Pzuzu The Isuzu Build (RIP)

[Stomis]

So after showing my frame to my senior at work he had a few suggestions. He said that without any diagonal support he would be worried about the rails trying to shift forward and back from each other.

I thought about it for a while and at lunch we were brainstorming a little bit. We both agreed that tying the plate coil bucket bridges together in the rear kick would be more than enough for the back but something was needed in the middle. At the same time I was worried about pulling my temporary brace off the front of the angle section of the frame as I thought they might pull in or bow out.

So this was my solution. Some left over HREW and wahlah.

Not only does it tie the frame rails in on a diagonal but also completely prevents the angled section of the frame from moving in out out.

After doing this I added in a permanent radiator crossmember

I placed it all under the frame rails do to how my frame is higher than the stock one. This should alleviate body interference.

Then I cut out all the temporary bracing except the one Im leaving in until I have a motor to mockup for an engine crossmember.

This was just a shot I took trying to envision my panhard and draglink.

Now dont make fun of my mad paint skills

Red is my panhard mount on the inside of the frame rail on the axle center line.

green if my radiator crossmember which you can see I did in these pictures today.

Blue is where my steering box will be on the inside of the frame rail.

 

[kgblazerfive]

I am like way lost last time I read this thread you had put a new frame end on the Isuzu now your building a new frame. Guess I have some back reading to do.

 

[kgblazerfive]

All filled in now

 

[Stomis]

Not too much done today. Put the correct pinion nut on my dana 44 after fixing the threads, which for the record a dana 44 pinions threads are 3/4-16 if you've ever got to run a die down one to fix the threads.

Also made some templates for my fish plates. Cant wait to torch out 20 fish plates......

O and Ive decided to go 4 link in the rear.

 

[Stomis]

Some ideas for rear suspension from the 4 link calculator. Looking good but I think ill be adding another crossmember for the lower links to mount in the center of the frame.

First though was to run a single triangulated setup and retain the stock lower links that the 3 link had. But thats gonna cause severe rear steer. Like 7* of rear steer severe which I dont want.

 

[y5mgisi]

A couple hundred posts and im just finding this now?! Ridiculous... I like the build so far! I think its going to be quite enjoyable.

 

[Stomis]

Had a yearning to get something done tonight. Tuesday is my dinner night with parents and the GF had work late so I stopped by the shop on the way home. I picked up my fish plates that my steel provider was kinda enough to chop up for me for free.

Saved me a **** load of torch time and they even threw in a few extra. $40 for 25 1/8th plate 4in side diamonds!

I got started on the only 2 joints that were ready. Every other joint needs to be filled and tapered in with plate or might have a crossmember landing on it for my 4 link...

Pics

And 4 down 16 to go tomorrow...

Also my panhard bar stuff will be here tomorrow so hopefully Ill have that all tacked in. I should be ordering my johnny joints, tube inserts, and axle wedges to finish up the front suspension when I get paid at the end of the week.

I also made some templates to plate the factory part of my radius arm at work today. Im still deciding if I should weld a piece of c channel to the bottom of them. They are long and once upon a time I read someone that built them like that bent them thrashing on them. I dont want that to happen...

 

[Stomis]

Got some work done last night. Filled the gaps on the front riser and fish plated it.

Knocked out my last temporary crossmember cause it was in the way of my fish plate and the damn frame bowed in 1/8th an inch at the back of the top riser. Was lucky enough that knocking it back in lower down put everything back into alignment but Im going to have to either figure out some way to stress relieve the frame or just retain a temporary crossmember until I make the engine crossmember.


Here the new, inside the frame panhard bar mount.

Not sure if you can see the black line in the above picture but Ill be trimming the bottom two holes off this bracket more than likely. Just dont need that height with how little lift I have.

I also got my heim joint, insert, and bushing kit at the same time. So I threw a bolt in there to start eyeing things up.

The bent piece of flat stock is to get an idea of the bend Ill be putting in my panhard bar. So long as I make my mount high enough and set my bump stops correctly I should have 6in of up travel. Not sure how the space between the diff and the bar is gonna go when I stuff just the drivers side tire though. Wont really be able to tell til I can cycle it.


The panhard mount on the frame may or may not be on the spring pad. Ive got to get my radius arms mounted on the axles first and see how much real-estate Ive got left on the tube.

It may be half on half off but what ever happens Ill be welding a piece of 1/4in plate to the spring plate all the way around to give me a mild steel base. Just more surface area on the cast section. The way I have it mapped out in my head it will be super strong considering the brackets just welded to cast Ive seen take a beating before.

