Long Overdue 01 Tundra Build Thread

[Brett_408]

Got the driver side door bars done a couple weeks ago and welded everything up then painted the new tube work







Then on Friday I buttoned the whole truck back up and brought it out of the garage for the first time in months and cleaned it up. Took it down to cars and coffee to meet a buddy Saturday morning down there. Even brought the kid.







Now this is the part I’m hoping to get some ideas from you guys. After driving the truck back home about 30 miles or so I stopped to run into get lunch and when I went to restart the truck the fuel pump would not run kinda.

So iv wired my Bosch 044 to the stock 12v fuel pump wire that is powered off the ignition so it starts and run like a stock truck. So the problem is when I turn the key to ACC no fuel pump. As soon as I turn the key to run the starter the fuel pump starts the truck fires up and as soon as I let go of the key from the starter position it kills the fuel pump and truck dies.

I haven’t really dug into the situation to deep as it was about 95 degrees and I had my 2 month old with me so I simply hot wired the pump strait to the battery and drove home.

 

[Brett_408]

I don’t get as much time as I’d like anymore to work on the truck with a 4 month old but here’s a couple small updates.

After fighting a wiring issue in the stock ECU harness for a couple weeks I finally found that one of the ECU harness connectors had a short on a pin for 12v power to the ECU. Removed the pin from the connector and recrimped it boom truck fired right up. Huge relief.

At this point I had the dash and center consul apart and decided to clean up my hackery accessory wiring (fans, lights, fuel pump, radio, etc). Build an aluminum panel that held new fuse panels, relays and buss bars. I know it’s an old school way to wire with relays and toggle switches. But I had most of the material and I didn’t have 700 dollars for a switch pros. Any ways here’s a couple pictures of that mess.

 

[Brett_408]

Once the wiring was all buttoned up and cleaned up. I finally got around to building a new skid for the bumper.

Bumper has seen a couple hard hits over the last few years and is bent up on the passenger side. Not enough for me to justify hacking it off and making a new one yet. With a trip to lucern coming up for Halloween I busted out a new skid and called it a day.

 

[Brett_408]

Small update: Power steering pump would fade out or just completely give up from time to time on long runs. So I added a cheap ass summit heat sink and reservoir to introduce more fluid in the system and hopefully keep the pumps alive longer.

 

[Brett_408]

Pretty much all -6 AN on the low pressure return lines from the steering rack thru the cooler back to reservoir. Fragola push lock fittings. On the feed line from the reservoir to pump its -10 AN fragola push lock. Then the high pressure line from pump to rack in XRP -6 steel high pressure fittings and hose. on the high pressure line I cut the stock hard line and welded a steel -6 bung to it. Pretty simple no leaks detected yet

 

[Brett_408]

Not so great update: Took the truck out New Years for a week long trip. Did a hundred or so miles from afton canyon to baker and back. Stopping at the razor rd sand dunes and running the Mohave trail for portions of the run. Truck ran great only issues were my shit ass summit racing power steering reservoir leaking from that cap and making a fucking nightmare of a mess. Taped up the cap and took care of that.

 

[Brett_408]

Next day disaster strikes: Plan was to run from Basin Rd to Peggy sues diner. Pretty easy run no crazy race course type trails mostly fire road.

I was paralleling the 15 for what looked like a long strait stretch of access road, so I was cruising along at about 65mph when the road dropped out from under the truck. Didn’t have much time to slow down before I hit a massive G-out with a fresh 2-3’ rain rut wall in the bottom. Front wheels landed in the bottom of the hole at the face of the wall. Upon impact I had a sharp pain in my back and instantly new I fucked it up. Truck came up the other side of the hole and veered left due to a wheel exploding. Shut the truck down climbed out and layed on the ground and did not move. In retrospect I probably should have stayed in the truck but adrenaline was pumping.

Long story short i ended up with a compression fracture of my T-12 vertebrae. (Broken back). Luckily it’s a stable break and I don’t need surgery just have to wear a brace for a couple months. Enough about me.

Damage report to the truck. Like I said I exploded a walker Evan beadlock, destroyed the front bumper and skid, smashed the stock frame crossmember pushing the oil pan up and cracking it. Broken oil filter adapter. Driver side LCA was pushed back about 6-8 inches when the cross member bent. Steering rack bent (did not break) surprisingly. Wilwood caliper ripped off upright. MPI steering wheel bent. Pretty much the frame from the firewall forward is smoked. Radiator gone.

Now some good news the kit looks straight and undamaged. I will sand blast it and have it mag checked for cracks. I may even see if camburg will fixture it to check for straitness. Shocks are all undamaged. Hubs and spindles appear good. I haven’t had a chance to tear anything apart because of my back but I’ll report with more pics and damage once the rebuild begins.

Plans are to either find a donor tundra and graft a new front portion of frame on and rebuilt the the engine cage from scratch or cut out the cross members and build fabricated cross members for the LCA’s. UCA mounts are good if I can get the frame rails straitened out. Then mount and new radiator and fix the oil pan blah blah blah. The standard stuff.

 

[Brett_408]

Making progress pretty slowly these days. I got all the engine cage and damaged frame cut off and cleaned up.





