Build threads that drag on forever irritate me, so I swore I would get this out wheeling before I started one. It is certainly not done yet, but I have a couple of trips on it now, so here goes.
Pictures first; a little before and after
early days:
February 06, Mormon Emigrant Trail
March 06, Reno hills
over the last few years:
August 06, Rubicon
May 07, Moonrocks
August 08, Barrett Lake
and now to where this stage of the build will lead us:
August 09, shake down run
don’t mind the E-brake cable poking me in the receiver
So far its been awesome. I don't want to say it does donuts and drifts turns without videos though . Once I get a full belly skid under it, I will determine if it needs to come up a little, though I wouldn't be suprised if an inch or two get added, more for up travel than anything else
104ish” WB, 3 link/panhard front, 4 link rear, conventional coil springs/shocks, Toyota minitruck axles, low and wide, moderately street-legal.
I have been building, buying, bartering and collecting parts for some time now to minimize down time. Buying everything up front wasn’t in the budget anyways. Plus, I have spent the last 2-3 years wheeling instead of pondering a rig on jack stands.
I plan to reuse as much as possible to keep cost down (I am a Samurai owner). Radiator, gas tank (at least temporarily), proportioning valve and master cylinder, tail gate, hood, grill, doors, top(s), headlights, taillights, etc. Home built and used parts is the name of the game. This ain’t no comp buggy, so fuel capacity, storage/interior room, spare tire, stereo, CB, etc. are all a must
I will do my best to to keep this in chronological order, but I am sure some of it won’t be. Details, pics, part numbers and prices will be included as much as possible. It also might take me some time to document, so don’t expect everything at once :flipoff2:
Lets see if I can guess you have trail-gear four link in rear custom three in front. Those look like stock tj coils or there equivalent with 6.5 in the zuk case on a manual tranny. The flat belly is genius and the low cog you have by slamming the body should make you semi fearless. 36-38" swampers on toy axles. You used jj's for the links. I can't see an airline so maybe not arb maybe lincoln locked front and rear or ??? 4.10 gears in the diff you look like you are in the middle of the build and new ring and pinion usually comes last for most folks trying not to pay all at once for stuff. Gonna guess wb is 96to98" really hard to tell. It looks like ruff stuff weld on beadlocks. Its a great looking build you should be proud. Do you trailer or drive it?
I can't see an airline so maybe not arb maybe lincoln locked front and rear or ??? 4.10 gears in the diff you look like you are in the middle of the build and new ring and pinion usually comes last for most folks trying not to pay all at once for stuff.
Thanks! I am. I drive it around town some, and have driven it to the trail, but its a pain in the ass to drive it very far. I am currently flat towing it
Feb 2006
As originally purchased for $1300, bone stock with an awesome paint job. Not quite the green (er, yellow?) trim I had imagined on the phone, but I needed a car and had driven over two hours (Sacramento to Santa Cruz) to see this thing. Good running condition and pretty clean.
About 10 minutes later, hadn’t even taken it home yet.
I traded a friend some wheels and tires for complete Samurai axles/case/tranny and motor. While a lot of these parts are now gone/sold/used/broken/no longer needed, having extra everything has been priceless. I thought I had a picture of the whole extra drivetrain loaded in my Samurai, but I can’t seem to find it. Here is how to fit 4 35’s inside
and within a month my buddy helped me weld my extra rear 3rd, and then I swapped them. I am a cocky MIG welder, but not so much with the stick. Welded rear is still the best bang for the buck to date.
With the 38.5's it sits 1" taller than it did with stock spring SPOA (about a 4 1/2 " lift) and 32s. I dont have a bone stock Samurai around for to measure, but I believe the suspension sits only 1-2" over stock
Crap I looked for the towbar attachments and didn't see anything I must be blind. Good job on regearing early my hat goes off to you on that. Any regrets so far? Things you've redone twice or more?
Keep looking! Actually the pics that show the front are from before it was towed.
No real regrets so far. I had a few draw backs, as I made all most all the suspension brackets before hand, but I was completely expecting that to happen. I think the only thing I actually had to completely redo was the ram mount, no big deal
March 06
The passenger door got swipped, I got a pair of doors for $80 and an $1100 check from insurance. Trail Tough 6.4:1’s, Mighty Kong and Gorrilla Grips ordered the day I got the check. I rebuilt/regeared my extra case, although not before learning why the directions say you must remove the speedo gear :homer: A guy on here made me a good deal on another case half, and I was on my way
April 06
I bought a drop pitman arm from Roadless Gear and longer brake lines from Napa, and made some spring perches out of 2x2 .188. Swapped to the 6.4 case and did the spring over in the same weekend. Stock springs and shocks. <$200 total into the lift. I ran some borrowed 235’s for a week until I bought some 15x8 2.5 bs’d soft 8’s and 32/11.5 Kumho MT’s. Wheeled like this for a couple of months.
May 06 Shasta/Chappie OHV
The wheels I got from the local 4 Wheel Parts, and are Pro Comp series 97’s, and ran under $50 each. I was hoping to find a deal on some used tires, but ended up getting the Kumho’s new from Summit for $104 each. I wasn’t sure what to expect from them, but ultimately I was very impressed. I put 30k+ miles on them, and lot of rough offroad miles including several Rubicon trips. They wore very evenly, and all those street miles were with a welded rear. Didn’t chuck and they aired down well. I ran 6-7psi all day long and never lost a bead. Even accidentally ran 1-2psi and it was no problem. They still had 75% tread when I sold them. My only issue with them is they didn’t self-clean very well in the snow. Great for a lesser expensive MT
Over time I bedlinered the tub, put a full cage in it, spray painted it OSH Tool Gray, bought a 2 piece Bestop, cut my old top into a safari top, made half doors out of the set that got hit, SoloBaric L7, Cobra 135 CB and on and on and on.
