Build Tacoma 4500 build

Transmission showed up. Was a gift from my parents for Christmas. My dads been a huge help just answering questions and helping when he’s here

Th350 reverse manual valve body with a 2800-3200 stall. Bottom part of the torque converter is billet.

Now to decide on an atlas ratio. Thinking a 3.0 with 5.83s or a 3.8 with 5.43s. The 3.8 will be more friendly for play wheeling which is what I’m leaning towards.
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I wanted the heim on the pitman arm to be centered in the arm to get a little more travel and needed that same heim to be angled down towards the knuckle similar to the genright twisted pitman arm. Cut a quick mount of 1/8 for mockup and angled it down to 10 degrees. My dad has the genright arm and he measured 17 degrees on his so I’ll end up adding more as the heim still binds towards the bottom of travel.

This arm/design is purely for mockup. The final version will be out of thicker material and tons of gussets
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Next step now that the steering was all tacd together was to get the panhard mocked up.

I made several versions starting with the axle end on the tube but realized there wasn’t going to be enough room for two shocks so moved the mount onto the center section. The final version I ended with tonight had the frame side sticking about 3 inches off it which would put the panhard same length as the draglink.

My dad jeepster is very similar and he added a sway bar recently and had to add a big bend in the sway bar arm to clear the panhard mount so I’ll probably go back to the shorter frame side mount and just live with the panhard being about 2 inches shorter than the draglink. Shouldn’t be a big deal as the other two rigs I built were both shorter but I’ll cycle to see if there’s any bump steer.

Next I’ll make templates and cut some real mounts to get everything atleast tacd and start cycling the suspension. Probably end up cutting the upper link off and clearancing it some more too. And I need to make the spacers for the tie rods as well.
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Played with the panhard more. Drew some stuff in cad. The frame side panhard is pretty much set and I moved the axle side some. Ended up moving it 2 inches more inboard to clear the shocks and give room for a bump stop making the panhard 2.5-3 inches shorter than the draglink but degrees are within .02 which I’m happy about. May put a small bend in the panhard to get a little more uptravelover the ram once I notch the frame.
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I had 10ft of 2” dom left and I needed to start on the cage to do the engine cage to start figuring out shocks. I made a mockup piece to determine how much material the bender uses and started on the main hoop. It’s pretty close and should work good. I’ll have to get some more dom this week and start on the other side to match.
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Few more pictures of the cage. Not sure how I like the gap. It’s 2 inches at the widest but most is 1.25-1.5 gap between the door frame. Not sure if it’s worth wasting 10 more feet to try again lol
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Pickuptrucker said:
Bash into a couple trees the gap will be gone in no time :flipoff2: good work keep it up I love race car builds
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The more I look at it, the more I can’t stand it. I think it needs an inch or two cut off the front leg to move it forward. I was going to mess with it today but had to do some house projects

And thanks! Not much race car stuff happening yet lol
 
gt1guy said:
Does the rule book say anything about the number of bends allowed in the A pillar?
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Very little rules about cage structure. I’m using score or bitd for reference. I’ve seen some cages that I thought wouldn’t be enough structure or gussets and passed.
 
Why the two bends at the bottom of the windshield? It may just be the angle of the pic, but the top doesn't look level to the roof or door, that would drive me nuts. Not trying to criticise, I know it's hard to put a cage in a cab. Just my two cents. Keep at it!
 
Ghetto Fab. said:
Why the two bends at the bottom of the windshield? It may just be the angle of the pic, but the top doesn't look level to the roof or door, that would drive me nuts. Not trying to criticise, I know it's hard to put a cage in a cab. Just my two cents. Keep at it!
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Without the lower bend, it was even farther from the cab and put the tube to far inwards causing issues with seats. The cab kind of rolls out at the door making it wider then comes back in at the b pillar. I should have put the 1st or 2nd bend on a different plane to account for this but didn’t recognize it. If I can’t get it to sit a little closer and more forward I’ll probably redo the bend differently using a dash bar to try and only have one bend in the tube.
 
No build updates besides grabbing more dom. My dad came down for a week and we started on adding a bathroom and living quarters in the new trailer. I ended up finding a ton of rust which took longer to fix than I thought but the framing and tanks and drains are all done and rust is fixed. I’ll finish the electrical and plumbing in time for koh hopefully but for now is getting ready for winter4x4 jamboree next week.
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Glad to see another 4500 class build, as that's a fun class to watch!

