The Tin Can

[JM93LiftedYJ]

I figure I may as well post up my Tin Can build. If you're looking for a KOH, one ton, V8, dick swinging, Tim Cameron rig, this isn't it.

This is a road driven Samurai built on free or close to free parts. Before this, I have never welded and my only experience was a bolt on Skyjacker 2.5" lift on my YJ that I've since sold. I bring home about $16k a year with a mortgage so this is beyond a cheap build; hence the term Tin Can. All I can say is this has been a learning process for sure.

Here it goes.

The day after being trailered home with a flat tire and no exhaust:





$500. Had a flat tire and just a cat for exhaust. Sat for over a year without a roof. Full of acorns, leaves, and garbage. The hardtop was being used as a table somewhere in the yard and the hard doors were buried under some pallets. Took a little to get started, but it ran.

Official first mod:



People mistake it for a street bike all the time. I get a kick out of it.

Was having trouble with the idle. Ran some sea foam through it and I guess it did a little better. Fed up I red lined it for about 20 seconds and its run great since.

I must have changed my plans about 100 times as to where I wanted to go with it. I initially wanted to do 3/4 elliptical in the rear with CJ/RUF springs. Then I thought about doing SOA but after reading Shuduck's thread I wanted to keep it practical; 33s and SPUA.




Because I could.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Didn't have any tail lights so I got to that:



Slight nightmare, but I figured it out



Hit my head twice on the fucking hitch so I fixed that problem:





Here's what I fabbed up. I didn't have a hole saw so I made that 2" or 3" hole using a 4.5" cutting disc. I cannot explain how big of a pain in ass THAT was.



Got a reverse light; one step closer to being road legal.



As with any New England vehicle the brake lines were destroyed. Got some for a Toyota pick up I think it was. Linked them together to have something for when I got more flex.



My YJ had a hand throttle and I loved it. I attempted it with the Zuk.



Useless as it kept hitting the dash. Had to remove it until I figure something out.



Sat like that for awhile. Fun little rig to drive around town.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Got tired of getting splashed when it was raining out due to the holes in the floor. I just threw something in. This was like my second time welding.



Not pretty, but it works.

Another cheapo mod. Red switch is "run" and black button is ignition. Ignition button is awesome because when it stalls it much quicker than having tot urn the key.



Drove it out on the lake. Good time.





Plans for the exo/sliders. Metal ain't cheap so I'm think a project for next winter.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Problem!



Gas tank would piss out gas uncontrollably. I patched it up, but I really didn't trust it. It was something like $300 for a new tank. No way I could afford that. Found someone with a 10 gallon plastic fuel cell. I thought I had pics of the install, but I can't find them. Either way, it worked out great minus the fact I don't have a sending unit.

I got tired of the primer gray so I took it to Justin's Extremely Awesome Paint Shop:







I think it cost me $7 worth of spray paint.

Iunno, it just seem to fit the scheme:

[JM93LiftedYJ]

It was at this point my XJ had a major malfunction. The caliper locked up leaving me stranded. A friend came and gave me a tow home. I rebuilt each side:





That catastrophe left with me with $22 in the bank for a week.

Same day I found this:



That's the top of the rear housing. I never knew an axle housing could rot through. I put a thread here about and SupaZuk was a huge help in getting me back on the road with a new housing.

I think it was a couple months that had passed and parts started collecting:








Ranger and XJ shackles to go from 2" to 2.5" springs. U-Bolts $50 off ebay), 32" retreads ($90 for all four with spacers), and a couple hundred from TT.

Then came the teardown....

[JM93LiftedYJ]

The goods:



Final look at the front:



Parent's live three houses down so they let me commandeer their garage for a few days. They have a TJ they wanted to be able to park inside as well so the Zuk was backed into the spare room. They both fit though!

Annnnnd here's the teardown:



Had a bunch of problems to deal with. u-bolts were wrong size, Ruff Stuff's shackles are stupid thick and needed to be drilled out to 9/16 to fit the hardware, and TT's relocation brackets were back order for the rear.

Needed a refuge:



Still fed up, I banged the shit out of the girlfriend I had at the time (the crazy one) and called it a night. Made me feel better about myself.

Crazy girlfriend at the time had a pillbox the size of a Scrabble board. She slept about 16h a day so that allowed me to work quite a bit.

