Build Rutherford Clappy III and Associated Ramblings...

[peacesells63]

Woohoo!

I donate my prize to @Somebodyelse5 under the condition that he donates it to TRAL

 

[Somebodyelse5]

Woohoo!

I donate my prize to @Somebodyelse5 under the condition that he donates it to TRAL

Your terms are acceptable

 

[ARJMN]

Your terms are acceptable

Ill make the donation in your name. Thanks for playing!

 

[-Spike-]

You guys are awesome! While most of TRAL's funding comes from grants, they have strict restrictions on what they can be used for. Discretionary funding that donations like this provide fills in the gaps and is huge for TRAL's ability to function. Thank you!

 

[ARJMN]

Donation to TRAL complete on behalf of @peacesells63.

@-Spike-

 

[ARJMN]

Hello all, I wanted to make comment that this build is temporarily on pause while I wait for the remaining pieces of the swap kit, AND while I rebuild my LS that I sank in the Gila River. Still 100% committed here, I just want to get my gasser back on the road ASAP so I can maintain my sanity when the heat comes and I need an escape to cooler camping weather.

Read about my indiscretion here: Builds - Another LS swap? Really??? - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/another-ls-swap-really.1100160/post-14904093

 

[ARJMN]

Time for a small update on the project. I am back from a grueling 24 days in the field and trying to reestablish a little momentum on this build. I stated above that I was waiting on the next round of parts to be run for the swap, and that stands, but I did talk to them and they have completed the prototype and are fitting them all up this month. Ahead of the need date for all those bits is the work to complete the frame. Before I headed off for work, I was able to get the frame degreased, pressure washed, and painted. I had previously moved it to the back yard to yield the garage for the LS post mortem, and that actually worked out great. It gave me the room to move around, scrape, sand, and prep the frame in the sun. The sun made all the years of schmegma soft and much easier to remove. I started with the frame upside down, let the frame warm up in the sun, hit with a 4500psi pressure washer, and then cleaned up the stubborn bits with a collection of wire wheels, cups, and scotch brite discs on the die grinders. I did not get much in the line of in process pics, but I did snap a few of the finished product. I also ordered all the little plastic bits and and clips on that hold the fuel and brake lines. It will be very satisfying to see it all so fresh. I did leave the portion where I modified the engine crossmember unpainted due to the fact that I found I missed about 5mm of weld on the bottom, and the fact that I decided to further gusset it.

 

[ARJMN]

In between coats of paint on the frame(there are 3 complete coats) I was in the garage working one of the 1200 remaining tasks in the build. My 97 LS450 has had J springs the entire time I have owned it, and while I initially liked the 3+ inches of lift, I have grown tired of wearing out u-joints in record time. I will take ownership of this as a 400hp LS and a grins from the right foot are largely to blame, there is a good bit of blame to cast on the change in pinion angle resulting from the J springs. I threw the catalogue at my LS build, and have since learned a few key lessons on why Toyota spec'd details the wat they did on the 80 Series. To ensure the pinion angle is set properly on the diesel build, I am trying out a set of Slee weld-in upper link adjusters. The pic here shows the prep work ahead of the welding. I'll post up the finished result. It is worth noting that I am only running 2" lift springs on this build, but also using a 1" body lift to clear the NV4500. That should give plenty of room to flex the 35s without much rubbing.