I also was bad and ordered my johnny joints from summit on my summit CC. Tomorrow when I get paid Im ordering my axle wedges and ford style shock towers. Pretty sure Im going to bolt them to the frame just in case I alter design down the road.

The shock will be set up with a tab on the radius arm and tower behind the coil bucket on the frame. Should fit nicely.

 

[Stomis]

Hmmm so some reading on pirate has yielded that my panhard will be WAY to short set up like that. What I think Im gonna do is move the panhard forward and try to sneak it by the front of the coil. Should help with diff clearance too.

 

[Stomis]

Well after staring at my front suspension for an hour and a half tonight Ive decided the draglink must change. The crossover arm makes the draglink insanely long. I could never come close to matching the length like you're suppose to with coils and a passenger side pumpkin in the way.

So Im going to ditch the crossover arm and run the draglink into the tie rod with some brackets and a heim like the jeep guys do.

This will give me a much shorter draglink that I can easily match a panhard bar to near the spring perch like I was originally planning.

 

[Stomis]

Ordered almost all my stuff for the front suspension and steering.

Decided to run heims at both ends on the panhard bar so I order another 3/4 x 3/4 heim, threaded insert, and misalignment spacer from Barnes 4WD.

Got my new inserts and the long chevy passenger side TRE with the tapered hole to redo my steering from WFO.

Ordered my shock towers and the axle wedges for the radius arms from bronco graveyard. What a ****ing rip off for a couple cast steel wedges, $80...

Monday Ill order a steering box, radius arm bushings and coils to start mockup. Front suspension should be nearly done next weekend having all the parts on hand....

Cant believe I needed nearly another $500 in parts...

 

[Jester1]

First let me say awesome work. I constantly look forward to what you are fabbing up next. With that said.....

It really is a sickness. First post " so I went on Craigslist and bought this for $900 bucks." All I can say is build on brother we have the same disease and we are affecting others. Best recycling plan I have ever seen.

 

[Stomis]

First let me say awesome work. I constantly look forward to what you are fabbing up next. With that said.....

It really is a sickness. First post " so I went on Craigslist and bought this for $900 bucks." All I can say is build on brother we have the same disease and we are affecting others. Best recycling plan I have ever seen.

Thanks man. The sickness is unstoppable. Ive taken breaks for periods of time but Im always drawn back to wrench something.



That being said I got my tube inserts and jam nuts for the radius arm ends in the mail yesterday and my johnny joints will be here from summit tomorrow. Ill final cut the tube end of my radius arms and weld in the tube inserts at work tomorrow.

Ive been searching for solutions to my space issue with the panhard bar lately and do believe I found an answer. While browsing threw a thread on pirate I came accross this.

Basically what the guy did was mount the axle wedges and radius arm setup inboard of where they normally are. This allowed him to extend a panhard bar all the way to the other side of the axle and incorporate his coilover mount into it.

I figure I can do something similar by building a panhard mount with a coil bucket integrated on top of it.

Ill run the radius arms directly under the frame and use the thread holes on them that would normally be used for the lower spring pad as a mounting point for bump stops.

The first thing I need to do is get my steering mocked up though so first thing tomorrow Im going to order a steering box at work.

 

[Stomis]

Well a bunch of parts came in last night so I brought my radius arms to my shop from work and started eyeing things up!

The axle wedges that mounts the radius arms are designed and angled with the bronco frame and axle width in mind.

First I tried outboarding the arms. But looking at it they would be in the way of my slider supports and having the arms bow out from the axle is bad for geometry.

So I reversed the wedges and think it will work quite well. Ironically despite no planning my mounts wound up in boarded on my "torsion bar" crossmember.

So obviously the downside to inboarding the mount is the up travel being limited by the link/radius arm hitting the frame. So I threw a jack under the pumpkin...

Exactly 4 inches of up travel before the arm bottoms out on the frame. I figure I can probably get another 2in of up travel at the axle by spacing the link mount off the crossmember 1/2in to 1in.

I was shooting for between 4 and 6in of up travel, more than Ive ever had in a leaf truck lol.


I also snapped some shots of my shock towers.

They'll mount on the side of the radius arm as show. Things are shaping up. Had to call it quits before I wound up being there all night and being dead at work tomorrow with a concert to attend afterwards...


O and I solved my steering box dilemma. Im going to run inverted T steering as I mentioned with an outside the frame IFS/crossover toyota steering box. Ill be able to get my panhard and draglink dead nuts length and angle wise.

Im going to post up for aprovale from the ford boys on pirate but I believe I read a while ago that in boarding the frame side mount relieves the binding associated with radius arms and is better geometry for them from a roll steer point of view.








Pirate guys have informed me I apparently have clamp rubbers for a dana 30 instead of a 44....

