7. The wheel-speed sensors were a bit different from anything we had come across before. Toyota has begun using a solid-state wheel-speed sensor that is made up of many small magnets within one large ring seal on the unit-bearing assemblies. Incorporating this into our Pro-Rock 60s would involve a fair bit of innovation we didn't deem necessary, plus removal of the factory units usually results in damaging the seal. After some testing with a friend's FJ we determined that our manual-transmission FJ Cruiser would perform just fine without the wheel-speed sensors.
8. While the axles were away we began the tricky work of suspension design. The plan for the rear was to remove the four-link and Panhard factory suspension, lose the Panhard and install a true four-link with the uppers triangulated to locate the axle laterally. The factory suspension uses the Panhard to locate the axle laterally, but we have found odd handling characteristics in some Panhard suspension, and wanted to try this more common design.
9. While the rear suspension took some time, the front is even more difficult since it must work harmoniously with the steering. To keep the front axle located fore and aft, the solid-axle kit from All-Pro uses three links plus a Panhard bar to locate it laterally. Our goals were to keep the truck as low as possible for a low center of gravity, match the angle and mounting points of the steering drag link and the Panhard bar to eliminate bumpsteer, and keep all the links from hitting the engine and exhaust components. Tune in next month to see the final layout.
10. The four-speed Atlas from Advance Adapters arrived with a custom adapter and stub shaft to mate it to our Toyota six-speed manual transmission. We chose the Atlas for its high- and low-range options for both two- and four-wheel drive, plus the four-speed Atlas will offer us 1:1 highway high-range gears, 2.72:1 sand or mud low range, 3.81:1 trail low range, and a whopping 10.34:1 rockcrawling low low range. In order to shift all these gears we installed a set of three cable shifters that will be routed around the manual trans and into the cab. In order to fit the cable mounts, two of the casting ribs on the transmission needed to be ground away, plus some custom wiring needed to be done in order to hook the stock harness up to the Atlas speed sensor and hi/low/4WD indicators
11. Finally we used a mock-up 39.5-inch BFGoodrich tire-and-wheel combo and flexed the rear suspension to see what was going to interfere with travel and articulation. Then it was time for more work with the plasma cutter and sledgehammer to get body panels out of the way. Check out our lead photo for a glimpse of next month's story.