Topic: The Macheen rebuild

[nwflyoda]

Thanks man, i can't wait either.  in my mind right now, it seems so far away though.  but i'm shooting for this winter for the truck to be finished.  perfect time to go wheeling when its not hot as balls outside here in ole muggy florida.  hahah

[nwflyoda [OP]]

We have heat....ish.

After the heater came in, i started looking at how i was going to mount it.  I installed the dash and glove box to see what space i had available on the passenger side of the firewall.  It turned out that i had a lot less space than i had expected over there. 



Luckily, i sat back and took a look at the cab with the dash on and i realized that i had a better spot to place the heater.  Too bad i didn't figure this out until after i drilled 2 7/8" holes in the newly built firewall.  This WAS were i was going to plumb the coolant/heater lines into the cab but since i found a better spot for the heater, i am moving the bulkhead fittings.

From here.



To here.  Note, you can also get a glimpse of where i mounted the heater.



There were several reason that drove this decision to move the heater.  Since the firewall is so far back in comparison from the factory, it was going to require a bit of work to get the new heater to tie into the factory defrost duct.  Also, it was going to require a bit of work to get the heater to fit into the small space on the passenger side firewall.  I was also going to have to address the issue on how i was going to get heat to the driver from all the way on the passenger side.  This man seem like an easily solution, but the 2 openings on the front of the heater are for defrost, not the occupants.  There is a blend door on the bottom that provides the heat for the occupants.  So instead, i scraped that idea in favor of a more central location.  Here is how the heater turned out and overall, I like how this turned out better than my original plan.



The kit came with the defrost ducts that should work out pretty well.  With the heater being in the center of the firewall now, the ducts should be pretty close to the same length.  Not like that really matters much in the grand scheme of things...it appeased my OCD.



Here is how the ducts were tied to the factory inner cowl.  They new defrost vents are centered in the 2 outer defrost duct openings in the inner cowl panel.  I couldn't come up with a little cleaner of a solution than this, but ultimately, it should work fine and you shouldn't really see the brackets for the ducts once everything is painted matte black.



I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but the above picture leads me onto the next thing that i addressed with the truck, which is.....the throttle cable.  While having a passenger ride with me all the time and reaching out to the throttle body seems like it could be a fun idea for a brief period of time, i have a feeling that not many folks would want that job since i don't plan to be easy on the truck.  So, reluctantly, i had to build a throttle cable bracket.  In the above picture, you can see how the cable enters the cowl area, then exits the cowl just off center towards the passenger side of the engine compartment.

Here is how the throttle cable is hooked up at the pedal.  I actually took, a small section of the factory firewall (which contained the nutserts that the throttle cabled bolted onto originally) and made a bracket off of the firewall directly above the throttle pedal.  I also had to bend the throttle cable back to allow the same throw on the pedal as the truck had factory.



Once the cable exits the cowl in the engine compartment, the cable routes under and around the upper intake plenum, to reach its destination at the throttle body.  In the below picture, you can see what i'm referring to.  The only difference from this picture than what i ended up doing, was the cable actually routes under the forward facing lip on the firewall.  This kept it away from the wiper motor since in the picture, the wiper motor wasn't exactly resting in its actual location....as noted by the clean spot on the cab.  haha



Despite all of the bends that the cable goes through, the cable works great and doesn't stick at all.  Although, i still plan to add an additional return spring at the throttle body to help ensure that she doesn't get stuck wide open.

So now that i had the heat and throttle cable issues taken care of, it was now the long awaited time to mount the master cylinder.  I used the factory gasket of sorts between the booster and firewall as the template to cut out the bracket/adapter with some 1/4" plate.  I then drilled and tapped 2 holes for the studs to thread into on the plate.  Later, i welded the studs to the plate since there was very little thread engagement into the plate.  Now, that the master cylinder would bolt onto the plate via the studs and then the plate is through bolted to the factory booster location. 



This is how she looks all bolted together.



From above, you can see how far the master cylinder protrudes towards the strut tower, although its certainly below the brace.



The master cylinder came with a push rod that to hook up to the factory clevis.  I took the adjustment nut from the push rod, and then welded it to the clevis for the brake pedal.  This worked perfectly since the push rod was a smaller diameter than the factory clevis used, it allowed the push rod to slide into the clevis without any bind or touching the inner threads of the clevis.  I didn't get a picture of this but it isn't anything fancy.

Now came time to mount the factory steering column back into place and get the orbital valve mounted.



