Topic: Project: The '81 "Yoter"

[a1gemmel]

Figured out my steering issue 

Had a bad valve core on the front left and it leaked down to 8psi. Front right at 24psi. Replaced that and aired up, problem gone. Crazy how many problems that giant contact patch makes with a barely visible sidewall bulge.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Wanted to pull my snowmobile, hacked up a hitch to make the 18" drop I needed. Be the change you want to see in the world.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

The "iconic" topper is now back on. I wanted to get the rest of my winter firewood hauling done before reinstalling.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

I made a quick and dirty frame mount for the hi-lift jack this evening, machined some hand knobs out of delrin that accept a pressed in nylock nut. The idea was to have this not require any tools to remove/replace the jack, but in practice the diameter of the hand knobs is not sufficient to hand tighten them. I have some larger diameter stock, I'll take another shot at this idea later.



The mount is just two bolts through the frame (welded in place) that accept the jack. The handle side has a little bracket that retains the handle in place, this bracket is retained on the frame by a short length of chain so I don't lose it.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

I'm working on a slide-out system for the bed now. The plan is to have most of my gear in Milwaukee packout containers on one slide, and have the other side be more generic storage for day-to-day stuff and things that aren't practical to fit in packout. The overall goal is to have as close to 100% as possible of my gear rigidly mounted so that nothing is sliding around back there.

I built one of these years ago for my girlfriend's farrier truck and incorporated a few learnings from that project.



High quality blueprints with a cut-list for anyone that wants to steal:



I settled on this design after a few iterations, it has a few benefits.

• Almost zero critical dimensions. I just have to get the frame close to nominal width and have the three longitudinal frame boards parallel, only the backs of those three boards even need to be square. Every other piece could be cut off-square in the dark and it won't matter. This is good because I'm pretty dumb.
• Raising the shelves above the slides lets them take the full width of the bed between the wheel wells
• It also gives extra storage under the shelves for anything less than 5.5" tall (camp chairs, folding tables, rifle cases, etc)
  

I visited a friend that has a table saw and a good knowledge of woodworking and got all the pieces cut. Then made the steel parts at home and assembled the frame. It's upside down in this photo.



When the slides are pulled out the weight acts as a cantilever against the back of the frame, trying to pull it straight up. That steel strap screws to the back of the frame with 12 GRK #8x2" cabinet screws. I made a test rig with 1 of these screws and hung from it with some weights, about 200lbs total. So that puts the minimum tensile strength of this connection at 2400lbs. I'll use a number of M8 bolts and rivnuts for the bed-side connection that exceed that 2400lbs.

Shear strength of a #8 wood screw is about 2200 lbs, so with 8 of those transfering the load to the sides of the frame (and 3 of the screws in tension tie into the sides as well) I don't see that joint failing. Likely the wood itself will fail first. Those connections are also glued.

Consider worst case scenario is ballpark 500lbs of gear distributed around the slides, fully extended with a 200lb person standing on the end of each one...
The 500lbs distributed is equivalent to 250lbs on the end (I think), so in total that scenario is 650lbs at 60" from the slide front (maximum pull out). The frame is 80" long so we have 3/4 cantilever, for ~490lbs of tension at the back of the frame. That gives me a safety factor of at least 5x. If any of this napkin math is correct. There will also of course be fasteners at the mid and front of the frame (back of the truck) bolting it to the bed.

The slide hardware itself mounts with 10 #14x3/4" stainless fasteners on either side... the shear strength of those is astronomically larger than the loads they'll see.

All that is to say, I think I've engineered this appropriately. Am I missing anything? Time will tell... or you guys will point it out

All of the pieces are stained now with an oil based urethane sealer, will let that cure overnight then continue assembly. Next up is test fitting the frame in the bed and drilling / installing rivnets.



Side note - it's cold as hell here right now. I speak celsius but that's -15f/-33f. Have the propane heater running full blast out in the shop.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Alright, my dyno session was today. I've made another thread for this since I feel like the 22R stroker information is more broadly relevant to folks thinking of building such an engine, made searchable without wading through my whole truck build thread.

https://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=105900

the TL;DR of the results here is:



This is an overlay of the best pull with my 37" tires (light colours) and the best pull with a set of 31x10.5R15 tires (dark colours).

As I drive the truck, where I drive it, as observed:
63.3whp@4053rpm, 103lb-ft@2290rpm
With correction factor of 23.2%:
78.0hp, 127lb-ft

Throwing on the 31" tires to see a closer-to-stock result:
74.3hp@4134rpm, 109lb-ft@3170rpm
With correction factor of 22.7%:
91.0hp, 134lb-ft

If there's any discussion of the results let's have it in the engine thread instead of here, so the information is all in one place.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

More progress on the bed slide system - the frame is now complete with the slide hardware mounted.

