Pzuzu The Isuzu Build (RIP)

[Stomis]

Alright so the roof rack took me so much longer than I thought. I got into it and said to myself "Eh lemme finish everything I want right now). Its got 80 feet of 1x1 16ga wall tube in it. Shovel and axe mounts, 6 floods internally wired through the tube (what a bitch that was), kayak cross bars, and built in tie down hoops. I painted everything w/ etching primer and lots of rustoleum professional enamel.

All together I put around 30 hours into the thing. Lots of time went into making sure it was all square and straight to the best of my ability. Its funny too because some of the welds on the accessories like the axe and shovel mounts you can see where I got tired toward he end of the day and a little sloppy lol


These are some shots of mounts. I originally had no gussets directly under the tube and figured they would make the mounts 100x stronger, just in case I ever have to get up on the roof myself or rub a tree off camber.

The tight corners welding really is pushing me to get a bottle of gas for my machine... Not to mention the slag pops that landed in my rear glass on the one side because I forgot to tape it up w/ cardboard.

And heres some all around shots of he main frame, lights, and shovel/axe mounted and done.

And this is with the kayak rack bars on it. They sleeve into 4 spots of welded some capped tube to. The cool thing is that theyre are totally removable and also they can be taken from perpendicular with the length of he rack and place parallel to make tall side rails. It was easy I simply made the left and right spacing the same as the front to back.

My only other plans are to obviously wire the lights up. Im just gonna get an aftermarket fuse panel. Its dumb to run 6 individual add on fuses. I also want to add a wind deflector. That was the purpose of the angled cut in the front. I need to grab a couple plastic tube caps for the tubes I ran the wire through.

I wanted to keep the thing low profile. Its only 5in tall with out the kayak rails on it. I know that with **** up there its gonna hurt gas mileage but I dont think it will affect it at all empty due to the low pro design and deflector.

 

[colbystephens]

Sweet!

 

[Stomis]

So I had a shower epiphany. Ive got a locked, crossover, flat top dana 44 sitting in front of the 87 chevy...

I was originally aiming for a toyota front but in all reality I could save a serious amount of money by using what I have already... I would just need to regear it to 4.56s and narrow the long tube down to a bronco dana 44 inner shaft length.

 

[dfl701]

So I had a shower epiphany. Ive got a locked, crossover, flat top dana 44 sitting in front of the 87 chevy...

I was originally aiming for a toyota front but in all reality I could save a serious amount of money by using what I have already... I would just need to regear it to 4.56s and narrow the long tube down to a bronco dana 44 inner shaft length.

it sounds like your aiming for a budget toy so i would go with what the cheaper option is.

 

[Stomis]

it sounds like your aiming for a budget toy so i would go with what the cheaper option is.

Yep. I figure I can get one of my stock long side shafts cut down to a bronco length. Trim up the axle housing, pound the inner C back in and shorten the tierod and draglink.

Id be in for $30 to have the shaft resplined, a couple tube bungs for the draglink and TRE, and a set of 4.56s.

 

[Stomis]

I did 8 hours of really really neat wiring today. Its gotta be the neatest wiring Ive ever done. Ran a harness up the A pillar to the roof rack lights, wired 6 switches in my console, wired 3 relays for each directions of my flood lights, and wired up a hot, ign hot, and ground bus terminal.

Im thinking about putting a 1in body lift in to hike the gas tank up a little and give a little play everywhere to work a little easier. Which means doing the bumpers is on hold until I do the body lift.

 

[Deuling]

I did 8 hours of really really neat wiring today. Its gotta be the neatest wiring Ive ever done..

I wont beleive you until I get some.....??? lol

 

[Stomis]

I wont beleive you until I get some.....??? lol

Yeah Im gonna take the camera today. I forgot it yesterday.

On the shopping list is

6 prong quick disconnect plug from Radio Shack for the roof racks
Self tappers
And possibly some 8 AWG wire from the marina if I feel like driving to the shore (doubt it)

Im gonna size up what Ill need for my body lift. Not sure where Im gonna get it from. $150 is a ridiculous price for delrin pucks... Its times like this I wish I had a lathe...

 

[Recon!]

Yeah Im gonna take the camera today. I forgot it yesterday.

On the shopping list is

6 prong quick disconnect plug from Radio Shack for the roof racks
Self tappers
And possibly some 8 AWG wire from the marina if I feel like driving to the shore (doubt it)

Im gonna size up what Ill need for my body lift. Not sure where Im gonna get it from. $150 is a ridiculous price for delrin pucks... Its times like this I wish I had a lathe...

Problem solved:

http://diy4x.com/cart/index.php?route=product/product&path=24&product_id=174

 

[TheBeast_88K5]

I like that idea.
I like this rig, too.

 

[Stomis]

Alright so I wrapped up the wiring today. Everything works great and I was pleased that I was still able to shut my gloves box lol.

To start heres where I located my switches. 6 switches, alternating red and green.

Heres some shots of the HOT/IGN HOT bus and the ground bus. I made brackets for the power bus and welded them to the crash bar in the dash. It was ironic cause I got the the shop and thought, ah a day free of welding lol.

These came from my 87 because I rewired all my add on stuff in that truck like 4 times and it was still never as neat as Id have like it. I still need to wire in a hot lead for the IGN HOT and hook up dual 30amp relays to power it so its ready for anything. Those relays will probably live under the hood seeing as how I had a really hard time even fitting 3 in my dash as you'll see.