When I cut the frame off I only went back as far as I absolutely had to so I wouldn’t have to work under the firewall to align and weld the new frame on.

 

[Brett_408]

Made a trip up to Santa Clarita to meet Brian aka Motiracer38. He had an 01 Tundra 2wd sitting on his property he offered up for my rebuild. Can’t thank him enough for taking the time to strip down and cut off the front of that truck and give it to me free of charge!! Brian is a stand up guy. Truly awesome.




Finished up the cam bolt delete overlay plates. And got the Nexus metalworks steering rack kit removed and set up on the new frame.






Started on a tube sub frame between the lower arm cross members. Here’s a couple purposed ideas. I think I’m leaning toward the 1st option. Input would be appreciated.

 

[Brett_408]

Chipped away a little more this weekend. Got the sub frame built went with the K style but also incorporated Moti’s idea. Happy with the results. Also boxed in the bottom of the stock motor mounts. I use the Solid off-road motor mounts for these tundras which bolt to the stock frame side motor mount perch and when I crashes the truck it totally collapsed the frame side motor mount perch on both sides. Hopefully this plating prevents that. Forgot to take a pic of that I’ll post it later.



Also added some bulk head plates to the cut end of the frame on the truck using the same thought process as miter bulk heads. Definitely made welding the donor frame on and I’m sure it’s a much stronger joint this way.





Now I was able to line up and square the donor frame onto the truck. Once everything was leveled and cross checked 100 times from rear end housing, hubs, link pivots to various parts on the donor Frame we welded it all up. There was so gaps on the driver side where the frame was slightly tweaked but it’s nothing a big ole sloppy mig weld couldn’t fix. At least everything is strait and square. I’ll be adding plating and overlays across the joint this week.










I’ll also be cutting donor frame off at the front of the forward LCA crossmember and doing tube from there forward. All tied together with the engine cage.

 

[Brett_408]

Sorry for the shitty grammar and missing words I type it out fast and send it off. Fuck you figure it out lol.

 

[Brett_408]

Got some overlay plates knocked out today across the donor frame splice and the stock coil over/shock mounts cut off and cleaned up.

Finally ready to set up the upper arm tabs and do a little suspension cycling.

 

[Brett_408]

Last of the donor frame plating. I stopped the plates right at the front of the front LCA crossmember, this is where I will be cutting back the frame rails to replace with tubing from there forward to get the best approach angle possible.



Using the old frames upper arm tabs as reference I drew up some tabs and dimensioned them out. I had a buddy of mine draw them in CAD (as I do not have the software or knowledge) on how to do that my self. I used send cut send to laser the upper arm tabs and I would highly recommend them for small jobs like this. 46 bucks for all the tabs and gussets send to my door cut from .188 PNO. Took 4 days from order to door.



Once I had the tabs I went ahead and set them up on the frame. Again using the original frame as location reference. According to all the cross measuring they should be set up in the same place as the original frame. Tacked them into place and bolted up the kit. I need to get the new steering rack and mock it up and double check bump steer and camber change. Recommendations on acceptable parameters and how properly check this on an a-arm kit are welcome. I have never set up a arms in the past. I’m assuming I’m close because i used the original frame and that seem to cycle pretty well and had great on and off-road handling.

 

[Brett_408]

Weekend Update: Only got about 3 hrs total on it this weekend. Welded up the upper arm tabs.





Cycled the kit and found the upright binding on the upper arm. I clearanced the upper arm and ended up getting another 1.5” of bump travel out of the kit.











Cleaned up the front shocks and bolted them up to the lower arm to begin finding the upper shock mount location.

 

[Brett_408]

First few tubes started on the engine cage. Mocking up the radiator kind of dictated how far out and how narrow I could get the 2 front tubes. Radiator got tight with the grill and hood line quick. I think it will come out nice. Still figuring out how the bumper skid plate situation will end up. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

 

[Brett_408]

Alright now that's it for the copy and paste and confusion for all those posts. From here out its current updates and discussion.

This is how the truck sits currently the engine cage will get a little bit more lacing then its onto shock mounts and cycling. Then everything else needed to make a car run haha.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Brah... Your an animal.

Can't wait for the rebuild and it's crazy how quickly something like that rain rut can come up. Glad your backs better and you are getting after it.

 

[Brett_408]

I got a few more tubes done. And set up a temp shock mount to see the location while I finish out the engine cage.





Took Bodj and Barge’s idea of making some stubs off the upper arm tabs to land tubes on. These will get boxed in to the top of the frame.

Could use some input on the tube lay out moving forward. These tubes will have the shock mount tabs built off them.

Option A



Option B


Option C

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

I'm at Option B

 

[DesertGoat]

Decided I’d had enough with rebuilding schreiner hubs and leaky hub seals and built a bigger better rear end.

oof dude, breaking your brack on a g-out is up there on my nightmare scenarios list.
were you haulin the mail and flew off the one side?
Hope you're recovered from that.

I wanted to ask about this comment from early in the thread. Schreiner is on my list of rear end manufactureres to choose for my build, but this is the first negative comment i've seen. Do you have strong opinions about them? any thoughts on why the seals were bad?