Local Legend Vital Designs Regular Cab Ranger

[marcytech]

A good chisel as mentioned above. You’ll find them with a metal ended cap for max hammering when hammered

 

[RW81]

Big ass sharpened chisel got it out.

Well, when I got home from off-road expo couple months ago I threw the rear up on jackstands to check the no fluid in the diff damage. Made the horrid clunk and bind noise just turning the wheels. After taking the diff out, cleaning the shavings out of the housing, and putting it back in and filling it with maxima 250wt (shit is like honey), the diff seems to be fine. I think. Hopefully get the driveshaft connected sometime this next week so I can see the wheels turning!

Nice surprise, especially after AJ said I probably cooked the locker lol.

Plus I got to take it all apart and put it together myself after Christian did it all the first time so that was cool. Having to take my drive plates off for my hub is a pain in the ass, stupid HT alloy axels. Had I know that, camburg could’ve upsold me on some 300m axels so I wouldn’t have to take the drive plates off haha

 

[RW81]

Had to get the u joint swapped on the trans side after trying to press the caps in. Needed a 1330 to a 1310 conversion joint for the trans tail shaft yoke



Got the driveshaft on! Nice and smooth let it run for about 5 minutes

View attachment 114278dcdfd84829ad36eae599e1edbe.mp4

 

[RW81]

Got my brake lights figured out today, the brake light wiring is tied into the BD RTL bar so I used that for time being. Really happy with the RTL bar having the ambers, running lights, brake lights and a center white cargo light




Super close to a street drive in this thing, just making sure I have all the wire functions done so I can test everything for a couple days around town. Last on the list is turn signal wiring inside the cab before I do that. And none of the wiring is wrapped yet but that’s incase I have to change anything. Like the wiring for my bumper XL80s is getting a little warm so I think I’m going to redo that…

Aiming for next weekend, going for a drive to in n out for a celebratory 4x4!!

 

[TTBDORA]

Not bad for some scooter riders!

Nicest single cab around. More or less just went through the whole thread.
Whole truck flows & makes sense. Big fan of the 35s and not insane power plant or much of the “nonsense” I call it.

 

[RW81]

Worked on this thing all week to get it to where I could drive it. After a lot of missed goals on driving it etc, I said I HAVE TO drive it this weekend.

And it happened tonight! Huge mix of emotions being excited and also extremely nervous haha. Me and my nephew took it to in n out. Made it all worth it.

Got a few things to button up before it’s dirt worthy but for now, this will do

 

[exp24]

Congratulations!, A lot of time and hard work to meet your goals!

 

[TTBDORA]

SO RAD!!

 

[the bodj]

The first drive after a build is terrifying, but the coolest feeling! Congrats dude! Can't wait to see it in the dirt

 

[FasterNU]

Congrats!!

And yea, I feel like on the street in town it's not too bad....but once you get like 30 miles from camp in middle of desert all by yourself... it really starts getting the nerves going....hearing all sorts of noises for the first time... wondering, is that a normal noise or a bad noise?? LOL. Or blasting whoops within 25ft of telephone poles at 65mph for the first time... thinking... I sure hope I got all those steering bolts tight! Paranoia to the max!

That's one of the reasons I like to run them around town for a bit before going to the desert. Gets time to break in the gears, learn some sounds... and work out all the stupid shit like tiny leaks, etc.

 

[Crusty]

Insane amount of fabwork, great thread!

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

So sick dude!

When's the first trip?

 

[RW81]

Driving it around in February for a couple days, the rear seal on the trans was non existent. Leaked a ton of ATF everywhere I drove it. Plus my drive shaft was pulling out after entering drive ways /turning at lights because we hadn’t tapped the tail shaft of the trans to hold the driveshaft on. So I wasn’t comfortable driving it at all.

Pulled the trans with Christian Feb. 15th, with the intentions of getting it out and in asap. Wasted time having a family friend thinking he could put threads in the tailshaft, couldn’t find a trans shop that would even deal with doing that. So I went on YouTube and took the whole entire transmission apart myself just to get the tailshaft out.




Decided I had to just take it somewhere and say put threads in this. It’s hardened steel so it was kinda tough to do that. Took it to ralls precision machine in Santee and he had it done for me, big step.




I was going to put the whole trans back together myself with a kit off rock auto but decided I didn’t really have time to be learning something new haha. So I took it to a transmission shop, all apart in boxes. Ended up being double what I expected, but at least i know it’s correct. And it’s “fully upgraded” for what a 5 speed can be I guess hahaha. Guy who built it says no way it lasts, and I’m well aware it’s not going to last forever.



Hoping to get this in ASAP, and the truck will actually be drivable, and I’ll be able to hit some speed bumps without my driveshaft coming out and flailing it’s getting hot in the desert now so probably just a lot of street miles until next season.

Sorry for the novel, more for me to just look back on lol

 

[85Yota]

Lots of work to drill and tap the output shaft. I did that on my old 85 toyota with the Gm 700r4 by drilling and tapping it in place.

 

[Turboyota]

Lots of work to drill and tap the output shaft. I did that on my old 85 toyota with the Gm 700r4 by drilling and tapping it in place.

Done this to a couple Th400’s also…

 

[85Yota]

It doesn't need to be perfect to make it work. Stock output shaft had a nice taper in middle so the drill is centered as good as it would be on a lathe. Just need to make sure the drill bit isn't crooked

 

[the bodj]

I tried doing it on my old 4l60e while on the truck. Gave up pretty quickly lol. Better bits would have probably helped.

 

[RW81]

It doesn't need to be perfect to make it work. Stock output shaft had a nice taper in middle so the drill is centered as good as it would be on a lathe. Just need to make sure the drill bit isn't crooked

Yea Christian tried this when it was out almost two years ago. He got the start of a hole drilled and then it just wouldn’t go anymore. Chewed up a cobalt hand tap we bought really quick. Andy said he stuck it in a lathe and it got softer after drilling the hole deeper and he then used cobalt tooling.

For sure need to figure out something for when I need to swap a trans. But I’ll cross that bridge when time comes I guess haha

 

[85Yota]

That's good to know. The 700r4 shaft was like warm butter. Drilled 1/4" hole, then 3/8 ish then the size to tap to 1/2"