sbechtold's Project FJ Cruiser SAS

[JDEMELLO]

MissFJ previously said:

some people would be a little squirmy if someone cut into their frame. Not the brave ones tho

You should have seen Wyatt when we cut his 05 Tacoma in 05. No one "that we know of" had done one at that point. We learned allot on that truck. Not only was it the first one, but we invited Toyota 4wd magazine to come take pictures. For all we knew when we cut the cross members off it could have been the last time it drove. It only had 3600 miles on it. In the end IMO that truck is allot easier to sac than a 95.5-04 Tacoma.

[MissFJ]

JDEMELLO previously said:

You should have seen Wyatt when we cut his 05 Tacoma in 05. No one "that we know of" had done one at that point. We learned allot on that truck. Not only was it the first one, but we invited Toyota 4wd magazine to come take pictures. For all we knew when we cut the cross members off it could have been the last time it drove. It only had 3600 miles on it. In the end IMO that truck is allot easier to sac than a 95.5-04 Tacoma.

I mentioned it after seeing this pic and having my memory jarred about a rear bumper conversation....This pic would have caused an uproar in the early days of this forum "shame shame you cut into the frame." what did they know :P (I'm totally ignoring the front at this point...)

[JDEMELLO]

sbechtold previously said:

You're thinking about it again aren't you...

I told the wife tonight and she was all for it. It only leaves one problem, where will Elvis ride? He loves the truck and 4wheelin.



After a long hard day

[JDEMELLO]

MissFJ previously said:

I mentioned it after seeing this pic and having my memory jarred about a rear bumper conversation....This pic would have caused an uproar in the early days of this forum "shame shame you cut into the frame." what did they know :P (I'm totally ignoring the front at this point...)

Yea about that.

[Fjamming]

I.. got to swing by tomorrow and take a look.. I mean.. I need to pick up a hood.

[sbechtold]

JDEMELLO previously said:

I told the wife tonight and she was all for it. It only leaves one problem, where will Elvis ride? He loves the truck and 4wheelin.



After a long hard day

Do IT! I might even come help grind. Naw -- Daniel can do it. Elvis wouldn't be so tired if he got to ride in the back seat with the a/c on. If that doesn't work, then chop the top, cage it and Elvis can still ride in the back.

BTW, great job on the IMG tags. We all know Wyatt knows how to use them, glad you figured them out finally. Next task is that speel cheking softwhere.

[bandi]

jeshua previously said:

Civil Engineer? I am a draftsmen for a small Civil Engineer company. I think I need to get dual monitors and have autocad on one and demello porn on the other.....

Yes, Civil Engineering', not an engineer tho, been
here 25+ years, so I do more than the engr's, but
that's a hole other story... ... We have, depending
on how many inspectors we are running, 25-30
people here...

I am running a 21" wide screen LCD, so I just put
the demello porn cam screen up of to one side...
It works well... Plus I like country music, so I just
pump up the volumn when I can, a headset helps....

sbechtold previously said:

.....
I figured you'd like the sign. I read the thread and had Chris make up the printouts. Glad your enjoying the Porn Cam. I unfortunately get to drive home tomorrow and will have to live vicariously through the porn cam for a while.

Thanks for getting their CAM up and going, I hope
they use it more often... I am a fabricator at heart,
and used to race in the midwest SODA series back
in the 80's and early 90's before the youngest was
born in... My favorite part was the build on the
trucks, making everything ourselves... I guess that's
why I luv seeing the FJ get modded... Now if I only
had a garage right now, I would be going balistic in
there... ...

Thanks for all the updates....

[Sean K.]

JDEMELLO previously said:

I'm still a big fan of leafs in the rear of the truck. The only real reason to do a rear 4 link is ride quality and eliminates axle wrap issues. These Deaver, much like allot of the newer springs out there have a built in anti-wrap top leaf. This helps with the common axle-wrap issues soft springs have. They run 10 leafs all very thin leafs that ride pretty good and also flex really good. I have a set on my 99 Tacoma and you can't really flex much more than they do and still use it. They are not stiff like the common used Chevy springs.

These springs are actually meant for the rear of trucks and you can easily pull 20in of travel out of them set up right. On a rock crawler where it's more about articulation you have to limit allot of that.

But then again a well set up front and rear 4 link 3 link truck is really cool!

I haven't been a big fan of the torque leaf. They do seem to limit some of the wheel hop....but not to the extent that a link set up will. The torque leaves seem to work well on very weak 4 bangers....but with much more power (even a 190 hp 4.3) still wraps them pretty good.

Again, it's usually not an issue......it's more of one on an obstacle like say "dump bump" or Upper Helldorado's last waterfall.

Regardless.....NICE FREAKING WORK on the conversion, Charlie Brown!!

Take care,
Sean

[Shadow-Warrior]

Do you plan installing custom traction bars?, this will help eliminate any type of axle warp. I’m sorry if I missed this if asked earlier. It’s looking Awesome, love the frenched hangers in the bumper

[Sean K.]

Actually, traction bars will usually eliminate pinion rise, but not necessarily wheel hop as really soft springs will still "hop" when you load them....unless you go to the trouble of making upper and lower links for the traction bars...in which case, you should've just linked it to begin with.

Sean