RMP&O's v8 80-series

[RMP&O]

Wiring as it comes down from the engine bay, starter wire is on the right. I ran all these through the inner fender.

maybe doesn't look like it but it is all secure, you can see one of the wire clamps upper left of the picture securing the harness.

Where it enters the cab by the rear RHS seat. Silicone is crude but gets the job done.

Terminal box in the engine bay, ya the is my charcoal canister wire tied to it. I want ot re-do the terminal box and re-locate the charcoal canister.

I forgot to mention, I picked up some Weathertech floor mats before the trip. Here they are dirty, doing their job. I like them!

The UMP air box, all done and mounted up. Works really good. I havenot even checked it yet since the Baja trip where I found lot's of dust but I am betting it is hardly dirty at all.

I got the mount on a nice line with the hood, after a few tires!

My own plumbing set up which retains the MAF

Here is where I mounted the NL battery monitor and my Scangauge. Low Range Off-Road locker switches can also be seen.

From day one of getting this truck my RHS mirror was shaky. I used the wire tie method found on Mud to fix it. Works great and I could trim these back a bit if I cared.

Lame friggin' Advanced Adapters motor mount. This one is getting trashed. Which I think caused me another prob on the trip...

that being, I think the motor moved a bit under a big load on the trip and came into the shroud. I don't recall it missing this section on the RHS. My guess is motor moved a bit under a big torque load and chewed up the shroud. I will have to check some older pics to try and verify this. In case you don't have experience with the AA motor mounts. They are junk and don't last very long.

I don't even think you can tell where I cut & turned it. No signs whatsoever of cracked welds or weakness or failure. And trust me I tested it hard in Baja.

My mount on the frame side for the King damper. I slapped this together real fast but it works. Would probably be better flipped 90* like the stock mount is, may do just that in the future. For now this works fine and gives me zero probs.

Front end all done and happy. Very well tested now with 3500 miles on it after all my work. No worries at all for me and I am stoked on it.

That be it for now folks.

Cheers

 

[krazytoy]

So the Cruiser got more filthy on this trip than any other trip I have taken in any truck. Not sure why exactly but it did. I have taken the last week to heal up and recover and have only driven the truck once or twice. A 2-liter of Coke busted open inside my storage chest and leaked all over the carpet, under the platform. My co-pilot was drinking beer 24/7 and he just tossed his empty cans behind the seats. Well, now I have stinky beer on the carpet back here too. Sand clinged to the dried up coke a lot. Fridge got messy 3x on the trip, busted eggs mostly but right now it stinks like bad meat and needs a complete cleaning. Co-pilot was big on eating sunflower seads and I noticed there is a lot of shells way up under the passenger seat. Yesterday driving the truck, I noticed there is dog barf on the back seat and carpet. Co-pilot spilled coffee on the dash, door panel and seat. Coming home up the road through CoCo's it had just rained a lot the day before. Lot's and lot's of mud. Whole truck is filthy on the outside from this. I even washed it in Baja once to get off the salt but it doesn't look like it.

None of it is really a big deal but I am going to have to strip the truck down and give it the biggest cleaning it has ever had. Carpet needs to come out even. Starting on this today.

Cheers

This made me LOL! Mine wasn't much better... All signs of a great trip!

 

[Bryan_FRO]

Thanks Phil, appreciate it.



I wanted to wait to see how this one played out before I reported on it more. The FrontRunner grill kind of let me down on the trip. It came with a sharp edge all the way around the outside edge. I didn't take the time to grind it down before I left. This sharp edge started cutting the straps on the Howling Moon trash bag, to stop that we had to always keep a close eye on the trash bag and how it was mounted. The next thing was one of the legs busted off so we had to improvise with a rock. I sent FrontRunner an email explaining the issues. Well, they sent me a brand new grill, no questions asked and no cost to me. Now that is some excellent customer service! I am happy and will buy from them again.

Take note vendors, in a situation like this, you can lose or retain a customer.

