The transformation of the Blue Magoo

[Noahrob]

Just wanted to say, cool build!

[blumagoo]

Got my winch on

Then I got this for Christmas

One of the best mods yet!

[blumagoo]

Finally time to go wheelin
Took a trip to Hollister hills Crawled around on some rock piles


Played in some trenches

It was pretty wet down there

I think the truck performed great but I also learned a few things,
need to get to work on my suspension (still mostly stock) and move the front axle forward an inch or two, the front wheels would stuff so hard that it would lock up the tire. My plan is to run RUFs and f150s, I already have the Rufs just need to save some money for high steer, shocks and find some f150 springs. I also I really need crawler gears, I found it to be extremely difficult to get over rocks with stock low range.
My buddy got his ECU wet while playing in the muddy water and his truck wouldn't run right until we spent some time drying it out, so I think raising that to a higher location would be a worthwhile mod.
All in all we had a great time and can't wait for the next one.

[87hillbillyoter]

i like it! its like a badass work truck that can go anywhere!

[red86runner]

hey nice truck think i know where that cab came from i may have flatbeded that :driving

[mtm]

nice build that

[wakkjobb]

Slick bed, those tail lights are pretty awesome!  8)

Not to take away from your build, but what's the story for that 69-72 GM truck in the first picture?

>>Dan

[unclejpl4x4]

I was thinking how about 2 wood planks for beds sides (removable)  sanded all nice and coated like the bed

[blumagoo]

Slick bed, those tail lights are pretty awesome!  8)

Not to take away from your build, but what's the story for that 69-72 GM truck in the first picture?

>>Dan

Good eye man!
Thats my friends suburban, it's pretty cool with a brand new motor, 4spd auto and disks.

[blumagoo]

I was thinking how about 2 wood planks for beds sides (removable)  sanded all nice and coated like the bed

Your pretty close.
It will get 3 boards on the sides shaped to the cab and a 2 board tailgate.
But that's on hold right now, I'm working on the sliders and a few other details like moving the battery under the bed, fixing the seat, moving the front axle forward then the family rig, my 94 4runner (had it for 9 years) blows it's head gasket , so I'm thinking we fix the head gasket on the cheap, sell it and get a FJ 55 or 60. But then do I really need another project? Maybe?

[blumagoo]

It's been a few months since I've posted any thing, we took some time off working on the pickup, our 4runner blew it's head gasket and I just wasn't into it any more, it was a great truck we had it for 9 years and its been all over the western US,
but the boys are getting bigger and we need more room so we traded up to a 95 Land cruiser,
It was all stock when we got it, then we stripped the running boards and fender flares, I think it looks better now, a lot like the old 4runner.
We put on OME springs and shocks, then BFG 315x75x16, we will do bumpers and sliders after this next phase of the pickup, over all I like the new truck alot but it sure does suck gas. Going to try and tune it a little and see if that helps.

Back to the pickup, we have gotten it back into the shop and are going to get into the suspension.
The plan is to do rears in front and f150s out back, cross over steering and fix the drive lines.
I'll be keeping the ride hight as low as I can, I plan on keeping my 35s for awhile but would like to be able to goto 37s later.
So we start with the back because I need the rears for the front.
Awhile ago when I lifted the fuel tank I did some research and put in these front spring mounts

They seem to work well with the new spring. Here is a shot of the shackle angle
and added a little to the shackle mounts, don't want those coming off later.

I really like how soft they feel can't wait to see how it rides.
This is how it looks with the stock front end, pretty close to level but I'll have to wait and see how the front comes out.

[FRANKENYOTA91]

Just went through your thread, that bed looks killer. Nice job 

[blumagoo]

Starting on the front, my truck seems to have had a hard life before I owned it, there were several cracks in the frame forward of the front spring shackle mounts, so everything gets cut off and plated from the body mount to the front crossmember, a new front spring hanger was made, it's 1/2" forward and at stock hight, then a new body mount, I made this 1.5" taller so I would be able to get rid of the body lift block and since I have lifted the drivetrain and the gas tank I don't think i'll be removing the body lift so I might as well make it more permanent.
I bent up a piece of 1/8" to stiffen up the front crossmember and got my steering box mounted.





I'm not sure about the front shackle angle I think it could be a little flatter but that would mean I have to move the spring hanger back a little and I don't think thats gonna happen at this point.
I think I going to slide the axle back on the perches an inch, it looks a little far forward to me and I think it needs wheel spacers with it's new stance.

[twistedtoy92]

i like the way it sits!

[blumagoo]

Got a little work done on the truck this week.
Finished up the welding on the frame plating and had my son paint it, I think he did a fine job.

Then we took apart the front/rear springs cleaned them all up and got a coat of paint on them.

Last week my wife finished up the sliders I made a few months back and we got them welded on.


Tucked in nice and tight, hope they give enough protection to my pristine body
Shouldn't be too long before it's up and running, I'm really missing my truck.

[blumagoo]

We have got the front spring pack back together, now we're gonna put it all together and flex it for clearance and shocks.

Finally got the infamous forklift shot of my truck 8)

I measured for bumpstops, shocks and drivelines.
Had some clearance issues but we're gonna cut this off.

I think we have really good flex from the ruf's, I am able to use most of a 14" shock's travel.
At the rear the F150's have good travel but I think it was as good with the stock springs, with my current rear shock mounting I can only use 10" shocks, If I lower the bottom shock mount and loosen up the stock spring clamps I think I could use 12s.

[blumagoo]

I'm really close now, I got the shocks mounted ( I'm saving up for new bilstein's ).
Added another leaf to the rear spring pack, took the mill wrap leaf from a stock rear pack and cut, tapered, cleaned and painted it then my wife and older son installed it while I worked on the shock mounting. It was riding a 1/2" low in the back with no load so it needed to be brought up a little.

