Project Land Cruzah

[Dooner]

Got some work done on the anti-wrap bar the other day, built it for the most part out of steel I had in stashed my garage. I have to go low buck on what I can these days cuz I got close to zero   for a budget. I spent like $35 for the control arms, and probably $40 more for steel for both the brackets on the rear end and the bar  .

[Dooner]

Finished up the anti-wrap bar, painted it up and bolted it up.. sorta. I found that while I had it bolted it all together before I tacked it up, something amazing happened - it grew!

Apparently I should have taken the brackets off the axle and used them as a jig to keep everything sit-chiated. Looks like the bars spread out some during welding, now the bar ends are just a little off of the bolt holes in the axle brackets, by about an Inch!

[Dooner]

Well im pretty much stuck with the dimensions of the bar so all I can do is to redo the axle brackets. Im fresh out of 1/4" plate so I really cant make up new brackets so it was back to the scrap heap, I mean, supply cabinet to see what I could use to salvage what I got.

I decided to scab onto the lower end of the brackets and build in a little skid plate to help protect the bottom bar end

Heres what I got done this afternoon... welds are starting to get a little better!

[Dooner]

Here's a pic of the Anti Wrap brackets on the rear axle. Here the brackets are being modified after I found that I made them too short  meaning I had to extend the lower ends to stretch them out. I ended up welding a scab plate to each side and then extending the short section. It was kinda hokie, but being as I didnt have to buy any more steel made it doable. As a bonus each plate bracket is 1/2" thick on the lower edge making it more bash proof. I still need to clean up the bottom edge and then build a little skid plate, transitioning off the A/Wrap bar so the mount wont hang up on anything.

[Dooner]

A couple of shots of what Im doin for bump stops front and rear. These are off of a Chevy Sonoma SUV. Like I said before, they are a simple 1 nut install, quick and easy. The bumper just pops into the bracket after it is installed. I got these for like $3.00 a piece at the bone yard.

[BoG-ToY]

wow, those look pretty cool... and simple... even if you had to weld them on.. lol, just hopefully they pop in pretty tight so as they dont pop out on the trail?

[Dooner]

wow, those look pretty cool... and simple... even if you had to weld them on.. lol, just hopefully they pop in pretty tight so as they dont pop out on the trail?

Yeah for sure, dont wanna leave a trail of bumpstops behind me! Actually they seem to be a pretty good design where the base of the bumper locks into a channel in the metal bracket. Yeah you can pull them off with no tools, but you really gotta want it. A screw driver makes it way easier to pry them out of the brackets. I think if you have a nice wide and flat stop for them to deflect into squarely, youd never have a problem. Im thinking about getting a couple of extras next time im down at the bone yard for spares, just in case.


Ended up cutting the rivets off of the factory rear bumpstop bases, relocating them over the new bumpstops. This will give me good wheel travel without allowing too much negative arch to fatigue the rear springs.

[Slolyfe]

Nice project! Im along for the ride

[Dooner]

Welcome aboard ClamEater! Not finding much time to wrench on the Cruiser lately and with the holidays coming up, time and money are going to be tight for a while. But... There are a few low buck things I'm gonna try to get to right away.

1. Gonna finish off the anti wrap brackets on the rear axle. I still need to set the angle and burn in the shackle hanger. Done
2. Make some nice wide stops for the bumps to mash into. Done
3. Build front shock mounts w/ modded F350 towers. Done
4. Modify rear bumper and braces. Done
5. Mount fuel cell, electric pump and transfer switch. Done
6. Tie cage into frame and paint
7. Build running board sliders
And then the next day....

[Dooner]

Snuck out to the garage and played with the Cruza a little bit, working on the mounting brackets for the anti wrap some more .

Here's a couple o pics of the Anti Wrap brackets on the rear axle after modifying them.

I wanted to give the mount more surface area on the rear axle so I wouldn't have any metal fatigue issues, so I decided to tie the brackets to the rear of the axle with a v shaped gusset. I ended up taking a section of 3" flat stock and cutting a relief down the center of it so that it would bend. Then I chucked it up in my vise and beat it with a hammer until it measured 2 1/2" matching the width of the A/W brackets. Then I shaped the lower end of the gusset where it would contact the back side of the axle and a relief on each side to match the contour of the axle housing.  I tacked it up from the top down, and then burned it in real good, heating the gusset, making it more maliable. I then beat the gusset down to the axle housing and burned that in too. I wish I had taken the time to jack the rig up to give my self more room. My welding helmet was pinned up against the bottom of the tub, and kept slipping over my eyes, gorking up my welds.  

[Dooner]

Havent posted an update in a while so heres a few shots of some stuff Ive been tinkering with here and there.

I wanted to plate the underside of the antiwrap brackets to form a little skid plate. Im hoping this will help to keep from hanging up the rear end and also to transition off the a/w bar.

I laid a little of of the ol heat and beat to form the plate, welding it up as I went.

[Dooner]

Started work on the F250 shock towers. Chopped the rivets off with the ol grinder and knocked them out with an air chisel. After cleaning up the frame rail I tacked the Ford tower in place.