So this is the wiring. Its all behind the glove box and really easy to access now that I realized all you have to do to pull the glove box door and take out the two hinge pins.

It was difficult getting it all in there. Theres a 4 row fuse block, 3 relays for my lights, and the leads and grounds to all 6 switches. Plus the busses.

And the progression of the reassembly of the glove box over the wiring.

I ran the harness for the rack up the A pillar behind the trim, cant even tell its there.

Popped out the roof here, has a grommet but I think it'll get doped with some dum dum or black weather strip adhesive in the future.

This is the finished wrapped up and wired tied. The harness coming out of the truck only had 3 wires, I did my home work and found that 14ga was fine to run 2 of the lights, hence 3 relays instead of 6. The rack had 6 wires from when I wired it, only because its not possible to splice them inside the tube. This worked out well for me because the DIY Radio Shack Molex quick disconnect plug I used can only carry 8amps per pin, which is perfect for each individual light. Had I only ran 3 pins I would have burnt the connector up.

I put weather strip adhesive in the back of the connectors where the pins go in, connected them, and electrical taped the whole thing up.

So that was the end of my wiring saga. Adding most anything else should be fairly simple.

So I got done early (for once) and decided I tear the rear bumper off because I was aware the rear body mounts and crossmember were rusted out.

It started with my curiosity. The truck came with a tow hook under the frame, it was rusted to **** and when I bought the truck I thought to myself "Thats gonna yank right the **** off if I try to pull something from it". Well here ya go

I hit it with a dead blow ONCE, ****ING ONCE!

This was the aftermath of taking the bumper cover, and support bracket off. Wasnt much support left to that support, at all

Heres a shot of the back of the frame after I banged all the rust off it and snapped off what was as thick as tin foil.

I dont know if I ever mentioned this but since I got this truck its given off a smell of gas from the back. I was super worried about it at first but after some thorough inspection I found no liquid leak and came to the conclusion that either the seal for the tank unit was dry rotted or the filler or evap line had a hole/crack in it and was allowing the tank to vent to the atmosphere.

My reason for mentioning this is because after seeing the condition of the back of the frame, the tank brackets, and the surface rust on the tank Ive decided to not even mess with trying to patch it up. Im gonna buy a replacement plastic tank. When I drop the tank I will fix the frame and the rear body mounts.

Plans for the rust fix are simple. Take the tank out so I have lots of room to work. Then Im gonna take the body mounts off inside the frame. Measure the distance from the frame that the mounts are centered. Cut the old mounts off and remake them out of 3/16ths plate gusseted like the rear cab mounts the ORD guys did on their recent truck.

Im gonna cup brush all the badness scale off the frame. Then one side at a time Ill cut it out and replace entire strips with 3/16th plate to beef the frame up.

Im also planning on capping the end of the frame with a piece of box tube

There big ass update

 

[Stomis]

Problem solved:

http://diy4x.com/cart/index.php?route=product/product&path=24&product_id=174

Indeed problem solved, thank you!

 

[Stomis]

Ordered the 1in body lift. I really want to start measuring to get my winch on my truck today but I cant til the damn body lift is on.

I wound up dropping the $100 to get it from the lift company that makes isuzu ****. I only did it because a few of them are a larger diameter plus it came with the right length bolts etc.


I also continued doing research towards my solid axle swap. Im fairly certain Im gonna change my course away from tubular style custom radius arms and go with the ford wedge type axle end mounts. Theres a company that sells weld on wedges for the axle and I figure I can get some arms to lengthen locally.

I decided to go this way for a few reasons. The first being that the wedge mounts are suppose to have better offroad handling characteristics, I guess because the axle is completely encompassed in the mount. Secondly its going to save me money. It will save me on bracket cost, rod end cost, threaded bung costs, pretty much everything.

Ill still beef up and lengthen the stock arms with DOM and put the johnny joints in the frame end.


Im also tossing around the idea of my putting my chevys steering box on the isuzu but thats just a thought.

 

[73redblaze]

subscribed

 

[Stomis]

O yeah Im also going to be trying a KBS gas tank sealer system because the tank for the truck isnt available remanned. Anyone have any experience?

 

[Stomis]

Got lots of parts today. 1 inch body lift kit is here. That will be my first priority on saturday.

Also got my new muffler , the correct large 3chamber XL from magnaflow and some more bends because Im going to have to redo my over the axle section.

Now Im only waiting on my $150 worth of vband clamps and flanges for the rest of my exhaust. This will be round 3 of going at this exhaust because of buying the wrong damn muffler the first time around.


Also side item of un interest. I have rust thats beginning to bubble into rot above my windshield. Im going to pull the thing one day and fix all of it but in the mean time I duct taped the top seal to prevent it from leaking like it did last saturday when we got all that f'ing rain. Think of it as roof flashing

 

[Smokinthehippies]

sweet merciful rusty jesus christ!!!

if something was that bad off out here even the scrapyard wouldnt take it.

you poor rusty bastids!!!

 

[Yobtaf]

Dude Kzuzus rock I have had this one since 1995

 

[Stomis]

Put the body lift in tonight. Truck looks good up an inch. Made out really well and only broke one body mount bolt which was a through bolt so no biggy.

Also tore the carpet out. Was soaked underneath from leaky windshield. I was quite happy to find super solid rust free floors underneath. I dont understand it, rusty frame but rock solid body...

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Don't question it, just be happy...