I have also been rethinking my storage plan for both rigs. I have built three different drawers systems for the LX, and none of them have been the end all. I find that I do more day trips or single night trips than I do longer trips. This leads me to want a reconfigurable setup that keeps weight to a minimum. When I have headed out for long trips in the LX I have tipped the scales at about 100lbs under GVW. While we don't have the strict laws banning being overweight here in the US that many of our counterparts across the globe have, I still like to stay within specified limits. My last set of drawers weighted in around 150lbs, and that weight is there 100% of the time they are there whether I need all the kit or not. My new approach is to use the Milwaukee Pack Out system in order to build boxes that can be swapped in and out or moved from rig to rig depending on the trip needs. I have started with an XL and L box with 2 open top crates, all of which lock together. The wood on the floor is the base plate from my last set of drawers. The last set was designed in CREO and I laid it out to built of modular drawer units that could be rearranged as needed. This was a great learning exercise, and in the end showed me that wood and heavy drawer slides were never going to deliver on my goals of a lightweight and reconfigurable setup. I resisted joining the Red Army for quite some time, mainly out of frugalness in that my DeWalt tools are still running strong 7 years after purchase. After using so many of the Milwaukee M12/M18 tools in the field and seeing that our dealer techs beat the hell out of them and rarely ever see a failure, I acquiesced and bought my first bit of red. I am sold on them and am seeing value in the more of the Milwaukee line of solutions. So far I have built a must-have kit in the XL box. That contains my recovery gear, spares, tools, and repair manual. While not a one handed operation, I can swap that box from my '97 to my '96 in seconds. I don't have to have 2 sets of everything. I just make sure that what I need to cover both rigs is in the one kit and that it is in the rig I am heading off in. I also picked up the platform with castors that allows me to pull the Pack Outs out of the rigs, stack them together and roll them off to a corner of the garage. The L box is my kitchen stuff. I have plates, flatware, spices, and all the other kitchen related stuff. The crates will be used for toss and go items. I am optimistic interlocking design will eliminate the need for straps to secure it all, but also realistic that this may still have some key flaws yet to be discovered. Stay tuned for more thoughts.

 

[Saddletramp]

In between coats of paint on the frame(there are 3 complete coats) I was in the garage working one of the 1200 remaining tasks in the build. My 97 LS450 has had J springs the entire time I have owned it, and while I initially liked the 3+ inches of lift, I have grown tired of wearing out u-joints in record time. I will take ownership of this as a 400hp LS and a grins from the right foot are largely to blame, there is a good bit of blame to cast on the change in pinion angle resulting from the J springs. I threw the catalogue at my LS build, and have since learned a few key lessons on why Toyota spec'd details the wat they did on the 80 Series. To ensure the pinion angle is set properly on the diesel build, I am trying out a set of Slee weld-in upper link adjusters. The pic here shows the prep work ahead of the welding. I'll post up the finished result. It is worth noting that I am only running 2" lift springs on this build, but also using a 1" body lift to clear the NV4500. That should give plenty of room to flex the 35s without much rubbing.

View attachment 3335095View attachment 3335094

I have also been rethinking my storage plan for both rigs. I have built three different drawers systems for the LX, and none of them have been the end all. I find that I do more day trips or single night trips than I do longer trips. This leads me to want a reconfigurable setup that keeps weight to a minimum. When I have headed out for long trips in the LX I have tipped the scales at about 100lbs under GVW. While we don't have the strict laws banning being overweight here in the US that many of our counterparts across the globe have, I still like to stay within specified limits. My last set of drawers weighted in around 150lbs, and that weight is there 100% of the time they are there whether I need all the kit or not. My new approach is to use the Milwaukee Pack Out system in order to build boxes that can be swapped in and out or moved from rig to rig depending on the trip needs. I have started with an XL and L box with 2 open top crates, all of which lock together. The wood on the floor is the base plate from my last set of drawers. The last set was designed in CREO and I laid it out to built of modular drawer units that could be rearranged as needed. This was a great learning exercise, and in the end showed me that wood and heavy drawer slides were never going to deliver on my goals of a lightweight and reconfigurable setup. I resisted joining the Red Army for quite some time, mainly out of frugalness in that my DeWalt tools are still running strong 7 years after purchase. After using so many of the Milwaukee M12/M18 tools in the field and seeing that our dealer techs beat the hell out of them and rarely ever see a failure, I acquiesced and bought my first bit of red. I am sold on them and am seeing value in the more of the Milwaukee line of solutions. So far I have built a must-have kit in the XL box. That contains my recovery gear, spares, tools, and repair manual. While not a one handed operation, I can swap that box from my '97 to my '96 in seconds. I don't have to have 2 sets of everything. I just make sure that what I need to cover both rigs is in the one kit and that it is in the rig I am heading off in. I also picked up the platform with castors that allows me to pull the Pack Outs out of the rigs, stack them together and roll them off to a corner of the garage. The L box is my kitchen stuff. I have plates, flatware, spices, and all the other kitchen related stuff. The crates will be used for toss and go items. I am optimistic interlocking design will eliminate the need for straps to secure it all, but also realistic that this may still have some key flaws yet to be discovered. Stay tuned for more thoughts.

