Builds Rutherford Clappy III and Associated Ramblings... (2 Viewers)

[ARJMN]

I made mention in my LS Swap thread about all the tools I ended up collecting over the course of the build. While all those remain, I still find myself adding more. Let's talk about the Red Army for a moment. I know that there is a brand for every shopper, and loyalties run deep, but I have made the leap. I have had a set of DeWalt 20v tools for years and they have been fantastic pieces of kit that have never let me down and continue on. I also have to say that in my now three years in my current role spending a good portion of my days in the field supporting work on very large mining trucks, I have noticed much more of one color tools than the others. Almost every one of the techs I work with have a drawer full of Milwaukee M12/M18 power tools in their service trucks. I have been lucky enough to be able to use this time as a try before you buy experience. I too now have a growing collection of red tools. They are amazing. The M12 line of tools is perfect for my jobs. I find the 3/8' stubby impact and the 3/8" ratchet to be my go to tools for most work. I got the 1/4" stubby thinking it would be a good gap filler, but I don't use it that much. Not a pitch nor am I sponsored, but I will be honest on my thumbs up.

Good, Better, Best

Caught a sale, so why not?

 

[ARJMN]

After a week of calling in favors for more free-ish labor and booking a lift at U-Wrench in Vail, AZ, I was ready to pull the body. If you ever need a lift or access to a full shop, give them a ring. Tell them Jason Neeley told you about them. They are cool dudes who have a unique business and are happy to help out if you get stuck on something.

I rallied support from @D_Web and another buddy Rod, and we met early morning to pickup a car dolly from U-Haul and make our 8:00am reservation on the lift. I had the 80 loaded the night before, so off we went.

Fred at U-Wrench helps us get Rufus on the lift ensuring we weren't going to see it do a floor routine onto its lid. Once in the air, I was reminded again why my next project after this will be to move into a place with a shop or room for a shop big enough for a two post lift. Nothing makes the work easier than being able to standup and walk under you rig.

Ben negotiating with...I am not sure.

Some goober playing with the lift.

 

[ARJMN]

Divorcing the body and chassis was actually quite easy due to all the pre-work. disconnect one missed harness, pull the body bolts, pull the steering shaft, and a few bolts on the rear bumper trim...simple. Many thanks for the extra eyes and hands on the effort. The real challenge was figuring out how to get the body off the lift.

Processing...processing...processing...

Plan forming.....

Action plan! We ended up doing a bit of shop time ballet. We had to drop the body onto some jack stands due to the lift arms hitting the trailer tires. Once we got hte body off the lift, we cut some cribbing, repositioned the arms and lifted it off the stands. The cribbing was made of framing studs which allowed the running board brakets to bit into the wood, giving a bit more security in transit home. Two giant ratchet straps through the cab, one through each door opening, and we were done.

Ben hauled the aforementioned car dolly in order to drag the chassis home. This is us trying to figure out where to find a good cheesesteak sandwich. We ended up chowing down at Luke's Italian Beef on Alvernon. I recommend the Italian Beef wet with sport peppers. If that's not your pace, grab a pastrami. Killer grub!

 

[ARJMN]

What was planned to be a morning's effort, ran only slightly longer getting us all back to my place around 1:30pm. We unloaded the chassis and pushed it up in the garage, and I parked the body on the curb for some clean and storage prep work.

What was one piece that morning, was now two.

I knew when I pulled the interior, I was gunna have to take the hose to the body interior. There was about $10 in loose change under the carpet all glued in place with about a liter of cola. I used a cold chisel to break them all loose and vacuumed it up with the shop vac. From there I got a bucket of hot soapy water and poured it all over, following up with a scrub with a still bristle brush.

I am sure that I will be getting a nasty-gram from the HOA Nazis. I wanted to ensure the body full dried out, so I backed it up between mine and my neighbors house and left all the door open all night and into Sunday.

Last item to address Sunday was to knock up a quick bracket to mount the parking brake handle on the frame rail. This makes it so much easier and safer for me to roll the chassis around by myself. With so little weight, the brake locks up instantly, so it takes only a couple clicks to stop it on the slope of my driveway.

 

[ARJMN]

That catches us up on where I am at this point in time. I am about to drop some serious coin placing orders for tires, DVS console and radius arms, a lift, shocks, low range gears, t-case rebuild kit, axle rebuild kits, plus paint, wire wheels, and all kinds of consumables to get this thing ripping asap.

Stay tuned.

 

[ARJMN]

All,

I need some feedback.

BRONZE WHEELS.........?

 

[ARJMN]

Or BLACK WHEELS?

