Local Legend Project: Tur-BRO-yota

[Turboyota]

Clearance challenges are no joke on little Toyotas. Packaging is a challenge forfuckingsure.

I have around 1/8” clearance on damn near everything on this truck:

wastegate actuator to cage—1/8”
Steering box u-joint to a-arm tabs—0.090”
Coil to steering shaft—3/16”
Steering shaft to turbo—3/16”
Tierod to pitman arm—0.030”
Rear of lower arm to frame—1/8”

Tire to fender—2” interference

 

[Turboyota]

Late May, 2019

Time: 8 hours
Beers: 8 Coors lights and some Franziskaner
Lunch: German food
Music: Maiden, Offspring, Sepultura, Metallica, Slayer, Pantera
Times that I stuck the filler rod DIRECTLY onto the tungsten: 3
Blistered burns on my fingers: 3
Steering column install/removal count: 4
Done with the difficult side:

Finished the top frame plating on the easier side:

 

[Turboyota]

June 1, 2019

Lower arm rear pivots and frame bracing. The bend in the rear-most tab is required for turbo downpipe clearance.
Tabs: 3/16” P&O
Inner Frame plating: 3/16” P&O

Drivers side:

Passenger side:

Ground out some of the factory weld under cuts(circled in red sharpie):

Welded those bitches up:

Passenger side arm is 1” narrower(fore & aft) because of engine cage tube placement and poor planning on my part. Close examination of the angle iron fixture on the left reveals a third hole that brings the 3/4” heims 1” closer together. Love it when the third hole is revealed.

Tight fitment, but the fasteners are still accessible.

 

[Turboyota]

carpet

Stoked about how well it wrapped around the floor tubes.
I may(or may not) try some nice ‘80’s brown vinyl paint on the door panels...

Also,

I made the other spindle clevis:

^^^ cut quality looks like I had a fucking seizure during the prasma cutting operation...


Cleaned up alright, though:

 

[Turboyota]

7-9 beers is the TIG welding relaxation rhythm sweet spot.
Hours: 2 hours on lower arm rear pivot tabs, 3 hours on the spindle.
Tools: bandsaw, drill press, disc sander, MIG welder, TIG welder, bench grinder(for tungsten), 1-2–3 blocks for hand rests whilst TIG welding.
Yard pisses: 9

Lower arm pivot tabs—3/16” P&O plate. Drilled pilot holes first with 5/16, stepped up to 17/32, then final sized with a 3/4” 4-flute drill. Then I bandsawed those hookers and cleaned ‘em up on the 20” disc sander.

Machined the excess off of the Coleman 2” snouts and welded them to my 1/2” blanchard ground snout blocks. I ground significant bevels on both the 1/2” snout block and the 4”x4”x0.250”wall clevis tube to facilitate all the penetrations.

 

[Turboyota]

July 2019

Spindle welding: couple hours
Playing fuckaround trying to eliminate bumpsteer: Fuck, probably 4 to 5 hours and 8 to 10 beers.
Black widows killed: 5

Pounded the uniball cup wrap over once everything was nice and toasty warm:

Shock bolt hole(rear side with recessed nut)

Bumpsteer measurement setup:

What a pain in the dick. Had it down to less than 1/4” difference in toe in/out measured at the edges of my 35” piece of angle iron at this point.

 

[Turboyota]

July 14, 2019

Cut steering ears off and shortened the tierod by 1/4” and got bumpsteer to 1/8” over the full travel range.

Time I started making noise in my shop: 5:30AM
Coffees: 2X
Beers: 1X
Emphatic exclamations of “hellfuckingyeahbitches!!!”: 4X

Welded insides around uniball cup:

Steering tabs affixed

Miggered the insides.

Had to make new steering tabs for the passenger since I butchered them playing fuckaround with the steering geometry.

new steering tabs: 0.75 hours
Measured and setup tab location: 1 hour
Welded, cleaned back side of weld, then more welding: 0.25 hours

Measured tab height:

Made my spindles docking partners and used the height gage to scribe vertical tab location. Bro tip: use the ubiquitous permanent marker so the scribe lines contrast nicely.

 

[Turboyota]

July 15, 2019
New wheels! 5on5.5”

Made in the USA Ultras. They even have steel lug inserts.

 

[Turboyota]

July 20, 2019

Materials: 6-6 Nylon, Delrin, 1.125X0.188W 4130 tube
Hours: 2
Attire: Flip flops & Dickies shorts. Bro.
Drinks: 2X Keystone Ice

Machined the steel sleeves for the rear lower arm pivots, then machined a couple Delrin bushings. Used the sleeves to hold the Delrin in the chuck.

