Toyota FJ60: "Saggin' Wagon" - Off Road Expo Give-a-way!

Today, this junkyard truck is brought back from the dead and it starts with a spring over axle conversion. Plus Ian and Jessi play Santa Claus for two lucky off road enthusiasts

that and more today on Xtreme 4x4.

Hey guys, welcome to Xtreme 4x4. Take a look around things, look different. You're thinking we're on a show on the road. You're wrong.

We finally moved into our new shop at the Power Block Tech Center.

We've been putting this place together for a couple of months now and we are super excited to be here. I mean, check this out. We now have a spot for all of our metal working tools. So we don't have to drag them all over the shop whenever we need to work on one of our projects.

Now that we have these huge 40 ft ceilings, we are able to put in a mezzanine where you can store parts for our projects, maybe put in some office space

that leaves this entire floor area as nothing but work space like this new day that we have for massive

Maco hoist

and sitting on that

another new project. I know what you're thinking, new shop, new projects. We got so much on the go. How are we gonna keep up? Well, the rest of our projects are still being worked on right now.

The suburban gorilla body is at the local Rhino dealer getting sprayed

and the Ranger Resurrection is being torn down for paint.

Some

of

you guys may recognize this truck but most of you probably won't.

This is an

85 land cruiser at 60

this one is in some pretty sad shape. But most of you to

lovers know that this is the perfect truck to cut up and get right out on the

Yeah.

Now the plans for this project are pretty intense, but today we're gonna start with something pretty simple and that's a spring over axle conversion on this front end

and before you get all worked up, but the fact that we said a spring over axle was simple. Well, it is, it needs minimal parts, just a lot of labor and some know how

last time we did a spring over, we got a lot of questions on our power block email. So today we're going to go step by step trying to eliminate all of those questions.

So basically, and

a spring over

Ale is taken the spring from the bottom of the

Ale housing

and moving it to the top. Not only does this give you 5 to 6 inches of lift,

but it's also going to eliminate everything underneath the

Ale. So it doesn't get caught up on anything.

We're going to start by stripping this axle down to a bare housing,

but we're not going to unbolt it from the leaf springs yet,

the bearing support bolts

and the felt retainers,

all that's left is the sea cliff

supposed to happen.

Axel was supposed to hold that in if there was one.

Now, you can go ahead and remove your third

and then place the Axon stands.

The FJ 60 has these little perches on top of the axle. Now, they're used from the factory to hold square U bolts down through here and some people use them for perches on a spring over like someone tried to here with this cobbled up mess, but you really shouldn't do that. So for now,

we're just gonna go ahead and measure the caster angle of this axle

and record it.

But the front

so pretty much out of the truck, we can begin

our leave springs.

There's a lot of options when it comes to spring,

you can go ahead and re use your old ones, but they have a tendency to get soft and unpredictable. You can compensate that by putting in

at least,

but we went ahead and chose a brand new set from

the springs that were built specifically for this truck.

And even though diver springs has more leafs in their pack, they actually made with a thinner material.

The spring has more of a flex.

The new piece you obviously have to have when performing a spring over is new leaf spring pads to go on top of the axle. So we got these two from A and a manufacturing

and we can drill out these two

holes to move the axle forward or back one inch after we install it.

Now, the Toyota housing ramps up really soon on the passenger side knuckle. So we're gonna have to grind this pad down to fit better. But for now, all this junk that someone else put on here gotta cut it off.

Normally we'd be able to just bolt in the

spring.

But one of the previous owners, that one heck of a hack job right here. So we're going to have to replace this whole shackle, which gives us the opportunity to do a shale

reversal, putting the swing shackle back here

and the stationary shackle up here

that also gives us an opportunity

of the whole act. So for all of this together is going to give us a better approach

and better ground.

Stay tuned to Xtreme 4x4 because after the break, the gang heads to Pomona, California and the off road Expo where two lucky viewers will hit it big.

Go pick up those parts that we all,

they're all free.

People say to us all the time, man, you guys have a great with the big shop, all the fancy tools, any part you want. So this year and we headed to Pomona to the off road Expo show. We decided to give something back.

The crowd outside the Pomona Fairplex wasn't waiting to see a poison concert. Nope,

they were here for the off road expo.

It's heaven. There's every part known to mankind that he can actually modify his truck for over 300 manufacturers. Gave the people a chance to see the newest and coolest equipment up close. If you want to lift kit, you can get it here. If you want brush guards, you can get it here. Tire manufacturers, wheel manufacturers,

all the

bab shops, even our friend Clifton Slay was here showing off his suicide. Sally come all the way from Colorado for this. Huh?

