89 4runner 3Linked Front

[Noahrob]

Hi,

My name is Noah and I live in Socal. I have an '89 runner, pretty standard really, SAS'd, dual cases (marlin of course), 5.29's, 37" Iroks and some tube accents...What's next? Well, I have replaced and tweaked the springs several times and am still not happy with the results. Time to 3Link, but there is a challenge, which is I am not super proficient at link suspensions. I knew right out of the gate that I did not want a Trail- Gear 3link (if you don't understand why I made this decision so fast, PM me and I'll fill you in)and I am a little scared to just go freestyle at this point, so I decided to use the 4wheelunderground kit as a base for my three link suspension. Brian has done the math and seems to know what he is talking about so I wanted to leverage that experience.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are all very much welcome. Here is my truck as it was at the MC roundup

[Noahrob]

Lower links are 2.25 OD .250 Wall DOM with a 1.25 Johnny Joint on the frame end and a 1.25 Heim on the other.
Upper link is 1.75 OD .250 Wall DOM with a 1.00 Johnny Joint on the frame end and a 7/8" Heim on the other.
Links were hand me downs so luckily the upper link is plenty of long.

Shocks are FOA 14" with a 16" lower spring and 12" upper. The valving is medium (I think, I'll have to double check) and the springs are 150/250.

Also, before I did anything I got a FROR cross member since I was running an under the transfer case style skid plate (which I will modify later on so I still ahve protection). Becasue my truck used to be IFS, I had to cut off the torsion bar brackets...nothing is ever easy or straight forward, however, the plasma cutter made life easier. One thing to note is that on my truck, the fuel line and brake lines go right in front of where the FROR frame brackets mount and exactly where the 4wheel underground frame bracket goes. I did not want to take all the lines off so simply removed the bolts that hold them to the frame and tucked everything out of the way and protected them with a piece of sheet metal.

OK, so after I cut the cross member bracket, I spent a fair amount of time trying to determine exactly where the frame side bracket goes. The holes in the bracket do not line up with the holes in the frame and even if they did, the bracket is straight and the frame is not. I finally settled on 17.5" forward of the stock cross member that runs right in front of the gas tank. This spot got the bracket pretty tight to the frame on the top. I may end of moving them back an inch so as not to push the front axle too far forward, we'll see once we get everything mocked up and in place.

[Noahrob]

Another reason I decided to use the 4wheelunderground stuff was that I could keep my hysteer arms and just relocate the tie rod to the bottom side of the arms, which I did by reaming out the bottom of each steering arm.

Once I got the axle out, I cut off the old shock hoops (hmmm...now that I think about it, wonder if I could sell those) and added the frame bracing. Everything, all the brackets, the bracing, etc..is 1/4" beefy!

[John Doe]

I look forward to your thoughts on this kit. Keep up the updates.

[874runnertoys]

 more more keep it coming cant wait to see it done

[yota4x4sc]

ya good call on not gettin the trail gear.. that stupid kit only gives u leaf spring flex.. nice kit u found, i gotta check it out for mine

[twistedtoy92]

very nice choice! I'll be watchin this build 

[87pickup]

Nice, i am making slow process with my link kit but its getting there.

[TacoRunner]

Nice, i am making slow process with my link kit but its getting there.

about time, you starting a build thread? I mean I hope, pretty please.

[87pickup]

about time, you starting a build thread? I mean I hope, pretty please.

I willstart one in a week or 2, id like to get a little bit more of a headstart so its not so slow and boring.

[Noahrob]

Hey guys,

Hope everybody had a nice Christmas. Ok, made some progress over the last few days. I got the axle all cleaned up and the brackets tacked in place. It took just a little grinding to get the driver side axle bracket where I wanted it, otherwise, everything else fit pretty darn well. By just using the steering stops as reference, (each axle side bracket rests on the re-enforced steering stop), the height of each side was within 1/8th of each other! Good job Brian...

After I got the brackets tacked in palce, I rolled the axle under the truck and bolted on the links. Overall, I am pretty happy with the way things are going. I have run into a few snags, but they are in my court. First, I used hand me down links, which is fine except the through bolts are 9/16 not 5/8. Secondly, my fuel and brake lines are rigth where the frame side lower link brackets wants to go. Finally, the clearance to the exhaust is tight, if I move the bracket, I may have to move the exhaust. Thanks for looking...

[Noahrob]

Here you can see how close the tolerances are for the axle brackets

[twistedtoy92]

lookin good!

[rockin86runner]

nice i will be watching this build iv been getting all the pieces for mine   

[Noahrob]

Thanks for all the positive feedback, helps keep the tank full! Well, made some progress today, got teh real tires on adn was able to cycle the suspension a lot! Brian must have spent a lot of time working on adn tweaking these brackets as there is very little room to work with. Anyway, I have a lot more measuring and head scratching to go, but this should give you an idea.

Obviously, there are a ton of things that I am learning, so if you (global you) end up going this route, I would be happy to share what I have learned thus far (to be fair, most people on this board probably know a lot more than I do, but my offer stands)

[THK Matt]

I definately wants to watch this

[Noahrob]

What a productive day. Unfortunately, I won't have pics until tomorrow as it is dark and windy out (not that the windy impacts the pics, just the sissy taking them).

Anyway, after 723 calls to Brian, the last one of which indicated something was amiss, he drove up here to help get everything straightened out. First and foremost, Brian, thank you for taking time out of your day to to come up. Anyone reading this thread should know that Brian has built an awesome kit and after seeing how it is going to work, I am excited. Anybody who has enough conviction to stand by what they've sold enough to drive up to make sure it is working as designed is top notch in my book.

Basically, today saw me going from a hopeful skeptic to drinking the Kool Aid, I am a believer! After resolving a couple bugs (introduced by yours truly) and seeing how it is going to work, I am fired up!

