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Boardbysled's Buggy Build

A little tech on the Nissan WD21 H233b rear axle third members. (Gasp! I know, Nissan tech!) There are two bolt patterns for the third member studs/bolts. The early H233b's use 8mm? bolts and the later pattern use 10mm studs. The patterns are not interchangeable.




I started with a older style third member and a later style housing. My third member had the correct gearing and a locker and I am better at fabbing then diff work so here is what I did.




First you have to remove 4 studs shown. None of them line up with the diff pattern.




20180729_170150_zps9naaraip by boardbysled, on Flickr




Then weld up the holes for these studs. The holes are very close to overlapping with the holes you will need to drill, so you will have to weld them up. Go slow and don't add a ton of heat to the housing and you will be fine. Try not to build the weld up too much because you will just have to grind it flat.




20180729_173739_zpslmtyhx6t by boardbysled, on Flickr




Drill the holes on the third member out to 10mm. Install the third member and mark the missing hole locations. I used a tight fitting center punch. Remove third member and drill & tap holes. Studs are 10mmx1.25 pitch. You need an 8.5mm drill bit for this size tap. Studs appear to be tapered, but the main method of alignment is the third member to flange.




20180729_182530_zpsunme4dpb by boardbysled, on Flickr




Then install studs and rock out! Short side of stud goes in the housing. Don't forget locktight! I am replacing the bottom stud with a bolt because I deleted the drain plug from my housing.




20180729_184231_zpsjuswo2rd by boardbysled, on Flickr










Hope that helps someone. Really wasn't that bad of a task.
 
Got the my 22 gallon RCI fuel cell mounted and a Summit Racing fender fill kit with a sweet Motobilt bracket. Also got my Grififin transmission cooler mounted, pretty well built unit.




Also got all the rear link stuff pretty well buttoned up as well as the 2.5"x16" FOA coilovers. The 2.5"x2" bumpstops are tacked on but will need moved a little bit before they are finally burned in.




Great to finally make some visible progress. Of course, all this will have to come off once more for the final weld up.




20180915_182126_zpsrvol9xwu by boardbysled, on Flickr




20180915_180441_zps1lajlz0c by boardbysled, on Flickr




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20180915_180008_zpsgiftixn2 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Got my fuel pump and fuel filter mounted. Fuel pump is your standard E2000 with a couple fancy mounts I found on Amazon. Fuel filter is a Jeep YJ filter.




20180916_124317_zpsw9fkhot9 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Decided to use the filter I bought for my steering as an auxiliary transmission filter. Will get another one for the steering. They are $12 for the mount and filter from Surplus Center. Also mounted a wye off it that has the temp sender for the Trans fan. May change that still, I will need a second sender for my temp gauge.




20180916_135834_zps8hqwftwi by boardbysled, on Flickr




Also got my rear lightbar mounted that I got from RuffStuff. Pretty slick unit and fits perfect.




20180916_145419_zpso98fzgkl by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Progress




Modified the stock shifter to allow shifting into reverse without depressing the button on the shifter, just made the gate between N and R a ramp instead of a step. Also disabled the brake safety switch. There is a little tab that activates it that is you bend out of the way will disable it.




20181013_151049_zps0mmcwjs3 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got all the shifters mounted as well as a cheap hydraulic handbrake. Made a plate that brought the stock shifter up and angled it back so I can reach it while belted in.




20181013_185444_zpstvlqmbvb by boardbysled, on Flickr




Overall shot of how it currently sits.




20181013_185551_zpsszlytxjg by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Little more progress.




Got the passenger seat mounted as well as the headrests. Also mounted a 30 cal ammo can as a waterproof center consule.




20181014_165610_zpsjfztgu5p by boardbysled, on Flickr




IMG_20181014_194626_677_zpsfwtdvmkp by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got wore out on the interior stuff and decided to play with tube again. Got the passenger door bars mocked up.




IMG_20181020_155245_223_zpsk5ilwduy by boardbysled, on Flickr




20181020_160411_zpsyqjgyqao by boardbysled, on Flickr




Started work on the dash and got the windshield bars in. Also got the cheap Amazon switch panel mounted. This panel will just be for accessories, I will have a separate panel for winch controls and ignition.