Best show of the year.

As you can see, there are thousands of people here, but each one of them drives a different kind of vehicle. But what two of them don't know is they're going to leave here today with a truck full of parts,

right.

Picking someone from this crowd wasn't gonna be easy. Then I met Jesseca

who is looking to do up his 2003 dodge. I've had it going on two years

and my pay for 26

hours so far. What I've done to my truck

is I put my exhaust and my intake

and everything else so far has just stopped. Our first stop was the fab

tent where Bob was there to point Jessi in the right direction. Tell him what you got let's see what we can figure out what model truck do you have? I have a 2003 Dodge.

So what do you recommend

two

wheel drive or four wheel drive?

And is it a half to 1500 bottle?

Ok.

The suspension system I recommend for your Dodge is our six inch fab tech perform suspension, which is a cross member style design kit which utilizes knuckles to correct the geometry

to get a true six inches of lift and a great ride out of it. Any more questions? Let us know.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks, Bob.

We check

out the P

A

kicking suspension needs some good tires. So our next stop was the Mickey Thompson.

What do you recommend

dozens right there. I like these right here.

This is uh the Maha

Radio Agency. It's a good all around

uh

trend design for

a lot of road driving, not a real aggressive but snow tire. So it'll give you good wear.

Uh uh

It's

a

good

sand and desert

after a day of checking out new products, Jessi didn't have a clue that this was gonna be his lucky day.

I'm just doing little at a time as I can afford it.

My search turned up Tim Millick who was looking to cut up his 68 Bronco.

I just got it a few months ago. Bought it from the second owner. It's

completely stocked, all original original paint,

original everything I wanna turn into a good off road truck, something, the family and I can go camping in, you know,

use it as, as a daily driver for work.

Um,

stuff like that. A Bronco,

I knew the perfect place to get

started. We're here at BC Broncos to get the first step as to how we're gonna get that truck up in the air, working better. So we got Chuck here for BC Broncos. How you doing, Chuck?

How you doing? I'm doing great. This is Tim.

All

right. Tell him what he needs, man. You're the expert. Ok.

You're looking at 3500

Bronco.

So you'll need at least a 4.5 inch sniff. Probably a 5.5

inch

sniff.

We've come up with this new arm

that has

a adjust

with this system. There's no

cutting welding, it's just a bolt

in system.

Greg Adler races in the core series and he knows Pro Comp tire. How much four wheeling do you think you're going to do?

Um,

half

and half, half,

half street, half wheel. And that, that's a pretty good amount. So I'd recommend something aggressive like the bro

comp mud terrain

really hooks up nicely. But when you're on the street thing rides nice, the Bronco is gonna go straight down the road, get in the mud or get off road. It, it's got a lot of traction. In fact, that's what I use on my race truck. Those same factory Pro comp mud terrains.

Ok. Tim, what kind of seats have you got in your Bronco?

Stock? Stock seats? Not good for wheeling. So, that's why we're here. We're at Mastercraft. I'm gonna introduce you to lizard. He's going to take you through what you need to have in that truck.

Hi,

nice to meet you.

We've actually come out with a new package specifically designed for the, uh, early Bronco.

What we did with it is we, we designed it with a five degree LA back on the back. And that's because uh the pans on the uh Ford Broncos are set

that

if we put a Rubicon into it,

it would sit too straight up and you'd be nosed into the steering wheel. So we want you to be comfortable out on the ride

and, and so that's why we came up with this specific seat. He's got to have bead locks, obviously. So we're here trail ready a place to be. So give him the scoop, man, what do you need to know going to be running on the road and off road?

In which case I would recommend the aluminum one. It's a more precision design.

It runs a little bit through, it's gonna balance just as good as, as a regular aluminum.

After a day of looking around, Tim was feeling a little overwhelmed, too much stuff and too little money to,

to pay for it all, too much good stuff. Then it was time to let Tim and Jessey in on our little secret. So I want to thank you guys for hanging out with us this afternoon. But you know what? You guys can do one more favor for us.

What is it, Jesse's?

Go pick up those parts that we all got for?

They're all

you guys can build your

shots. I'm not kidding.

Now

that lift is yours.

The tires

are

y

everything, the lip kit, the wheels, the tires, the seats, the bead locks.

Yeah. Yeah, it's all yours.

No problem. I'm stunned

to be

honest.

I really am. I didn't expect this

at all

at all.

