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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/08/2024 in all areas

  1. No progress today, but yesterday I felt confident enough in axle placement to cut up my last piece of tubing for the drag link, so now I can talk about the steering setup. The approach here is what the SAS community calls "GM 1-ton TREs". Several 4wd shops sell these kits as "Y-Link" setups. Since this axle came with a Heim kit that was mostly welded up (drag link was ready to be cut to length), I'm just using the tubing but cut the pieces in a manner that retained some length with the bungs previously welded in (project foreshadowing: looks like I'm making Heim jointed upper trailing arms when I focus on the rear axle). The tubing is 1.5" OD x 0.250" wall...it's beefy. The TREs have 1" shafts, so they're beefy, too. I used the following SKP parts from Rock Auto: Tie rod: SES2233L & SES2234R Drag link: SES2027L & SES2026R TREs ran about $28 for all before tax/shipping, and then another $30 for LH/RH threaded bungs and jam nuts off a shop on ebay. Also needed a 1.5" TPF (taper per foot) or 7° reamer, which ran another $77. The reamer is necessary because the 2233L piece and the pitman arm need to be reamed out. The nice part about this is spares are cheap and easy to obtain, but one part does need to be reamed beforehand. The end result: Drag link's at about 6°, which is not too bad. Currently projecting (aiming for) 4" of up-travel, and this position is good enough to keep the tie rod off the pitman joint, and that's really about the only constraint I needed to be mindful of this. There's otherwise plenty of clearance; next closest thing is the drag link below the oil filter, but still ample space. Hidden in that last pic is a very crude placement of the PHB, which should fit really nicely in there. The drag link ended up being 37" center-center, and the PHB will be at 33". I couldn't find much info about the effect of differing lengths, but should be easily to keep them parallel. The PHB is from a JK Wrangler and has hump/kickout for diff cover clearance. The first pic also has the FJ arm wired up. I'm pretty satisfied with the angles and planned placement. Just need to get the plates CAD'd up and cut. Hard to tell with the angle, but the rear eye is just inboard of chassis rail, so it fortunately won't have a big cantilever. Figuring to weld on brackets for the mounts, with a middle removable crossmember. I'm stalled a little on progress because I'm not liking how I've got the engine slung up. Having the support bar at an angle causes the legs on the passenger side to be lower than the driver's side, which is cause the engine to be supported a little crooked. I realized this when I attempted to reinstall the subframe so I could confirm the engine was at the correct height (my decision to do this ended up being a terrible one...installing the subframe was far more difficult than removing it). The real problem is Nissan failing to put any reasonable sling points on the engine. I can't even wrap a strap under the engine without fear of it crushing a tube, or bending something. I mean, the KA in my Frontier already has slingers attached...from the factory...and you could pull that engine out with crowbar. The VQ points are ridiculous obnoxious and inaccessible...not to mention basically requiring genuine Nissan slingers that don't exist (and wouldn't do me any good anyway). So, I'm trying to make slingers I can leave attached for future use. The driver's side is done. The passenger side has been a total ishtshow. I can't even remove the RH bracket to weld something because half the bolts are obstructed by the exhaust manifold. After a couple hours of ideas and measurements, I think I have a plan of attack, which I'll make tomorrow and get the engine re-slung.
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