Does this make my rear end look fat?

[tdavis]

After getting chewed up in Moab, I was running around with no windshield - not really happy about that, but I did finally get it back on with the bling-bling CNC hinges from TrailTough.



So, that's done.. My next project is to install this:



Got the funny feeling, I will either have to tilt the coilovers towards the front or cut off the rear of the zuk to make them work.

I start in the AM on it. Let's see if I can do a 4-link in one day.

[dabomb5756]

wow, cant wait to see that being used. What type of suspension do you have in rear now?

[Bill4rest]

Bring it

[Tusker]

Wow Tom, look like some bling for the back of that thing too

Are you going to move the rear axle while you are at it?

[rotozuk]

Welcome to the wonderful world of links. Do it right and you will love it. Do it wrong, well, you know.

Try and keep the shocks as level and as far out as you can. Otherwise pay the price of a sloppy pig boat.

-Wayne

[rotozuk]

Originally Posted by Tusker

Are you going to move the rear axle while you are at it?

With how long those links appear in the photo, I'm guessing yes. Time for a new fuel tank then...

[tdavis]

I decided on getting a diamond axle housing because the toyota housing I have now keeps cracking and leaking. Nothing I could do would stop those from happening ( ground, welded multiple times, and it sill leaked..) so I decided let's move to the bling-bling housing and be done with it. After handling one, I keep telling myself you don't want one for the front axle housing.. repeat after me..

The links are too long in that picture - they haven't been cut down to size yet. I plan to tack everything together and cycle the suspension before ANY finish welding is done.

The plan is to go for about 100" of wheelbase, so I can run a low pinion elocker. In March, after I smog the zuk I drop the 2liter in and have more fun. With the power a 2liter puts out, I'm positive I would kill the high pinion after one or two lead footed runs.

The fuel tank I keep, I have no desire to try and convince CA SMOG guys a fuel cell is "good". It will however be moved up and out of the way.

Wayne, I'm shooting for getting the coil overs outside the frame, and tilted forward some. Straight up and down will be hard - I believe the tires will rub. If that doesn't work, then I plan to chop the rear and do lots of tubing on it.

[NC Zuk]

4-link in a day........ not possible!!!

Tom, I think the uPS guy may have mistakenly delivered my coilovers to your house. I demand that you ship them to me immediately!

[tdavis]

Originally Posted by NC Zuk

Tom, I think the uPS guy may have mistakenly delivered my coilovers to your house. I demand that you ship them to me immediately!

I'm not your secret santa!

Got to run and pickup a siphon. Gas guage lied, gas tank is full.

[tdavis]

I'm slow, but I am trying to do this once, and I have never done this before.. So on to the pictures.

Anyone want some YJ spring conversion parts? The brackets I kept bending back into shape, and quickly smashing back down..



Got everything cleaned out. There is sure lots of stuff on that passenger side rail!



Of course, I'm prepared to torch it if I get too frustrated..

[tdavis]

The link mounts I made up. Anything that could be hit by a rock, is 3/8" thick. The rest is either 1/4" thick or 5/16" thick (mostly the plates)



I made up the upper link brackets first time this way



And the quickly blew them apart and did them this way; the first try is on the left, the final form is on the right.



And here is one of the being held up by a clamp

[tdavis]

And here's it tacked up



I was not trying to make the upper and lowers links the same length, yet I succeeded.

I still need to build the upper link tower on the diamond axle housing; it needs about 9" of separation from the axle housing centerline to give decent numbers from the 4link Excel Spreadsheet calculator(some AS, some oversteer..)

[NC Zuk]

Tom, best of luck on doing it in a day

I see why you changed your upper mount. Here is the pic of the upper I made. It is similar but I flipped the small triangle over and mounted the tabs to the flat side so the tabs would be the same length. It just made it easier to fab up.

[tdavis]

I had no real plans to do it in a day - I do want it done, but at the same time I do not want to touch it again.

