Project Fordzuki

[pickuptrucker]

go play with it now! and show us

 

[Loanranger]

go play with it now! and show us

Ok.

The new cagework works.


After this past weekend, I have a few things to fix before the next run. The first thing I'm working on, because the second is the easier of the two, is the steering. The only reason I went with a traditional tierod and z-link setup with the LJ was cost. I made the z-link for about $40, and it's still working great. The tierod, however, isn't. Even though I retubed it with 1.25" .250" wall DOM, I still managed to bend it. Twice.
SO, I decided rather than use off the shelf arms from SKY or TT, or the mercedes arms, I'd just make my own. I have a bunch of 3/4" x 2" stock, so I decided to put it to use.

This is the passenger side arm, the drivers will look just like it. For ends, I'm going to use 5/8x3/4 heims. The tierod will go under the new arms, with a spacer under it, to take up the space between the heim and old arm. The draglink will go to the top of the passenger side arm, with a single through bolt going through both heims, both arms (old and new), and the spacer. This will put the tierod in double shear, and the draglink in single shear, unless I decide to add a tab to the arm....
I was hoping for one piece arms, but without a mill, I'm pretty much sol..
So I did everything I could to make sure I got good penetration for the weld. I chamfered the edges, preheated both pieces red hot then welded immediately double pass, then went back with the torch and let it cool nice and slow. I thought about an oil quench, but decided against it, cause I'd have to flip the fans on and lose my heat. These things are way beefier than both the stock arms, and mercedes arms, so I think it'll hold up just fine under the zuk. Not sure I'd try this on a heavier rig though, or with much bigger tires.

 

[Loanranger]

It's getting closer. I got the other arm finished up yesterday, I'm going a cheaper route than heims for now, just to get it going again. I'm setting it up for use with stock tierod and draglink, but both will be modified. I wanted to set it up where the draglink is behind the tierod, but the tierod would hit the pitman arm on full stuff. So what I'll have to do is spin the TRE for the draglink around on the tierod, since with the tie rods ends on top of the arms, the whole tierod is essentially upside down/backwards. I'll also have to retube the draglink to lengthen it, since I'm running the IFS box outside the frame, vs. the stock samurai configuration inside the frame.

Here's a few pics.

I am also extending/straightening my pitman arm in the process. This is to hopefully increase my turning, since the pitman arm I built originally is 1/2 inch shorter than a stock sami pitman arm, reducing the amount of throw, which reduces how far it will push the steering arms. I'm also straightening it a bit, which will get the draglink up further out of the way of the springs.

*Also, these arms will alter the ackerman angle, though I haven't calculated by how much. If you notice, the tierod ends are in towards the inside of the vehicle a little more than stock (i.e. shorter overall tie rod), which is neccesary to clear the tires. All the aftermarket arms I've seen do this as well, it's the only way around it while running 2.5 BS wheels. IF I were to run some wheel spacers however, my arms have the ability to have a correct ackerman angle, because they are reversible. If you take the arms off and swap sides, the tierod holes line up perfectly with the old arms TRE holes, BUT, the tierod ends rub the tire with the 2.5" BS rims. So like I said, if I swap arms and run 1/2" or more wheelspacers, the ackerman angle SHOULD be correct.

 

[dogboy]

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see how a shorter tie-rod would result in incorrect ackerman angle.

The knuckle is still being turned the same in relation to the other knuckle as it was before. Right? I don't know how to word that correctly, but I know the ackerman angle is how far the inner tire turns in relation to the outer tire in a turn.

 

[Loanranger]

This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackermann_steering_geometry explains it pretty well. In the first diagram, you can see what I'm talking about. Note the steering is backwards of mine in that diagram, therefore, the TRE's on the stock arms are outward of the "perfect ackerman". The TREs used to be further out from the line between the kingpin and center of rear. By moving those points inward, they are actually getting closer to that so-called perfect ackerman, which is the opposite of what most shoot for when dealing with slow moving off-road steering. Basically it should perform better now in high speed cornering, but perhaps drag a tire a little more when turning at slow speeds off-road. Not that any of this is going to affect much in terms of how I will be using it, but I thought it was interesting to check into the changes I'm making, and how they will affect things, both by calculation, and later in real world testing.


I've run into a snag trying to get this done on the cheap. I'm not too excited about how I would need to flip the TRE around on the tie rod, so I'm looking into other options. I did however run to Mclendons and got the 4 bolts I needed to bolt the arms to the knuckles.

 

[Loanranger]

Well, everything is done except the draglink, which all I have to do is cut a tube to length and slide the blanks in, weld them up, and I'm ready to test it out.
I got the arms bolted on, the tierod is a stock one, with 1" cut out of the adjuster sleeve, and 3/4" cut off the TRE. The passenger side got cut and flipped in between the TRE and the draglink rod end. I just v-notched it real good and welded it, we'll see how it holds up. This is still only to get me through till after my vegas trip in april.

The pitman arm got some special treatment. I remembered I had a sami pitman arm (yeah, I know I measured it the other day, but didn't even think about it.) so I cut the steering box end off of it, and after tacking it to the toyota pitman arm box end, I test cycled the suspension, and everything cleared, so I took the torch and got it red hot, and welded the piss out of it, ground it down smooth, so it doesn't have any ridges to form a crack.

The new pitman arm even has a bracket for the factory steering stabilizer. The pitman arm at least gives me a reference point for steering angle. It turned out just a (blonde) hair longer than a stock sami pitman arm, and the new steering arms are the same length as the old ones, so I should get a little sharper/quicker steering out of the deal.

I'll run the pitman arm till it breaks, then I have a length reference, and can just get a sky pitman arm. That's one of the only things I can't do here is splining. I don't have that much patience with a sawzall... Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it up tomorrow after work, and I'll get pics posted up of the finished product.