Maybe a t-shirt, maybe a sticker or something like that. But

three parts. No, not at all. I'm speechless.

I

really, really speechless.

Anything. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

And it's just, it's awesome.

Yeah, their families were there and everything like that's Jesse's senior, Jesse's dad and that's Tim's wife, Candice and their little boy, Joey and they had a blast and they were totally taken by surprise. Now, we did this a couple of months ago and those guys have finished their trucks. You can see Tim's Bronco. It looks awesome with

big tires, the bead Locks and BC Broncos even kicked in a new front bumper. This is great company and the stance of Jesse's truck completely changed. Going from stock to that lift with the wheels and tires. Looks killer. Good job guys. Congratulations.

Just to remind you guys, we're in the middle of a spring over axle conversion on the front of our FJ 60 project. We already stripped the axle tube completely bare. And right now we're finishing up the shaka reversal on the front.

Now, this is where a spring over axle becomes a little tricky. If this was the rear axle, we could simply twist this thing and point the third member at the transfer case output shaft to give us more ground clearance and be done with it. But because it's the front axle, when you do that, it's going to start to mess with our caster angle. You don't want to ignore this angle. And even though this is going to be a true trail truck and very rarely ever see the pavement, there are some areas where you go wheeling that require a long distance to drive

and ignoring your alignment. Angles can cause driving issues like wobbles, otherwise known as the death wobble. So to solve this problem on this axle, we're going to perform something that's called a cut and a turn

with the pinion rotated up towards the output shaft, we measure the caster angle with the angle finder

looks good there,

this outer housing goes about this far into the axle tubing.

So what you're going to want to do is make a cut about 38 of an inch inside of this, well, about a quarter of an inch deep,

but make sure you don't cut too far.

You're going have to buy yourself a new axle.

You, it's hard to see it because when you,

because you're making a grain in there, when you spin that whale, this is making me nervous.

It's, it's only, it's only an axle. Come on. It's

a,

all right, the axles cut and turned. And before we weld in our spring perches, we want to remeasure and make sure axles in here. Nice and center

and all we got to do is put in some new bolts and that's all there is to spring over. It's pretty simple. It just takes a lot of time.

Stay tuned because after the break, turning your four by four into a quality off rotor that you can still drive to work when Xtreme 4x4 continues.

These are all emails from the power block asking us the same question. I want a daily driver, but I also want to go forward

and sometimes what kind of truck should I get and what lift should I use? And to answer that question, it's pretty simple. We don't know. It all depends. Are you looking for a full size or a mid size? Maybe an SUV? Are you going to do a lot of work or a little bit of work? Are you gonna go hard core off road or just play around in the field with your buddies on the weekend? So instead of trying to answer a question that broad, we're just going to show you one option,

a 94 to 01 Dodge pickup. Think of it this way, these trucks are available for around 2 to 3 grand. Plus it's a full size rig, lots of room and of course solid axle in the front.

Of course, if you plan to modify your truck, like most of us do, you're going to want to make room for larger tires. So suspension system is in order when we started looking around and looking at our options, we noticed a trend

upgrading or buying your kit in stages. This one comes from Skyjacker with their class one K. You get the so

right springs,

upper and lower control arms, a pitman arm, a heavy duty steering stabilizer, all the relocation brackets and hardware. Plus you get an out of

spring for your rear end.

Now, when you want to upgrade to class two,

you get the front, dual shock mountain brackets

and the soft

springs for the rear.

Now most companies stop right there but not Skyjacker.

Now, the final upgrade is what's on this truck right here. Skyjacker's platinum series coil over shocks.

Now, coil overs are the hot ticket nowadays and if you're wondering why

check this out, rebuildable and revolvable design, fully charged with nitrogen plus adjustable +78 harden chrome shaft and an external bump stop. These things are hot

when it comes to wheels, just go ahead and pick what you like.

But when it comes to tires. You got to be honest with yourself, you're going to be spending more time on the pavement than you are off road. You're going to want an all terrain tire. If you're going to be spending a little more time wheeling these ball hala

of great

D purpose

and don't overdo it because half to trucks can do about 35 inch tires. Anything

bigger than that. You're gonna want to start messing with your axles. And the real issue with big tires has always been the spare, but check this out tire gate from Wilco holds a full size spare still functions as a tailgate. Plus you have all the room for all your toys. Now, these newer trucks do have weak links in the drive train, you wheel this thing hard enough and you will find them.

But if you're not breaking parts then you're not wheeling hard enough. That's right.

Bye.