The Moon Truck

I haven't seen those spring liners before. The Tacoma OME springs are notoriously squeaky as the upper leafs do not have the pads between them. Their long upper add a leaf also doesn't have one. I ended up pulling mine apart after a couple months, cleaned them and used strips of adhesive backed epdm pond liner stuff on the out 6" or so of the springs. Works great, until they start working themselves out of the spring pack. Grr. I've seen other people run massive zip ties over each leaf toward the end as well which seems to work ok. Frustrating that OME doesn't at least punch holes in the leafs so you could put pads on them.

So I just searched Google and found these, like you're using....
http://www.yogisinc.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=866/prd866.htm

I wonder how they hold up... I'd be afraid of them cracking and bracket up, then leaving loose u bolts.
 
Thanks for the link. Only problem is most springs now are 2 1/2". That's what mine are. My OME's are punched for one set of slippers. I left them in place as they are very thin.

I bought about 6 rolls of this stuff in the early '90's. I called "Total Cost Involved" a year or so ago to inquire about them. They had to ask around to find someone who actually knew what I was talking about. He said we haven't made those in years!

When I lifted this beast in '99 I pulled the factory slippers from the rear Skyjacker springs and used the liners. When I sold the truck a couple of years ago they were still in good shape.


Most black poly has carbon black in it. This makes it pretty impervious to UV which is really the main thing that breaks this stuff down. I retired from the phone co. We used black cable ties outside and they held up for years in the sun.

I'd be more worried that the thick coats of paint wear and cause loosness. My 4x4's get used so from time to time I put a wrench on all bolts underneath to make sure they are still tight. I was surprised to find I still had enough of this to do both full spring packs. In reality there was probably no reason to do the overloads or between the overloads and main pack. But I didn't have enough to use the leftovers for anything else so I did them all.
 
I haven't really touched this truck since Labor Day. We've done some traveling and I've had a bad case of not wanting to wrench on anything. So anyway I've gotten back on it. I have the torsion bars removed. They were going to be changed out anyway and getting them out of there makes getting at the frame easier. Same for the drive shaft and the parking brake stuff. Still have to pull the hard lines off the frame tomorrow. We are having a burst of mild weather and I want to take advantage of it to get some paint on this frame.
 
Pretty cool seeing all this great work! Never saw so much detail as I always just see trucks, not trucks with stuff removed. Fun topic!
 
Today I finished cleaning the frame. I also scrubbed the underside of the body with mineral spirits to get the mud and grit off. After the frame painting the body will get a shot of undercoating. Body is pretty much rust free!

The frame now has a coat of rusty metal primer. I had originally planned on using POR-15. But I have no previous experience with it. Add iffy weather, still a lot of solid paint on the frame and I decided to go with what I know. The Rustoleium is forgiving of weather variations and holds up well. plus it's easy to touch up should it get nicked.






Brush on and a frame with holes. There will be drips. Always is. The paint is still mostly wet in these pics.




 
Black Beans now has a painted frame. I'll let it dry a couple of days before doing much else. It'll take me that long to get the paint out of my hair!

Some dry primer pics.




Some wet paint pics.














Still need to do the inside of the frame with the green stuff from Eastwood.
 
A couple of dry paint pics. I usually use flat black but this time used the semi gloss. I like it. funny thing is the front 1/4 of the frame I had already done in flat. Ha Ha not a big deal unless you are under the truck. both keep the rust at bay.






With luck I should have a Limited slip rear 3rd member coming via a kind Isuzu head. This will give the the rear diff I want to build up my 4.77 gears.
 
The 12 bolt Limited slip is now in hand. It's taken a long time to find one. After the 1st of the year I'll take both 3rd members to Independant4x to build my spare 4.77:1 gears up. That will be a game changer for hauling my Eagle with a 4 banger. These gears sets are quite rare. They only came in a limited production 2 door Trooper RS with 31x10.50 tires in 1989. Demand is high for them.
 
The frame has now gotten 2 coats of Eastwood Green Stuff applied to the inside. http://www.eastwood.com/internal-frame-coating-w-spray-nozzle.html

I taped over the small holes and did 1 coat from the outside of the frame rails. Then went back and did another coat from inside the frame rails a couple days later. There is green stuff coming out of every hole on the frame and puddles underneath it.

I followed a trick I read in the reviews of this stuff. I cut a length of MIG wire and put it inside the tube for the spray cans to make it stiffer.











I like the way this stuff coats.