Here is the short version of what gone done today. My panhard is built, 36.5" eye to eye is the magic number, slightly shorter than the draglink, but perfectly parallel. One note on that is that it would probably be easier if I had a dropped pitman arm. Because I have the straight arm, the panhard mounts kind of high in the frame side bracket, which will require some trimming to avoid binding at full stuff.

Another note is that in the designed location, the frame side link brackets clear the exhaust. On the other side, I still may need to move some lines, but I will try to avoid that at all costs because of how much I hate doing that.

Bumpcans...turns out that FOA bump cans are about 2 1/6th", which means the Brian supplied cans had to be pried open a tad as they are dead on 2".

Because I want my truck to sit as low as possible and be able to stuff the tire as high as possible, I decided to take an inch out of the frame so that panhard and draglink can go up even further. I might even move the battery box so the 37" Iroks can go even higher, not sure yet.

I already cut out the frame, but didn't take a picture, will work on cleaning it up and bracing it tomorrow. Probably going to fil the gap with .120 wall square tube and try to find some 1/4 or even 3/8 to brace the top of the frame.

I also started mocking up my shock hoops and of course, the stupid AC line is right where the shock wants to live...

[twistedtoy92]

Very nice! Good to hear that Brian stands behind his products like that!
I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of what you accomplished today...

[THK Matt]

Very nice! Good to hear that Brian stands behind his products like that!
I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of what you accomplished today...

x2

[87pickup]

My air bump cans were super super tight as well, i had to tack weld the brackets to the frame, install the air bumps as far as they would go and lower the truck so the weight helped push the bumps  in the cans. Now i wonder if i will be able to get them out. Sounds like you will have more up travel then i since i already burned in my air bump cans to the brackets since they were orignally going in my old truck and they were set to bottom out right before the trac bar hit the oil pan.

[chunkybutfunky934]

nice build!

[TacoRunner]

My air bump cans were super super tight as well, i had to tack weld the brackets to the frame, install the air bumps as far as they would go and lower the truck so the weight helped push the bumps  in the cans. Now i wonder if i will be able to get them out. Sounds like you will have more up travel then i since i already burned in my air bump cans to the brackets since they were orignally going in my old truck and they were set to bottom out right before the trac bar hit the oil pan.

The cans I used on yours were purchased from Polyperformance, you should be able to get them out, toss on some penatrating oil and work it some.

[87pickup]

Im ready to start coilover hoops and having a hard time with such little room for hoops being so close to the booster. Im curious what you come up with so i can steal the idea. Im trying not to do something jankey.

[TacoRunner]

I'll PM you.

[ToYocRawleR]

lookin good !

[TacoRunner]

Im ready to start coilover hoops and having a hard time with such little room for hoops being so close to the booster. Im curious what you come up with so i can steal the idea. Im trying not to do something jankey.

  sometimes words suck, here is a picture

[Noahrob]

Dang, you are ahead of me, I haven't even got the bump stops placed yet.

Here are few pics from yesterday. I had a list of like 10 things I was going to get done, but I only made it through about half. Sitting here reflecting on what happened, I know why. I pretty much cycled the suspension after each and every change, which takes a fair amount of time with just one guy. My advice, get a buddy to man the other jack if you can.

Ok, well, I got the eBrack bracket cut apart and re-welded. Basically, if you are running an Allpro offroad after market driveline brake, you can just turn the caliper around to fit with a FROR rear mount cross member. However, if you are running a sky cross member, you need to cut the bracket apart and re-weld it.

I also got the panhard built and mounted. Gotta watch yourself with that half inch Milwaukee...it will break your wrist when a 5/8" bit binds up.

Finally, I finished the notch in the frame. Unfortunately, I didn't have the metal I wanted to cap the frame, so I ended up chopping up a 2x3 .120 tube, which worked ok. I will either go get more metal to brace the top of the frame, or use some solid 1.5" square stock I have and make it into little triangles.

As far as flex goes, dang! The lower link hits the frame at about the same time the tire hits the battery box!

[Noahrob]

You can see that in order to get my panhard bar nice and straight, I had to mount it high in the frame side mount. This is because I run a straight pitman arm, not dropped at all. Now that I think about it, I need to check, not sure the drag link TRE on the arm with have enough flex when the passenger tire is stuffed with the driver dropped.

As for the shocks hoops I have a few things going for me. First, I don't thing that the 22re is nearly as crowded as the 3rz. Secondly, the FOA shocks are 20.3 fully compressed so that makes it a lot easier to fit

[TacoRunner]

For those that have never seen a solid axle frame next to an IFS frame, here is a little comparison for you.

The other photo shows the real culprit for the frame cutting is the HY Steer. This kit is designed to work for those that have already purchased Hy Steer. Which is most of us. If you want to drive this down the road when you are done with it the panhard and draglink must be parallel to each other. If they are not you get lots of bump steer = not fun to drive.

Also remember one thing, Noah has a 1" body lift, so in order to get his tires touching the battery box, he had to cut the frame.

[87pickup]

You can see that in order to get my panhard bar nice and straight, I had to mount it high in the frame side mount. This is because I run a straight pitman arm, not dropped at all. Now that I think about it, I need to check, not sure the drag link TRE on the arm with have enough flex when the passenger tire is stuffed with the driver dropped.

As for the shocks hoops I have a few things going for me. First, I don't thing that the 22re is nearly as crowded as the 3rz. Secondly, the FOA shocks are 20.3 fully compressed so that makes it a lot easier to fit

3rz is a little bigger but its really just the booster. Being a larger t100 booster doesnt help. I may move the lower shock mounts over closer to the axle centerline so i have a little more room. I would like to get my shock angled back a little.