20181021_161607_zps6cs06ddp by boardbysled, on Flickr




IMG_20181021_163331_696_zps0x39fkwm by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Been working slowly on this thing. Recent focus has been on the motor. This rig had several oil leaks and these Nissan's need the timing belt changed semi-regularly and judging by the lack of maintenance, I knew it probably needed done. So I tore down the front of the motor and changed the water pump, timing belt, cam seals (which were leaking), thermostat and water neck, as well as a rubber coolant hose that had a crack and was leaking.




2020-03-08_12-07-29 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got that all back together.




2020-03-08_12-09-41 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Took the valve covers and upper intake off. Valve covers were leaking oil badly. Deleted a bunch of the emissions vacuum lines and intake heater water lines to make things a lot simpler. Also plugged the PCV valve (which was plugged and not functioning anyways) and will vent to a catch can.




2020-03-08_12-10-02 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Engine is back together with a full fresh tune-up. Plugs looked like they hadn't been changed in 100k miles, cap and rotor were also plum wore out. Gave the valve-covers a fresh paint job that is a little sneak peak into what will be one of the primary colors of the whole rig.




2020-03-08_12-10-33 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Eyeballing some storage in the rear. Picked up a 40mm ammo can and will probably add a 'tall' 50 can as well.




2020-03-08_12-11-22 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Made up a mount for the 40mm can with a sweet latch. I know this isn't really progressing the rig towards being finished, but I find fabrication stuff like this fun.




2020-03-08_12-12-03 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-12-25 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Also modded my OG Artec quart crate that is probably 10 years old with another one of the latches and mocked it up on the rig.




2020-03-08_12-12-48 by boardbysled, on Flickr




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2020-03-08_12-13-34 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Had to clean the threads up on the chinaspec steering cooler.




2020-03-08_12-13-53 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Added gussets where the B-pillar meets the roofline bar.




2020-03-08_12-14-15 by boardbysled, on Flickr




That's pretty much it. Now that the holidays are over, I should start making a bunch more progress.
 
More work.




I try and update my instagram pretty frequently if you want to follow along.




https://www.instagram.com/jacob.l.vail/




Started on the passenger side header, had to shorten it quite a bit to fit around the upper link, essentially made the 'longtubes' into 'midtubes'. Still needs finished and welded. Driverside will need shortened as well to fit around the driveshaft.




2020-03-08_12-14-52 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-15-07 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-15-25 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Started stripping stuff off the rear of the chassis for final welding.




2020-03-08_12-15-50 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Took the fuel cell apart to put the fuel pickups in. The inside of the steel shell is unpainted and shitty expanding foam in the bottom. So added some paint and slightly enlarged the drain holes to hopefully limit the amount of rust. Will add some foam strips back in when I put it back together.




2020-03-08_12-16-12 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-16-30 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Got a bulkhead 6 an fitting mounted to the fuel cell for the pickups. Waiting on 1 more Walbro pickup to finish the pickup system inside the fuel cell.




2020-03-08_12-16-56 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got the rear housing pulled out and started prepping it for welding. 12 ton bottle jack and a chain to preload the housing and welding it out slow to hopefully prevent any warpage.




2020-03-08_12-17-21 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Welded out and painted the rear axle housing this weekend. Took about 6 hours of welding and about 4 lbs of wire. Welded on a tie down tab. Getting warmed back up with my welding skill. Been a few years since I have done very much. Ran out of Blue Demon Wire and switched to some Lincoln wire and got a whole lot less spatter and cleaner beads.

2020-03-08_12-18-15 by boardbysled, on Flickr

Welded out, primed, and painted.

2020-03-08_12-18-35 by boardbysled, on Flickr

And some backwards progress. Had to pull the B-pillar on the passenger side so I could fully weld the roofline bar. The driverside roofline bar is all 1 piece. The passenger I messed up one of my offsets, so I had to cut and sleeve it to the proper angle.