This is how it sits now, the wheelbase is 118".
Got to drive it today, It's much softer now with more body roll (to be expected), The steering seems a little slower than before, has anyone noticed this after installing high steer?
I still need to finish the bump stops, the drive lines and trim various bolts.
Since this was a long weekend I got 2 days to work on the truck
I know most of you are loyal Toyota fans and tend to favor the stock toyota grills, but after notching mine to fit my winch it was toast, so I thought I would make my own.

I made the frame from 20ga sheet metal that I broke into channels and mitered the corners, I have a shrinker that I used to shape the channels  to the curve of the grill, then filled it in with some 10ga. x 1/2" woven wire, took about 3 hours. I got that idea from a post on Ih8mud, I used it on my fj80 but haven't finished it yet (the rusty grill pick from previous post).
Anyway I think I like it, I'm gonna either find a retro Toyota emblem or make a Transformer emblem for it, there was a Transformer that was an 85 hilux, his name was Trail breaker.

[unclejpl4x4]

as much as i lov the stock p.o.s plastic grill i have  yours is   deff has that mean look to it matches the rest of the truck a stock grill would not look right.

[theslayer85]

That is a nice looking grill. I have seen some done and they just don't look right the light bezels don't line up and they look good from far away and that is it.  I was tempted to do one some day but that goes for alot of projects. 

[blumagoo]

I finally got it home this weekend after we finished up a few details to make it road worthy.

Got the winch on with the new grill, even after all my careful measuring I still needed to shim the bumper out a 1/4", those 12mm fine thread bolts are not standard hardware items, guess thats how it goes.
Then we trimmed all the u-bolts and finished the front bump stops.
The next item on the list is the rear drive line, having moved the rear axle back 2" I needed to extend the drive line so I thought I would just graft in a piece of the leftover front drive shaft, 2 3/4" to be exact

After a careful installation of that piece of tubing using a piece of angle iron and a few c-clamps it is smooth as butter at 70mph 8)

[blumagoo]

I also managed to get my front drive line finished this weekend.

I built this using 2x2x1/8" tube for the outer and 1 3/4x1 3/4x1/8" for the inner piece, which means I had to create a socket to receive the tube on the cv side of the shaft. I also had to do a bit of sanding on the tubing (since I used welded seam tubing) to get it to slide nicely but there is very little play between the two pieces which means no rattle
I am not experienced in machine work but I do have a smithy bench top mill in my possession.
So I made a jig to hold the cv

and going very slowly, I milled out a socket for the tubing.


Welded up both ends and put on the brace at the end of the outer tube to hold the neoprene boot that I'm going to put on later.
I havn't installed it yet because I have to pull the t-case to install the 4.7's and twin stick and while I've got that out I'll be putting in the interior side of the a/c system I found on craigslist........

[Peterbuilt84]

Coming along nicely, looks good!

[blumagoo]

Here's a couple of details from earlier this year.

I made a stainless steel box to house 2 battery's and all the dual battery hardware, I used liquid tight conduit ( the electricians will know what this is) to run the cable to the starter, then another cable from there to this insulated post I found at West Marine. Still need to work out some fusible link in case I get a short, don't want my truck catching fire

From there I tied in the winch cable and trucks 12v.
I did this exhaust outlet a while back, welded a piece of 2" tubing in the rear quarter of the flat bed.

Then I finally got it tied in, I had to use some of that auto parts store flexible tubing some day I'll change it to a piece of bent tubing, maybe when I get to the 3rz swap

You can see the battery box in the background

[blumagoo]

A while ago I bought a complete A/C system from a guy in San Jose who sell stuff on craigslist, I went to this guys place and was blown away, he has everything for 84-88 pickups and 84-89 4runners right in his back yard. I hope he sticks around for awhile because he's a great resource, and his prices are reasonable.
So I took out the interior once again and will be installing A/C, stereo possibly a new brown dash, a guy in my neighborhood had an 85 in really nice condition and recently rolled it so it's being parted now and I'm hoping to get the dash and seatbelts to cleanup the interior a little.
The stereo will be made up of the speakers already installed in the wood door panels

Then I'll stick an amp under the seat and use a Ipod for the input, I bought an adaptor for the ipod that will keep it charged and has a rca plug output to connect to the amp, the only thing is I'll have to put in a line level control for volume control.
I also cut out the lower part of the dash since I'm not going to have a normal stereo head unit and made these cup holders.

Cup holders are so important if you like coffee.

[John Doe]

Build looks good, I really like the Grill. I had been planning on something like for a while now.

[blumagoo]

Thank's, I kinda just went a bit further than the one I made for my land cruiser, all I did was cut the stock grill and fill it with mesh,

I was gonna do the same with the pickup until I built the bumper then it just seemed right to bring the bottom of the grill down

[John Doe]

How did you mount the new section of grill? That is 1 thing I have been  about. I honestly haven't put to much thought into it just looked at it in between projects.

[blumagoo]

On the cruiser I welded tabs to the back of the mesh and used 1/8" bolts to attach it to the remaining plastic grill.
On the pickup I made a frame from sheetmetal, welded the mesh to it then bolted it to the remaining plastic grill.

[blumagoo]

So now I've got the dash and the floor mat out and it was a little wet under the mat so it think there is a leak to find, under the dash I suspect. Once I find that I'll do an extra good job sealing the penetrations, add some sound deadener and hope I don't need to do this again for at least 10 years or more.

[Talon84x4]

I like how this truck it turning out, great work on the flat bed and I like the grill too