Topic: Message #1104941

[SqWADoosh]

Work/Maintenance needed:

25. Knuckle Rebuild + axle refresh

Mods/custom work to be done:

10. Add front locker (FJ80 HP Elocker)
31. Re-gear new FJ80 High Pinion front differential to 5.29 (Nitro 5.29 gears via East Coast Gear Supply and built by the amazing zippo)
32. Upgraded to dual diaphragm brake booster
33. Upgraded to 1" bore FJ80 brake master cylinder
34. Upgraded to RCV ultimate 30 spline axle shafts + birfields (RCV Perfomance via Jester Fab)
35. Custom parking brake assembly (created by zippo with helipilot's assistance)
36. Installed 1/4" steel knuckle gussets (sourced fromJester Fab)
37. Installed backing plate eliinators (sourced fromJester Fab)


Well I didn't think I could be more tired than after last weekend. Boy was I ever wrong about that. Saturday with some help from amazing friends I was able to solve some residual issues left over from the last work party as well as give my truck some amazing upgrades. Myself, zippo, and helipilot once again convened on zippo's place at a bright and early 6 AM this time to get started on what should probably be 3 days worth of work that we aimed at doing in 1.



In what was probably a very dumb move I had to put my phone out the window and take a picture of this amazing view we are graced with when crossing the bridge to get to zippo's place. Mt Rainier at sunrise just can't be beat.











We got right into tearing down and pulling out the front axle. As you can see this knuckle rebuild was far overdue. I had done one too many water crossings without breathers. It looked like Satan's diarrhea in there. 













As I set about cutting and grinding off the unused brackets on my axle Jason and Nate set about creating a completely custom assembly to solve the problem of me losing my parking brake when I went to the new rear axle last weekend. Jason had come up with an idea the night before and him and Nate created the coolest solution to the problem. These dudes are the real deal.  Meanwhile I finished up grinding and flapping the axle and set about taking the wire wheel to it so that I could completely refresh it's tired paint job. Yes I'm aware that I am a plebe in comparison to those two but hey I'm just glad to have friends like these 

Check this thing out:

Right around then is when Drew showed up. Me and him started in on the solving my other brake problem (and much more dangerous one) of only having my brakes activate on the last 1/4 of downward travel of my brake pedal. This was caused by going to the much bigger drum brakes last weekend with the much larger cylinders to fill. My poor little stock 85 master just wasn't cutting it. I had in my possession an FJ80 master cylinder that Nate had given me ages ago that I never got around to putting in. I also had found a dual diaphragm brake booster for sale in my town on Friday so I was all set up to put in quite an upgrade to my braking power. While we started tackling how to get this much larger booster in (my 3rz intake was making it quite a pregnant dog) Nate started to modify the axle housing for the Elocker and Jason made a trip to the parts store to get some needed parts and some brake fluid. I decided to completely strip my knuckles of their studs and give them a much needed scrub down with brake clean followed by some primer and paint. I then put the studs back in with red loctite and torqued them to spec. I had gotten some free knuckle gussets from Dave Jester over at Jester Fab when I bought my RCV from him the week prior and Jason welded those on the housing real quick.















By this point we were making amazing time and really kicking ass. Nate had to go shortly after we had lunch at noon and Drew had to leave around 2. At that point we were putting the differential into the housing and I was actually starting to let myself believe that I wasn't going to have to become zippo's unwanted house guest for the night. So by then we had been baking in the sun all day and were out of ice. Me and Jason decided to make a run to the store and get some refreshment and hit it hard when we got back. We were shooting for being done by 8 PM and it looked very feasible that we could hit that goal. When we got back after downing some ice water, and me losing the majority of the bag of ice when it exploded from me trying to break it up on the concrete, we got stuck into it again. We put the axle into place and got it u-bolted up. Unfortunately this is where we started to slow down. The knuckle rebuild didn't go as fast as we hoped. I had 300M hub gears that came with my RCV to put into my new AISIN hubs (see ya Warn's), and we got to stick those sweet made in the USA RCVs in the hole. I also got rid of my backing plates and put in some eliminators that I had got from Jester Fab as well. By the time the axle was completely re-assembled with all new wipers, seals, and bearings it was approaching 9 PM. We weren't too discouraged as it was looking like we would be done tonight and that was the real goal of the day.










We had to bleed my brakes as we were required to open the system to air and drain it when we did the booster and master upgrade. So we set about bleeding (which took quite a while as there was a lot of air in the system) and finished that and put the wheels on right around 10 PM. Tired but feeling accomplished me and Jason fired up my truck and got ready to take it for a test drive. I put her in reverse to back out of his garage and took a hold of my steering wheel to turn my wheel....It wouldn't move and was completely locked. I gave Jason what I'm sure was a look very similar to this one  and we both sat there for a minute going over everything we had done trying to figure out what could be the problem. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks that I had read about people with 1st gen trucks and 4Runners having to run a spacer between the booster and the firewall because of the bigger booster interfering with the steering linkage. I knew right then that was the problem and started cursing up a storm and kicking myself in the ass for being so stupid as to forget about that.   Believe it or not Jason had the factory spacer required (dude has every Toyota part you can dream of I swear) and after calming down and realizing the amount of work we were going to have to do to fix the problem we started into getting it solved. Me and Drew had such a problem getting the booster in before that I had kind of figured out the trick to getting it in and out which more or less boiled down to having to loosen my clutch master cylinder so it could move to the side slightly while also removing my EVAP box. It went a lot quicker than we hoped and we had it back together and set about bleeding the brakes all over again. By this time it was rapidly approaching midnight and we had put in 18 hours of work into my truck. We were both exhausted and I was facing an hour and a half drive home.  We fired the truck up and took her for a spin and everything was working great. I had better brakes than I ever have had before and my new parking brake was working wonderfully. I thanked Jason profusely for being such a good friend and headed home. After washing off my almost completely black body my head finally hit the pillow around 2:30. Hell of a long day.

Here is the final product. I got to enjoy these axles looking so good while I break in these diffs and wait for my 12volt guy harnesses and panel to come so I can hook up these lockers and start living locked up life 













I had to throw on some new appropriate flair on the window for some extra HP too you know




I can't thank Jason, Nate, and Drew enough for all their hard work in helping me do this job. It goes without saying that I couldn't have done it without you guys and you have saved me thousands of dollars in labor. I love you guys!