Update?   

Update?   

Not too much progress in the last few weeks...but a little.  I keep running into unrelated obstacles; clutch in my work truck went out so I had to waste $1k (I'm pulling almost 800 ft-lbs out of it  so a stock clutch won't do) and a couple of days doing that.  That bill put off buying some tcase parts.  The economy is indirectly slowing things down for me as well...I sold some lots to a developer a few years ago (I financed the purchase) and he recently declared bankruptcy.  So quite a bit of my time and $$ has been spent dealing with that whole mess.  I've also been trying to sell one of my other trucks for the last few months...with diesel prices as high as they have been I haven't had any luck with that.  To top it all off...that truck was at the Auto Link lot in Gresham.  Those of you that live in the PDX area might remember it from the news a couple of weeks ago, but the owner of that dealership fraudulently sold 48 cars, then signed the business over to an 85 year old grandmother, and declared bankruptcy.  Yep, my truck was there.  Had to spend a couple of days getting that back as the Gresham Police  had the keys for it.  When I DID get it back, I had to tow it to the Ford dealer for repairs as it was only running on 6 cylinders.  No wonder it didn't sell    It took 4 trips to and from Portland to get the whole mess straightened out.  If no more crap comes up I MIGHT be able to get some work done on the unimooki...

I got my wheels and tires mounted and the beadlocks installed.  I was worried that the beadlocks would be difficult, but they turned out to be the easiest part.  The wheels I have don't have much drop center to them, so I was unable to put the tires on with the old soapy water jumping method.   My 2 local Les Schwab's refused to even try...I talked Del's OK tire in Warrenton into doing it for me (cost me a box of donuts).
One of the Staun inner tubes split so I had to wait a week for a new one (although they sent it to me for free).  Other than that little problem, those beadlocks were actually quite easy to install.  They're cheap enough that I don't think I will ever run any other type of beadlock. 
I decided to install the valve stem for the beadlock just inside of the wheel center (see the red circle in the first pic).  This put it closer to the center of the wheel and should help the beadlock inner tube to center itself.  It also protects the valve stem from rock damage.  I have about 1/2" clearance from the valve stem to my brake calipers. 

I got word that my steering arms should be done, so I'll be able to finish assembling the front axle soon...

Lol...box of donuts to mount tires.  Shame about all the BS....but it looks like you're coming along nicely.   That rear axle with the tires mounted looks BEEFY.

Keep up the good work.

That rear axle with the tires mounted looks BEEFY.

 

Indeed...
The pics don't do it justice 

WoW, Enuf said, So how's the second set you were making for me coming along? LOL,  I wish. 

awesome build, cant wait to see it done

Any more progress?   

Any more progress?   

Yep...was going to do some posting this weekend.  I got all of my gears and dual case setup in the mail this week, and I have my steering arms.  I'll post some updates later...

Some pics of my steering arms.  Basically, they sandwich the portal box to the axle flange, making the boxes even stronger.  The arms still need to be welded together.  I'm going to need to do a little dremel work on the portal box flanges as well. 

On to the tranny swap.  The tranny in my Vitara was making some bad noises; I had to make a decision on what I really wanted under my rig.  My stock tranny was rebuildable, but the parts for this are EXPENSIVE.  The real disadvantage to sticking with the stock setup is that the front output is on the passenger side.  I needed it to be on the driver's side.  I could have used a different front axle or put custom center sections in my Unimog axles to move the diff to the passenger side, but I would still be stuck with the same stock Vitara tranny and tcase, which brings me to the other disadvantage: is the lack of aftermarket support for this setup.  Doubler options are limited, aftermarket gears are really expensive, and the stock case has slip yokes instead of drive flanges.

I decided to go with a Toyota W-series transmission found behind a 22RE in a pickup.  This transmission is strong (more than strong enough for my setup) and is cheap and easy to find.  The options for tcase gearing, doublers, etc. are almost limitless, inexpensive, and really easy to find.  It is also several inches shorter than the Vitara tranny (without dual cases, anyway).  And, I had found a way to bolt it up behind my 2.0 (read next post)

The next step was figuring out how to bolt this tranny up to the Vitara's 2.0.  Turns out it really isn't that difficult, and can be accomplished with mostly off-the-shelf parts.  Some credit goes out to Rockrat (www.rock4xfabrication.com) who gave me a bunch of good information on which parts to search for.  Here is the list of what I used:

Flywheel:  1.6L machined to fit the Vitara crankshaft and bolt pattern.  If you have access to a lathe, you can do this yourself.  If you don't, Brent at Trail Tough sells these for $150.  If you don't already have a 1.6L flywheel, $150 is a pretty good deal if you figure in the cost for the machining and resurfacing.