View attachment 3335096

View attachment 3335110

I settled on the front runner boxes for the same reason, easy to unpac the truck and repack. Box weights are light.

 

[ARJMN]

I settled on the front runner boxes for the same reason, easy to unpac the truck and repack. Box weights are light.

Steve, those are what I started planning around after seeing your’s and Richard’s setups on the last run I was on. It opened up my thinking on flexibility in packing.

 

[ARJMN]

I had a productive day in the garage this weekend, and got a few more things knocked off the list. Number one was the reassembly of the rear axle. I had originally planned to completely teardown the axle and give it the same detail as the frame, but...better sense got me and told me I needed to make progress on all my projects, not just this one. I ended up stripping it down enough to gain access to all the surface rust areas and took care of that with wire wheels and some elbow grease. From there I installed new park brake shoes, pads, rotors, and a few of the springs and keepers that showed signs of wear. My addiction to these rigs and too much time on the web means that I have amassed a cache of 80 Series OEM parts as spares that have come in handy more than a few times when doing jobs like this. When ordering from Aamayama or Partsquo, I have to order enough to amortize the shipping and make it worth the expense, so I tend to add on tons of clips, claps, and doohickeys that I think may be of value at some point. Much to my pleasure, I had all the parts I needed to complete this job on hand in my private stock. I didn't stop to take any process pics, but you can see the pretty new OEM Toyota rotors. FYI, I have tried aftermarket parts on these axles, and I can report that the ONLY way I have gotten the parking brake to work worth a flip is to use 100% Toyota parts. I still have never gotten the mythical 7 click adjustment dialed, but it does hold on a hill. Maybe somebody with more mojo can, but I can't. I topped it off with a set of Slee SS brake lines replacing the 27 year old rubber lines.

Front axle will get the same treatment in time.

 

[ARJMN]

The rest of the day was spent addressing the also 27 year old suspension bushes in the stock arms. When I started this project and was compiling my list of parts I knew I needed, bushes were on that list. I later decided that Delta 3L Radius Arms were the path forward, and since I had the bushes already, I ordered them without. Brother, let me tell you, if you have to press in a complete set of bushes, you will see the value in the air/oil jack upgrade for the Harbor Freight 20 Ton Press. I was tired of cranking that thing up and down for every bushing. Long term, I will add a hydro electric press to my quiver.

Thanks to @NLXTACY for selling these great items and @GeoRoss for loaning them to me. I needed to fab a block to set the Delta arms on in order to center the bushes in the arms, so I broke out a scrap of aluminum and mounted the boring head in my mill. I love a good reason to use my tools, but as time becomes increasingly more value as it matches past faster each year, I did tire of opening that hole up .050" at a time. The largest drill bit I had that would fit my drill chuck was a 1-1/8" and .050" was pushing the limits of rigidity on my mill/boring set up. I really need a lathe.....and a big shop.....with AC......

Lastly, as a public service, Toyota made a change years ago on the orientation of the bushing reliefs. If you go to replace yours, keep this in mind.

