I immediately got to ordering parts and stripping off hundreds of stickers. :shaking:

Fyi, Marlin stickers are never meant to be removed. they are the devil! :flipoff2:





Started to bob it. Took out 12"



I sold those terrible boggers to some dude at work who wanted them for his, and I quote, "sevinty sveven furd f-two fiffffty" hahaha!

I have a sort of sponsorship from a local tire shop and He wanted me to try out the new Cooper stt Pros so i had him order me in a set and some 17" Raceline Monsters.

 

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Well this is the most un-american thing I have ever seen :flipoff2::laughing:

Looking good! :smokin:

 

Tacoma width front and rear rock assaults with gundrilled 30 spline birfields and chromoly rear shafts.

Notice the bent studs on the rear housing. Thanks UPS. :homer:







Old stuff coming apart.






Drew up some offset shock mounts. i wanted to leave the area directly above the axle open for air bumps





Cut and fitted




Shock mount and steering stops





Heres a comparison of width. Also the rear third member was spooled so I pulled it and put it in the front. The rear will be getting a locker.




The basically finished front axle

 

i like where this is going... curious to see what you do with the suspension. those shock mounts turned out great

 

Thanks! Dont get too excited. haha. Its all pretty basic stuff just done a little different and with my style mixed in!

 

Paint!
Rustoleum battleship grey sprayed with a hvlp gun. Nothing special.







I pulled a couple leafs out of the trail gear front pack and will run them for now and see how they work. put the front axle back under it and started on the rear axle.

 

Just about to put a rock assault in the front of my truck. I like the shock mount idea.

 

I had to do some grinding to get them to fit correctly in that weird transition part of the axle so the cut files arent perfect but I'd be glad to send the files to you so you could have some cutout by some place local to you. :smokin:

 

Why would they ship the housings with the studs installed? :shaking:


I just picked up a set of those Cooper SST's as well in a 35" flavor. I hope they work well.

 

Why would they ship the housings with the studs installed? :shaking:


I just picked up a set of those Cooper SST's as well in a 35" flavor. I hope they work well.

That's what I was thinking as well. Seems like you are asking for them to get bent. What's worse is the 5 phone calls it took to TG to get them to send out new studs and the longfield stickers for the rear axles they forgot. When they finally sent them weeks later the box contained some 5" long bolts rather than the 3rd member studs.


I'm anxious to see how these tires do in the snow. They have a nice wide footprint so should work decent in the white stuff!

 

That's customer service!

They did you a favor. Replace the studs with allen heads.

 

They did you a favor. Replace the studs with allen heads.

I agree, threaded from the inside of the housing out.

 

sick! sorry about the issue with the studs. Looking forward to seeing this thing come together

 

Heres some of the calculations I was doing on the rear suspension. I just pulled a couple leafs out of the trail gear 57" pack and will run them for now. I will see how long they last.
The long term plan is to go to some Deaver G9 leafs.

12" shackle netting some where around 16-17" of vertical travel.



Frenched front spring pockets.



old pocket location vs new.




Building the half tube style shackles. With the shackle hangers above the frame the shackles need to be fairly rigid to prevent them from hitting the frame.





Somehow managed to forget a pic of the finished shackles. bet here is the rear mocked up.

 

So are you going with the longer shackles to get more travel?

 

The long shackles mounted above the frame is something I picked up from some of my prerunner buddies.
I researched it quite a bit on desert forums and decided to give it a go and see how it would work on a wheeler.

Worst case scenario if it sucks i will cut off the hangers and do a different setup when I go to Deaver leafs.

My desire to do things out of the norm takes me to some weird places sometimes. lol :homer:

 

Built some quick leaf perches and threw the rear axle in to set the pinion angle. I love the gained ground clearance of these axles.



Built a quick backbone style truss and finish welded everything. :smokin:






I got a R151 trans and duals with 23 spline inputs and a skid plate from a buddy. I installed all that stuff and built a rear driveline.
Threw the rear end back together and cycled the suspension as far as I could with a cherry picker and checked clearances. All looked well other than needing to move the steering box forward and more trimming on the rear fenders.