Here is what how the mount turned out for the orbital valve.  The valve and steering adapter slides through the mount then gets bolted on.  The valve is sitting almost directly above the frame on the driver side and has plenty of room around it for hoses and such.  It is also plenty far away from the turbo so that i don't have to worry about heat getting to it.



That is all for now.  The next plan of attack is to mount the cutting brakes and locker levers.

[redneckcustoms13]

Looks like you've been busy with it. I like how its turning out. Can't wait to see what the inside looks like with all them shifters and levers.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Its gonna look a bit wild inside.  Will have 9 levers.  hahahaha

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Update:

With the completion of the main driver controls, i refocused my attention to the center console.  First starting out with getting the OX locker levers mounted.

Here is the mount/bracket that i came up with.  This will allow for the cable from each lever to exit towards the rear and pass on either side of the trans shifter.



Here is what it looks like installed. 



Now that i had the levers installed, i reached out to OX to find out how tight of a bend their cables can take and still function.  This is important for the front locker since the cable will exit towards the rear of the truck from the far lever on the passenger side and then turn 180 to be routed between the drive shaft and transmission.  With my new found knowledge, i then ordered one cable to start the process of figuring out how to attach it to the diff and make it operate the locker.

Since it was going to be really cramped working under the truck to come up with a way to engage the 404 lockers; i luckily, i have a few spare 404 axles.  So i grabbed the spare 3rd member from one and started taking a few measurements to see how much throw it actually needs.



I really needed to grab one of the axles shafts as well to keep the locker aligned, but for a rough idea of what I've got to work with, manually aligning the locker halves should work for now.  First, i marked the center point of the factory lever.  I then placed marks onto the 3rd member at various positions throughout its range of motion.  The mark farthest to the left, is the lever position with the locker fully engaged.  The next mark to the right, is where the locker halves are apart, but also nearly touching.  Next is a more comfortable position in which the locker halves are far enough away to not touch but still close enough to require little movement to engage.  Finally, the mark to the far right, is when you just let go of the lever and the spring brings it back to this resting position.  So, from that, it does confirm what I've heard in that it takes about 1.5" of throw to engage the locker.  Since i already know that the OX locker is only capable of .7" of throw, that means i need to shorten up the arm to engage the locker.

Just to make things a bit more difficult, it wasn't until the cable came in for the locker that i had discovered an issue to my plan.  I had thought that when you engage the locker lever, it was actually pulling the cable...well, that isn't the case at all.  In fact, the lever pushes the cable to apply the locker.

I now have a few choices:

1.  Build a mechanism that will convert the push motion from the cable to a pull motion for the 404 locker.
2.  Build a new arm on the 404 locker lever that sits up off of the factory lever pivot point, and then faces the pinion instead of the axle housing so that the cable can push the locker to engage it.
3.  Scrap the entire OX lever idea and just build my own levers to pull the lockers into engagement.
4.  Or, scrap the entire manual engagement of the lockers, and just run air like so many other folks have done on here.

I don't think that the option 1 will work since this truck will be in the woods a lot and this option adds a lot of complexity/reliability issues.  Plus, this also has a packaging issue on the front axle, namely between the front axle and the engine.  Remember the whole 20 lbs of crap in a 5 lb bag.

So i started looking into the option 2.  But the issue that i have now run into, is that the cable doesn't actually move the .7" like i was expecting.  In fact, the cable only moves 1/4-1/2".  This will make it a lot more difficult to get the amount of throw needed for the locker.  Then add to the equation, that it takes about 25 lbs of force to engage the locker.  This may prove to be pretty difficult for such a short throw.  So, i need to contact OX to find out if there is something that I'm not adjusting correctly on the lever that may be keeping me from reaching the full amount of throw.  The result of the phone call to OX can be a deciding factor for the other 2 options left. 

Option 3 sounds somewhat appealing since having an manual method to engage/disengage the locker will help me better feel when its locked.  What i don't want to occur is to break either the shift fork or either locker half when i go to let the truck eat out on the trail and i mistakenly didn't let the locker fully engage first.

Option 4 will really be the easiest method and i do plan to run on board air so its also a very good option.  The part that would stink about this option is the cost of the levers and cable that i would basically have to eat.  But hey, there certainly is a bit of a learning curve when building something that isn't the norm.



