2000 Mercury Mountaineer Build

ChaseTruck754 · Post by **ChaseTruck754** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:08 am

looking good!

cs_drums · Post by **cs_drums** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:03 am

[quote="mounty71"]This past weekend I took apart the steering box to drill and tap it for hydro-assist and to reseal it. I simply plugged the ports for now and will deal with the hydro-assist.

[\quote]

Do you have more info on this? I'd love to save some $$ and do it myself as well. Any pics or other threads etc. would be great!

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:53 pm

http://4x4.forensick.net/88bronco/images/sbr/index.htm

This is the write-up I followed for the teardown and rebuild, but since it only covers the rebuild and not hydro-assist, I just drilled and tapped once it was all apart. I just google searched pictures of where people put the ports and chose the two spots I liked the best and went for it. Hoping I got it right! Ill get a picture of where I put them this weekend. I used 1/4-18 pipe thread. I wasn't able to get the nut with the 4 notches off so there were a couple of seals I couldn't replace so I'm hoping those weren't the ones leaking.

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:56 pm

I did it myself because I also wanted to save some money on a professionally rebuilt and tapped box, but if I can't get this one to stay leak-free once I get the truck up and running, I'll just go that route instead. The whole process took me way longer than I expected it to, I spent the better part of a day on it and don't feel like trying again.

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 8:19 pm

Not sure how many people follow these non-Bronco builds but what the hell...

After a lot of test-fitting this what I ended up with remaining from the original TTB crossmember. Looking back now I could probably have saved a little more of it.

I have the radius arms built and did a bunch of plating on the beams, in addition to welding in the uniballs.

Crossmember is fully welded in now too and the steering box has a perfect amount of clearance over that gusset luckily.

Gusseted the driver's beam mount

Drilled out the spindle steering arm taper and TIG welded some sleeves into the steering arms to be through-bolted

Beams and radius arms hung

Cut out the shock hoops and put a coilover in position. I'm guessing this will be about where the coilovers will be at droop. I need to mount a tire and bump out both sides equally and then compress the shocks to actually know where full bump will be, and built shock hoops and steering from there.

Decided to switch to King everything so I got some new 2.5x12" coilovers from Downsouth Motorsports for a great price. I think I'm just going to go for the secondary shock up front now too. I'll keep the 12" Swayaways in the back for now but my plan is to do a cantilever setup in the future. I feel like there is so much more that I've done but that's the gist of it.

cs_drums · Post by **cs_drums** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:07 pm

This thread is killer. My buddy is swapping TTB on his T100 soon and this will be a good Terence for him.

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ChaseTruck754 · Post by **ChaseTruck754** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:16 pm

I'm loving the thread as well. All is looking good!

I want to drop TTB in a F-100 at some point & I've looked at taking the stock cross member like you have here. What did you use for tube on the radius arms?

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:43 pm

Glad you guys are enjoying it. Seems like it's becoming pretty popular to swap TTB under different vehicles these days, although most go for the D44 beams.

And on the radius arms the round bottom tube is 1.75"x.120", and the rectangular tube is 2"x5"x3/16". For the vertical tube that the bolt goes through, that's 1.5"x.120" sleeved over 1.25"x.25" if I remember correctly, to get the proper I.D. for a 3/4" bolt.

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:49 pm

Here's a better picture showing how I did the radius arm (upside down).

ChaseTruck754 · Post by **ChaseTruck754** » Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:02 am

Those look stout. Pretty similar to my plan for what I'd like to do.

Pickuptrucker · Post by **Pickuptrucker** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 7:43 am

Cool thread, very creative build

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:01 pm

Setup swing steering this weekend. Still need to double shear the pitman arm and set up the hydraulic assist ram.

Double sheared the knuckles

And added an overlay plate to strengthen the radius arm mounts on the back of the beams, and a place for the hydraulic bumpstops to land. Decided to TIG weld them since the other plating on the beams was TIG welded by Solo.

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Thu Feb 02, 2017 11:37 pm

Modified my pitman arm today. Drilled out the taper to 3/4" and sleeved it with tubing so I can run a 5/8" bolt. Then double sheared the heim joints and plated it all in. I'm fairly new to TIG welding so I'm loving how I'm finally seeing real improvement being made and being able to actually apply it to certain areas where MIG would be more difficult.

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Tue Feb 21, 2017 10:49 pm

Ceramic coated my old headers and installed them again, hoping to have better luck with them and the heat they put off.

I have shock hoops 95% completed and am working on the cross brace over the engine now.

Waiting on my second pair of shocks so I used both coilovers to build off of.

Trying something a little different for the cross brace.

Not totally sure I like it as much as I thought I would but we'll see how it turns out.

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ChaseTruck754 · Post by **ChaseTruck754** » Wed Feb 22, 2017 11:04 am

Did you ceramic coat the headers yourself or send them out somewhere? If you did it yourself - what did you use?

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Wed Feb 22, 2017 12:00 pm

No I just brought them to a local place.

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:06 am

Sat the truck down on the ground today finally! A couple of weeks ago I redid the cross brace in a simpler design. Today I finished plating in the bump stops and mounted limit straps on one side, and I'll do the other side tomorrow.

I'm not sure I have the optimal spring rates right now, or at least spring lengths. It's on 6" 350# over 18" 400#. I also have a pair of 18" 450# I could try. The problem I foresee is the uppers are so short with weight on them that there's barely any room for the slider stops, so just driving around town I will probably be hitting them. But I'll drive it around before making any changes. Also the overall width is a little narrower now with the stock Bronco wheels unfortunately.

Tires fit perfectly under the fenders

otter · Post by **otter** » Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:46 pm

Kick ass job, Matt. She looks good.

mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:10 am

Thanks Pat. Got my second pair of shocks finally, began mounting the steering ram and got all the hydraulic lines figured out. I'm using a Tractor Supply 8" that's been shortened to I think about 6" stroke. It's a freebie from a friend, and another friend has the same ram on his TTB front end and it seems to work well enough.

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mounty71 · Post by **mounty71** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:55 pm

Thought I'd report back in here, the TTB Mountaineer is pretty much complete for now. Took it for its maiden voyage on the Rubicon from Tahoe to the springs. Helluva way to test out a project this big, but had a blast. Broke a D44 outer shaft right before getting to camp at the springs and a hub went bad at the very end of the trail. Figuring out what I want to do as far as shafts go long term, but for now a friend has a D44 front end he's letting me steal parts from.

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