I lucked out on the upper tabs - I made them originally for the lower link, axle side, but I made them too big and with too much angle on them aka, Set A. I also had made a another set of tabs, that was smaller, but with no angle, aka Set B. When I started to tack it all together, the "WTF?" started flying. When I mixed the shorter tab from Set A with a tab from Set B, and set it up for the oversize tab on the outside, BINGO! everything lined up. It also left me with two pairs of a long tab and a short tab - which ended up working perfectly on the upper frame mounts! Talk about lucky!

[TheBanjoman]

Originally Posted by tdavis

I had no real plans to do it in a day - I do want it done, but at the same time I do not want to touch it again.

I lucked on the upper tabs - I made them originally for the lower link, axle side, but I made them with too big and with too angle on them. I also had made a another set of tabs, that was smaller, but no angle. When I started to tack it all together, the "WTF?" started flying. When I mixed the shorter tab from set A with a tab from set B, and set it up for the oversize tab on the outside, BINGO! everything lined up. It also let me with two pairs of a long tab, and a short tab - which ended up working perfectly on the upper frame mounts! Talk about lucky!

But what about Gas tank placement?. If you extend to 100" wheelbase that will put the diff right where the stock location of the tank is.

I plan on similar length and 4link once I get the shop built (start framing next week) and am interested in where others put their tanks in their projects.

[NC Zuk]

I plan on running a Fuel Cell........ with some creative placement

[tdavis]

The current plan is to cut a portion of the frame away, and tube it back past the axle. I will be re-mounting the original gas tank (EFI, and CARB rules.. Fuel Cell's don't work for smog around here). Don't worry, I'll be posting those pictures too.

I forgot - I do have a deadline, that is Feb 4th. Got a wheeling trip to Truckhaven to go beat erm test it all out.

[TheBanjoman]

Originally Posted by tdavis

The current plan is to cut a portion of the frame away, and tube it back past the axle. I will be re-mounting the original gas tank (EFI, and CARB rules.. Fuel Cell's don't work for smog around here). Don't worry, I'll be posting those pictures too.

I forgot - I do have a deadline, that is Feb 4th. Got a wheeling trip to Truckhaven to go beat erm test it all out.

We'll I'll just have to wait and see what you'll do. I had thought of many places to put the gas tank. I'll just have to see what the departure angles would be if I moved the wheelbase to 100" and extend the rear of the frame and remount the gas tank in the same configuration. It would make the flatbed longer with more space to carry stuff.

[scwafish]

Yeah! Something to watch!!!

[tdavis]

After the brief commercial break, I now return you to the 4x4Fab Channel..

So, I figured since the axle housing already has beef.. Let's use some of that beef, and add to it. This gives me 9" of separation between the uppers and lowers. Before the gusset nazis chime in, it's not complete, this is just tacked up version. I have plans to gusset and plate more.



This is where the drivers side frame end links are located.



This is the passenger side.



And a side shot - and yes, all 4 links are 32" long. This gives me about 103" of wheel base. Little bit longer than I wanted, but I was considering running 37's and this wheelbase will be perfect for that!



Next step is to tack weld it all together (the links are using pressure to stay together), and then cycle. I knocked it off a jackstand, and the none of the joints bound up so I must being something right..

[TeenyCAR]

That upper axle bracket

[NC Zuk]

Originally Posted by TeenyCAR

That upper axle bracket

I guess you misse dthe part where he said he wasn't done with it

[rotozuk]

Coming along. Hope you don't mind if I chime in a bit.

I'm always amazed at some of the thicknesses of metal people use. 3/8" and 1/4" is some massive stuff. Maybe if you had a V8 and 53" tires, but not needed here. Mine are mostly all 3/16" cold rolled material. I used a little 1/4" when I ran out of 3/16" and wanted to build rather then shop.

The other issue I notice is that you build these heavy duty mounts up and then it looks like you plan to weld them straight to the Samurai frame. What good is it to have this beefy mount if it is welded to a single plane of a frame that is less then 1/8" material? At least wrap onto 2 planes of the frame to avoid tear out.