Homebrew missing links on the front:



I used Ruff Stuff shackles and Ford Ranger shackles. I also reused the onld u-bolt spring plates as "stoppers" to prevent the shackles from inverting. They work and still work great.

Full droop:



Satisfied that I had the front in, I called it a day:

[JM93LiftedYJ]

I went with MLs in the rear too. I used the XJ shackles to go from 2" to 2.5" springs. It went so smoothly that I was moving so quick I didn't think to take pics of the progress.

Some lame flex shots of how it sat with the new setup:





At this point I didn't have shocks yet. You want to talk about swirly!

Steering wheel was all over the place and I was out of control at anything above 5 mph. But again, I didn't have the shocks in yet and my caster was fucked due to the MLs. Had some more bugs to work out.

Here's a shot of the problem with the caster. I needed to extend the front frame out to knock down the top shackle about 2".



I read, I think, on here that Bronco II shocks for the rear and old school Chevy Cavalier shocks for the front would work. I picked up both and with hindsight I kind of wish I went with the Bronco II shocks all around. Perhaps when the Cav shocks give in. Until then, run it!

Pics of what I did with the rear:





Just a piece of angle iron across the frame rails. With the gas tank sitting up top in the back it made it a lot easier to get the shocks in there.

Time to start on the front shocks.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

While I was at the dump dropping off the old tank I found a large piece of metal. It seemed like some kid tried making a grinding post for a skateboard or something. Its 1/4" so I snagged that shit up quick. Using the parts I made some cheap ass mounts. This is where I expect some of this to end up in the ghetto thread:







I tried to get away without having to cut off the stock mounts. But it bit me in the ass later.

In the meantime, Dad scored a nice deal at a yard sale:



Paid $100 for it.

Now to deal with the caster problem. Found an awesome guy gave me some channeling for a front bumper. Can't thank him enough!

Welded in some ends to mount the bumper too:



Welded up the d-rings and some platforms for the top shackle to stop on fixing the caster issue. Again, this is like my third time welding but I think it came out good.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

So back to the front shocks biting me in the ass...

When flexing the front tire would come up and jab into the top portion of the mount. I'm lucky I didn't puncture the tire.

So I had some thinking to do.

My original plan was to weld these to the axle:





The multiple holes were so I could adjust the amount of droop I needed. But, I had to scrap that whole idea since he shock needs to be able to go side to side with movement of the axle.

So I reworked it and just welded some angle to the axle so I could spin the shock 90º. Don't worry, its just tacked here.



I ended up cutting off the stock mount which was a bitch. But eventually it all worked out. Driver's side done:



With that done, we were ready rock!



With my friend's chopped Suburban on 37s.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

It was at this point that not gearing anything was something that needed to change. Its terrible. I can't crawl AT ALL.

I threw around the idea with putting Track/Kick thirds but I don't want to put any money into the stock axles. When I start breaking stuff I'm just going to make the switch to Toy's.

Another quick fix. Got tired of the hood not being aligned. Also, no idea who's idea it was to open the hood from inside the glovebox was, but he's an idiot.







I think that took me about 10m to do.

This is pretty much how I drove it for several months. Its been on several trips. Hasn't let me down. Though, without the gearing I maybe have one trip left on the clutch. I did one run and I literally had a plume of smoke behind me. It was pretty terrible.

So I found a smoking deal on some 6.5s!



Just waiting to save for a cradle and a t/c parking brake and that will be next.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Got tired of not having a tach. Friend of mine said he knew someone with "a whole set of autometer gauges". $200 they were mine. I said ok and went with it. Well, my friend travels for work and the guy selling the gauges lives in CT (I'm in NH). So while waiting for him to come back with the gauges I did some dismantling...



I started with taking my time and meticulously taking it all apart. Yea, that lasted about 5m.





I quickly folded up a sheet of metal for the gauges I'd be getting. Its not pretty, but it gives me a solid place to put the gauges in. I may actually be able to use the hand throttle again without it it hitting the dash now.








Friend came back with the gauges:



There's a problem...no tach . Not wanting to screw my friend out of the $200 I paid him. I mean, I made a good deal but there was no fucking tach. What I did get was:

Oil Temp (useful, I guess? )
Water Temp
Speedo (Mechanical)
Voltmeter
Fuel Gauge (need a sending unit now)

Friend has a tach that he said he'll give me for a six pack. Fair enough.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

So that's where I am today. Waiting on a few things to get ready for wheeling in 2012.

