Project Junior

The last two weekends have kinda sucked around here. I spent most of my time painting or messing up parts and having to make new ones. I got the back half of the frame primed and ready for bed liner. I also got the rear suspension mounts painted. After finishing up that stuff I started working on the engine mounts, which I am modeling after Marlin Crawlers F-Toy.

I got everything laid out on cardboard and then started to cut it out of steel when I realized that I had forgotten to make sure the engine was sitting vertical, and of course it wasn’t, so I had to start over. That cost most of sat, so I didn’t even manage to get them taced to the frame before Sunday. On Sunday I taced them up and I was tired and had to do some brake work to my dad’s and go order some parts for the truck car so I quit.

I stopped out at the farm to get some parts this weekend and discovered that the kids out there heaved a chunk of concrete through my windshield. I’m still pissed as hell about that because it was a new windshield and they are about $300 installed around here. I’m not really sure what to do about it because I don’t know the family really well and they are letting me store my shiat there for free, But that is a lot of money and those kids need to learn a lesson and some respect for others things from this.

I didn't get anywhere near as much done over the weekend as I had hoped. I ended up getting the framing completed. The gussets and plating are not welded on yet, as we ran out of argon for the tig welder, but they are cut out and ready to go. I also got the front suspension squared away. It still needs to be welded but I am still trying to figure out how I am going to paint around the frame tubes so none of it is taced or welded. Since I am using the rears up front I decided to put the front spring hanger in the stock location. This as measured is moving the axle 2 to 3 inches forward of stock. I then put the shackle hanger tubes 42 inches back from the hanger hole and 2.25 inches up from the bottom of the frame. All I have to say about those tubes is what a PAIN IN THE BUT!!! I had trouble with the darn hole saw ceasing and then come to find out I hit basicly two major internal gussets. One of which I had to cut out with a tourch. Those stupid holes took me about 3 hours to do (I took a half-hour break from anger after the first hole), and I managed to completely destroy a brand new hole saw.

Once I got the front stuff layed out I started on the rear suspension. This went much easier. I measured the axle center position on my other 4 runner and marked that on the new chassie. Then I just started looking at it and decided to move the rear axle back about 1.5 inches. This should give me a final wheel base of 108 inches.

After tacking up the rear suspension I began preping the new steel frame rails for paint. It is raining here this week so I wanted to at least get most of the new stuff covered so it did not rust anymore. Unforcunatly Nate didn't get the new bottle of gas untill after I was done painting, so none of the hanging welding has been done yet. I hope to get that done on Friday after noon and then finsh painting and such the rest of the weekend.

After a long winter I finally got to start work on the frame. I started off by building a "jig" out of wood to hold the chassis while I work on rebuilding it. this frame did not take nearly as long as I thought it would. Once I finished that I went on to looking at how exactly to make the replacement parts.

I looked up measurements and took measurements that I thought I needed before first cutting off the rear two body mounts. Knowing that I wanted to extend the chassis by 2 inches I started making templates out of poster board. The templates were relatively easy and did not take much time at all. I then stated cutting and fitting the steel tubing. Fitting the tubing together took considerable longer than I was expecting, but went well over all. The two frame rails were then tacked together. I marked out the old frame and cut it off. This is where things went south. The driver’s side frame rail is rusted quite badly from the inside. The passanger’s side is in pretty rough shape also. So I am going to cut out some more of the chassis and replace it with the last piece of steel I have. To prepare for cutting out the next part I went ahead and tacked up the new frame sections.

I am now going to mark out the original frame and cut it off again, cut out the rest of the new rails, and tac it all up. I hope to get that done near noon and then start working on either the plating work or the rear suspension mount after noon.