Upon completion of the first two bushings, I decided that I was going to conduct a durability experiment.

I made the other two bushings from 6-6 Nylon. I will install them in the other arm and see which bushings last longer.

Bored 1.121”

Machined OD to 1.4995”

Done.

 

[Turboyota]

July 28, 2019

Materials: 5/16” 4130 plate, 1/4” template plywood
Tools: bandsaw, 4.5 grinder, 1” drum sander, drill press, tig welder, large tap wrench, 3/4-16 tap
Tig welding for 3 hours in a tanktop: check
UV burns on my chest and arms: check
Should I fucking know better? Yes
Temperature in my uninsulated shop: 96F
Beers? Oh hell yes.

Finished the upper arms. When I pounded those ears down to wrap onto the tubes they both cracked at the bend. Fuckin’ weird—especially because it was obviously really hot from welding. I have no idea what material it was—it was a random piece of 3/4x1/8” bar that was sitting around. It welded fine though...

Full closeout above the spindle uniball and below what will be bump strike area. Having a c-section there worries me.

Filled the voids where the hex bungs fit into the square tube. I don’t totally hate it.

Front wrap on the other arm:

You can see where I ground out and welded the cracks in the front wrap:

Only had to run a 3/4-16 tap through one of the bungs after welding:

Speedway Engineering makes some pretty badass rotor hats. They can be flipped front to back and the rotors can be mounted on either side and flipped over resulting in a grand total of 8 different offsets from the hub face. Here are three combos:

Settled on an offset that cleared the inside of the rim, the brake line fitting and the lower control arm at full steer.

Made a lil template out of wood:

Copied that little gem onto 5/16” 4130 chromo plate:

Tig tacked them together, drilled 25/64” through and tried to rigid tap 7/16-20 on my drill press. It doesn’t get very far in there...

Used a countersink to add a nice chamfer to the holes:

Oh yeah

 

[Turboyota]

August 3, 2019

Time: 6 hours
PPE: long sleeve t-shirt, flip flops, dickies shorts (all of which were black, of course)
Beers: Fosters Australian for beer; green can. 2X
Music: metal. Some maiden, hatebreed, slipknot, fucking pantera and slayer, megadeth, ozzy, metallica, and other wholesome favorites. MobzaBrent really made it happen with the music.
Fucks yelled: 1X when the shitty HF rolling stool shit the bed and Brent fell on his fat ass. Naturally, he threw the stool and offending caster across the shop.

Lower arms: Complete! 31.5 lbs each

Driver side spindle: 96.69% Complete. Needs a little more steering tab gusseting, but that can wait. 13 lbs each

Super sick overlay plate on the forward sides of the arms:

Driver side suspension & steering is complete!

Baller MS hardware:

Welding in the go-fast overlay plate holes is a bitch. I welded the first arm(driver side) with 1/16” filler rod, and the second specimen with 0.040” filler. Second one came out a little better—especially the overlay holes. Alas, I didn’t take any pics of the passenger side.

Passenger caliper bracket tuned-up and ready for metal glue.

Let’s talk about welding caliper tabs. I made some aluminum brake pad spacers to help snug up the calipers, and I pressurized the caliper with 150psi shop air the make sure everything was true and square. I tacked the ends first so it wouldn’t pull, then alternated tacks on the inside and outside of the tab once I had the rotor removed. I did lots of tacks before final weld. Turned the welder up to almost full kill and burned those fuckers in at around 300 amps. Any other easy & effective caliper tab techniques?

Aluminum pad spacers can be seen here:

Shop air pressurizing caliper:

 

[GahnRacing]

I didn’t know you made wood templates. Fucking savage lol

 

[dose]

Your 4130 internally ribbed countersunk overlayed fighter jet lowers don’t match the fence post uppers. Did you harvest that material from someone’s gate?

I’m jealous of 1/8” bump steer.

 

[Turboyota]

August 19,2019

More caliper bracket mock-up fun:

I hit the fitting with a quick blast of shop air to squeeze the caliper. It pretty much stays in place because o-rings and pad spacers.

For welding I do this:

Pressurize caliper, then heavy tack the ends.

Full kill 300Amps. Deep penetration—cervical bruise style.

Made a snout dust seal cap from some 1/8” 4130 scrap.

Kept it pretty classy for a Thursday evening.
These high-brow beverages were accentuated by the soothing melodies of Megadeth.