2020-03-08_12-18-59 by boardbysled, on Flickr

Hope to get the rear part of the chassis welded out next. Then I will work on the front part of the chassis and front axle.
 
had one of my 2.5" FOA bumps start leaking some oil. Put a little pressure in it and it started shooting oil out. So I figured I'd order a seal kit, pull it apart, and see what was wrong. I'm no expert, but I think the sealhead is supposed to have a seal...:laughing:

2020-03-08_12-19-31 by boardbysled, on Flickr

Also look at the precision machining on the piston.

2020-03-08_12-19-52 by boardbysled, on Flickr

I plan on going through all my shocks and bumps before running them. Interested to see what else I find.
 
Made a mount for a second ammo can. This one is a 'tall 50'. Should be plenty of room for the spare parts and tools I won't need with this rig.
yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7





These will get bolted into the chassis when I am done welding it out.




2020-03-08_12-20-11 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-20-30 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-20-50 by boardbysled, on Flickr




2020-03-08_12-21-16 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Got my fuel pickup setup mocked up. Just have to wait for some different compression barb fittings. Ordered ones for 5/16 tubing and nylon hose and it turns out nylon hose is measured by the OD so they were for 1/4" hose. Ordered 3/8" fittings to get around that problem.




System feeds out of an AN bulkhead fitting in the bottom corner of the cell to hopefully supply good head pressure to the pump to keep it from dying.




2020-03-08_12-21-40 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got the seat heater pads mounted to the Empi Racetrim seats. Seats are kinda cheap and cheesy but should last till I can upgrade. Replaced some of the nylon cord with good paracord and added some zip-ties to tighten the 'suspension' part of the seat up. Used 3m foam spray adhesive to mount the pads to the foam.




2020-03-08_12-21-59 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Got the dash all mocked up. Cheap Chinese digital gauges and switch panel along with re-settable circuit breakers. Gauges are RPM, Oil Pressure, Water Temp, and Trans Oil Temp. The switch panel has a built in voltmeter. Not sure exactly what I will use the circuit breakers all for yet, I will cross that when I wire the thing.




2020-03-08_12-22-16 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Been dinking around on it. Got the front axle all welded up. Just need to clean it up and paint it. This is the only picture I got: front suckdown/tie-down tab.




2020-03-08_12-22-35 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Decided to splurge a little and got a rear swaybar from TK1. This is their 'rockcrawler' bar. 3/4" minor diameter, 36" wide, with 12" arms. Hopes it works well.




2020-03-08_12-22-55 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Pulled apart one of each of my front and rear FOA shocks to check things out, change the fluid, and make notes on the shim stacks for future reference. Only found a few small flakes of aluminum and the fluid was pretty clean. For what they are, I'm fairly impressed with these shocks. With a little more QC, FOA would be a lot more major player.




2020-03-08_12-23-22 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Rear shocks have FOA's 'evenflow' piston. Had a few small aluminum burrs that needed cleaned up.




2020-03-08_12-23-46 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Regular piston. Machining on both these was a lot nicer then the bumpstop pistons.




2020-03-08_12-24-17 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Been welding away. Got everything behind the B-pillar welded except for a few small things and have welded about 3/4 of the stuff in front of the firewall.




Between the axles and chassis, I have used about 15lbs of .035 welding wire.
yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7





2020-03-08_12-24-47 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Anyways, been working on this.




Rebuilt the D300 with fresh bearings. Front output had like 1/4" of play before, now everything is nice and tight. It also leaked out of almost every gasket, so fresh gaskets and some Ultra Black RTV will hopefully keep it dry. Also going to add a sight tube to both the D300 and the range box.




I am using a plate mount on the rear of the D300 and bushings as my trans mount. Plate is 3/8". The Nissan rangebox is integrated into the rear of the trans with like 13 bolts and the NWF TX-10-D300 doubler adapter is made out of 6061 billet, so they should be plenty beef to hold up to the abuse.




2020-03-08_12-28-43 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Been continuing my welding and fabrication on the chassis with lots of little stuff that doesn't make for good photos. Got the B-Pillar gussets in.




2020-03-08_12-29-06 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Buddy turned me onto these sweet little spring clips for roof and body panels. The ones I am using for the roof are 3/8" and the body panel ones are 1/4". I think they are a stock ford part.