While i figure out what I'm going to do about the lockers, i shifted focus to mounting the cutting brakes.  Right now, the levers are too tall but i will leave them this height until i get the truck finished.  Once the truck is finished, I'll test how low i can comfortably grab on the levers to get the brake to fully engage.  Then I'll shorten them to that point, but for now, they'll be ridiculously tall.  haha



The levers are actually tall enough to be seen above the dash. 



Now that the cutting brakes are mounted, i worked on building the panels for the trans tunnel.  This is what the final product looked like.  I still need to address the panel for the locker levers once i have that issue finalized as well as a small section of sheet metal on the passenger side of the transmission shifter.  This way the seal on the shifter boot will sit tightly against the tunnel.



This leads me to my final issue that I'm working on.  The seating arrangements!!!!  I'm really liking the idea of running suspension seats in the truck.  The problem that i have is that the cab is only about 53" wide inside.  So, if you take away about 2" of that measurement to at least keep the seats from sitting directly against the cab, this only gives me 51" of room.  Then take into account that the seats range from 19-22" wide taking up another 38-44" of space.  This will only leave me between 13-7" of space for the dana 300 that is about 16" wide.  Which that wouldn't normally be an issue but i have to factor in the fact that i just hhaaaddd to go and make the truck have a flat belly causing the dana 300 to take up some of the real estate that the seats used to.  haha

Below are a few pictures of the measurements for the drive side seating area so that you can see what I'm talking about.

From the first picture, you can see how far above the cab floor that the transfer case is.



The height above the cab floor plus how far the tcase is towards the driver side, doesn't lend me much room for a seat.  The one thing that i do like about the suspension seats vs a RZR 1000 seat (yes, I've looked into that as an option too), is that the suspension seats seem to have a narrow mounting surface, then they get wider for the side bolsters.  This may benefit me since the sit can sit right next to the transfer case but still allow me room to sit there since my hip/thigh would be above the transfer case.

The one thing that has been surprising, is that since i moved the drive train so far to the passenger side, that the amount of space for seats is just about the same for the driver and passenger.





Right now, I'm looking at several models from PRP, a couple different models from Mastercraft and Corbeau.  I'm not a very big guy, but i am tall, so having a narrower seat wouldn't be that bad for me, but if any of my friends want to ride while i roll the truck, its gonna take a big seat for some of them to fit comfortably in.

So I'm pounding my head trying to figure out what seat i can fit.  The issue is, the seats aren't cheap and i believe there is a pretty good lead time to get them made (PRP said 3 weeks for example).  Plus, there are so many options and sizes available, without really getting my hands on one to mock up in the truck and see what space i have to work with makes things difficult.

So, I'm definitely open to ideas/suggestions for this.

[Smithk2ski]

great build!

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Update:

When i left off last, i had a few outstanding issues to resolve.  One being what I'm going to see on and the other was how I'm going to engage the lockers.

Well, it appears that i have finally solved both of those riddles.

A buddy of mine had a suspension seat that i was able to use for mock up.  His seat was 21" wide and I'm certainly glad that i borrowed one since there was NO way that it would fit in the truck.  On the driver side, the seat was resting against the inner wall of the cab.  The passenger side was worse in that the site wouldn't sit straight within the cab since the seat was hitting the trans tunnel.  My only options then, were a 19" roadster suspension seat from PRP, or a factory RZR 1000 seat.

BUT, the great folks at PRP was able to help me out!  I reached out to them and they were able to provide a few extra measurements for their roadster seats.  With those measurements, i was able to build a mock up seat.  This was the only seat that was narrower than the other suspension seats (most were 21"+ wide) and it wasn't a stock RZR 1000 seat.  While the seat may look a bit strange in the picture, i took the max sizes that they provided in order to find out the clearance issues now before i spend the money on a seat.  You may ask, why didn't i just buy a seat frame to check if it fits instead of building this...well, that was my initial plan.  Until i realized the cost of shipping!  It ended up being a lot more economical to do it this way once i had the measurements.



Now that i was comfortable with the seating arrangements, i ordered 2 seats from them and they should arrive in the week or so.

One thing you may have noticed from the above picture, was that I framed out the mounting tabs for the dog box.  Once the seats arrive, I'll start placing the sheet metal for the dog box.  But for now, here are a few pictures of how the dog box mounting tabs turned out.  I still need to drill and install the nut plates on most of the tabs.





It's definitely a good thing that the tcase and engine mounts are poly since there will not be much of a gap between the dog box and the tcase.

