The Baja350 - a Dentside Story

[DesertGoat]

If that bolt is still keeping you awake at light, add a turn or two out to the radius arm heim. That should push your wheelbase out a little, enough to run a thicker headed bolt

it freaks me out, too. But this is the solution Cho offered.

The wheelbase is pushed as far forward as possible because I have ~the same clearance to the pitman arm bolt at full lock in the opposite direction.
so the only other option would be to bend the tie rod, cut & move the steering box forward to get more wheelbase, or cut the steering crossmember into the engine crossmember. None of which seem palatable.

 

[DesertGoat]

couple more firewall & floor bits added in.
Need to start the other side & figure out how the heck to do the trans tunnel

 

[85Yota]

Looks good from my personal experience. Get the gas pedal and everything set up where you want it and then build your trans tunnel. Since I built my trans tunnel first and then needed to change it, so I had a little more room for, my gas pedal set up

 

[DesertGoat]

Installed a trailer hitch on my supercab 74
fixed a massive god damn leak in my underground water line.
fixed another small leak in the water line.
decided I hate water lines.
relandscaped some stuff
bought a new beater truck
went wheeling with some friends

got more firewall plates in on the prerunner project.

 

[DesertGoat]

update for my own accountability
couple more to go & then i can weld this out & move on to something else

 

[bullnerd]

So, Your cab/cage is all bushing mounted to the frame?

 

[DesertGoat]

So, Your cab/cage is all bushing mounted to the frame?

That's correct.

 

[bullnerd]

That's correct.

I dig it.

 

[DesertGoat]

Finally finished the firewall and my motivation to work on this thing is finally trending up!
So let's catch up to speed.

• Firewall done, tack ("spot") welded every ~2 inches & then seam sealed.
• Floated up the grill shell & fenders so that I could roughly figure out where the radiator needed to live using my buddy's Griffin & then land the front bulkhead of the engine cage.
• Beefed up the frame with some plate boxing & then built myself a Torii gate style front bulkhead. This will need more bracing but I'm gonna wait until i get the actual radiator in hand so I can see where the fans live & what I have to avoid with more tubes.
• Engine cage tubes heading back to the firewall bushings, tire at bump clearance check. The tire misses the fender by just a fuzz.
• Shock mounting puzzle is in progress. tabs shown now are just fixture tabs to get the shocks to live in the right spot while I cycle & check

 

[Turboyota]

I’m stoked to see progress on this thing!

Where did those machined clevis/tube stub chingaderas come from? I like those!

Why seam seal instead of MiG blasting all those firewall filler panels? Just curious—we all do it kinda differently for various reasons.

 

[85Yota]

Not needed to fully mig blast them. I always stitch weld them and seam seal firewalls. My bumpside i got silicone bronze mig wire and fully welded the floors but that's the only time I've ever fully welded that style panels especially since they're sitting against tubes in every side not just sheet metal to sheet metal edge to edge.

 

[charlie brown]

Not needed to fully mig blast them. I always stitch weld them and seam seal firewalls. My bumpside i got silicone bronze mig wire and fully welded the floors but that's the only time I've ever fully welded that style panels especially since they're sitting against tubes in every side not just sheet metal to sheet metal edge to edge.

how did the silicone bronze wire work mig welding? what were the setting? gas??

 

[85Yota]

how did the silicone bronze wire work mig welding? what were the setting? gas??

I used same gas and everything just colder setting than i would with 1/8"+ material. It worked pretty good. I have a few more small rolls ill use on the next one.

 

[DesertGoat]

I designed the machined clevises & had them cut somewhere in China via Xometry.

Seam sealing appeared to be a way faster alternative to fully welding the whole thing. Also reduced the risk of warping the panels a bunch, for whatever that's worth. I see both options as totally valid, but this got the pain in the ass part of the project done faster so I went with it.

 

[DesertGoat]

Got the driver's side shock mounts all finished up & tacked.
Going to start working on the passenger side next - there's a risky interference with the AC compressor so i won't weld all this out until I have both sides done just in case.
definitely should have done the passenger side first, but there's hindsight for you.
Also got shop air plumbed in with Pex, pretty happy with it. No more dragging an air hose around to stuff.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Time to build a little shed behind the shop for that air compressor... game changer.

 

[85Yota]

Pex looks good. way easier to use straight pieces. I always have to do 100' runs so I buy the large rolls and get to fight the roll not laying flat.

 

[DesertGoat]

Turned the shock mounts into 3/16 & got the overlays in for both sides.
I'm pretty with happy with the look.

Unfortunately, i forgot the passenger side beam has more clearance to the frame and bumps ~1" higher than the driver side.
so when I built the passenger side the mounts came out super high.
i didn't notice until everything was cut & tacked into place.
Mocked up the hood and the passenger side shock mount definitely hits before the hood closes. so i'll have to re-do those

 

[the bodj]

Trim the driver frame so it can bump 1” higher and redo the driver mounts. Couple holes in the hood and off you go with a. Better setup

 

[DesertGoat]

yeah man, you're 100% correct I think that's the right solution for max performance. But the amount of driver's side trimming required to clear this big ass pumpkin is immense. it's pretty much hitting everywhere all at once. we'd be effectively talking about a whole new front frame & crossmember section by the time I scarfed it up enough to get the extra inch. Plus modifying the fenders (probably).

I'm currently getting ~9" uptravel as-is and I'm happy with that, the extra juice isn't worth the squeeze IMO.