 

[Stomis]

So I shortened up my arms by 13in. Which gives me about 42/43in axle center to joint eye. This is pretty much puts me on par with most extended radius arm lengths. Musta been smoking crack shooting for 4ft.

So my first dilemma last night was figuring out how to take some of the angle out of the way the radius arm wedges are design to mount. So I ground the wedges down a little and tacked in a shim to re-align them a bit more straight.

After some tweaking I got the mount under the frame and threw some heavy tack welds on the mount.

Then I figured I better test for that dreaded tire clearance that ford style radius arms are notorious for. I realized two things: I should have built my axle wider, and my IFS stock wheels will never work.

The stock wheels are 16x8 with 6in backspacing, or there abouts. They rub the radius arm like no ones business, not even close to the original steering angle. But that was a minor problem considering the fact that they hit the tie rod arms cast into the knuckle.

So obviously new wheels are in my future. I have a feeling Ill be running spacers up front too

From a rough mock up it seems like if I leave the arms where they are Ill need 2in back spacing wheels to clear full lock. Obviously I can get that a jillion different ways, probably 4in backspacing wheels with 2in spacers.

I think Im gonna cut the spacers off the wedges and get the arms angled in more and possibly run a crossmember where they mount. I dont want this truck getting stupid wide on me and Id like to clear 35s in the future.


O the bright side I did get my toyota steering box. I had no idea it was an inside the frame box but it looks like it will be perfect.

 

[Stomis]

So funny story. Apparently when I order a toyota IFS steering box they decide to send me a Right hand drive FJ 60 steering box.

IDK how the hell that happened but I think Im gonna roll with it. Its got a forward facing pitman arm like an astro box except its nice in the way that the body of the box is over the frame like other toyota boxes.




So I had an idea whilst showering. Im going to solve my radius arm interference/wheel issue in one smooth stroke. Im gonna move the clamps/wedges back inward against the spring pad like I had them originally. This will put my frame side mounts not on the frame. Im going to make a crossmember with the mounting brackets frenched into them. It will be simple 2x6 with angle iron up against the frame on the inside and some plate wrapped around the frame on the outside with 4 bolts in sleeves through the frame.

 

[ashman]

sweet!

 

[Stomis]

So after some more research and help from some actually nice people on pirate I found out the steering box I had wasnt what we initially thought. We had thought it was a right hand drive FJ60 box but turned out to be some sort of Isuzu box, ironically.

I would have used it but isuzu has their own pitman arm spline and no one makes arms for them. So back to advance auto it went, they were beginning to get a little annoyed with me lol.

So I decided to order an astro van box and see if I could manage to squeeze it on the frame.

Le results were decent.

Began making a mount plate out of 5/16ths plate. I started off way too high and way too big with the plate but after playing with it I figured out where I want it.

You can see the back side of the plate and how much overhang I need to cut off under the frame here.

Ordering this box was my last ditch effort to make an inside the frame steering box work. An actual right hand drive toyota box would have packaged better cause the box is mostly above the frame rail but I feel this will work. And if I run into issues Ill simply mount the motor offset in the frame as a work around.

I also moved my radius arm mount wedges back in where I originally had them against the spring pad. I picked up a piece of 2x5in 1/8th wall box that Im going to french the mounts into to gain more clearance instead of having the bracket totally hang below the frame.

Yesterday I made my new inverted T tie rod. Much thanks to WFO for giving me some tips on draglink to tierod clearance with this setup.

If you look in the steering box pictures you can see that the draglink will be on a slight rearward angle.

Also now that I had the steering box actually mocked up where it needs to be I determined Ill be running my panhard over the center of the axle like I had planned originally. It will be mounted on the axle on the spring pad and Im going to slightly modify the prefab'd bracket to give me the exact length I need to match the draglink.

 

[ashman]

keep up the good work bro. love seeing the progress.

 

[Stomis]

Made a little progress with my steering box mount. I got my inside plate trimmed down and prettied up. I was going nuts looking for the correct diameter DOM that was thick enough to use for sleeves and standoffs for the steering box bolts.

I decided to just run 3/8ths black pipe for the frame sleeves. They are 1/2in inner diameter and 5/8ths outer. I will bore the holes out to 5/8ths and run the sleeves through in one piece.

I also rough cut my outside plate with a sawzall and got the frame all aligned and drilled on both sides. May also wind up moving the frame side coil bucket brackets from outside the bucket to inside to add some clearance to the steering box rear bolt.

Some pics

Also debating whether Im going to box over the top of it when its done. Probably just to stop **** from getting stuck in there. Dont think its necessary at all for strength.