Fully welded passenger-side UCA pivot tabs:

Time: 3 hours
Beers: 1 tallboy of King Cobra, 5 Naturdays
Tools: Tig finger chingadera, bandsaw, disc sander, tig welder

 

[Turboyota]

August 9, 2019

Time: 2.5 hours
Beverages: 3X Naturday
Materials: 1/8” 4130 plate
Tools: cardboard, scissors, bandsaw, vise brake, 4.5” grinder, DA sander, Lincoln metal melter

steering tab gussets

Other side:

Spindles 100% complete.

 

[Turboyota]

August 13, 2019

Spindle Upright Fab time: 35 hours
Spindle Upright weight: 13 lbs

Total time spent to date on the new front suspension: 163 hours


If I’d mig welded the frame plating, it would have taken 1.5 hours. Instead, I tigged them on there, burned my hands multiple times, got a couple neck cramps, and rolled a nut squeezing the pedal with my thighs. And it took an extra hour. Sigh.

Before:

After:

 

[Turboyota]

August 18, 2019

Both complete tierods weight combined 11.1 lbs
1.25x0.120” wall 4130 sleeved into 1.5x0.120” wall 4130.
Bungs and heims are all ruffstuff. Misaligns are Kartek and ruffstuff mix.
3/4” hex inners, 7/8” smooth LH outers.

 

[Turboyota]

August 26, 2019

Time flushed since last update: 15 hours
Cans of self-etching primer: 3
Cans of gloss black: 4
PPE: nose hair and flip flops
Cans of Beer: 20ish
Expletives: Many. I don’t enjoy painting or bolt turning.
Tunes: CKY

Primed and painted the frame and all the suspension bits. drank a tallboy of King Cobra, and got my forklift working.

Machined excess threads off damn near every fastener, applied grease, Blue Loctite 242, Red Loctite 262, and torqued fasteners.

Reamed out the power steering box mounting holes to 7/16” and installed chronic 12-pt MS21250 hardware. Loctited the fasteners, torqued gudentite, then realized the steering u-joint needs to slip onto the PS box input splines before bolting the box down. Doh!!!

Mounted bumpstops. Happy with zero scrub as it contacts the upper arm. Bandsawed bump can gusset plates from 1/8” 4130 plate.

 

[Turboyota]

September 15, 2019

Welded the bump can gussets:

Sprayed self-etching primer on half the engine cage. I don’t like painting.

Decided I needed an engine cross member to spread the bumpstop loads. I really didn’t feel like making one, but if I didn’t fab one before paint, it wouldn’t ever get done.
Materials: 1.75x0.065” wall 4130 tube and interlocking tube clamps.

Setup to assure the tube clamp faces stay planar:

I cut down one side of the tube clamps to bring them closer to the fore/aft engine cage tubes.

Making the little tubes that cover the ends of the tube clamps took quite a while. One of them can be seen here on the passenger side:

Added another 4lbs, diddilydangit! If that tube was 0.120” wall instead of 0.065”, it would have added an additional 1.4 lbs, so there is a little win there...

All welded up. I had 8 beers at this point, and I was standing sketchily on 2X Harbor Freight rolling seats as I worked the TIG pedal, so welds aren’t as nice and uniform as I would have liked.

Total time to make the removable cross member: 5 hours
Beers: 8 Naturdays
Tools: Evolution chopsaw with carbide tipped blade, Lincoln pipeline welder, 4.5” grinder, 123 blocks, misc clamps and weld magnets
Cost:
2X 1.75” tube clamps: $68
2X 26” Fragola AN-3 brake lines: $25
2X M10x1.0 to AN-3 adapters: $12
2X premade M10 vatozone hardlines: $4

I also finished brake and clutch hard lines and braided brake lines, but alas, no pics. I ran the braided line up the spindle and under the upper a-arm to the frame. That shit is fucking boring anyway...

 

[Turboyota]

October 2019

Donned my MarcyTech “MIG ‘em all” shirt and mounted the limit straps. Should have remembered to do that BEFORE painting everything.

Time: 2 hours
Cost: $56 for Kartek 10” limit straps
Drinks: Iced Tea with Guava Nectar
Footwear: Chuck Taylors
Tools: 4.5” grinder with knotted wire wheel, air angle grinder, Millermatic 210 migger.

Packed bearings with grease, applied Loctite, and torque striped everything on the hubs, rotors, and calipers.

7” ground clearance at full bump.

Plenty of firewall clearance. Shiiiiiit, I could fit 37’s!

I drew the planned fender trim in the dust on the fender. I’m hoping to keep the same “Ivan” classic fender opening shape.