With that resolved, the next issue to address was the locker engagement.  It does appear that I'll be able to use the OX locker levers and cable.  I reached out to OX and the conversation actually went really. After talking to them and explaining what I'm trying to do, we've come up with a way that I can use the OX lever to pull the mog axle locker instead of having to push it to apply the locker. Doing this way, will actually be a great design in that it will eliminate any question if the locker is engaged before I lay the hammer down. I'll just have to machine a piece that will replace a couple items from the locker lever and then it'll allow the lever to pull the locker lever. I just need to get some solid stock now and start chucking it up in the lathe.

With that being said, my first task was to machine the new piece for the lever.  Here is how it turned out.  The finish didn't turn out as smoothly as i would have liked but I'm learning the speeds and feeds i need for the lathe and the material I'm working with.  But, the reality is that i won't see it once installed and its a learning process. 



Here is what the piece looks like installed.  In the view below, the lever is "disengaged" but in the following picture, you'll be able to see what it looks like with the lever "engaged".





The next step was to figure out how to actually attach the cable to the diff.  Since I'm a visual person and there are a lot of moving pieces at different lengths of stroke plus the clearance issues (with the front axle), i mocked up some brackets to get everything dialed in.  I picked up a set of big ole 1/4" heims so that i could use them to pull the diff levers.

Now with one of my spare axle shafts inserted into the gear set, i checked for full engagement of the locker.  I then applied a couple large tack welds to hold everything into position so that i can verify it works.  Surprisingly, it worked pretty well.  The OX lever was able to engage the locker and it wasn't as difficult as i had expected it to be.  Item to note, that since there is very little space between the oil pan and the third member, the cable will have to come across the top of the diff like this.  It should be an issue since the cable will be resting along that side of the trans tunnel anyhow so it actually works out pretty well.



Here you see my contraption of sorts in order to test this setup.  You can see that i had to place the lever in the vise so that i could engage it.  I simply didn't have enough arms to rotate the axle shaft, hold the ox lever, and then engage the locker.



The only issue that i see, is that since the Mercedes used a lot more strong to engage and disengage the locker, that when the locker is disengaged, the 2 halves of the locker are pretty close to one another.  With only having .625" of throw, this means that in order to have the locker fully seated when engaged, there will not be much clearance when disengaged.  It actually nets about .014" of clearance between the locker halves.  I don't think that will be an issue since they don't touch but it is something to keep in mind in the event that the cable stretches...which with how stout this cable is, i don't really see happening.



Now that i have a working mock up of the locker system, i now need to start building the final product.

While i come up with an idea of how I'm going to attach the cable to the diffs, i figured i tackle another item on the rig.  The winch and winch mount.

I set a couple pieces of 2" wide by 3/8" strips across the front tube work, then heated it up and bent the plate around the tubing.  This should add more strength to the mount and hopefully keep it from ripping off...well, thats how it should work in my mind.  haha



Then i used some 1/4" plate to build the fair lead mount.  Since i'm going to be running synthetic rope, a nice aluminum fair lead was needed (don't worry about steel cable on the drum at the moment).  Here is how the fair lead mount ended up.  There are 2 vertical tabs that the fair lead bolts to, and then 2 other gussets that go back at an angle to brace the mount.



And here is the end product with the fair lead mounted.



The last item that i worked on is the brace on the front axle that ties the track bar mount to the tubing on axle housing.  With how tall the track bar mount was, i didn't want to risk it bending or failing.  And since the axle side track bar mount is removable, i used a ID tube clamp on the brace.



And until next time, here is a parting photo to get an idea on how the ole gal is starting to shape up.

[FRANKENYOTA91]

I just read through your whole build and this thing is awesome. Can't wait to see this done. 

[nwflyoda [OP]]

I just read through your whole build and this thing is awesome. Can't wait to see this done. 

Thank you, i can't either.  haha

Small update:

I finally addressed the hole in the floor where the upper link protrudes.  Now, i have a good foot rest while driving.  I also added some expanded metal to the top where my heal would rest for when my boots are covered in dirt/mud and I'm driving.



After an waiting a few weeks, the seats finally arrived and man are they sexy!!



I couldn't help myself, and i just had to put them in the truck to get an idea of how they fit/look.  I'm really pleased with how well they fit considering the limited space available.



