out on any rolling dune type terrain yet.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I love those mounts. I wish I could use them on my truck.

 

[FordFascist]

As much as it pains me to admit, the warm weather is coming to an end at some point in the next month or two. Well actually you could probably survive with a subpar heater down here in the South Bay, but since I travel to Reno, NV quite frequently (and it's supposed to actually snow this year) I figured it might be nice to have a heater in the cold weather. I've established my Land Cruiser is a phenomenal freezer in the summer but how is it in the other 25% of the year? Time to test the heater.

My front heater didn't work very well. Since I'm scientific and s*** I wanted to make sure I wasn't just being weird and subjective.

After driving to the local Whole Foods in the Space Shuttle and antagonizing the GreenPeace activists outside - I did an experiment with the front and rear heaters. The rear heater at full measured at 144* F. The front was at 101*. It was 75 outside today, so that isn't much of a temperature increase.

I did some reading here and saw a bunch of different methods:
$4 Vinegar for 2 days
$15 CLR for 2 hours
$7 Muriatic Acid for 15 minutes

Clearly the Muriatic acid is the winner. Faster, more destructive and far more hazardous.

I made a pretty simple rig to flush the core in reverse of flow. I used 8 ft of 5/8 vinyl tubing with a hose adapter, and dilluted the Muriatic acid to about 2/3 potency because I'd rather do this a couple of times than eat a hole through the heater core.

I first flushed as much of the crap out on low pressure as I could. Then I used low pressure air to push the remainder of the water out.

The I rigged a funnel to the side of the hood and poored in my acid mix. Instantly I saw some bubbles (good sign). I waited about 15 minutes and then flushed this all out.

I hooked everything back up and gave it a try. I got 145* out of both front and back. Good stuff now I can brave some El Nino blizzards in the Sierras this winter.

 

[RBA]

Awesome!

 

[klinetime574]

Very nice work on the heater core. That is my biggest fear, if I ever decide to clean that thing and then I have a busted heater core. Glad yours went smoothly and you'll be able to make it through El Nino!

 

[BlueCruiser84]

You didn't want yo go ahead and pop those shocks up through the floor?

I know you don't rock crawl this thing, but do you think you'll see any issue from having both upper/lower shock mounts parallel with each other? I always wondered if, when the axle was crossed up, having shock mount pins parallel would destroy the bushings. Or maybe bushings are made for that kind of abuse.

 

[FordFascist]

You didn't want yo go ahead and pop those shocks up through the floor?

I know you don't rock crawl this thing, but do you think you'll see any issue from having both upper/lower shock mounts parallel with each other? I always wondered if, when the axle was crossed up, having shock mount pins parallel would destroy the bushings. Or maybe bushings are made for that kind of abuse.

I've read that too. I thought about the physics of it then I looked at every factory truck out there - and they are parallel.

If one shock is all the way up and the other is all the way down, there is a 14 inch difference in height, over 31 inches of axle tube. That equates to 24.3* of which some will be mitigated by the axle rotating about its roll center - lessening the misalignment on the bushing.

 

[FordFascist]

It's been a while since I updated my thread, though I recently changed to steel wheels with better offset so my steering would have less of a wandering effect on the road.

What I discovered after doing some measurements is that an effective 3.5" backspaced 7.75" wheel on 37s has a neutral (read: zero) scrub radius. That presents a problem driving down the road as the wheel will effectively follow any and all changes in the road.

The advantage of being a in the top three most redneck houses in your suburban neighborhood is having at least a set or two of wheels and tires that will fit your truck. I took the 35 x 12.50s on 15x8 with 3.5" backspacing off my SR5.0 mini truck.

I test drove it and the steering wander was pretty much eliminated. So I bought some ProComp 17x9 3.5 backspace wheels and remounted my used 37s on them. It's about 5 inches wider total now. Here it is on the new wheels.

 

[gregnash]

LOL... very nice dude... Looks like you got some good stuff going and look forward to possibly seeing your truck up here this winter... Dont know if you saw the reports but Squaw was reporting 17" this morning over the last 24hrs (that was at like 9am). Looks to have gotten a pretty significant dump plus more to come on Sunday.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I'm very interested in how you determined that your wheel combination (scrub radius) would cause wander. How did you determine that?

I ask because I have a little bit of wander (not what I consider dangerous) and according to the alignment machine, my alignment is dead on.