 

[ARJMN]

Last task knocked out this weekend was the welding of my Slee bits on the upper rear links. Even running only 2" of suspension lift on Clappy, I still want to be able to fine tune the pinion angle to ensure the best life of the unis as well as to ensure I don't introduce any vibrations. Clappy will be used as a long distance tourer, so NVH concerns are pretty high on the list. I cut these down in a previous post above, and finally got around to welding them up. I tend to overthink things and hit the "paralysis by analysis" stage far too often. Having all the time in the world leads to constantly second guessing the path forward, and same as I referenced above, I am learning to accept the "meets all requirements" path over the "it must be perfect in all ways" path. Again, I have too many irons in the fire to muck about and as much as I would love to build or buy a welding rotator/positioner, it just isn't a must have. The rosette welds were easy as long as you weld them in the correct position to avoid the puddle running, but the welds around the circumference require a bit more finesse. In the end, I took one end of the link out and used the center section to roll the link across the table while welding the ends. While not a "perfect" result, it is "as good as it needs to be".

Clean up with a wire wheel and a few coats of paint will have them ready to install. That will have to wait a bit, however, as I am leaving Friday to go back on the road for about 9 days. I will miss two weekends of time at home, but will be bringing back a few new "things" to show you. Stay tuned.

 

[Saddletramp]

Nice progress Jason, love the welding helmet too

 

[ARJMN]

Time for an update after the holiday weekend. With the summer heat in full effect now, I simply don't have the desire to be out there in the garage all day like I do in cooler times. My routine as of late has been to wake around 4:30am for coffee and cereal. I try to be in the garage by 5:00am, and that gives me about 4 hours of work before the 9:00 hour brings more heat than I am prepared to cope with. The heat this time of year drives be flat out crazy. I find myself being short of patience and just generally grumpy. I truly understand the snowbird thing now, and will have to find my own solution if I am to stay here long term, but I digress. I am making this post to share progress, not lament on the short comings of my own coping skills.

Starting on the rear end, I think I have it 100% done at this point. The rear axle is together with the new brakes, rotors, and SS brake lines from Slee. I did a set of these on my LX450(although branded Wit's End) and they made a big difference in tandem with the ABS delete. Same setup here. I went back and forth on the ABS delete debate, but in the end decided to axe it in favor of simplicity and ease of bleeding. The ABS had not failed on this rig the way it did on the Lexus, but I am of the camp that 80 Series ABS failures are a matter of when, not if. Installed in place of the ABS sensors are a set of Wit's End ABS plugs. Shout out to @NLXTACY for making those. Another great piece of kit that I have used again.

Also in frame is the Delta Panhard Bar bracket, SS brake line, OME BP-51 rear shock, OME 2" lift springs, and new OEM suspension bushings at every motion joint. Torque to 130lb/ft and mark for torque.

Center rear section for the brake line is the extended piece from the Slee kit. This is a must for any amount of lift in my book. You can also see the weld-in Slee adjustable upper links to facilitate correction/fine tuning of the pinion angle. This will help to prevent vibrations and extend u-joint life. If you have never dealt with pinion angles, in a perfect world they would be between 1 and 3 degrees. Any less and the bearings don't rotate resulting in them riding in the same spot on the race, thus wearing grooves. Any more and they rotate more than desired resulting in reduced life. You can find best practices and design criteria online including B10 curves for life if you are really curious. In an application like this where its a toy and not seeing seriously long hours or super high sustained loads, it is just a best practice. The biggest of which will be ensuring the driveline does not surge or vibrate due to mismatched pinion angles. If you eve had front end vibration after a 3" lift or higher on an 80, that is the most common cause. Last detail on the rear was to re-route and secure the rear axle harness. This harness does double duty as the signal conduit for ABS and the rear locker. With ABS deleted, the breakouts are tied back to prevent flopping. I though about de-looming the ABS wires from the bundle, but decided it was a non-value-added effort and a few extra zip ties were sufficient.

Just a little bling for the build. While some of the Slee catalogue is a bit Gucci and can be called overspent, it is none-the-less excellent stuff. I like the details of the line and have spent a fair amount with them on this build. Here are fresh rear bump stops and Slee extensions to match the lift.

