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Rust Bucket 1st Gen Taco build thread

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It’s still a piece of shit, but now it’s a running piece of shit. Got a buddy coming over on Sunday to help me bleed the brakes, and I’m gonna drive it around the neighborhood some (don’t have plates yet).

I’m headed to RRG in the 4Runner tomorrow.
 
I had a great day in gorge yesterday with the 4Runner. We managed to avoid big crowds but got introduced to a really cool, fairly challenging trail for a small tire rig with some great scenery along the way.

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The astute observer will have noted that this photo was not taken in the garage.

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It’s still objectively terrible but it goes, stops, and turns. It tracks straight but the bed mounts are a little off so the bed is shifted about 1/2” to the left. The frame is pretty square horizontally but it’s not even vertically. The drivers side is a little lower than the passenger side. It is what it is.

It’s backed into the garage now and I’ll probably start trying to make it less terrible sometime over the next few days. Lots more measuring in my future.
 
thezentree said:
Leafs are cool. I suspect I’m gonna be cussing the link setup on the front of this thing if I ever get to the point that I can stop fucking with the back half
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^accurate.

I punched all the numbers into treefrog's calculator the other day and it's bad, with no chance of being good without a ton of fab work I’m not interested in doing at this point. So I’m just gonna live with it for a while and reassess after I’ve got some seat time in it.

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The front pinion angle is fucked, and it looks like the inner Cs were cut and turned a good bit, so I’m not sure I can just shorten the upper link to correct for pinion angle without adding a shitload of positive caster. I’ll get a better idea in a few days when I have time to get the knuckles off and get an accurate caster measurement. Fingers crossed I don’t get to redo the cut and turn, but I’m not optimistic.

This thing is turning out to be the equivalent of a show car built entirely out of bondo.

These are 12” shocks, right? I’m gonna call Accutune on Monday and start figuring out what to do about coilovers. Y’all let me know what you’d do if you were in my shoes (besides part it out, because I’m like 90% of the way there and I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life).


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Towers looks like All Pro. Shocks looks like Walker Evans.

If that’s an AP 3-link, it’s going to take some work to make it work well. The early kits had very bad manners… ask me how I know :laughing:
 
rockota said:
Towers looks like All Pro. Shocks looks like Walker Evans.

If that’s an AP 3-link, it’s going to take some work to make it work well. The early kits had very bad manners… ask me how I know :laughing:
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Yeah it’s a 2007-2008 vintage All Pro or trail gear kit.

I’m chalking this up to an educational experience.
 
What kind of axle is that, a d44? I would fix it, maybe even put it on leafs and beat on it!
 
Yeah it’s a wagoneer D44. It’s got 4.88s, a functioning ARB, and hi steer so it’s definitely worth making it right. I just don’t wanna have to haha
 
Unless it's an unmanageable death trap on the street, I would probably wheel it a few times as is and see how it does, you may not have to change anything if it works.
 
Yeah that’s what I’m gonna do. It needs new ball joints, brakes, bearings and seals, so the knuckles have to come off anyway. I’m gonna get a good caster measurement when I can tear it apart and if caster is passable I’m just gonna put it back together with a slightly shorter upper link and see how it do.
 
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Have any pictures of the frame mounts? That’ll help identify the kit. Pretty sure that track bar mount is All Pro as well.
 
thezentree said:
Great: it came preinstalled
Not so great: it came preinstalled

(i'll stop whining about it now until it pisses me off while driving)
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Definitely check the joints for any sign of wear or play. That will exacerbate problems.

Mine had horrible death wobble. Especially on bridge expansion joints.

I do believe it can be made to work decent with a bit of mods. Shouldn’t need to throw it away .
 
Yeah good call on the joints. It wouldn't surprise me if these are the original joints.

Caster is currently -2°, so it looks like I can fix the pinion angle and improve driveability with a shorter upper link. I'm going to try to find time to start mocking that up later this week. That's probably going to mean I get to move the lower shock mounts and panhard mount, but that's ok, I've already got some Barnes stickers on order.
 
thezentree said:
Yeah good call on the joints. It wouldn't surprise me if these are the original joints.

Caster is currently -2°, so it looks like I can fix the pinion angle and improve driveability with a shorter upper link. I'm going to try to find time to start mocking that up later this week. That's probably going to mean I get to move the lower shock mounts and panhard mount, but that's ok, I've already got some Barnes stickers on order.
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can you adjust/lengthen the lowers a tad to get the caster you want?
 
That's a good idea, and potentially doable. I don't think I can make the lowers a whole lot longer without changing a bunch of stuff, but there's definitely room to make them a couple inches longer.

