smak build (1 Viewer)

[smakee]

Hey all, so I found myself a triple locked 40th Anniversary locally here in CO, pretty much stock except for 33“ BFGs on black steelies, 225k miles and two owners. I was looking for a great platform to build, do some baselining and drive until the engine gives out so I can do an LS swap. This will not be a 40th Anniv. preservation build, so sorry up front to those that hold them sacred. The goal will be to build a very capable trail specific truck, mostly for solo (no family) wheeling, or day trip wheeling. The 200 serves as the family camping and overland adventure truck, and tow rig.

Everything under the truck seemed to be in good shape except for a few items. The y-pipe had a hole in it, so exhaust leak, and there is some localized rust on some components. Really strange, the frame is rust free, but the exhaust, tow hitch and rear sway bar actually have real, not just surface rust. The clear coat is gone on top and hood, so I’m working out what to do with paint. Interior is fine for now, not horrible, and included an upgraded stereo which is actually pretty fun...never had a subwoofer box in a vehicle before.

Here’s the build plan so far:
- Baseline cooling system (parts in hand from Wits End)
- Knuckle rebuild (complete 10/24)
- dba t3 4000s front rotors, hawk pads (complete 11/3, rears are ok for now but will get t3s when needed)
- BIOR front tube bumper (sitting in the living room)
- White Knuckle sliders (sitting in the living room)
- 4x4Labs rear bumper (shipped Monday 11/23)
- Prinsu rack (arrived, sitting in the living room)
- Dobinson MMR adjustable remote reservoir shocks (installed 11/9)
- Dobinson 3” and 3.5” Variable rate Tapered Coils (installed 11/9)
- Dobinson front and rear panhards, rear adjustable upper control arms (front installed 11/10)
- Wits End beefy extended rear lower control arms
- Delta VS caster correcting radius arms (installed 11/22)
- Whiteline HD rear swaybar
- Found a good deal on a set of 5 stock wheels that I’m going to refinish in satin black (installed 11/16 with new Toyos)
- Landshark Reef drawer setup (ordered awaiting confirmation of timing)
- Delta VS rear panhard bracket (installed 11/21)
- Regear to 4.88 (this won’t happen until everything else is done above)
- Precision LED interior and backup lights (installed 11/21)
- Depo clear parking lenses and sidemarkers
- Depo red/white tailights
- Kurt Snake flares
- magnaflow y-pipe and cats (installed, total PITA - catback/cat flange and bolts were completely corroded together and had to cut with angle grinder)
- Upgraded double DIN head unit TBD
- custom catback - low priority, but likely after rear bumper, I’ll take it in to get done

 

[smakee]

I’m about halfway through the knuckle rebuild. Worked at it for about 6 hours today and also started pulling some of the easy parts that need to be taken off for paint. Much of that time was cleaning the parts. So much gunk built up on them. I bought a drill bit attachment with the little round wire brush and that helped the cleanup process to get the caked on grease an other solid build up cleared away. One can of brake cleaner down, probably at least two more cans before I’m done.

You can see how bad the front rotors are. These are also a localized rust component. As I was hitting the hub studs to get the cone washer out, tons of flaking coming out of the rotors.

Here’s what I found when I opened them up...very little grease left. This clearly hadn’t been done in a very long time. Also had some pitting on the ball so spend some time hitting it with the wire brush to clear the rust. I’m contemplating the JB Weld solution to the pitting, but haven’t decided.

Reposting this OTRAMM video which is awesome and makes the knuckle rebuild process really straight forward...thank you @OTRAMM

 

[smakee]

I have a set of Slee extended brake lines in anticipation of the lift in a few weeks...I’m trying to get those installed as well this weekend, since everything is already apart. Just don’t know if I’ll have time to add it to the list.

 

[Feldrian]

Sounds like a cool project. Subbed.

 

[smakee]

So....started to get everything ready to put back together on the passenger knuckle and was checking all the studs before I got too far along. Two of them were a little wiggly so I grabbed a wrench and starting turning. The first one was a little stiff but it loosened up and came out. The second one I clamped down on and not even a 1/8 of a turn, this happened. I guess the wiggle was a crack in the stud. Glad this happened during the rebuild and not on a trail or the highway

This was after smashing my thumb between my chisel and hammer getting the bearing race out, and also forgetting I had the passenger caliper off and had my son press the brakes to hold the driver side hub from turning, so now the pistons are closed.

I called it a day and chose to drink beer instead. Any suggestions on the sheared stud?

 

[Feldrian]

They come out pretty easily with an easy out. I had two sheared studs on my passenger side knuckle when I rebuilt. First one came out while I was drilling it (screwed further in and fell out on the inside). Second one came out with the easy out with almost no force.

 

[Pippylongsausage]

Watching! Looks great!

 

[smakee]

Made some good progress today. Replaced three corners of brake lines with the new Slee extended lines. Got the new Toyota caliper installed on the drivers side. Then on the front passenger side, I rounded the dang 10mm nut on the hard line. So need to get that replacement line. Just going to order from Toyota. anybody know that part number off hand?

 

[smakee]

Rear axle shots...

 

[smakee]

Then this happened. This corner has been the bain of my progress so far.

 

[smakee]

Decided to then do some easy stuff so got the interior light swapped out for LEDs. cant wait to see how much better this is at night. Clearly visible difference in bright light.