Also cool to see a build out on a short-ish enclosed gooseneck too! I wish my 28' footer was 32' overall.
 
ridered3 said:
Glad to see another 4500 class build, as that's a fun class to watch!

Also cool to see a build out on a short-ish enclosed gooseneck too! I wish my 28' footer was 32' overall.
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I’m looking forward to seeing the cars this year to give me ideas and to see what works for the class

32ft may be a little tight to sleep in with multiple people when the rigs inside but I don’t really have much more room for anything bigger at the house with keeping my open trailer so I’m sure it’ll be fine. Normally only my dad and I.
 
Malburg114 said:
I’m looking forward to seeing the cars this year to give me ideas and to see what works for the class

32ft may be a little tight to sleep in with multiple people when the rigs inside but I don’t really have much more room for anything bigger at the house with keeping my open trailer so I’m sure it’ll be fine. Normally only my dad and I.
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Understandable there. Fold out cots work good for others sleeping in the trailer. Way better than an air mattress and easier to move out of the way if you have to hang out inside the trailer due to weather etc.
 
ridered3 said:
Understandable there. Fold out cots work good for others sleeping in the trailer. Way better than an air mattress and easier to move out of the way if you have to hang out inside the trailer due to weather etc.
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Not big on air mattress’. Probably a cot for now and do a fold down bed later on. I’d like to find a smaller pull out bed/couch to have some place to sit but I’ll have to wait till I get the truck in and take some measurements. All this is way better than tent camping lol. And a hot shower and toilet is all that matters.
 
Malburg114 said:
Not big on air mattress’. Probably a cot for now and do a fold down bed later on. I’d like to find a smaller pull out bed/couch to have some place to sit but I’ll have to wait till I get the truck in and take some measurements. All this is way better than tent camping lol. And a hot shower and toilet is all that matters.
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If you haven't already, check out some of the products from BlackfishFab for the inside of the trailer once you see how everything fit. He's got all sorts of great, space friendly ideas. I'd 100% use some of his ideas if I were starting with a blank canvas of an interior vs what I've got now.

Truer words have never been typed.
 
ridered3 said:
If you haven't already, check out some of the products from BlackfishFab for the inside of the trailer once you see how everything fit. He's got all sorts of great, space friendly ideas. I'd 100% use some of his ideas if I were starting with a blank canvas of an interior vs what I've got now.

Truer words have never been typed.
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I’ve been on his site and read his thread a few times and he makes nice stuff and gives me ideas for better storage/organization. He makes nice stuff for sure.
 
Malburg114 said:
I’ve been on his site and read his thread a few times and he makes nice stuff and gives me ideas for better storage/organization. He makes nice stuff for sure.
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Truth on nice stuff and great ideas too. I've lucked out with two different enclosed goosenecks over the years that had partial living quarters already in them. The hard work was done, but it still left me scratching my head at times trying to figure out what the previous owner was thinking.
 
Went to winter 4x4 jamboree at sand hollow so no new updates. Crawler worked good despite a transmission leak I can’t find. Plan is to finish the enclosed trailer this week to have it ready for koh and probably order the coilovers and hubs this week.
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Koh was insane. Trip of a life time honestly when I look back at it with my dad which says something because we do a lot of trips together. Trailer worked great. We ran out of fresh water on the 3rd day but the camp next to use was leaving and let us take their extra since they where going home. Every racer we talked to and every car we looked at, everyone was super helpful and answered my million questions. I’ve been to koh a twice to watch but was years ago and once to wheel for thanksgiving but seeing the race now it’s pretty insane. The pace they are doing through the rocks is just fast. Got lots of ideas and lots of motivation to get working and spend some money lol.

We got there Wednesday. Walked the emc tech Thursday and watched some of the utv race. Watched the emc race from chocolate thunder and the 4400 race from the end of tach hammer.

We stayed till the following Tuesday and ran the race course from laser nut alley to the start of jackhammer. We attempted outer limits after finding remote pit 2 but it was so dug up and there wasn’t many people left. Monday we met up with some friends and ran sledge which was good. The trails are pretty insane. Different kind of hard than what I’m used to wheeling. Hoping to spend more time out there wheeling.
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When I got metal for the trailer I picked up another stick of 2” dom. The cage main tube still bothered me so spent some time redoing that and extremely happy with it now. That pretty much used a hole stick so I’ll get some more material next week and work on something else in the meantime.

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