1993 Custom Toyota Mini Truck - Project Dragged Daily: Part II

14. With all the pieces in hand, it was time to make the jig. Aaron has a control jig, which can be modified for different uses. Here, he marked his measurements for the rear upper control arms.

15. Then, he built a tab and welded it to the table so he could begin to mock up the rear upper arm.

16. For the Supra spindle, Aaron set it up so he could thread a piece of 1-inch solid and bolt it to the upper spindle mount. To give it a little personality, the piece was machined to a spike.

17. The spike end was bolted to the table so the arm could be set up in the jig.

18. Each side was then bolted to the jig, tested, and marked for fitment.

19. The marked ends were notched so they could be welded to the front of the arm.

20. Each arm was butted to the end and checked one last time.

21. The control arms were then fully TIG-welded for strength.

22. A good look at one of the control arms so far.

23. Every control arm was gusseted for strength, so here the gusset was measured and cut.

24. Each gusset was shaped and cleaned up before it was TIG-welded into place.

25. After all of the control arms were built, they had to be attached to the new chassis. To do this, Aaron again used drilled and tapped 1-inch solid and built tabs to weld to the frame.

26. Once the tab placement was measured and marked, each tab was then welded to the crossbar.

27. Next, the placement of the control arm mount was measured and marked on the frame.

28. With the placement marked and triple checked for accuracy, each side was welded to the chassis.

29. The top control arms were bolted up.

30. Like we mentioned, the spindles had to be modified. The lower mount holes were widened so they would accept the uniballs that Aaron used to get the amount of lift we were looking for.

31. A set of the front control arms. As you can see, this chassis is coming along beautifully.

32. Using his off-road experience, Aaron is the first person to use uniballs on a slammed truck. They were previously only used on off-road trucks because they have 37 degrees of change from 90 to one side, while the average stock ball joint only has about 24 degrees. This also presented us with a huge advantage for getting the amount of lift we wanted.

33. With the addition of control arms and body mounts, our chassis is really coming to life. Be on the lookout as we continue to build a one-of-a-kind badass, body-draggin' daily perfectly suited for the trip to MT headquarters day after day.