I got a call from a friend about a set of Toy axles for sale. The next day I was in Reno and I was the proud owner. ’83 front, 5.29’s, lockright, Marlin (yes, Marlin) 6 stud steering arms (stock knuckles) drilled out for ¾ bolts, stock birfs, ’83 rear, 5.29’s, All Pro spool, 15x10 2.125 bs’d steelies, a V6 ’86 rear with blown up gears but good housing and shafts, an extra set of stock birfs, IFS steering box, DOM tie rod and drag link tapped w/ ¾ x ¾ heims, CV driveshaft, IFS hubs/rotors/calipers/lockouts. Package deal for $650. Good thing I had taken the passenger front seat out of the Samurai, I didn’t even know I was bringing home all the extra parts.
When I bought the axles, one of the steering arms was welded to the knuckle. A stock knuckle was donated by a friend, and got a single Trail Gear 6 stud arm for $100
So one Marlin 6 stud arm and one Trail Gear 6 stud arm :laughing:
Marlin
TG
Obviously 6 stud arms don’t help much with the stock 4 stud knuckles, but it doesn’t hurt anything. Eventually I will upgrade to the matching knuckles
This was a good time for a basic front end rebuild, including ARP studs for the steering arms. Since it was apart I decided to shave the front drain plug with some ¼ plate, and cut off all the stock brackets. The front had a small diff guard on it when I bought it. I added to it and tied it into the plate where the drain plug used to be.
Welded and cleaned up, did the replace the bottom two studs with bolts trick, and its hasn’t leaked a drop in the few months its had oil in it
My friend gave an extra set of knuckle ball gussets, and on they went. They are laser cut, but I am not sure who makes them. I also cut out some tiny pieces to box the stock steering stops.
I had all the IFS parts too, and forked out the money for Sky’s IFS hub conversion. Cut the backing plates down, and put it all back together.
I have IFS calipers for it, and plan to get the Land Cruiser rotors to go with them. Stock brakes for now though, they seem to do fine
I decided to run the wider 86 housing I had to match the new width of the front. I never actually measured, but I believe WMS-WMS is 58” for both front and rear.
What good is shaving the front if you don’t shave the back…
Being cheap, I got a scrap piece of 10” S40 for free and made a diff guard to match the front.
I cut all the brackets from it, and put it together with the 5.29 spooled 3rd. This one seems to be seeping a tiny bit, nothing silicone wont fix next time its apart
I picked up several sets of stock TJ fronts for cheap ($20 total). Part numbers for the 3 sets of springs are 128’s, 129’s, and 130’s. The 128’s are in the rear and the 129’s are in the front. I have searched endlessly to find the actual spring rates, but can’t 100% confirm. 120 in/lbs? 160? I know the higher the part number, the higher the rate. If somebody knows what they actually are, not just internet hearsay, I would really like to know
There was some discussion on spring rates here recently, and I realized I never really found out what mine are. I figured the best way was to actually measure them. I had the formula to calculate, but found this site that makes it much easier.
127 lbs-in for the 128’s
136 lbs-in for the 129’s
153 lbs-in for the 130’s
Due to variance in coating and dirt on the springs, these numbers probably aren’t exact (they seem lower than I expected), but they should be pretty close.
So I started drawing up suspension brackets. I was well aware that if I made all brackets before I cut the truck apart, that I may have to modify or redo some of them. A small price to pay for keeping the Samurai wheelable.
Axle side coil mount/lower link mounts came first, using Johnny Joint dimensions off the net. Eventually I picked up 4 JJ’s (all I could pay for at the time) from Poly Performance so I could weld together the brackets.
I made 4 of these lower link axle side mounts/lower spring perch. Combining the two mounts just made sense for packaging. The perch is 3/16” and the link mount is ¼”. The centerline of the joint is about ¾” above the centerline of the axle. I did this to keep them from snagging in the rocks. Doing it over again, this is one thing I would have done a little different. No need for the offset, lining the joint and axle centerlines up would have done just fine, and my uppers could have been that much lower.
3 ½ “ S40 (another freebie) fits perfect inside TJ coils, so I used it for centering the spring with the coil retainer. Having the retainer serve this double purpose also makes it easy to change spring diameters, for whatever reason I am not sure, by just changing the retainer.
Where to put these took some thought. Putting them under the frame wasn’t going to help a bit keeping it low. I decided on mounting the lowers for both front and rear outside the frame rails. For simplicity the mount for the front and rear is the same bracket.
Going together
The little triangle looking tabs sticking out are to locate the bracket with the bottom of the frame, and to give another dimension to weld. As this bracket will also be in contact with rocks, the bottom and sides are ¼”, while the top is 3/16
The only downside was going to be that the lower links would be almost parallel to the frame rails. I would have liked some more triangulation out of the lower links, but this was a compromise that had to be made. The idea is that suspension travel induces ‘rear steer’ when the lowers are basically parallel. Fortunately, this didn’t happen and there is no noticeable rear steer.
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