well i'm just going by what 2 welders of over 30 years and everyone on millers forum is saying about it. vibration will eventually break the welds.

 

fish plates negate that fact, and a good welder that gets the most out of his machine for the work being done will be fine without it. i'd go with a stock frame anyways, its much less of a pain. the rear end is fairly load bearing though btw, it takes a bunch of suspension force which is why people run square lower bars if running bag on bar. because if not done right you will bend round lowers.

 

well the idea behind going with the 2x3 was to achieve my body drop with minimal cab cutting, plus the wow factor received by having a custom frame. For now i'm going to just go with a c-notch to get me by until i can buy a tubing bender and dye's.

 

Ok so i finally got my 2" drop spindles in, and installed! Toe in was kinda bad so i had to break loose the tie rod ends and adjust them, it was HORRIBLE.. probably had never been adjusted and very rusted! Not to mention the ball joints had never been broken loose and were a pain as well. Enough whining.. here are some pics since you guys love pics! All i have left to do, to get lower up front is Z the frame, then notch the rear so i can lay frame. Body drop later.

 

the toe in was horrible because of the spindles themselves. if you adjust it and put stocks back on, they will be toed out to hell and back. just how the relationship between steering mount and wheel mounting surface i guess.

 

yes they have a different geometry, i noticed that before i put them on and the physical position is different.

 

just read the whole thing...looking good!

 

thanks! kinda hit a dead spot for a little bit, have to prioritize my finances else where for a little, then hopefully back on it!

 

ok fella's, its been a while since i made an update to this. I have been working on my Sierra SPL build for a little now and continuing to work in it and will not get much progress done on the toyota until the spring rolls around.
I got a friend to come over and help me sit the 4wd bed onto my truck, just to see how the ford 8.8 rear end fits under there..
Well, i have stock wheels on right now, and the bed will not sit over the wheels on the stock ford 8.8 mustang rear end.. Next i have to put my axis 19's on the rear to test fit them, hopefully they will tuck under, but who knows.. those 19's have a pretty high offset so hopefully they will tuck under, but if not i may have to massage the rear fender wells, or narrow the rear end to accommodate.



Good God Almighty look at the bondo! I never realized how much this bed had on it, if so i would have just waited and found a better shape bed if i could..

 

Impressive work !! I can't imagine. Where do you get the Toyota Minis decal ?



22R88

 

Well thank you sir, this is basically the hack and cut portion of the build to get ready for the more technical stuff to come. You can actually purchase the sticker from the store on this website! See the store section under the banner at the top of the page.

 

looks like your gonna have to narrow that rear end from the pics...

 

yea, i'm thinking so too but i'm pretending that's not a reality yet.. ha. Hoping those 19's will tuck in enough. But their offset would have to be about 25-30mm higher than the oem toyota wheels.
When i was doing my research on the mustang 8.8 rear end, there is a plethora of information out there about it. I believe one method is to use 2 left axles from a ford ranger (if the spline count is the same, 29 or 33 depending), and shorten the tubing. I will need to get this taken care of before i can start my 4 link.

 

Ok, first of all sorry i didn't snap any pics, but i will get some.. i mean, what is a thread without any pics right?
So, i got my brother to come over and help me move the bed a little this past weekend. I jacked the rear of the toyota up, took the oem 14" wheels off and mounted my 2 19" wheels on. Still, the wheel base is wider than the truck bed
So, this means i need to narrow the 8.8 rear end.. oh joy.. but after a little research i found that this may not be a difficult experience at all. I found this site http://www.differentials.com/pdfs/39.pdf which shows 8.8 rear end axle lengths. Now, to recap, i bought the 8.8 from a guy that had it on a 98 gt, he raced the car at the track and it has afer market .373 gears in it. It could have C-clip eliminators, it could have been changed from a 28 spline to 31 spline axle setup.. I won't know until i open it up.
Say it does have OEM 28 spline axles, then i will find 2 ford ranger right side axles; they are 28 spline and right about 2" shorter. I will use both right axles as my new left/right axles and narrow the tubes by 2" or so each. So i will be narrowing the rear end about 4" total and this should give me plenty of room to lay out on the 19's i hope.
If not enough then i will narrow it some more, if too much, then go with a dished wheel cause that's sexy anyways..
I priced the ranger axles and they are 18.99 each, but no need in seeking them out until i open the rear end up, which i should be doing in the near future, with pics!

 

Wow, so it's been almost a year since i have updated my build log, simply because i have completely neglected and not touched the toyota since then - yes shame on me. I have been working on my GMC, putting wheels on it, lowering it, and competing in Usaci. I will be moving soon (Hope to God) into a house and i will have direct access to the toyota and won't have to work on it in a storage unit where i am very limited on power and space. I hope to get this build moving along here soon probably starting with narrowing the 8.8 rear end.

 

cant wait to see future progress on this truck!

 

I should be posting updates soon. I am supposed to be ordering a bumper bracket from Cando Specialties at the end of the week, $120 shipped for bumper brackets, geesh.. but they look the sturdiest out of all that i have seen so far. Also i missed out on a great opportunity yesterday by 10 minutes, my wife wanted to get me something for my birthday and so i was looking around and on Grant Kustoms there was a Cali-combo for my truck for $94 plus shipping, that's 50% off normal price, so i called about it and they told me that they only had one at that price because it was built for a customer that cancelled the order, i got off the phone with them, talked to my wife and told her i wanted it, went back on the site 30 minutes or so later to order it and it was already removed from the site, i'm assuming someone snagged it up before me... oh well.

 

Hoping to see this build continue. I'm starting a 302 swap in a few weeks on my 87 2wd. I'm curious to see how your dash turns out.

 

Actually yesterday i went in the storage and jacked the truck up some, stuck a bottle jack between the upper and lower control arm so that i could at least roll it onto a trailer. I am supposed to be getting a house very soon and once i do that and get it out of this storage unit, i can work on it a lot more. The dash is still a long ways out and i haven't given it too much thought or direction yet. I know that i want the dash to be a low profile dash so that there is plenty of leg room, i want it accessible, and i would like to salvage and re-use the a/c heater system unless i can find a sweet little aftermarket setup that is more compact.

 

Lookin good There . 350 will be nasty be sure to put a. Lumpy cam in it ....
On a second note have you lowered your gmc yet I though about getting some drop shackles for the back of mine and curious if you used them or did a flip kit