Used some boards to hold the slides parallel while screwing them in.



Then the inner pieces that will support the shelves were screwed in 1/4" proud of the top of the frame.



And voila, the completed frame. This part weighs 114lbs, most of that is the drawer slide hardware. The shelves weigh an additional 54lbs and will be installed on the frame after it's bolted to the bed.
The total weight of 168lbs is comparable to paying a medium size man to squat in the back of the bed and hand me things as I ask for them, but I feel that the bed slide is a more economical and humane solution.



I assembled the "loose items" shelf using my kreg jig to make pocket screw holes - this is the one tool you need to own to successfully trick other people into thinking you're a competent woodworker. The shelf sides are only going to be screwed on, so it'll be trivial to reconfigure the slide in the future if needed. I'm also going to wrap the base with carpet and reinstall the sides on top. The sides are slotted so I can configure dividers ad-hoc as needed.



Both bases got wrapped with carpet, just stapling it on. I considered using an adhesive, but it would be a nightmare to remove when I inevitably need to refresh/replace the carpet in the future.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

All done!



I don't know how this happened but the location of the center frame board was off by about an inch, thankfully due to my idiot-proof design it didn't really matter.



Packout bases installed.



Roughly a million dollars and my first born child worth of packout boxes:



Proof is in the pudding - put my life on the line testing out my load calculations with the slide fully extended.



With nothing in the packouts, all my usual gear fits on the one slide. Most of the contents of those soft bags will go into the packout boxes.



I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, there's a few additional improvements I have in mind but for the most part I just need to get my gear organized now. This vastly improves the usability of the bed with the topper installed.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

After mounting the hi-lift jack and adding the slide out storage, I felt like I still hadn't added enough weight over/behind the rear axle to completely ruin the handling and off-road performance of this truck. So, I decided to make a swing-out tire carrier. Nothing like hanging 140+ lbs off the back of a longbed 

I started with an AtoZ Fabrication spindle kit and an axle cutoff from my yard. Mocked up the tire position, measured the sag both vertically and how much the tire rotated the hub downwards.



Next was turning some delrin on my lathe to make some bushings. Adapt these 5/8" heims down to take 1/2" bolts, and make a tapered bushing that will locate the carrier when closed. You can machine delrin with just about anything, as I show here with a broken drill bit ground to bore a taper into the bushing pressed into this steel sleeve.





Here this tapered steel proboscis slides smoothly into the tapered delrin bushing (how naughty), locating the carrier and preventing it from bouncing upwards and popping out of the pin that locks it closed.



The rest of the owl, now primed with a "cold galvanizing" high zinc primer. Never tried it before, will see how it holds up.



The secret sauce of the design is this turnbuckle that can counteract the sag of the carrier with the 120lb wheel and tire mounted. I preset the horizontal bar to be about an inch above the bumper unloaded, this turned out to be a bit much so the turnbuckle is actually in compression pushing it down roughly 1/8". Two spring loaded pull pins are located on the horizontal bar, one to lock the carrier closed and the other to lock it open at 90 degrees. I ground smooth ramps into the bumper so they engage seamlessly just like closing a door. I also set back the hub face about 4 degrees, the tire pulls it down to a final angle of about 2 degrees.









Rear visibility... isn't fantastic. I have a backup camera that I just need to install and wire up to complete this project. Oh, and move the license plate. This truck is already such that I use air quotes when I say it's "street legal", don't need to give probable cause.

[Gnarly4X]

C'mon a1gemmel!! 

Take a break! 

OK OK... You get FABRINATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD!!

Gnarls.

[tgmaul88]

i enjoy watching your progress!

[a1gemmel [OP]]

A little bit of shenanigans tonight - went out to help some sprinter vans that were stuck out on a forest service road. Guess they gambled on google maps heading home from a job. One was 4 wheel drive and got off the trail before I got there with the help of a local jeep, the other was rwd and had to be dragged a few miles. It was having transmission issues, and then the brake system bugged out and locked up 3 wheels. They had put chains on the rear tires earlier and it threw one, I'm guessing it tore an ABS sensor wire off. Was a fun little adventure, putting in some work with the little truck!

[Gnarly4X]

I love the videos!! Excellent videography!

How do you get notified of these situations?

I'm taken back a little by those people who would drive on an icey snowy backroad in a Sprinter van!!... 4-wheel drive or not.

I've been on many snow runs with my trucks.  Even air'd down and locked up, traction loss is going to happen.

If I lived in that climate, I'd be driving a 4x4 setup for the terrain and snow.  I'd be running all synthetic oil and gear lube.

If I were doing the rescues that you are doing, I'd would have some kind of radio communications for an emergency where Emcom was possible.

Snow and subfreezing weather kills people every winter.  This one made national news for quite awhile:

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/01/26/Woman-snowbound-10-days-loses-legs/8365570171600/

They were both lucky to have lived.