 

[ARJMN]

Moving to the front end of the chassis, I was able to get the powertrain mounted back in the cradle for the final time. This is a welcomed milestone as that whole assembly is quite a chunk of iron and I don't like having to man handle it alone. due to the weight, I need to choke up on my engine hoist's lift arm to keep the lifts within a margin of safety. That means I don't have the reach I might like and that the lift cylinder is in contact with the front crossmember on the frame and the harmonic balancer on the engine. Just small stuff really as a quick spray of engine or chassis enamel touches it all up.

Another Glamour Shot of the BP-51s in place. I really hop these perform as good as they look. They are beefy and well built. Should be a treat on the wash board roads.

Moving around to the driver's side we get a view of the busier side of hte engine. The P-Pump and associated accessories occupy the bulk of the space claim. That P-Pump is an engine all on its own as far as complexity goes. It is quite an impressive piece of kit, and hopefully runs for many years to come. A shiny new 6.7 liter starter hangs off this side too.

More Slee bits, and one of the coolest other bits shown here, the DVS 3" Long Radius Arms. These are castor corrected for a 3" lift and move the axle forward 1" to better clear 35 and 37 inch tires. I plan to start with 35s, but have it in my back pocket to bump to 37s if I need more roll out to suit the gearing. The t-case has .9 over drive high range gears already, so I will try them and see.

Last detail of note on the update is the 1" body lift that I will be using. The added height of the Cummins/NV4500 combo needs a bit more room to be comfortable. Here I have all new OEM body mounts, because why not, and on top of each mount is a 1" puck of aluminum. This 1" will have to be accounted for when I order bumpers, but that is a long way down the road from here.

 

[ARJMN]

With luck, I will be rallying the troops and cashing in some of my karma points to get some help dropping the body back on the chassis this coming weekend. @D_Web has offered up some of his time to help, as well as the use of some resources at a local shop. While there are still items like the t-case shifter mount that are still pending, there is nothing I cant do with the body on at this point, and I really need to take advantage of the opportunity to get eth body off my buddy's car hauler. Stay tuned for more info coming.

 

[ARJMN]

Much progress has been made and I am quite pleased to say that the body is back on the chassis. Of course now that it is back in place, I see all kinds of tasks I wish I had done to the body while it was off. That is just one more argument why I need to move into a place with room for a shop and lift. The body was on my buddy's car hauler the whole time it was off, but I was so focused on the chassis, I never thought to spend time on the body. Live and learn. Same as with the LS swap, I have learned tons about what to do different next time...

Big thanks to @D_Web and my other buddy Rod for helping me marry the two parties back together. We used U-Wrench in Vail again, and it is 100% worth the money spent. The bay rental is a flat $25/hr and they have tools, jacks, stands, etc, available for nominal hourly charges. All in, I owed ~$78 for 2.75 hrs of time in the bay including the fee for a few tools I failed to bring with me. Go see those guys if you need a lift, they are great. There is even a "famous YouTube personality" in the unit on the end of the building. I'll leave her name out of this account, but if you go there, make sure you don't park in front of her bay door. She does not appreciate it, but I understand where she is coming from.

Friday night efforts ended with the chassis on the hauler and chained down for the trip to Vail. My new trailer is fantastic from a functional standpoint with the distinct exception of the fact that I do not yet have an electric winch mounted to it. This left me to do the whole "push the chassis as fast as you can to get it up the ramps and hand winch it the rest of the way up" dance. In Tucson summer heat, that dance sucks a$$. I hate summer heat and I will be the first to admit I simply don't function well in it. I get cranky and frustrated, and it takes me a long time to cool off. Winter on the other hand is my jam. Even when I lived in Colorado and Illinois, and temps would be sub freezing for months on end, I could function just fine. Keep you ears, toes, and fingers warm, and all the rest if good too. Another new addition to the fleet is the use of cluster chains over straps. My buddies back in Arkansas swear by chains on their recreational rigs and work rigs. I will say that they are super secure and will seriously lock down the load, but there is a learning curve to using them, key being the placement of the binders. Overall, thumbs up.