I ran out to the garage and put a laser level on it and the axle side shock mounts are currently like 1.5-2" behind the upper mount, so the shocks currently lean forward a little bit, so the upper shock mounts are good. I assume I've got enough thread in the lower link rod ends to mock it up without having to buy anything, just gotta find time to mess with it.


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mine was like that as well - shocks leaned forward a tad.

EDIT: it looks like your lower joints are threaded all the way in... And I believe the lowers have right and left hand threads... should be super easy to get ~1/2" longer to grab some caster
 
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I got 1-1/8” lol. I cuss the previous owner just about daily but gobbless him for putting antiseize on the rod end shanks

I’m trying to walk a line between pinion angle at ride height and streetable caster, knowing that this much caster is almost certainly going to push me into hydroassist territory. Definitely going to need a longer driveshaft up front.

I’ll still probably shorten the upper link but I’ll put a new mount on this shitty truss to do it.

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Would it be dumb to order an extra set of jam nuts with the Johnny joint rebuild kits and weld a set to the existing links to make them longer? It’d give me hexes on either end of the links and keep me from having to build longer lowers. Not sure how weld heat would screw with the thread alignment between the nut and the threaded link though.

Or is 9/16” of extra exposed shank on the rod end not worth the fuss?
 
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Those shanks are long. I think mine have 1.5”+ showing on each end? Been fine for 6 years
 
I can live with that haha. I guess if the 2” link won’t bend, the rod end shank would mostly be in shear, and it’s pretty strong that way.

Axle side panhard mounts should be here Wednesday and I’ll probably order shocks later this week. I’m debating modeling all this in solidworks but I am also extremely lazy and crunched for time so I also might not.
 
I wouldn't obsess over that driveshaft angle, especially if you don't plan on driving it on the street in 4wd. Mine is "wrong" the other direction and yes I can feel it driving around on connecting trails, but the angle doesn't max out or anything on the trail. Get the castor dialed in for street driving and party on. Also plan on getting hydro assist anyway, it's awesome.
 
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Should I replace this spindle? The bearing is trashed so it’s gonna have to be replaced but I don’t want to fight that bearing out of the spindle if it’s going to cause problems down the road.
 
thezentree said:
Should I replace this spindle? The bearing is trashed so it’s gonna have to be replaced but I don’t want to fight that bearing out of the spindle if it’s going to cause problems down the road.
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$60 worth of speedi sleeves and spindle bearing kits and hours of fighting with broken rusty bearing races, or $120 and 5 minutes of bolt-on new-new from ECGS? EASY decision. For posterity, this thing for sure has Chevy outers (1.625 and 2.000 bearing journals) which makes sense since it has high steer. I've got a bunch of rockauto parts on the way too. This axle is gonna be mint, even if the truck it's under isn't.

I got a couple of Barnes lower panhard mounts tacked together to try out to get the panhard bar perpendicular to the centerline of the truck (frame side is currently 4" forward of the axle side), and I'm hoping I can come up with a clever way to integrate a steering ram mount into that. I still need to figure out how/where to land the upper link on the axle, but I think getting the panhard figured out will gain me a tiny bit more uptravel through oil pan clearance so I want to get the panhard mount placed so I can cycle the axle some.

Since I'm going to change the axle side upper link mount, I kinda want to ditch the heim it's currently got and go to a johnny joint on the axle (but leave the heim at the frame because I don't want to mess with it) for NVH and longevity since there is always mud everywhere. That would make the only heim in the upper and lower links at the upper frame side. Any reason to keep a heim at the upper link axle mount?
 
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In today’s episode of “OP is a dumbass” we learn that if you don’t realize you’re pressing a u-joint cap in crooked, it’ll split a stub axle yoke.

Once again, I’m doing great guys. New Motive stub axle will be here tomorrow afternoon. The spindle bearing surface on both of these axles are pretty chewed up so they really need to be replaced anyway…

In better news, I got some time to cycle suspension and I think I’ve got a good plan to change some brackets that’ll probably get me a little over 5” of uptravel. I think my tie rod hitting the pitman arm is going to be what hits first when I’m done.
 
I don’t know what the hell is the deal with the axle shafts that were in this thing but getting u joints in them is a fucking fight.

How much angular difference is too much angular difference between panhard and drag link? I’ve got this Barnes bracket tacked in place, everything clears and it gets me another inch of uptravel (5” before the panhard bar hits the upper link mount) but it’s 3.5 degrees from the drag link. I’ve got their other taller tower I could probably use but it still wouldn’t be perfectly parallel.

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Also, for coilovers - can I get away with 2.0" shocks for this, or do I need to pony up for 2.5"? It had 2.0 x 12s on it, but if I need 2.5s I'd rather buy once and cry once. It's going to be like $500 difference and my budget for this thing is absolutely smoked.
 
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