After playing around with some ideas in my head on how to mount the seats, this is what i came up with.  On the driver side, this seat mount design allows me to lift the seat up enough to clear the dog box tabs and while still providing good clearance between the seat frame and the dog box for the sheet metal to pass underneath.  Doing this, also allowed me to move the driver seat towards the center of the truck placing me more directly behind the wheel vs being the few inches off as i was before.  I ordered some nutserts and the tool to install them that way i don't have to worry about a nut and bolt holding the seats down.  This proved to be really handy once i realized that the far driver side rear bolt is directly above the frame rail.  That would make it a bit tough to get a wrench between the cab and frame.



Now we can see how the seats looks bolted into position.



The passenger seat is close to the outside of the cab.  I actually had to take a dead blow hammer and gently massage the left side of the seat to gain a little more space.  From this angle, the seat looks worse than what it really is. 



With the door on the truck, there is still a little room between the seat and the door.  When i sat in the seat with the door shut, it actually didn't feel uncomfortable at all.





To protect the passenger more, I'll have some memory foam pads made to fit along the inside of the cab to protect the shoulders and head.  This won't be perfect but it'll definitely help a lot to keep the passenger safe in the event of a roll over.  That coupled with the exo and 5 point harnesses.

The next item to address is the grab handle for the passenger.  I took all of the factory padding off of the dash piece then cleaned it up with a wire wheel.  I also drilled a hole for the handle to pass through above the glove box.



Well, that's all that i have for an update so far, but soon I'll start finalizing the last pieces of the truck's cab...then, disassembly!

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Update:

The grab handle for the passenger has now been built.  At first i was going to use a straight piece of tubing out of the dash but i didn't like how this landed in front of the passenger.  So, i scrapped that and rebuilt it but put a couple bends in the tubing so that it exits the center of the dash and lands center of the passenger seat.  Over all, i'm a lot happier with how this turned out.  In my option, it looks a lot better plus it feels more natural to grab onto.

The initial design for the grab bar.  The plan was to cut the handle down as well so that it wasn't so wide.  With it being this wide, it actually interfered with the transmission shift knob.



This is the final product.  I'll then wrap the handle with some grip tape for a tennis racket or base ball bat to provide the grip for the passenger.



With the handle out of the way, it was time to resolve the issue on the dog box.  Here is how it started to shape up.  There will be a couple handles welded onto the back side to allow me to easily grab onto the box and lift it up and out of the way.  There are a couple tabs on the top side of the box towards the front to some what lock it into position in addition to the screws that hold it down.

This is how the driver side looks.



This is how the box passes under neath of the driver side seat mount.  With the seat mount raised this allowed me a decent bit of room to route the sheet metal up and over the tabs on the cab floor.



This is the passenger side view.



The dog box looked pretty good once it was all said and done and gave me more room to mount switches or any other random item than i had expected.



Apparently i failed to upload the pictures of the cowl work that i've done, but i've now patched the large rust hole in the passenger side of the cowl.  Tonight, i'll start to apply the seam sealer and then lay some paint down onto the cowl area so that i can start to button up the cowl.

Once that is complete, the last part of the "cab work" that i want to accomplish is to set the cab back on the truck and see where the ID tub clamps will land in relation to the cab.  I need to ensure that i'm still able to access the bolts for the tub clamps with the cab in place.  Otherwise it'll be a long day in the event that i have to pull the cab back off.  I don't foresee me having to do that but you never really know.  One thing i'm also thinking about doing is added a gusset to the cage near the tub clamps on the roof of the truck.  My thought process is that with the tub clamps on the same plane (in regards to how the halves interlock) this could possibly sheer the bolts during a hard roll over/flop down the side of a hill side.  If i set the clamps at different planes, this should help eliminate that but could cause it to push or pull the tubing away from one another if one set of bolts fails.  So, if i add a 1/4" plate gusset between them, this should keep them from pulling away from one another.  I may be over thinking this as well, but i'd rather take care of this now vs later after I've had a nasty roll over and had something broke.  As i write this, it may not have done a good job of explaining what i'm talking about, but i'll get some photos to better illustrate my plan.

But as you can imagine, i'm getting pretty excited at this point since its nearing the completion of the fab work on the truck.  Soon, i'll start disassembling the truck and preparing it for paint.  And speaking of paint, a good friend of mine that is a body guy, is trying to convince me to let him paint my cab.  It really all depends on the cost since i can't justify spending a lot of money on a paint job for the truck when its just going to get scratched up.  But he picked up some orange mini flake for an old project of mine and he is dying to use it.  So, i may entertain the idea of letting him paint the truck beige with the orange flake in the clear.  I know the truck will look great and i also know that i won't care if i lay the truck against a rock or tree...so the nice pretty paint won't stay that way for a long time.  haha  So we shall  see about the paint job.  My initial plan was to use some good ole fashioned rattle can.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Update time:

When we last left off, i just finished the passenger grab handle.  The next order of business to tackle before completely buttoning up the cowl, was to patch the rust hole in the cowl.