Earlier in the week, I called in an 8:00am reservation on the truck lift at the shop. The truck lift is the widest and highest capacity lift in the shop, and also happens to have the straightest path when backing in a trailer. I didn't get any pics of the process to get the body off the trailer, but that's ok as it wasn't the most exciting part of the effort. Essentially, it was just the reverse order of how we got it on there when the year was younger and the breezes cooler. Once the trailer was out of the way, the chassis was rolled off my trailer and into the bay. We got it as close as we could by just eyeballing it, and then started double checking the hardware and 1" lift pucks. Much to my surprise, the fella in the bay next to us recognized engine as a Cummins 12 valve and commented that it should be a great rig when done. I am paraphrasing there, but that's the gist of it.

Benno having a squiz at the front end alignment.

The other 1/3rd of the Team watching the rear alignment, Rod.

 

[ARJMN]

Some final checks were made, and a few tweaks to the chassis, and it all came down to dropping bolts in bores and making sure they did not bind up. Personally, I was impressed at how well it went. The body is much more rigid than some other rigs I have helped buddies with, and once we got the extended length bolts dropped in their respective holes, the body was guided down to it's new position 1" further from the frame. All the hard ware was cinched down enough toe ensure nothing would happen on the way home, as I plan to fine tune a few things that may require lifting the body off the frame just a bit. Once all that is done, everything will start bolting in for the final install. This includes the entire interior which has occupied by spare room for far too long now. I very much look ahead to cleaning up the Land Cruiser salad that adorns my once orderly home. Side note: I laughed when I saw this pic and stated that I had always wondered what the back of my head looked like. I was just happy my neck didn't look like a pack of hotdogs.

One of the lessons learned in the process, that I will share here with anyone looking to do this swap, is that the 98.5-02 NV4500 top plate positions the shifter assembly just a bit forward of the pre-98.5 location. I swapped the tops on the recommendation of Lloyd's Transmission. The later top has improvements to the shifter that help synchro life as well as shifting performance. This change resulted in an interference with the shift and body. Had i left the original top that came out if the 1994 truck, It would have slipped through the hole in the tunnel and been just fine. You can see the bent sheet metal in the picture below. I will have to clearance the sheet metal to allow for the motion of the shifter, but that is a minor sacrifice for the improvement I think the shorter throw setup will provide. Stay tuned for a full report on how it goes, and what effect this will have on the Delta Vehicle Systems Shifter Console. Fingers crossed.

Three and a half hours after arrival, we departed the shop in search of edible provisions for my helpers. We ended up at Papa Loco's on Rita Road. It was some good stuff and the Chicken Mucho Burrito has my vote! Some BS'ing, relaxing in the AC, and a load check later, we were on the road to our individual destinations. Me to mine and them to theirs. Seeing the gaps in the wheel wells due to the lift and 31" tires makes me smile. As stated in the project plan, 35's are in store, but no need to spend the money and let the clock tick on them just yet. I'll order tires in the fall when I am closer to completion.

Being too tired to unload the rig that day, but still wanting a cold beer and a swim, I left it all in place and headed to Rod's house for both. He lives on 5 acres north of Tucson, so his place is the default storage lot for everyone's projects. Shown here are my three 80 Series WIPs (work in process). My '96 Cummins swap on the trailer, my '97 6.0/6L80 swap, and my buddy Rob's @OlafProt '95 6.0/6L90 swap. I have many full weekends ahead of me, especially once the temps mellow out again. I have a pretty good life, I will concede. Many thanks to all the folks who help me out and show generosity.

 

[Saddletramp]

Rod looking on like a boss. Congrats to you Jason.