***How many TPI to cut 30 splines on an 1.25" shaft?*****

 

[doorgunner]

hmmmm......12* between splines.......hmmm......1.250 X's 3.1417......hmmmm
........divided by 30.........argh my brain hurts

 

[Loanranger]

The highsteer is all done for now. I'd still like to go with heims at a later date, but it works for now.

My toyota/samurai hybrid pitman arm.

In the picture, it looks as though the draglink would hit the tierod on comression, but it will barely squeek by with the wheels straight, the more I'm turned either way, the further it is away. I did this to have the longest possible pitman arm possible, to allow the most leverage/throw from the steering.

When I bought the steering box and pitman arm, they were seperated. After playing around with centering it, I got it "close enough", which gave me 2 turns to the left, and 2.25 turns to the right. Well, when I had the pitman arm off, I spent a little more time with it, and got it right this time. 2 1/8th turns either way from center. I took it out for a little test drive, and it works great.

When I got back in the garage however, I shut it off, and heard what sounded like boiling... after a quick walkaround, I discovered it was coming from the muffler, which is full of oil.

So now I'm wondering if the oily substance on the rear wheel wasn't just engine oil. I'm still going to pull the axle and check the seal, but I have a feeling it was all just blowback from the exhaust. Great. I guess I'll start by cutting the muffler off, let it run for a while to get the stuff in the pipe to burn off, and see where I'm at.

 

[np205]

that don't sound cool

 

[pickuptrucker]

very nice indeed great fab work as always! and looks like you are having lots of fun with it!

 

[Loanranger]

Oh jeez, I think we have a problem here.

Well, the muffler is full of oil. The oil is running out the back seam of the muffler, dripping onto the lower link, running down it, and soaking the entire passenger side of the axle. It's like it's wicking it out of the motor there's so much. Not sure how much longer this engines going to last. I'm actually surprised the thing still runs concidering the abuse I've put it through.

I'm hoping that it just poured the oil into the head and ran out the open exhaust valve when it wasn't running. If it shit an oil ring, this motor is done for now. I don't have the money to throw into a rebuild as of now, but I do happen to have an injected 2.3 sitting here, that I think would compliment the rig perfectly. This is one of the reasons I chose to use the ramcharger running gear in the sj410.

 

[Loanranger]

Alright, time for a little update.

I got the muffler cut off, and it didn't smoke, so I rerouted the exhaust to the inside of the spring hanger, and threw a cherry bomb on there with a turn out right under the rear body mount. I don't think I have any pics, but it's nothing exciting.

This past weekend, I took the LJ up to Elbe hills for a cleanup/work party, and took it over a small jump a couple times, and ended up bending the front housing, and bending a rear shackle. So I decided it was time for some beef.

I'm replacing the front and rear housings, and trussing them both to prevent them from bending again, the rear was already taco'd when I got it, and it seems to have gotten worse over time.

So here's the start of the front.

7 Degrees positive caster

That's it for now, I ran out of wire, so I'll have to grab some in the morning and get back to it. I'm going to truss it all the way out to the ends of the tube.

 

[fastford04]

Git R Done!!

 

[Loanranger]

more....

Knuckle ball gussets

Armor and perches capped

Now for the rear....

 

[Loanranger]

Ok, so I lied. I will be building a new housing for the rear, but for the sake of getting back out on the trail, I decided to "try" something. But before we get to that, I was looking at something as I was putting the front axle back in the rig, whadaya think?

With the arms flipped around on the knuckles, it puts the tierod about 3/4" above the springs in the BACK. This means, theoretically, that I could move the front axle forward something like 12 inches, with no modification to the steering whatsoever, aside from turning the arms around.
This just means in the future, when I go 3-link and coils, I have an easy option for steering, and can move the front axle forward more for stability.

But anyways, on to the rest.
After finishing up the front, setting the wheels straight, and setting the toe to 1/16" in, I decided to center the steering wheel, since in essence, the steering is just how I want it now.
Well this turned into a dillema, since the ranger wheel wasn't splined, but instead has just the two flat spots in it. My thoughts went to a deeper dished steering wheel that Nate had given me, but the center was splined rather than like the ford wheel.

Looking at the center hubs, the ford one just had two rods, under all the rubber, while the new wheel has the 3 spoke flat design. The problem with cutting and welding the centers was, the fords was 1 7/8" OD, and the other was 2 1/16th, a bit wide for me to feel safe welding up.

So I ended up using an 1/8" flat washer, welded both to the ford hub, and the inside of the new wheel. I clamped it all together to a piece of 3/4" flat stock to ensure everything was flat as could be, and welded the front and back.

This way I was able to clock the hub in the wheel before welding, so it would be centered.

So now on to the fun part.


I decided to take a whack at straightening the rear housing, and it worked impressively well. The real test will be to see how long till it bends again.

The piece of steel is a stinger from a tow truck, 1/2" wall, and weighs in at between 150-200#.

I just used two treesavers, at the outermost part of the housing, and the bottle jack under the pumpkin, with a piece of 1/4" to spread the pressure.

Passenger side afterwards

Drivers side

Lining it up with the tailgate...

I also flipped the fuel cell around. It dawned on me last weekend, that when I got down to a few gallons, it would sputter on hillclimbs. So I decided to flip the tank around to make the pickup in the rear, rather than the front, which still isn't ideal, but it'll work till I get a better fuel cell in there.
The jack fits better in there now too, it isn't resting on the fuel cell anymore.

I plan on making a removeable shelf just above the fuel line, so I can use that bit of space for storage too.

And there it is. For now. I still have to fix the rear shackle, but that shouldn't take long. And then I'll be ready to go play some more.