Next up was the windshield wiper arm assembly.  This proved to be a bit of a pain due to the amount of throw the wiper motor arm goes though.  I had to bend the arm up to clear the raised lower cowl panel for the engine to pass underneath.  But then i ran into the issue of the arm hitting the top cowl panel when the motor rotated upward.  This was where the difficulty came in since i tried numerous different slight bend variances to try to get it to work between both cowl panels.  No luck each time until i finally just said screw it and cut a notch in the upper cowl to allow the arm to pass.  You won't see this once the cowl/grill is reinstalled.  I'm really not sure what to call that panel but cowl/panel seems to fit.  haha But in the below picture you can see the slit cut into the cowl as well as the cowl primered.



In my last update, i mentioned adding a gusset to the cage where the tube clamps would be.  In the below pic, this is the 2 pieces of tubing that i plan to add the gusset between to help add some strength to this connection point.



At this point, i had initially planned to start taking the truck apart.  This was mainly because i hadn't quiet figured out what i wanted to do with the front end/grill area.  But once i got to this point, i came across a good plan on what i wanted to do so then i decided it would be best to press forward and finish all of the fab work before i disassemble the truck.  On goes the doors and front fenders.  This started to get really exciting for me since i started to see how the truck will look.



I started to wonder if i need to dove tail the front end at all since the rollers stick out completely past the fenders.



The approach angle doesn't even look that bad even with these cute little 32" tall rollers.



It quickly became apparent that the grill area isn't going to be that tall though.  With the winch controller mounted on the winch, it was going to stick up through the hood.  So this will get relocated behind the grill or somewhere else under the hood.



The view that i liked a lot was the sight of how high the strut towers stand above the fender line.  They will stand about 9" above the hood.



Now i need to cut the hole in the hood for the strut tower to clear.  This was going to be an interesting undertaking but i had an idea....more card board!  I measured the hood and made a template to simulate the hood being on the truck.  The cardboard will hold up right?  haha



Here is what the hood ended up looking like after a few (about 30 trips) on and off the truck to trim, test fit, trim more, rinse and repeat. 



To get an idea on the over look plus to start coming up with a plan for how the exo will tie into the grill area, i set the cage back onto the truck.



The plan for the grill is to bend tubing to give the look close to that of an FJ40.  I want to have round head lights and have the hood/fenders attach to the grill area.  With how short the grill is going to be, the only die that i have access to that can bend that tight of a radius is a 1.5" die with a 4.5" radius.  This just means that i need to order some tubing since i don't have any 1.5" around.  Here you can see how much room i have for the grill to stay above the front frame section.



I also needed to find out if the tire will clear the grill.  The suspension is still at full stuff so i set the tire back on the truck and of course it was time to snap a photo to see what the ole gal will look like.  I don't mean to toot my own horn but man, I'm digging how she is starting to shape up.  Toot toot i suppose.  hahahaha



I noticed a few things at this point, the first was that i am going to have to trim the fenders more.  With the axle at full stuff it barely clears.  But then when i turn the tire full lock to the passenger side, the tire is all into the fender.  Plus, when the other side droops out, it'll cause the tire to raise and come into contact with the fender even with the tire pointed straight.



Another shot of the approach angle at full stuff.  When she is at ride height, it won't have quiet as much of an approach angle but that won't be bad at all either.



Here is another shot of the tire protrusion.



I think i may still dove tail the front end of the truck.  Mainly due to the clearance between the tire at full lock and the fender/hood/grill area.



Here is how much space i have between the stinger and tire.



And here are a few pictures to show the tire at full lock in both directions at full stuff.





Once the tubing shows up, I'll be able to press forward and bend the grill.  One thing that will change from the exo before, is that I'll only have 1 piece of tubing to pass forward from the cab area to the front end.  This is due to the lack of space for the lower exo to pass above the tire and still proved some space to add braces between the upper and lower exo at the fender/tire area.