2020-03-08_12-29-43 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
Useless paint highlighting on the intake.
yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7





2020-03-08_12-44-59 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Gusseting the rocker bar. Going to sleeve the rocker to make it .250" wall.




2020-03-08_12-46-19 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Additional tube from hoodline bar down to the front tube frame. This solves two issues in one; helps tie the tube frame in more and helps tie the hoodline bar, which in turn supports the shockmount. Also, as you can tell, the old master cylinder leaked, so I replaced it with a fresh disc brake unit to prep for the rear disc brake swap.




2020-03-08_12-47-13 by boardbysled, on Flickr




4wd pan hangs way low. So low that it is below the axle tube at full bump!




2020-03-08_12-46-34 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Finally was able to track down a 2wd pan and pickup from a Nissan Hardbody D21 V6 3.0L VG30E. On top of clearance, I gained 3/4 a quart of oil capacity, from 3.5 quarts with the 4wd pan to 4.25 quarts with the 2wd pan. Pickup is still at the rear of the pan, and it is baffled, so not too worried about oil starvation. Oilpan gasket was dripping oil so it was good to drop it and seal it up. Pickup tube O-ring was rock hard, so good to replace that as well! Should be able to hopefully build a oil pan skid to protect it!




2020-03-08_12-47-33 by boardbysled, on Flickr




Mocking up a CB Radio (cause I had it on the shelf) and a 25W 'race' radio.




2020-03-08_12-46-53 by boardbysled, on Flickr
 
I had issues with the range box popping out of low range while off the gas coasting downhill in the old setup. So i added a shifter detent to hopefully help fight this.




49741397712_59dc668e7b_c.jpg








Some close-ups of the mount I came up with for putting my PSC TC Pump on my VG30E. I used the 4.5" V-belt pulley meant for toyota's as it is almost exactly the same size as stock.




49741407637_c301104320_c.jpg





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That brings us pretty much up to date.


Haven't been working on it a whole lot, just working on some small stuff, not much that is picture worthy. 2020 wasn't all that productive, but I hope this year is much more so.

Anyways, got some tires back in December. 37x12.5r17 Kanati Mud Hawgs. $225/piece shipped off Amazon. Figure I'll get started with these and upgrade down the line if I feel the need. Picture only shows 4, but I got 5 and plan on running a full size spare.

50917817507_16e69f0717_b.jpg


Measure pretty tall un-mounted.

50917818142_56698cdb3c_b.jpg
 
boardbysled said:
That brings us pretty much up to date.


Haven't been working on it a whole lot, just working on some small stuff, not much that is picture worthy. 2020 wasn't all that productive, but I hope this year is much more so.

Anyways, got some tires back in December. 37x12.5r17 Kanati Mud Hawgs. $225/piece shipped off Amazon. Figure I'll get started with these and upgrade down the line if I feel the need. Picture only shows 4, but I got 5 and plan on running a full size spare.

50917817507_16e69f0717_b.jpg


Measure pretty tall un-mounted.

50917818142_56698cdb3c_b.jpg
Click to expand...

For PNW trails, these tires are surprisingly good. I think you'll like them.
 
boardbysled said:
Glad to hear that! I kinda bought them on a whim thinking they would get me started for the time and I could get them cheaper then what people sell used 37s for.
Click to expand...

A couple friends have them in that same size and I've driven them a few times. They handle our trails in wet and dry conditions as well as or better than some of the most popular radial MTs.

They aren't great on the road, the tread is soft and the pattern is noisy.

But your rig doesn't look like a daily driver so I'm sure you'll be fine. :grinpimp:

I'm still debating stepping from 37s to 39s and Kanati makes a 39x12.5r17. I'm tempted.
 
Picked up a set of WD22/R50 headers. They fit way better then the WD21 long tube headers and give a lot more upper link and driveshaft clearance. Only issue is the flange and dipstick try and occupy the same space. Little trimming of the flange should fix that. I am also going to cut off the 3 bolt flanges and weld on some v-band clamps.

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Got my coilover springs in today, some Magnitude Performance springs that I ordered through FullStack Motorsports. Front springs are 14"x150lbs over 16"x200lbs. rears are 16"x125lbs over 18"x175lbs.

50995485487_b4315c5342_b.jpg
 
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