4x4 North

ok this is about to be a "build" thread showing just how stupid and stubborn i am

with the buggy being on the back burner for the last few months and it almost being a year since ive been wheeling and the Houston races coming up i needed a rig. this thing popped up on FB and went and looked at it and the guy told me that the front diff was making noise but he had spare parts. also told me the frame was damaged where the rear link mount is. thing was covered in mud and parked in some grass so didnt really get a good look at it but has 31s with lots of life and a m8000 winch so figured it couldnt be that bad. it fired right up and drove on the trailer and thats when the regrets started to kick in. got it home and crawled under it and seen way more frame rot and damage then what he told me about. went and pressure washed about a years worth of mud off it and found even more rust and damage. at this point i was full regret mode but had already bought it and no time to go shopping for another rig as not even 2 weeks to get a rig ready.

specs
1992 Asuna Sunrunner aka Rustrunner with a 1.6 and 5speed and 5.12 gears

looks ok from a distance



this has pretty much been me every time i work on it. no ragrets, you know what im sayin

You can fix metal easy enough. Just keep it fairly simple.

after washing it and seeing that the body was pretty much all expanding foam and rust and held up with square tube and angle iron i tried to ignore that and focus on the frame so it wouldnt fold in half

really should have just cut my losses and parted this out and found something but im stubborn and forged on and told myself i could patch the frame and get a few runs out of this pos. rear lower link mount on the pass side was so rusty it pulled out of the frame. upper link mount was rusted right out and someone had replaced it with some smaller tube and flat bar but it was so ghetto and rusted out as well

oh and yes the body mount is gone and that angle iron on top of the coil bucket is now whats holding the body on



rear lower link mount, can see that i already put a pipe inside the old mount that runs all the way through the frame



this is the cross member behind the trans, did the same and put some tube inside it through the frame

cut some fish plates



welded to the frame and the tube i added



the link mount is plated inside and out with the tube trough the frame and welded the tube to the inside plate and the tube to the stock mount on the outside

so with the one cross member and rear link mount "fixed" it was time to move onto the upper link mount

was part of the original crossmember that rusted out, then a smaller tube inside that and two bolts holding it together



the welds had broke and the bolt holes wallowed out

cut the link mount brackets off the old tube and reused them so didnt have to cut new brackets. then cut some more fish plates for the frame as it was rusty where the old cross member was, drilled holes in them for some DOM tube then welded it all up

Sweet unit, hopefully you’re up to date on your tetanus shot hahaha


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with the rear suspension part of the frame "fixed" it was time to move to the next part of the frame that was "kill bus full of nuns" bad. really should have cut and run by now but kept saying no ragrets and kept hot gluing steel to rust

front pass side frame at the front under the body mount





plate on the inside and outside and angle on the bottom. and yes them are some nasty welds and even left a hole in the frame as there is no steel there to weld to

That’s worse than I thought it could be…

its so bad

there is lot more rust and parts of the frame missing but i think i booger welded enough on it that it wont fold in half on the first trail ride, maybe the second trail ride that will happen

guy i bought it from said something was wrong with the front diff, he wasnt sure if it was the diff or just a cv axle. he gave me a diff and two axles to fix it. well it was very much not a cv axle







after a bit of confusion i found out the diff he gave me has the wrong gears in it so pretty much have to find a new front 3rd or a rear 3rd to match the diff i have. other option if i cant find anything in time is to put the bad chipped gear set in the good housing and send it

Scoobienorth wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:55 am That’s worse than I thought it could be…

it is so bad, pretty much bought a set of tires and a winch and come with some pooh attached to it that im going to race

only saving grace to this rust bucket is it came with a sweet quad muffler installed on it

well Pointsnorth and Hillbilt got a rear 3rd for me to match the front gear set it have. even if Hillbilt broke some of the upper link bolts

1 out of 4 aint bad Timber did everything, all I did was break those