"The Tracker" Buildup

[Low Range]

I might as well start from the beginning.
After the last wheeling trip I wanted to be able to take more people with us on our trips to Moab and local fun spots. I had my Samurai and with the wife and the 2 small dogs that doesn't leave much room for anyone else.

The Samurai was on the market within a week. Some of you might remember it from late last year.



I wanted to stay Zuk so at that point I was on the lookout for a Sidekick or Tracker with the following specs: Newer, White, Tan or Grey, 16v 1.6L, 4 Door, Automatic in good shape.
As you would guess it was not the easiest to find and I did not come up with much in Utah.

At it turned out, I sold my Samurai to a person in Washington near Tacoma and he paid us to deliver it to him.  That began the search in the Seattle area.

We started the trip with a few leads on some in that neck of the world.

A few pics of the way up:

The Sami loaded and ready to go. My friend Javan went with us because he is from the area of Washington we went to and he wanted to see some family. Thankfully he bought a new Dodge Megacab the week before the trip. It made the trip nice! (It was a gasoline truck, you will want to know this for future reference.)



Now for the entertainment of the trip. I don't know about any other state but good old Oregon has the dumbest law on the books in my opinion.
We had planned on driving strait through to Washington, about a 12-13 hour trip.
We stopped in La Grande, Oregon for some gas and a bathroom break at about 2am.
I get out, not knowing the law and started to open the filler on the side of the truck. All of a sudden some homeless looking guy walks up and says "you can't do that, I have to fill your truck." Um....Ok. Apparently you cannot fill your oun vehicle with gas in Oregon. News to me. So he start to "do his job."
Anyway I hope back in the truck for a sec to ask if anyone needs anything. Then I glance back out at the guy and notice the gas filler he was using was "GREEN"

You dumb@%$! This is a gas truck.

He pumped 7 gallons of diesel into my friends new Gas Truck.

Needless to say:


The gas station put us up at the local hotel for the night, had to pay for the tow, a shop to pull the tank and drain it, the local Dodge dealership to reset the computer, a full tank of gas, and after our 8 hour intermission, we were back on the road. Never to stop in La Grande again.

That evening we made it to our destination and dropped off the Sami to its new home.  Bye, Bye.....   



The next morning we headed out to look at a few Sidekicks and Trackers.
I fell in love with one in Everett and brought it home. It was all I wanted. A dark tan color, 4 door, auto, 16v 1.6L in good shape.
Wish I took some picks of it on the lot we got it from but it was pouring rain. It's Washington.

After we got home I pulled the Tcase for its first upgrade, 4.24:1 gears


Old gears:


Trimming:



New gears:


Ready to go back in, ohhh shiny:


Then it was time for some lift and I wanted to try out the OME stuff.

For the rear I went with OME 955 rear coils and some 1.5" spacers along with some DT3000 Shocks. It ended up at about 3" of lift from fender down to center of the hub.


For the Front I went with some OME 962 Front coils and OME Struts. It ended up at about 3" of lift from fender down to center of the hub to begin with.


I added some 1.25" wheel spacers and some 30" BFG A/T's and it looked pretty good. I also put a mini spool in the rear. Its first run to Moab came quick that weekend and it was fun. It flexed pretty good. 


In the middle of December I got the windows tinted and added some bling with the window visors. I think it looks good. 


At the end of January the Shrockworks Front Bumper and Sliders came in and we got them on a couple day before the U4WD Winter convention in St George, Utah. I added in the Smittybuilt 8000 winch and replaced the cable with some winchrope and Spidertrax aluminum hawse fairlead.  The front springs let down a bit under the extra weight so at that time I added on a set of 1.5" front coil spacers to bring it back up.

With only the 3" lift I "tested" those slider several times and I was glad I had them!


The week after I picked up a front Toyota axle and started the teardown:


After a while:


And after some torching and grinding:



More to come.......

[Jeremiah]

Oh good - this should answer some of my steering geometry questions. I have a 4-door with toy's on 35" tires, and need to figure something out. I was eyeballing your OTT setup with IFS... but still not sure if I want to go 4 or 6 stud knuckles. Or, go with 4-stud, strengthened studs, and bobby longfield's weld-on 5th nut thing for $50.

*glued to your build*

[theonlybull]

nice lookin tracker,

[MN_samurai]

this looks to be a bad-[censored] buildup.  nice lookin 4-door.... strange seeing one without big rust holes though.

[loveofjazz]

Seems like a common thought amongst a lot of us.

I'm waiting for more on this...

[paxtylzuk]

Very nice looking 4-door.  You are right, they have much more room than a Sammyand accomodate alot more. 

[Low Range]

Got some more good pics of the rig before the tear-down again




Then I broke down and spent the money and got this:


The next step was the start of the rear axle setup with this:


And this, it isn't the right one for the suspension kit but I measured up and we are not far off from the one Brent supplies and the joints would be at angles instead of straight so I decided to go with it:



At the time you could not order it setup for the Toyota Elocker setup and the diff flange looked like this:


So out came the cut off wheel, welder, drill and tap:


In this picture you can see the truss installed and the final setup for elocker:


The axle mounts for the links are made to mount up to the factory Toyota IFS axle so we took measurements off a stock housing. Then we strapped the housing to the jackstands so it wouldn't turn on us. Leveled it up and started figuring out angles and widths:


Got them welded on:





More to come............

[Jeremiah]

* Do you have to worry about welding in short-bursts like with stock axles?
* Why the e-locker and not ARB?

[bell]

LOOKS GOOD! I'll be watching this one!

Note: this should be in the SAS section... Whitfield, can you move it? 

[weed]

Very Nice! I'm subscribed    Weed

[Schultzie]

Dayum!  I thought the before pics looked outstanding already, but this thing's gonna be a beast!  Beautiful.

[Low Range]

* Do you have to worry about welding in short-bursts like with stock axles?
* Why the e-locker and not ARB?

I thought about it and I get these cheaper, around $500 each from a wrecking yard and I do not have to worry about air lines and o-rings.
My brother is running them front and rear in his Toyota and my Father is running them front and rear in his Samurai and they work out great.

[Joe S.]

gonna be nice! i think you will like the trail slayer. i love mine! how you likin that rear axle? i have read good and bad about it.

[Low Range]

Got most the welding done:


Next I pressed out the wheel bearing retainer off the old drum brake backing plate and bead blasted it. I am going to run the disk brake setup so that was all I needed. I also went with the new Chromo shafts and got new wheel studs (yes I am completely overbuilding this, yes I know I would not break the stock ones):


Then there was a period where I just plain forgot to take pics.
During that time, I got the Factory Rear Toyota Elocker Diff Rebuilt with 5.29 Trail Creeper gears and added a Elocker skid
I got the GM Metric Disk Brake setup using the Sky-Mfg kit. I went with the ebrake calipers and will see if I can get them hooked up later. I also picked up some hard lines from the local parts store. Bent them all up and re-flared everything
Ordered in two 33"x12.5 Goodyear Wrangler MTR tires and a pair or 15x10 ProComp rims.
We also ran a wire wheel on it one more time and painted it all up.
Here are a few finished pics of the axle, don't know if I want to eat off it or put it under the Tracker:









More to come.........

[Joe S.]

i am glad to see you running that disc brake setup. i am curious as to the kind of mods you do to get brake pedal feel back. i lost interest in it and took my sky setup off and went back to drums...

i have some stock shafts for sale if you want another set of spares.   what are you doing with all the drum brake stuff?