Cheers

I've been lurking your build for awhile. Small world you were the one with the grill issue. I'm sorry again for you experience. Surely it wont happen again. Contact me anytime if you ever need anything.

-Bryan
Front Runner Outfitters
818-253-1322

 

[RMP&O]

I've been lurking your build for awhile. Small world you were the one with the grill issue. I'm sorry again for you experience. Surely it wont happen again. Contact me anytime if you ever need anything.

-Bryan
Front Runner Outfitters
818-253-1322

Thanks Bryan, appreciate it 110%!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

This made me LOL! Mine wasn't much better... All signs of a great trip!

You got vinyl floor right? I might do that sooner or later, I know you are a carpet fan but so much easier to clean up when it is vinyl. Full kit from Ebay.australia is well under $500 shipped.

Cheers bro

 

[MANUCHAO]

Lame friggin' Advanced Adapters motor mount. This one is getting trashed. Which I think caused me another prob on the trip...

Hockey pucks are your friend........ !!

 

[krazytoy]

You got vinyl floor right? I might do that sooner or later, I know you are a carpet fan but so much easier to clean up when it is vinyl. Full kit from Ebay.australia is well under $500 shipped.
Cheers bro

Vinyl only in the rear cargo, rest is carpet.

 

[RMP&O]

Hockey pucks are your friend........ !!

No sir, they are not!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Thinking things through a bit more since my trip. The very first thing I need to do is new coil springs. I think I already said it but I am going with Slee 4" coils, HDP in the rear. I am happy with the front in terms of height but am using a 2" spacer up there. It is also a bit sloppy in the front, I believe this is due to my front coils being worn out. They are 10+yrs old after all. My spare cash at the moment is going into a diesel engine being rebuilt right now so no cash for the 80 just yet. But new Slee coils are my next purchase.

Really thinking a lot about my front axle too. The cut & turn did wonders for the truck. However, I was not able to deal with my pinion angle. To do that I would have had to cut all bracketry off the front axle. I can not run a DC front shaft as the truck is now. That would cure my current front driveline issues but there is simply no room for a DC front shaft with the 4L60e Chevy trans. I am part time 4wd in this 80 so it is not a HUGE issue. However, where I live I need to be in 4wd often in the winter, at speeds. This is when I really notice my front driveline issues. Less often off-road but still an issue there too for anything over 15mph. I may, that is a big maybe, be able to fit a DC front shaft if I customized the 4L60e trans pan. Not sure I really want to do that though or should I say try to do that. Better for me to simply set the pinion angle back to stock but again to do that requires a blank housing. So, I am thinking of going one of two ways with it. First and cheaper way is to simply get a 2nd hand 80-series housing. Cut everything off it. Set it up with new brackets, pinion angle to stock, c&t it again to set the caster how I like it and how it needs to be. The next option, much more expensive is to get a RuffStuff housing for the 9.5" diff. Go to a 9.5" center but use the 80-series axles and knuckles. Essentially a custom axle. However, still uses stock Toyota parts besides the housing. Can even run a rear 80 diff with e-locker in the front rather than use the 60/62 diff with an ARB. That would save a little cash. Any ways, I am thinking hard on this one and which direction to go. I would rather not lose the high pinion but the 9.5" is much stronger. The RS housing is the bomb too, no argument on that. Any way you slice it I need to do work to the front housing in order to fix the pinion angle. The cool thing is, if I get a spare 80 front axle housing, I can do whatever I do and keep driving the truck. Prepare axle before anything is torn down which in turn means less down time for the truck. If I go the expensive route I can stretch out the expense out over say 6 months. Either way, this year I am dealing with the pinion issue.

I got a stuck piston in one of my calipers, it is bugging me. I want to simply get all new calipers, what I got is roughly 24yrs old. Thing is in the rear mine are ground down to clear 15" wheels. Don't care to grind down new calipers just so I can run 15's. So new wheels and tires kind of needs to happen before new calipers. That sucks because 17" wheels and new tires is a big purchase. Going to deal with this sometime this year too though.