If I had a young daughter (or son) they would be very well-educated on being smart and knowing survival techniques.

Today, I would not allow her to travel cross-country like that alone without an experienced adult or in a group event.

I wonder how much a "tow-truck" company would charge for your rescue?

As a good friend happened to tell me yesterday, like you... "The world is a better place because of men like you!" 

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

I don't really know what drives people to end up on these trails in the winter. To be fair, that trail - and many around that area - are just dirt roads with houses on them in the summer and they are on google maps. Lots of new construction out in that area as the rich folk gentrify the mountainside.

I'm registered on offroad portal, some recoveries come in through that system. This one came in on a community facebook group, which unfortunately has a much lower bar both for communication and quality of responders. Lots of folk replying on this request, nobody taking initiative to get out there (other than that guy with the Cherokee, who wasn't actually equipped to handle the situation). People saying "I don't have a winch but I can come out with my dually" or "I have a power wagon just let me know??". There's no way to say this without sounding like a bit of a jerk, those people mean well but they really just become a liability as well as muddying the communications of who is actually engaging.

One time I was setting up to pull a 1 ton dually out of a snowbank, we were trying to figure out how to hook it up as he had some odd hidden hitch that we couldn't angle my shackle receiver into. Some guy comes up in a subaru and insists that we can insert the strap into the 2" receiver and put the pin through the eye in the strap! I kind of went off on him, sure that would work for a golf cart on ice but this is easily 7k lbs with an axle buried. You want to watch someone die today? It's not even noon.

I digress, this is rambling.

[Gnarly4X]

After 16 years of serious 4-wheeling plus 8 years of sand duning I saw way too many morons that had no business in a whatever they were driving.

I was one of those morons.

In one of my first trips to the Glamis sand dunes, I drove my sandrail off the top of a huge bowl.

I flipped end over end 4 times. I was loosely strapped in with no crotch strap.

I stayed conscious. but saw nothing but white for about a minute. During that time, I was mentally trying to quickly assess the damage and injuries.

My immediate concern was fire since I had full tank of gas.

It totaled the buggy.

The impact compression fractured 5 vertebrae.  Luckily only a small laceration on my head.

My T-6 (between my should blades) was compressed about 2 inches into an anterior (front) 28 degree wedge.
The other minor factures to 4 other vertebras were not detected by the X-ray back then, 1980, about 8 years before MRI technology was widely used in hospitals.

It would have taken only few ounces of energy to my spine to have the wedge sever my spinal cord... I would have been a quadriplegic.

It was very early in the morning and hardly anyone was out. Two guys came over to me within a few minutes and asked if I wanted a ride to my camp.
I said "No, I think I can walk to my camp.... I was in shock.  I walked up the bowl and about 500 yards to my truck.. really stupid idea.
My wife drove me to Brawley Hospital. From there 4 hours by ambulance to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach CA.

At Hoag one of the best orthopedic surgeons happened to be in the Emergency Trauma Unit.

He said I was extremely lucky, and if I were to choose a vertebra to fracture, the T-6 is an excellent choice.

My recovery was not bad, 2 years of pain with no drugs.  I went back to running and working out in the gym. No military presses and limited bench for about 4 years.

After that I was a big advocate for a 5-point harness,  By 1982 I had built my 3rd sandrail and was back out on the sand!

Oh crap...sorry I digressed.

Gnarls.

[toyodaaddict]

a1gemmel, what electric fan are you running? I'm considering trying one in a 20r swaped samurai that's short on space.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

a1gemmel, what electric fan are you running? I'm considering trying one in a 20r swaped samurai that's short on space.

https://www.lceperformance.com/Electric-Fan-Kit-20R-22R-RE-Pickup-1975-1983-Cel-p/1093003.htm

I've been happy with it so far, the adjustable kick-on temperature switch is nice and it seems to pull a lot of cfm.

[toyodaaddict]

https://www.lceperformance.com/Electric-Fan-Kit-20R-22R-RE-Pickup-1975-1983-Cel-p/1093003.htm

I've been happy with it so far, the adjustable kick-on temperature switch is nice and it seems to pull a lot of cfm.

Some time when its convenient, could you let my know how far the fan motor sticks out off the radiator ?

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Some time when its convenient, could you let my know how far the fan motor sticks out off the radiator ?

I'll grab this for you tomorrow!


Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my actions... it seems my humble L52 transmission has not enjoyed the "dragging an 8000lb van through the woods" vibe that I've been bringing to the table and is going on strike to protest poor working conditions.
I think the trans is not long for this world, mostly 2nd gear is problematic but here's the symptoms:

- Intermittently 2nd gear disappears, push all I want or try rev-matching but it's as if there's no gear in that position. No feeling of syncro engagement at all
- 2nd gear hard pop-out
- 3rd gear pop out under neutral load (only once or twice)
- 2nd gear occasionally being all grind as if the clutch is not depressed, no rev-match can engage the gear at all
- stuck in 1st gear until turning the truck off (only once)
- Slow "tick tick tick   tick    tick       tick           tick" matching road speed as coming to a stop
- Sharp clunk when taking up drivetrain slack going from accel to hard coast and vice versa

This comment from Marlin himself might explain some of the issues:
https://www.pirate4x4.com/threads/l52-transmission-problem.225525/

I will look at the shifter bushing first, but I have a marlin delrin bushing in there so I doubt it's gone off already.

Here's the kick in the pants - I'm supposed to be going to Moab on Thursday with a few friends. I'm thinking I'm going to have to slam my L45 4 speed back in the truck over the next few nights, will have to start on that tomorrow evening.
By some miracle I hope I'm missing something dumb like the shifter bushing, but the evidence doesn't look good. Anyone have some sage wisdom to share before I tear into the swap?

[Gnarly4X]

a1gemmel,

Well .. that sucks like a big giant Hoover!

I noticed in your last video some gear clashing and I figured it wasn't you inducing it.

This usually sounds a little corny...

First... things happen for a reason... I have absolutely experienced it.

Something slows me down or stops me. Why is it happening right now? Is there a reason I'm NOT supposed to go to Moab?

Is my Guardian Angel looking out for me? 

I've been making lots of deposits in my Karma Bank!   Do I need "tranny-building" practice?

Regarding getting ready for Moab... Wow.. I'd hate to miss that trip... Other than cross-country Mexico, the week in Moab will always be my most memorable 4-wheel drive adventure.

I assume you "knew" that the tranny was in trouble and your gut was telling you that you should not go to Moam with a bad-acting tranny, right? 

"A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers." ~ Plato

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Yeah, the backlash has been getting noticeably worse, albeit slowly, for some time now.
I did a bit more poking around - this might be the push to upgrade to a W56. Doesn't look like MC makes the L52HD anymore, and I don't know if it's worth it to rebuild with stock bearings as I have every intention of continuing to beat this truck like a rented mule. I need to pontificate on it.

I'm also kind of obsessed with the idea of putting an NV4500 in the truck, it has a monster low first gear and a better overdrive in 5th. I discovered Advance Adapters' kit to mate it to an RF1A just about the same time as they discontinued it. The other cool unicorn option (also discontinued) is the Advance Adapters Ranger Box. Would be super cool to put that in front of a granny gear 4 speed and have yet another shifter to brag about.

If anyone reading this has the NV4500 kit or a Ranger Box and wants to part with it... hook a brother up 

[toyodaaddict]

I've always felt like a w56 swap is just part of owning a first gen. Due to strength and availability, it doesnt seem like it's worth putting money into an L series transmission.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Toyodaaddict, the depth at the center of the fan is about 3 7/8". It nearly touches my power steering belt, not really any lower profile than the mechanical fan. It does taper to 2" at the edges.


And... Start the stopwatch on the trans swap. Got a buddy coming to help in a couple of hours.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

R&R'ed the driveline in about 6 hours last night (a good chunk of time was drilling out seized allen bolts in the crossmember), hopped in to take a test drive, pushed the clutch in and BANG it shot the shift fork out of place and ejected the slave cylinder piston. Must not have had the fork seated correctly on the pivot ball 

On my lunch break today I jammed on it and got the trans back out in 58 minutes flat - it's a little easier when it just needs to be slid back and down 6 inches. Having a lift also helps a lot.
Got it back in this evening, all is well in the world now.

[Gnarly4X]

If somebody else would have posted this level of rapid R8R, I might have thought they were sucking sewer water somewhere!

Amazing dedication to a desire, or is it OCD-generated "GET-ER DONE!" 

When the big SHTF event happens, you will be able to use your finely tune auto mechanic and fabrinator skills to barter with!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

Let's roll, say a prayer for the old 4L60E. 11,680lbs on the scales.

[Gnarly4X]

Let's roll, say a prayer for the old 4L60E. 11,680lbs on the scales.

11,680 lbs. 

What are you hauling that weighs THAT MUCH!!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel [OP]]

[a1gemmel [OP]]

A guest appearance from a rig I met on the trail a few years ago, he reached out and asked if I could diagnose a suspension squeak after the dealer failed - they just greased everything up, shrugged, and charged him an hour labor.
It turned out to be the freaking headlight 
I'm trying to convince him to do lockers so it can wheel as cool as it looks.

[Gnarly4X]

Geezzz... a1gemmel,

I wish you were a half-a-sandwich away from Casa Grande....

I have a clunking sound in my Camry and still searching for the location and source of the noise.

It's like a strut is loose but they are tight.

I'll check the headlights and the taillights. 

Gnarls.