Clutch Disc: Toyota Celica 1970-71 w/ 1.9L 8R 4 cyl. engine.  This is a 7 7/8" diameter 21 spline 1-1/8" diameter input shaft disc that happens to fit the transmission input shaft, and is about the right outside diameter for the 1.6L flywheel. 
Autozone p/n: FCP1185A  $32

Pressure plate:  stock 1.6L.  I bought mine from Brent at Trail Tough for $45

Pilot bearing: 12mm ID, 21mm OD.  I found a roller bearing that works (and it was cheap too...$5 each); but it is only 5mm wide so I put 2 of them in.  I'm sure this will work; but if it doesn't my next choice will be to contact a bronze bushing manufacturer and have them custom make one, or buy a piece of bronze round bar and make one myself. 
Part number 6801-2RS
From www.vxb.com

Throwout bearing:  Stock 1.6L Suzuki
Napa p/n: ATM 0703502

Bellhousing:  Stock 1.6L Suzuki

Adapter:  RingR from SOS manufacturing.  Rockrat used to sell these, but now Trail Tough is their exclusive distributor.  This adapter runs $399.  It allows you to bolt the 1.6L bellhousing up to the Toyota tranny. 

Clutch linkage:  If I was putting this engine/tranny combo in a Samurai or tracker/sidekick the cable would have bolted right up with no mods.  However, the Vitara has a hydraulic clutch that I wanted to keep.  So, I whipped up this little bit of scary engineering which works amazingly well (pics coming soon).  Basically, the 1.6's bell crank design requires that the arm travel towards the back of the engine, but space requirements mean that the slave cylinder needs to "push" forward.  So, I just made up a short lever that connects to the slave cylinder and the bell crank arm.  I made the arm length such that the throwout bearing travels the same amount as when it was cable-actuated.  Pedal feel is exactly the same as the stock Vitara was, and the clutch fully engages and disengages.

Now for the transfer case setup:  I had 3 choices for converting to a driver's side drop. 
1.  The first was to use a Marlin crawler adapter to bolt a Tacoma case behind the gear driven reduction box; this would work nicely, but the adapter is expensive and the Tacoma case is more difficult to find, more expensive, and larger than the gear driven cases. 
2.  The second option is to use an adapter from Advance Adapters to bolt the Dana 300 case up to the Toyota reduction box.  This means that I could also bolt up an Atlas or a stak which opens up some nice (but expensive) options.  If I put a 4 speed atlas behind the stock toy reduction box, I could have an 8 speed transfer case; that makes for 40 forward speeds and 8 reverse speeds.  Great for bragging rights, but seriously, who would really need a 20:1 transfer case?  This would put my overall crawl ratio with my Unimog axles at like 600:1.  There is also a "flip kit" for the Jeep Dana 300 that moves the output to the driver's side so I could just use a stock 300, but I would still need new gears for that case to make both low ranges useable (the Dana 300 and toy case low ranges are both 2:1). 
3.  The third option is to use a billet "lefty" case from inchworm gear.  This uses all of the internal parts from a gear driven Toyota case (meaning I can use any of the optional gear sets).  It is also expensive, but still cheaper than the cost of the used Tacoma case and adapter, and cheaper than the Dana 300 option (when you figure in the cost of the case, adapter, flip kit, and new 4:1 gears); plus it has the advantage of using more common and cheaper internal parts. 

I picked up a complete 1987 Toyota 4Runner for free, provided I could get it out of the swamp that it was in, provide the engine to the owner on a pallet, and dispose of whatever I didn't want.  This rig donated the tranny and tcase, and I bought another gear driven case locally for $75. 

I bought a set of 4.70:1 23 spline gears, a twin stick shifter, and a 23 spline dual case adapter kit from Low Range Off Road www.lowrangeoffroad.com  I'm waiting to find some kind of a deal on the lefty case from inchworm www.inchwormgear.com
The original 2.28:1 21 spline gears go in the front box, and the 4.70's go in the lefty case along with the twin stick kit. 
I left the tcase off for now; but assembled the flywheel/clutch and bolted up the transmission.  Looks like I'll need to come up with some way to move the shifter back a few inches, but otherwise it appears to be a good fit.  I'll put the crossmember in as soon as I have the lefty case in my hands. 

Awesome tech, Sewerzuk.  I have a 2000 2.0 5 spd Tracker that I have intentions of turning it into the next trail rig and I know I will want to change my tranny over to the toy trans when I do so.  When you can post up pix of how youdid the slave cylinder.

Eric