Tires, Wheels, and rear disk parts

I've gotten some work done in the last week, as well as pulled together some parts for the rear disks. I also picked up some nice used 35x12.50 BFG Mud Terrains and my Mom got me some wheels to mount them on for my birthday. Thanks Mom!

First order of business was to mount up two of the new tires and rims. This way I can roll the front axle around and free up two of my jackstands. Here's one of the tires mounted with to the front axle and the front axle mounted to the frame. I also mounted a fender to see how the spring flip and shackle reversal puts the tire in the wheel well.

I should loose some height, 2" or so when I install the motor and body. Looks good to me!

I also disassembled the rear axle and gathered the needed parts for the rear disk brake conversion. Here's the housing with everything pulled apart. I'll clean it up and weld on the new brackets for the SOA and the rear disks. In the second picture is the internals. Those axle shafts are beefier than the 31 spline shafts in my 9" on my jeep. Nice!

Finally, here are the components for the rear disk swap. From left to right, we have The AA Manufacturing Metric Chevy Caliper brackets, ($8.99 ea), the Rebuilt Metric Chevy Calipers (20.99 ea including core charge), Pads ($12.99 for both wheels) and 1/2 ton Chevy 4x4 truck rotors ($23 ea). My buddy Carl opened up the center hole in the rotors to fit over the centers of the Land Cruiser Axleshafts.

This overall conversion will cost less than rebuilding the stock drums and should work much better. The other cool thing about keeping the stock transfercase is that the rear driveshaft mounted Emergency Brake keeps me from having to worry about an E brake on the wheels. Stay tuned for the rear axle cleaning, painting, and assembly....

Front Disks

I got one side of the front axle completely done with the front disk brakes. Progress is slow between removing and cleaning the Mini-truck brake stuff, installing new seals, and getting everything put back together. Here's the driver's side done.

Rather than use the mini truck calipers and rotors, I did the upgrade to the 81 FJ40 vented rotors and the '86 Truck IFS calipers. These pieces aren't any more expensive than the mini truck stuff, and they should work better with less fade.

For steering, I fabricated a double arm using the Mini Truck and land cruiser steering arms. For those that aren't familiar, with a spring over conversion, at least the drag link needs to be above the springs. Also, the closer to horizontal the drag link is, the less bumpsteer you'll have. The double arm helps with both of these. This means that my Tie rod will use the Mini Truck TREs, and the Drag link will use the Land Cruiser TREs, at least on the axle end. The pitman arm I am planning on using is reamed for Chevy 1-ton steering parts, so That'll probbably be what gets used at the pitman end. We'll see how I can get this all mated up. I used the cut off portion of the driver's side toyota arm to see how welding the forged steering arms was. I welded a piece of 1/4" plate to the piece of steering arm, and then "tested" it with a sledge hammer. I couldn't get the weld to budge or crack, so this should be plenty strong. The web between the two arms is also 1/4" steel. In the future I'd like to go to crossover steering, but this will keep the project rolling for less $$.

To finish up the conversion, I have one more stubborn Birfield to separate, then I'll get it all put back together and move on to the rear axle and the frame.

Update: I finally got the stubbor Birf off, using the "Bobby Long" method. Place Birf on ground, stand on shaft and hit the bell with a big hammer. A little violent, but it Worked for me!

Front Suspension Fabrication

In the last week I have finished all of the fabrication on the front axle of the cruiser. Unfortunately, I don't have any progress pictures because my camera batteries were dead, so here's the results of the last week's work. First, I installed the sleeves for the front shackles through the frame. In order to place them correctly, I put the engine, transmission, and transfer case over the front axle to help simulate the weight of the truck on the springs. I set the shackle angle at about 30 degrees from vertical. Hopefully fully weighted I'll get a decent shackle angle. Here are the sleeves welded in with the springs and shackles installed and no weight on them.
Next, I set the pinion angle to point at the approximate location of the Tcase output and set the perches at this angle. Finally, With the axle bolted in and the weight on it, I set the Caster Angle to 5 degrees. Here's the axle all welded up in its new configuration. Those spring perches are Dodge D60 spring perches. Big O Dodge here in Greenville lists them at $8 a pair. While I had the axle out, I decided to beef up the ring gear area of the diff cover, so I welded on a strap of 3/16 steel to cover this area. With the turned up pinion this area will be more vulnerable than in the stock configuration.

To form this around the diff cover, I welded the bottom first, then hammered it down and welded it as I moved upwards. It fits pretty nicely. Here's the axle mocked up in its final location.

I've got some Zero-rust coming to paint the axles and the frame with. Once I have the axle painted, I'll start re-assembling it with the Mini-Truck Axle parts and move on to the rear axle...

Some progress and plan changes...

Well, a few things have happened since the first update. First, I decided that I am going to go ahead and do a spring over and shackle reverse on this truck. This decision mainly stemmed from the need for larger tires to compensate for the diesel's lower RPMs, and also to gain some ground clearance and get a better ride. Since these two mods mainly involve fabrication, they should be relatively cheap as well. (Cheaper than a decent set of new lift springs anyways). As a good start, I located a set of decent condition stock springs. Thanks to Alex Garcia with Upstate Cruisers for the springs! I'll clean and paint these, and then install new bushings before I use them. Also I went ahead and cut off the spring and shackle mounts from the front end and re-welded the spring mounts to the front of the frame.

Once I get the springs cleaned up and the new bushings in I can use these to set where the rear shackle hanger needs to be. Since I don't have the engine in the truck anymore to load the springs to set the shackle location I'll have to temporarily add the engine and some more weight back to the truck. Also, I got the front half of the frame wire brushed. I'll probbably get the frame cleaned and ready for primer and paint this week. That's all for now...