Beyond this, there is not a lot I need to do to the truck. Plenty I want to do but not much is needed. Besides little things what I just went on about are my priorities for this year. Shouldn't be a problem to get it done, I got all year!

Cheers

 

[Sempertoy]

After reading this, I realized that my springs are pretty old as well. I have no idea how many miles are on them, but I bet if I replaced them, I would notice a big difference. Slee will most likely get my money as well.

17" wheels and tires are expensive lol. I just had to replace my 37"s and they were not cheap.

 

[RMP&O]

After reading this, I realized that my springs are pretty old as well. I have no idea how many miles are on them, but I bet if I replaced them, I would notice a big difference. Slee will most likely get my money as well.

17" wheels and tires are expensive lol. I just had to replace my 37"s and they were not cheap.

Depending on age of your springs I bet you will see a difference. Mine were 10yrs old, fine around town and empty, especially before I added a bunch of weight in overland gear. As soon as I cracked 6,000lbs they started to show how old they were. At 6500lbs they were total failure, bottoming out. Mostly I am talking rear which I changed to new 863's. Still squats a lot in the rear at 6500+lbs but don't bottom out. I think the Slee HDP rears will deal with the weight better.

I hear ya on tires and wheels. Many times I have had a set of each in my cart just gawking at the total!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Just sold me 1988 FJ62 today. So with cash in hand, I am buying new Slee coils this afternoon. Stoked!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Have not had a good chance to check things out clearance wise since I did all the work to the front end, new shocks, ect. So yesterday a backyard flex test was in order.

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Just bought a 2nd hand 80 housing. I have been debating for awhile now on what I want to do to my front end. Caster is already solved and so is steering. However, I want to try and solve my pinion angle issues, the best I can anyways. If you have followed the thread you know I can't run a front DC shaft. To run a DC shaft I would either have to shave the trans pan which may or may not work or change the trans out entirerly to say a 4L80e. Really do not care to do either and since I am part time 4wd pinion angle and vibes is not 24/7. On top of this with 4" of lift it does rotate the axle a bit. Like all 4" lifted Cruisers this makes my coil springs sit in there a bit bowed. There is some other things about the front end I would like to improve too like panhard mount.

I been debating on going to a 9.5" front diff, I was thinking rear e-locker from an 80. After a good conversation this after noon with a buddy who knows more than me, I decided to stick with the 8" front. I simply do not think I need the strength of the 9.5" and I certainly don't need the expense of buying either an e-locker 3rd or going with ARB's plus all the other junk I would need.

So now with a solid direction in mind here is what I will do to the front end. RuffStuff housing, re-use my 8" HP 3rd with e-locker. Cut knuckle balls off 2nd hand housing, weld them on the RS housing. While doing that set pinion angle and caster. New coil buckets on the axle, with coil retainers. Change the shock mounts to an eye on the axle side. Raise panhard mount on axle side. Keep radius arms but make new mounts axle side that are burely strong. I think I am also going to look at getting the shock mount frame side to an eye. I just do not like pin shocks, having an eye opens up more options for shocks to me and will eliminate binding on the shock due to pin mounts. Don't plan to change anything else, do not feel the need for different gears right now or better axle shafts. May do ARP studs and hub guts though.

Just need to buy the RS housing, rest of the stuff is all here already, IE fab brackets. Probably looking at a few months before housing in hand and I am setting it all up.

Cheers

 

[MANUCHAO]

I don't know how beefy the 863's are (never seen a set), but those rear HP Slee's ARE BEEFY... hope these solve your sagging issues.

If you decide to part out on that front axle housing with the modded knuckle balls let me know... I'm interested.
I'm thinking of doing the same thing.
I think you are running about the same height as I am on the FZJ60.

EDIT: never mind on that axle... I just re-read the posts on the mod and I noticed the Y link on the front...