 

[smakee]

I also got my tires ordered. After doing some additional research I decided to go with Toyo Open Country M/Ts, 315/75r16. Took the stock wheels I bought to Discount tire to have them remove the tires. Then started prepping them for paint. I had started to prep the wheels with a wire brush before taking them to Discount Tire until it got too windy yesterday. Still a ways to go, hopefully I’ll have time to get them finished during the week this week.

 

[Feldrian]

Nice choice on rotors!

I had the same issue with a couple of my hard lines. My searches for the ones I was looking for showed NLA and had to go with generic brake line and bent and flared my own.

 

[smakee]

Had some help from a friend to get the sheared knuckle stud out and got the passenger side all put back together except the hard brake line. Have one on the way at the local Toyota parts dept. Should be in hand by Wednesday and after install, just need to bleed the brakes. Then I can take her out for a ride to test out the knuckle rebuild and new brake setup before getting into the suspension this weekend.

While under the truck I noticed how little slack is in the diff breather line, so putting that on my list. I ordered a spool of 8mm fuel line to run new ones in front and rear, since it looks like the lift components will all be here by Friday.

 

[smakee]

It's been a while since I updated, but I have been busy.

Last weekend I finished the brake lines, bled them twice and got the Dobinson MRR shocks ( MRA59-A684 and A685) and tapered springs ( C97-144VT and 145VT) installed, with the help of a friend. Let's just say we ran into a few snags and the total effort took about 12 hrs. The last four hours, I think we were a little foggy and tired, so probably should have been less.

The rear installation was pretty straight forward, but getting the droop on the axle to fit the spring was probably the biggest challenge. The front was a little different story. In addition to the sway bar, we had to disconnect the front panhard to get the droop necessary to fit the springs. At over 23" in height, the front springs definitely took some finesse, and all of my weight and force. I'm 6'5" and about 230lbs. Once the springs were installed, the caster angle had changed, so even after lining up the holes side to side, I couldn't get the stock panhard bolted back in. The adjustable panhard I bought was bottomed out and totally seized (had to take it to Slee last Monday for a little help to get it freed up). We moved on to the shock installation up front and once we had the bushing stacks correct, the passenger side was pretty simple. The driver's side however, has the brake master cylinder directly above the shock tower and there's not a ton of rotational space once you get a wrench on the nut. This just took a long time and a lot of weird force angles. I'll upload some finished pics of how the truck is sitting. It's completely unweighted right now, so super tall.

I still need to flex the suspension and make sure I have clearance on the remote reservoirs. After the initial install, I was rubbing the reservoirs at full turn, so made some adjustments and it looks ok now - just need to cycle the suspension to check it. Who's got a ramp or a wall I can borrow??

During the week last week, I got a set of 315/75 Toyo Open Country M/Ts installed on the repainted stock wheels. This weekend, I got the Delta rear panhard bracket, Dobinsons adjustable front panhard and Delta radius arms installed.

A few tips for the Delta radius arm installation...this worked pretty well for me and the whole install was just over an hour:
- Uninstalled driver side radius arm and immediately, the axle moved backward on me.
- Installed frame bolt on the new Delta arm, finger tightened the nut, and raised the front of the arm up into the axle mounting bracket
- Strapped the axle to the front of the frame and pulled it forward until the front axle radius arm hole lined up. Inserted the bolt and finger tightened the nut.
- Uninstalled the passenger side radius arm, and immediately the axle moved forward on me.
- Installed the frame bolt on the Delta arm, and raised the front of the arm up into the axle bracket.
- Strapped the axle to the frame and pulled the axle back until the front axle radius arm hole lined up.
- Now is the only part that took some figuring out. Both of the rear holes on the axle brackets were higher than the holes on the radius arms -- i.e. the caster was still rotated forward. To solve this issue, I placed the shop jack directly under the radius arm, below the rear axle bracket. I slowly jacked the radius arm up, which corrected the caster and lined up the bracket and bushing holes. I started on the passenger side, got the bolt inserted. And repeated the same back over on the driver side. It took a few ups and downs with the jack to get it perfectly lined up, but if I knew this was a trick for the install, it would have saved me about 10 minutes of trying other things.
- Once I got all the bolts in, I tightened everything up to 130lbs.

I took it out just to see where I am on tracking and alignment. Steering is wandering, so I still have some additional adjustments to make.

Next on the list:
- Taking it in for a paint estimate today - Decided on Porsche Slate Gray 6601 - hopefully filling the fender holes won't be too bad
- Whiteline rear HD sway bar and LCP sway bar link install
- Landtank lower control arm install
- Carpet removal and cleaning

Will upload some pics hopefully later today.

 

[Lance Hayabusa]

this guy knows what's up 997 turbo + 80 series.

Decided to then do some easy stuff so got the interior light swapped out for LEDs. cant wait to see how much better this is at night. Clearly visible difference in bright light.

View attachment 2483703

 

[smakee]

Before and after rear panhard angle. Remember this is completely unweighted (not even seats) so the angle will get even better as everything gets installed.

 

[smakee]

Before and after lift shots

And a full stink bug shot for comedy in between rear and front suspension install. This was about the time of our fried chicken and beer break.

 

[smakee]

this guy knows what's up 997 turbo + 80 series.

Guilty pleasures...low and fast, high and slow.

 

[smakee]

I think the wheels turned out pretty good. My son helped me with the wire brush and sanding. They’re good enough for trail use and look a heck of a lot better than they did before.