My buddy stopped by over the weekend as well to take a look at the truck to get an idea on the paint.  To my surprise, he is fine just painting the truck and not worrying about the body work.  He is a perfectionist and his paint jobs look amazing so its funny that he's still wants to paint my junk.  While i don't know the cost just yet, he did say it won't cost much to paint since it will only take about a pint of paint and all that we'll do is just sand the current paint and shoot the new paint.  Should be pretty easy paint job but i do have a couple surprises for the paint that I'll wait to tell everyone till its done. 

[OVRAROK]

This thing is going to be one bad a** machine .Love the roof cage work

[redneckcustoms13]

Umm, knowimg you it's going to be orange lol

[nwflyoda [OP]]

This thing is going to be one bad a** machine .Love the roof cage work

Thanks man!

Umm, knowimg you it's going to be orange lol

hahaha, close.  The cab will be a tan/beige like it was before.  She'll definitely have orange accents though.

[redneckcustoms13]

I dig it. I'm a sucker for orange.

OH YEAH, THANKS FOR THE SEATS! I saw then at gordons yesterday. Can't wait to get them all cleaned up and poked in the turd.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

I dig it. I'm a sucker for orange.

OH YEAH, THANKS FOR THE SEATS! I saw then at gordons yesterday. Can't wait to get them all cleaned up and poked in the turd.

you and I both!

You're welcome bud!  glad that you're going to be able to use them.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Mini update:

One thing that I've recently started to think more about, was the tire compound that i'm going to run.  Currently, I've got one none sticky tire.  The more i ask around and the more feed back i get, everyone seems to say the same thing...go sticky or go home!  haha  So, i'm now starting to think more heavily on running stickies on the truck and just keeping the none sticky as a spare.  That will be an interesting notion since I've never had a full size spare in the past.  While i did get lucky and never needed it, i will admit that i plan to beat the truck up a lot more than what i had in the past since it'll be a lot more capable.

On another note, my auto center rear steering components have showed up.  *insert evil grin*  haha

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Last update until after Christmas:

I've spent the past few days getting the grill ironed out and over all, i'm a little surprised it turned out as so well.  I say that because once i bent the 1.5" DOM that came in, it didn't appear that it had enough of a bend radius to clear the hood like i had originally wanted.  When i shut the hood, it stops about 2" above the front fender line.  While if it was within 1/4" or so, i can lift the front of the fender to meet, but 2" is way too far to do that. 

View from the front.



View from the side.



But i did notice that there was an area behind the factory hood latch on the hood that was in the way but it wouldn't remove too much strength from the hood.  So i cut the section out and then i realized something that i wasn't expecting.  For the front end/grill area to look bad ass with the head lights partially covered.  The truck will get 7" round head lights with turn signals built into them, and the gap between the DOM is 7 3/4".  So, i expect about 2" of the head light to be covered by the hood.  The plan is to bend up some small pieces of 1/2" solid stock to match the radius of the outer portion of the grill to serve as the inside piece of the "head light bezel".  Then i'll add some flat expanded metal in between those pieces of 1/2" solid stock to further mimic the FJ40 grill.



Next i wanted to add a brace between the stinger, grill, and strut tower.  The problem that i ran into for the stinger to grill brace was that if i were to put a piece of tubing at the same plan as the grill, it would require a large cut out of the hood to clear the tubing.  So instead, i just ran a piece of tubing from the grill to the strut tower to follow the line from the stinger.  I have another idea for adding some bracing to the stinger, which will involve the exo.  More to come on that but the other benefit of the inner brace that I've added, was that this will also provide a location for me to make tabs and mount items such as the steering reservoir and propane mixer/evaporator.

The driver side brace.



The passenger side brace.



Then finally, an over view shot of them as they move from the stinger/grill area to the strut trowers.



The last item that i wanted to take care of before my Christmas break was to have a way to secure the hood closed.  I picked up some ole fashion hood pins and made a couple tabs and welded them onto the grill to match the angle of the hood.



Don't mind the difference in color between to the hood plates, one still has the protective covering on it. haha



Tomorrow, i make a trip to see family as well as to pick up the shoes for this hot rod.  But until next time, i hope everyone has a great Christmas!

[OTO Phil]

This build is stellar!

I've seen a couple oddly placed winches before. If you hadn't already mounted the winch, I'd suggest another location, but it's interesting enough to share:
The passenger side floorboard. He mounted the winch on the reinforced floor, then welded a tube from there to the front where the fairlead was located.

Anyway, great build, I look forward to seeing this thing dominate.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

This build is stellar!