I'd also recommend a higher pinion angle on the rear axle. This will keep the driveshaft out of the rocks. I wish I had made this simple change to mine. Infact I will be after this season is over.

Looks like you might have too much seperation at the axle end. You sure about the numbers you input? Then again you do have some pretty big angles in the links if that is ride height.

I think I might have to motor over to Truck Haven when you come down.

Keep up the good work.

-Wayne

[tdavis]

Originally Posted by rotozuk

Coming along. Hope you don't mind if I chime in a bit.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. Posting stupid shit (like a previous poster) is not.

Originally Posted by rotozuk

I'm always amazed at some of the thicknesses of metal people use. 3/8" and 1/4" is some massive stuff. Maybe if you had a V8 and 53" tires, but not needed here. Mine are mostly all 3/16" cold rolled material. I used a little 1/4" when I ran out of 3/16" and wanted to build rather then shop.

The other issue I notice is that you build these heavy duty mounts up and then it looks like you plan to weld them straight to the Samurai frame. What good is it to have this beefy mount if it is welded to a single plane of a frame that is less then 1/8" material? At least wrap onto 2 planes of the frame to avoid tear out.

The big reason for the 3/8", is bad experience with smaller stuff hitting rocks, and folding over. I had enough of that, I figured if I did that to 3/8", then I've got real problems. I did not pick the 3/8" for HP/torque reasons, I picked it for durability.

The upper links tabs I was not planning on making so massive - 1/4", even 3/16" would be fine, and even easier to work with. The reason why those links are big, is simply economics. In other words, I had made the first set of links for the bottom, decided they didn't work, made another set of links, decided they didn't work, realized if I combined them together, they worked! . So I already had an extra set tabs made up for the bottom, and ended up being able to reuse them on the top (therefore, saving time and not throwing anything away.)

I do plan to use 5/16" plate plate to gusset up the rear top link mount. Sure, it's ugly at the moment, but I sure didn't want the jungle gym effect back there either.

Originally Posted by rotozuk

I'd also recommend a higher pinion angle on the rear axle. This will keep the driveshaft out of the rocks. I wish I had made this simple change to mine. Infact I will be after this season is over.

This is a concern of mine too - I'm switching from a HP 3rd member back, and I'm not happy about this either.

Originally Posted by rotozuk

Looks like you might have too much seperation at the axle end. You sure about the numbers you input? Then again you do have some pretty big angles in the links if that is ride height.

There are two reasons for the separation. One is a "rule of thumb" that's been repeated all over this board - tire height/4. 37/4 = 9.25, and it's a 9", so I should be golden. The other is reliance on that Excel 4link spreadsheet. Everytime I picked a lower separation #, the anti-squat would drop, but the roll oversteer would go up. It's partially due to the length of the links, and the fact that I didn't want to build a crossmember.

Using the axle ride height (centerline) at 17", and the CG at about 36" (using the top bolt on the bell housing theory). The link mount mocked up in the picture can be anywear from 21" to 25" tall. Using the 4link excel spreadsheet, we get these type of #'s.

height, AS, RCH, RAA
9", 122%, 25", 11 degrees
8", 113%, 24", 12 degrees
7", 103%, 23", 13 degrees
6", 89%, 22", 13 degrees

AS = antisquat
RCH = Roll Center Height
RAA = Roll Axis Angle

It's easy to pull those links and drill extra holes, so I can adjust if I need to. I didn't think about that. That way, I can change the AS/RCH/RAA easily.

Originally Posted by rotozuk

I think I might have to motor over to Truck Haven when you come down.

Keep up the good work.

-Wayne

Superbowl weekend, Truckhaven.. Should be empty, none of those little kids screaming around camp on quads and such.

And no, I am do not care about professional sports at all, other than it's a good thing to empty places out..

[redzook]

lookin good
been a while since a good build up

AS looks a little high for my liking but some people like it up that high i myself prefer under 100%

keep the pics coming are u gunna cut the tub where the tape is?