 

[Somebodyelse5]

Black wheels... never liked the bronze look... but it's all preference:

These are the summit racing raptors in 17x9

 

[bigCatdiesel]

Good read so far Jason. Subscribed.
john

 

[ARJMN]

Black wheels... never liked the bronze look... but it's all preference:

These are the summit racing raptors in 17x9

I think black has my eye.....

 

[ARJMN]

Good read so far Jason. Subscribed.
john

Thanks, John. I enjoy this stuff.

 

[ARJMN]

@GeoRoss you have been tagged.

 

[GeoEng]

Stick to greyish sliver, the truck is from the 90's after all - I have 4 Sequoia / Tundra wheels - I'll trade them for that skid plate you're trying to sell. 17x7.5 15 backspace. You'll need 1.0 to 1.25" spacers to run these.

 

[GeoRoss]

@GeoRoss you have been tagged.

When did you get back in town? I was looking forward to helping. Great progress

 

[ARJMN]

When did you get back in town? I was looking forward to helping. Great progress

I have been laying low, not hiding per se, but definitely enjoying some time home. I was gone 13 days in January and that was not exactly the start to the year that I wanted.

Come check it out if you are on this side of town. I am trying to get some real progress done and have the body back on before it starts to get warm…

 

[ARJMN]

Stick to greyish sliver, the truck is from the 90's after all - I have 4 Sequoia / Tundra wheels - I'll trade them for that skid plate you're trying to sell. 17x7.5 15 backspace. You'll need 1.0 to 1.25" spacers to run these.
View attachment 3243071

Thanks for the offer. The plate is currently promised to someone and on hold. Ill check to see if they still want it.

 

[Somebodyelse5]

I Want to guess 803 lbs for the 1fZ and trans


Curious if you go for a dry sump or modify the 6bt oil pan, looking forward to more.

 

[ARJMN]

I Want to guess 803 lbs for the 1fZ and trans


Curious if you go for a dry sump or modify the 6bt oil pan, looking forward to more.

Guess #1 803lb. I'll start a list. Prize will be a Land Cruiser related t-shirt.

 

[ARJMN]

Interesting day today. The first milestone of the day was meeting up with @GreatBigFat to handoff the 4 Sequoia wheels he posted on the classifieds. Super cool dude and full of positive energy. We talked projects and went for a ride in Lexi Jo, my LS swapped 80 named after my buddy's first born. Good chat and good company. After that, I had planned to have a banger day in the garage hammering away on the frame mods for the intercooler mounting, as well as set the engine for the first time, but an early call from a buddy in need flushed that all away. A good friend called in need of help after having a traffic accident and he was the highest priority from there. You gotta take care of your tribe. The efforts to aid the situation ate up a good portion of the day, but nothing that I have any heartburn over. Happy to have helped. When I made it back to the house, I got stuck into reorganizing my thoughts and finding tasks that were both immediately actionable, as well as properly sized for completion before evening or exhaustion set in. While doing so, the mailman rocked up and had a package from CruiserTeq. I was pumped! It was my low range gears and HF2AV rebuild kit. I didn't expect them until Monday, but I ain't complaining. That gives me all the parts I need for the T-case. I am going away from the stock 1:1 high range and 2.78:1 low range and swapping in a .9:1 high range and 3.22:1 low range, both from Sumo. This combo will give me the equivalent of ~3.73 axle ratio in high, and ~4.56 in low. The diesel powered 80s in other parts of the world all got 3.73 axle ratios to better match the RPM and power range of the 1HZ and 1HD powerplants. The Cummins 12V will have PLENTY of grunt, what it doesn't have is high revs. The .9 gears will help keep them just a bit lower on the highway. On the flip side, the 3.11 low range gears are going to be that extra bit of deep reduction that is going to make using a manual that much easier in the real techy stuff. The added control of the low gears on break over and long descents makes a big difference. If you ever get a chance to drive an 80 with a factory 1HZ/1HD engine and the H150/H155 manual, you will notice that super low 1st gear. While on the Australian vacation that spawned my desire to do this build, I drove a manual HZJ80 and was blown away at how low first was. You can descend very steep hills and it will never overrun the engine. You have gobs of engine braking in that combo.

All in I will have a 71.5:1 crawl ration when done. Put that behind an engine making mountains of torque right off idle and it should be quite the beast.

Here are the projected speeds with 315/75-16 BFG KO2s. If I find that ~35s are not quite enough to get a reasonable rollout to keep highway revs low enough, I can always bump to 37s and sacrifice some low range speed.

I will post some pics of the gear soon. I just didn't take any today.

 

[DSRTRDR]

not a fan of the bronze. at all.

I vote for staying with the silver (or whatever they call the OEM color)