 

[FordFascist]

LOL... very nice dude... Looks like you got some good stuff going and look forward to possibly seeing your truck up here this winter... Dont know if you saw the reports but Squaw was reporting 17" this morning over the last 24hrs (that was at like 9am). Looks to have gotten a pretty significant dump plus more to come on Sunday.

I think I'll be up in Reno in the next couple of weeks. No one tells me my schedule this far out though. I'm curious how this pig performs in the snow.

I'm very interested in how you determined that your wheel combination (scrub radius) would cause wander. How did you determine that?

I ask because I have a little bit of wander (not what I consider dangerous) and according to the alignment machine, my alignment is dead on.

Essentially your tire would wander all over the place if placed exactly neutral e.g. zero caster, zero toe, and zero scrub. All place a force on the wheel's direction to some degree. A perpendicular force vector (scrub) is far better at turning a wheel than one that is nearly parallel (caster). This means that while driving both tires receive a force that tries to turn them pointing out. Since both front tires are tied by a common tie rod they effectively cancel out the opposite wheel's force and act to return the steering wheel to center. I can definitely feel the difference as opposed to before.

Most alignment shops know dick about suspension. They read the numbers and don't deviate. I've demonstrated this earlier in the thread when the alignment guy cranked my suspension lower link to the point where my right and left side wheel bases were 1" different and then arguing with me about it how my 3 link that I designed and built worked. Then he told me about his Camaro. We're now mortal enemies. I think there are very few instances I would ever take my vehicles to get aligned.

Toyota solid axles (FJ40, FJ60, and Mini Trucks all have 9.5* (+/- .75*) King pin inclination angle (KPI) for number savvy. For every inch you go up on radius, your scrub radius goes out 3/16"

There's a lot of deep explanations as to various effects, but no one wants a physics lesson on a Friday night. Rear wheel drive and 4x4s benefit some degree of positive scrub. Front wheel drive and performance cars want negative scrub.

Scrub radius (+/-) is a way to correct for less caster (decreasing steering effort at low speeds) while maintaining return to center feel at higher speeds. There's also a lot of other components tied into KPI and camber gain; but frankly we don't care about that with solid front axles. Remember taller = wider.

Positive Scrub:

• Good for solid front axle
• Causes net toe-in under power (4x4)
• Needs less caster to hold wheel straight
• Easier to turn in low speeds
• Low KPI applications (<10*)

Negative Scrub:

• Good for IFS
• Causes slight toe-out under power (thus slight anti-dive)
• Needs less caster to hold wheels straight
• Toe in under braking
• Less vehicle movement when turning (known as jacking when the tire changes the suspension height when turned on high KPI high offset)
• High KPI applications (>10*)

There's probably a million other things that I forgot to summarize. There were just my notes observed from measuring the Fascist fleet and feeding my suspension engineer copious amounts of alcohol in Mexico ( ScarboPerformance.com ) and asking him questions.

 

[daytonadogie]

Nice explanation! Could you pass along what your toe setting is?

 

[FordFascist]

Nice explanation! Could you pass along what your toe setting is?

My toe setting is now at 0.2* toe in per tire. That equates to 5/16 tow in roughly. It drives better now but definitely needs new tires.

Since I'm unable to leave well-enough alone with anything I own, I decided to do the Tundra 13WL brake upgrade on the Space Shuttle.

I had to use two 12mm washers on the FROR brackets that I installed.

Tacoma Brake Mounting Kit


I also had to machine down the IFS hubs to fit the Tundra rotor. Also keep in mind that many wheels will not clear this without a spacer and you cannot grind very much out of the caliper.

Here's to pictures:

Brake rotor ID

Rotor thickness

IFS hub

Beautiful Amazon special 13WL calipers

I took my IFS drive hub over to my old work (like old as in high school) and used a drum brake lathe to turn it in order to allow the Tundra disc to fit over. Front Range has all the measurements, I just machined it until my rotors cleared. You don't really need any sort of precision as the studs hold the rotor centered.

I decided to paint it while I was in there.

 

[FordFascist]

I worked and got this in tonight since I needed to make some room in my garage. I flipped my knuckles side to side because the factory ears will cause interference with the 13WL calipers. I'm also running Bendix MKD976 Titanium Metallic pads

Disassembled:

FROR brackets

It looks like artwork. Or a race car. I'm not sure yet.

Those are 17s for reference.

My initial impressions are that it stops much better. The pedal feel is a little softer but the brakes will now throw you through the windshield. I haven't really put enough heat cycles to bed in the brakes so we will find out in a day or two if they have improved dramatically.