Petroworks Clutch
ZOR T/C Cradle
T/C E-brake
TT's Mini Spool

Next winter I may see about going in on a bender with a few friends so I can start on the exo and half cab. Until then, that's where it sits.

I know its not up to par with all the other builds here, but for under $2000 that's what I've got. I have zero debt, own three running/registered/inspected vehicles, and rent a boat slip out for my boat on Winnipesaukee. It gets me where I want to go and I'm happy with what I've got. I've learned a lot on what to do, and even more on what not to do. We'll see where this ends up in the future.

edit: man I hope I got the order of all those posts right...

[ShuDuck]

Can`t see the pics at work, but me gusta this:

Originally Posted by JM93LiftedYJ

Then I thought about doing SOA but after reading Shuduck's thread I wanted to keep it practical; 33s and SPUA.

[Fudpucker]

Originally Posted by ShuDuck

me gusta this:

no shit

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Originally Posted by ShuDuck

Can`t see the pics at work, but me gusta this:

Your build is awesome man! 33s, SPUA, winch, and the practical stuff. When I first got the Zuk, people were telling me to soa it without any modifications to steering or driveline angles. Didn't want that. I think you have my favorite Samurai across all forums I've read.

[Fudpucker]

Cool thing about Shu's SJ is that it works even better than it looks.

I like the direction yours is taking too

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Originally Posted by Fudpucker

Cool thing about Shu's SJ is that it works even better than it looks.

I like the direction yours is taking too

Big thing is though, his actually looks nice. Mine looks like shit.

[SKULLYOTA]

not bad at all, i thought i was cheap!

[Fudpucker]

Originally Posted by JM93LiftedYJ

Big thing is though, his actually looks nice. Mine looks like shit.

..and your shit looks a whole fuckload better than my banged up pile

[zukiscoot]

how much for the 6.5s i got some last week brand new in the box for $425

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Originally Posted by zukiscoot

how much for the 6.5s i got some last week brand new in the box for $425

$420 or something like that. Maybe $400? Shipped to my door.

Originally Posted by Fudpucker

..and your shit looks a whole fuckload better than my banged up pile

That's kind of how I anticipate next year to go.

[supazuk94]

looking good let me know If you need anything.

[2big bronco]

let me know if you need any replacement stock stuff ill send it to you for price of shipping plus enough for me to buy a tall can. ive got a bunch of random stuff around.
i dont want a bunch of pms from people who have money to buy stuff just looking to help a guy out.

I love the build. this is the best part of samis. you can build them cheap, not worry to much about the body and keep up with most $50K mail order jeeps out there.

ive had a lot of nice samurais, $500 samurais, and my current build has about 13K into it but ive deffinatly had just as much fun in the cheap ones.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Everything is going to be on hold for awhile and its killing me.

I'm having bilateral knee replacements in mid December. Yep, 26 and not one but TWO total knee replacements. So I get to deal with that, as well as the pile of parts I have, not being able to wrench, and probably not being able to use a clutch for some time. On the plus side, I've been in pain for about ten years, unable to walk more than a block, unable to stand in one spot, not able to get myself off the floor/ground, regular use of a cane, and difficulty getting out of a chair, and this will hopefully end all of it.

It was a hard decision to make, but it needs to be done. I guess by the time I'm all healed up I'll have some funds to get the rest of the stuff I need. Wheeling doesn't look good for next year though.

Oh, and thanks guys for the offers. The only thing I could really see myself in need of is a passenger side seat belt. The meatstick before me put on in himself and it doesn't even fit the fucking locking portion; its too big.

[JM93LiftedYJ]

Got the gauges in:



Left switch to turn them on. Right switch for lights.



That new speedo took seconds to connect in. Had to modify the stock housing a bit, its in. So nice having a tach now. Apparently I shift at 6000 RPM.


Got bored today. Tired of having the spare just sit on the floor.

Some metal I had kicking around:



Got a piece of threaded rod to fit through the lug of the tire:



Welded it to the stock bar:



Slung the tire up:



It does the trick. Until I half cab it next year, it will suffice. Everything is solid.

Don't really have a decent spot for my PBB sticker. Stuck it to some coil stock for now. Iunno. Run it I guess.

That's it for now. Clutch, T/C cradle, and t/c parking brake are next. $$$