I've seen a couple oddly placed winches before. If you hadn't already mounted the winch, I'd suggest another location, but it's interesting enough to share:
The passenger side floorboard. He mounted the winch on the reinforced floor, then welded a tube from there to the front where the fairlead was located.

Anyway, great build, I look forward to seeing this thing dominate.

Thank you.

That is definitely an interesting idea for the winch location, thank you for sharing the info.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

She now has her new shoes...just gotta mount them on the wheels.

[RATCATCHER38]

Truck load of porn...

Sent from my HTC_M9u using Tapatalk

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Update:

After i got home from picking up the tires and spending time with family for the holidays, it was time to put the tires on this ole pig. 



There is only 25 psi of air in the tires, and the truck has 19" of clearance under the diff.



I'm gonna focus on getting the exo finished next but hopefully soon I'll be ready for full disassembly.  I first had to cut the tack welds on the tube clamps on the exo to rotate them so that i can actually access them with the cab on.  Once I'm happy with that, I'll add the gusset between the cab two pieces of tubing on the top of the exo.  I'll then move onto the front exo and how it ties to the grill.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Quick update:

I started working on the exo for the truck.  I bent some tubing to tie the grill into the exo.  Then i added a brace towards the rear of the strut tower, just in front of the tube clamp.  I've only gotten the driver side done at the moment, but i wanted to get an idea of what the front fender will look like.  Now I'm on the fence as what i want to do.  I'd love for some feed back/opinions from y'all.

Option 1.  Don't run front fenders at all.  This would leave everything open on the side of the engine compartment.  While on one hand this looks pretty neat and is certainly the easiest solution, it looks a bit more buggyish vs like a truck.  Plus, it would leave all of the wiring exposed to view that exits the cab and goes forward for the engine and head lights.  That part can be fixed by routing the wiring in another location so i suppose that's not really an issue.





Option 2.  Run "full" fenders.  This provides the most truck like look and requires the most work (which I'm not concerned about...just trying to list any pros or cons that come to mind), but with such little fender left, it brings to question "why bother with the fenders at all?".  The fender at this point is really flimsy as well.  Once bolted onto the front of the truck (i haven't made any tabs to secure the front since I'm debating on even running them), they'll regain some strength back but the question still remains on if they are actually doing anything other than cosmetics.





Option 3.  Full "half" fenders.  This would be a mixture of both options.  These will would be cut off near the rear of the strut tower to mask/hide the front of the cab/firewall area but would still be open up front.  In this configuration, they would be cut somewhat along the lines of the draw marker.



Which option do y'all think would be the best for functionality and looks???

[redneckcustoms13]

I'm more a fan of the full fender theory.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

That's more the route that I'm thinking as well.

[mudmaster]

I agree, full fender option.

[RATCATCHER38]

I support the full fender look. Makes it more recognisable.

Sent from my HTC_M9u using Tapatalk

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Thanks for the feedback folks, i'm gonna go with the full fender look.  i think overall that'll look a lot better.

[nwflyoda [OP]]

Small update:

While i haven't started working on the fenders yet, I've been busy working on the exo.  I now have that exo completely tied to the grill and frame sliders.

Here is what the cage looked like after i cut the lower exo tube off.



I then bent a piece of tubing to capture that small tubing/brace but still lands at the upper exo tubing just behind the tube clamps.  This proved to be a little interesting of a tube to add due to the different places the new tube hand to land but it worked out pretty well in the end.  I duplicated this onto both sides of the truck to now be able to call the exo...DONE!



From a "rear" view of the tubing.



The next thing i worked on was getting the bracing for the stinger added.  Luckily i had a little more 1.5" tubing so i was able to get that bent to allow it to pass under the front of the hood and land on the stinger.  This ended up being perfect and it clears the hood at both the front lip as well as the inner bracing.



The next thing i'm starting to work on is mounting the head lights.  I've been awaiting this moment and right now, this is where i have the head light bucket tacked into position.  I'm not completely happy with this location so tonight, i plan to work on that some more.  I wanted to be able to provide a picture of what the head lights will look like on the truck.  I want the gap between the head light to be more uniform around the bucket so it will require me to move the tab some.  Not a big deal at all really but once i get the driver side light mounted, i'll duplicate that onto the passenger side and then button up the last couple pieces up front...grill/hood/fenders.



Of course i'll post more updates once i get the hood, grill, and fenders finalized.

Oh, i almost forgot about the lovely ground clearance picture.  While i don't have a coke can handy, thats a 5 gallon bucket and tub of anti seize for visual reference.