Back in Sept I ran a drain snake and various wires and pieces of all-thread inside the frame to break loose any rust flakes and dirt. I then used the shop vac and my compressor to clean all the stuff out. I then pressure washed inside the frame. before I started putting the green stuff in I vacuumed the frame once more. It now has 2 coats of this frame protectant on the inside. When we get another warm day I'll do 1 more top coat of the black on the outside. Then I figure it's about as good as I can get it for now.

While I was standing around the other day it occurred to me to check my new rear shocks. With the bed off the rear suspension has almost no weight on it and is topped out. When my plans had been to use this truck as a commuter I bought Skyjacker nitro shocks for it. I've used them before on another truck with good results for the buck. The problem was the rear shocks I had ordered were topped out sitting as the truck is. The shocks were supposed to be for up to 1" of lift and were limited droop with old worn out springs. So I ordered the longest set for 3" of lift. The OME springs should give me about 2" of lift and eventually settle to about 1.5".

With the suspension fully extended I think these will be fine with the taller springs. here top eyelet is 2.5-3" above the top shock mount.


Compressed down on the mount.


I'm not breaking any speed records but I am slowly getting some stuff done. After the paint the next job will be to get the differentials pulled out. That way I can take them to get rebuilt with lower gears.
 
Alrighty then. A major milestone. I Now have a rear"Isuzu" 12 bolt LSD 3rd member with 4.77:1 gears. Just picked it up from Independant4x a couple of days ago. They set the diff up for me. As soon as the weather breaks a little I'll be back in the garage on this truck. The matching front gears are already bought and paid for. I'll be picking them up at an Isuzu meet at the end of April.



New used HD tie rods. Independant4x also makes these HD Tie rods. The stockers are a weak link and easily bent. I was going to buy a new set but couldn't pass up the deal on these used one. Just need cleaning and a little paint.




These 4.77:1 gears came from the factory in one truck model for one year only! 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS. A limited edition short wheelbase 2 door with stock 31x10.50 tires. They are a little hard to find in good shape.
 
Haven't posted much on this in a while. I've been securing parts and doing other work. Right now I'm back on the truck pretty hard.
Lately I've made some real progress.

1st all the big bolts on the rear springs were broken loose.




Then the rear brakes and lines were removed from the axle. 4 bolts unbolts each rear axle assembly. If badly rusted these can really ruin your day. They have cam heads and if the little metal tab that holds them comes loose then life bites. I was lucky. All were in good shape.


Rear axle shafts were removed and set aside.


Then I set down inside the frame rails and removed the 3rd member. I did this work while the axle was still attached to the springs. This provides a couple of extra hands.


 
The housing was cleaned and oil resistant RTV applied.


Then the 3rd member was installed and torqued in place.


Next I removed the seals in the ends of the axle housing and replaced them with new OEM seals. Then the axle shafts were reinstalled.


U-bolts were removed and the rear end and springs removed.






I prepped and primed the frame parts that hadn't been previously painted and also primed the axle assembly and misc small parts.




Eastwood green stuff applied inside the spring mount.
 
So I now have a rebuilt 4.77:1 Limited Slip rear axle for this truck.

Another shot of old vs new springs. The center bolts are still to be installed in the new springs.


Speaking of which before priming I discovered the heads of the new center bolts were a touch to large for the locating holes on the axle mount. Quick fix with a drill.


I picked up gloss instead of semi gloss paint so will be heading out to swap that shortly. Then the axle gets painted today.
 
Getting there slowly.


I reused the U bolts that came with the springs when I got them. They needed a little cleaning up. I used a cut off wheel in a Dremel to make a homemade thread die from an old nut. Then chased the threads.


After cleaning but before paint.


I'm using Old Man Emu polyurethane bushings. They are fluted for grease and I'm using greasable bolts for the shackles and springs.






Fun time! :D


 
Some more pics.


Everything bolted in place and shocks just stuck on temp.








I actually still enjoy the assembly part of this job. Fun to watch new parts come together.

Still a million small jobs left to do just in this area. brakes, bend brake lines, make mounts for the rear sway bar, extend axle vent ect. Lots of small parts to paint for reassembly.
 
That bottom leaf, or is it the next to bottom ?, looks interesting. A form of overload spring built right into the spring pack?

Foy
 
There are actually 3 overload springs in these packs. The curvy thing you see between the regular and overload leaves is just a poly spring liner. it's written up a couple of pages back.

The overloads in these packs are progressive. The more weight the more leaves get involved. These springs are very HD for the application. It takes a lot of weight just to get into the overloads. Camper just sitting on the truck probably won't engage the overloads.
 
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