 

I like the concept, kinda had the same idea when I did my front end. (leafs with decent up travel and big shocks)

Most people run the shackles that way to keep up with the 18"+ of travel the deavers have. Not sure what benefits you will see with the tg leafs but it will be interesting to see.

Have you looked at sliders at all?

 

I have looked at the sliders very briefly. It seems like they would not allow nearly the droop travel of a long shackle unless Im not understanding them correctly?

Surprisingly Im getting right at 16" of vertical travel out of the TG leafs just like my model showed I would. Now I doubt they will last very long at those numbers but it will be fun to see. lol.

 

Dig deep enough with the search button and you will find that the shackle mount above the frame has been used with success in the past.

Cookie cutter SAS kits killed the DIY mentality and the good ideas that go along with it.

 

Dig deep enough with the search button and you will find that the shackle mount above the frame has been used with success in the past. Good to hear. Most of the guys that I saw running them were very pleased with how it was working!

Cookie cutter SAS kits killed the DIY mentality and the good ideas that when along with it.

Couldnt agree more!

 

Sub'd. Cool build, great fab!

 

In.

Really want to know how the new style STT's do in the rocks. I dont know anyone trail riding them yet. I was kinda pissed when we changed them up because the old one's were a pretty badass trail tire.

 

Front shocks!

2.5x14"



Apparently I dont know how to use a flash. Hard to see but i built some fabricated shock mounts and mounted some Radflo Bumps. The bumps are 3" travel that i will most likely destroke to 2".
I of course pulled out all the leafs except the main leaf and bumped out the front suspension while building all my mounts.



Again, sorry for the terrible lighting.



Took it for the first drive. The extra low first in the r151 trans and the duals makes for a killer crawl ratio even though im running 4.10 axle gears.





Also, the rear shocks showed up...
2.5x16 triple bypass.

 

Dang turning out so sweet! Long shackle gives good travel.. but can cause more axle steer or other things.. I think the added travel is worth any negative side effects!

 

Cool build - Love to see things done a bit differently than the exact standard.

Thanks dudes!

Some goodies showed up yesterday.
Trail gear 1450 psi pump kit and ram assist.

 

Cool build - Love to see things done a bit differently than the exact standard.

 

I've got that whole setup. Works awesome and is a slam dunk install. Little slow in the cold weather but that's to be expected. Cool build..

 

Lovin this build man!!!

Just jumped on pirate for a quick lunch time troll and clicked on this not knowing what it was, I just like the basic build title and I was hooked instantly! I mean in 11 years this is only my 29th post

I think I'm going to look at my front shock mounts now too, I run mounts similar on the back axle but you definitely got me thinking about the front now!!

Keep goin man! Wanna see more

 

Thanks Man!

Speaking of the shock mounts off the back of the axle, did you have to limit steering for your calipers to clear your shock mounts?

Nope. I kept them inboard enough to have about an inch of clearance at full lock. :smokin:

 

Speaking of the shock mounts off the back of the axle, did you have to limit steering for your calipers to clear your shock mounts?

 

Trail gear strikes again!!! :mad3:

They sent me the steering pump brackets for a 3.4 instead of a 3.0
I verified that I ordered the correct kit. The number on the box even reflected the 3.0 part number so it must have been packaged wrong. :shaking:

I was planning on getting the steering wrapped up today until i found tg's screw up.

I still got the ram mounts done though.

Axle bracket:






Tie rod clamp bracket:





Spent the rest of the day finishing up a new mount for my bender. :smokin:

 

Those axles are so effing sexy....

Sorry, continue :smokin:

 

sweet build......not gonna lie. Looks better with the captain america paint, boggers and full bed. Just my opinion

awesome build none the less...keep up the good work

 

Bobbed bed is a must on a crawler, and looks way better too.