Got these towers off a '94 F350 crew cab at Pick n Pull. The guy wanted to charge me 16 bucks each so I had to remind him that they were only $18 brand new! He quickly adjusted his price. I like this model of tower as they are stamped steel plate and have a square bottom edge, which is easy to weld. The newer ones look like they are cast and not so easy to work with

[Dooner]

I ended up bracing the back side of the Ford tower to the frame with box tubing ala Swilson on Pirate and drilled the frame through the Ford bolt holes for strength. Luckily, there is a big ol hole on the inner side of the frame where a nut can be inserted

[Dooner]

Finally got around to finishing off the front brakes!
Ended up drilling out the threads on the knuckles so I could run the bolts in from the back, This is nessesary to be able to torque them.

I, in turn tapped new threads into the calipers with a 1/2" x 13 tap and picked up some 2" long grade 8 bolts to match.

After cleaning the calipers up, I threw on some clear paint, lubed the "O" seals in brake fluid and bolted the inner caliper halve to the knuckle. Next I torqued the caliper bolts and then placed nuts on the exposed ends of the 2" bolts. After torqueing the nuts, I tack welded them on 3 spots each with a wet rag wrapped around everything to protect piston rubber and to suck heat out quickly. I was kinda worried about how the threads would sync up between the nuts and the calipers, so I figured torque and tack would keep everything lined up. After tacking, I checked the bolts and they threaded in and torqued fine.

[Dooner]

Couple more

[Dooner]

Popped the rotor back on to check for clearances and then buttoned the spindle and hub back up, note the tack welded nut

[Dooner]

Couple more bolted up, Need to pick up some more cone washers to finish up, Im five short.

Its hard to see in these photos (Cell phone pics)but a fin has been ground down on the calipers to clear the wheel

[jabhb]

cool

[Dooner]

Man, I guess its been awhile since I posted anything!  Here's some stuff ive been tinkering with. I always wanted to do something different with the tail lights as I hung one up on a stump years back. I really want to keep the Land Cruiser charactor so I didnt want to put them up in the rear fenders. I ended up swapping them side to side and flipping them upside down so that the flat edge was level with the bottom of the bumper. I then traced out the shape of the lights on the sheet metal and cut them out. I had to raise the factory spare tire carrier to mount the right tail light. Ill do a little finish work down the road to clean them up, but im pretty happy with the way they look. Used $12 LED trailer tail lights from HF

[Dooner]

Here are a couple of shots of what I did with my rear shock mounts. I might be getting a little carried away with recycling stuff, but hey this one was free! After chopping the factory front shock towers off to be replaced with the F350's, the factory mounts were sitting there begging not to get tossed out. I was looking for a solution for mounting the rear shocks, cuz the original ones on the cross member wernt lining up since I moved the rear axle back.

After spending some time looking for a solution, I started looking at those old front mounts. I found that by cutting the bases off of the old front shock mounts, welding them together and then welding them to the rear cross member, I could mount the shocks at the angle and spacing that I was looking for.

Also this shot shows the old bump stop mounts on the frame rail. I recycled these too, remounting them directly over the new bumpstops that are on the spring plates. This should help keep the springs from going negative arch, to get them to last longer.

[Dooner]

Got around to the exhaust the other day, and decided to try to modify what I had to see if I could make it work on the cheap. I really figured I would need to have a custom exhaust built up cuz the exhaust could no longer exit on the driver side. Well after looking at it for awhile, I decided to see if I could pull it off, I had my doubts because Ive never tried anything like this before, and what the heck, if it didnt work out, it would be easier to throw out being all cut up anyways.

Turned out pretty good tucked up nice and high while leaving room for heat shielding and vibration / movement.

[kneedownnate]

Nice!  Which manifolds are you running?

[Dooner]

Nice!  Which manifolds are you running?

Thanks Nate,
Im using the same ones (as far as I know!) that came on it from the factory back in '67. The motor im using was in a '67 SS Chevelle, 327 Turbofire with factory cast iron 4 barrol manifold, quadrajet carb and Double Hump Heads. The manifolds had the air injector nozzles that ran air from the smog pump down into the exhaust ports. Somehow the nozzles got cut out of the ports and sealed off, smog pump disappeared too! Come to think of it, I havent seen the vapor recovery tank in awhile either..

[Dooner]

Here's a few more of my homebrewed exhaust. It may be cobby, but it only cost me $25.00 for 3 feet of 2" exhaust tubing, and a little welding wire. Might have to do something different with the muffler. Tilted it sideways, trying to clear everything, but it looks like its gonna be hanging down below the frame on its leading edge. Ill try hacking the corner off and welding a piece of thin plate over the hole. If that wont work, ill ditch the muffler and toss in a glass pack or something with a super cool chrome tip!

[Dooner]

Smore

[Dooner]

After talking with a buddy of mine about my anti hop bar, I decided that I needed to reinforce the tube that I am using for the shackle anchor. I came up with the idea of using a section of tubing left over from my old Tacoma sliders to do an inner sleeve inside my anchor tube. This made the tube fairly bullet proof, but I decided to go a bit further.

I was thinking about just putting some gussets between the anchor tube and the frame, but this sounded kinda ho hum.. I figured it would be more better to cut a couple of wedge shaped slices out of a piece of tubing, weld them together on the tube kinda like a funnel in which the base would weld to the frame. Turned out kinda cool

[Dooner]

A few more

[tanman85]

me likey!

[Dooner]

me likey!

Thanks Tanman! Ive had a good summer of building other projects and spending 2 weeks roosting sand in Pismo, but I'll be getting back to work on the Cruizer soon, and hopefully finishing it up by fall!

[poor boy pulling]

looks great keep up the good work