1994 Mitsubishi Mighty Max - Weekend Warrior: STK TRUK Edition Part 3: Four-Link

1. First, we hooked the driveshaft up to the rear-end and jacked it up into the notch, then checked for driveshaft clearance for our new crossmember.

2. Next, we measured our inner framerails to find out the size our crossmember will be.

3. We decided to draw our crossmember on the concrete floor in the shop. Measuring from the 1-inch mark on the tape measure, our crossmember width was 36-3/4 inches, so we made our mark.

4. At 18-3/8 inches we marked our half-way mark.

5. Placing the square at the half-way mark, Steve drew our mark for the bottom of our crossmember to clear our driveshaft. By using our measurement from square one, and taking into account the fact that the truck was on jackstands, we had to also subtract the height of the frame to the floor.

6. Here was our laid-out crossmember. We were using 2x3 square tubing for our crossmember. Laying it out on the concrete not only looked cool, but it gave us a pattern we could check later when we put it together.

7. By using various shop junk, we laid out our four-link tabs on the cardboard. Here, Steve used a Mitsubishi Raider rotor to draw our 3-inch diameter for our rearend.

8. Now, by using some Teflon tape, we drew more tabs.

9. We set up our four-link as follows: We wanted to achieve 10-inches of travel, so we first set it up at half travel, which was 5 inches. So, our half-travel mark was at 8-1/2 inches from the ground. (We were going to be running a 27-inch tall tire.) Second, we drew our crossmember, which was 2x3, and it was going to be placed about 1-1/4-inches from the ground to be level with the top of our frame. Next, we drew tab C, keeping in mind the size of our bars so they didn't touch the ground when laid out. Then, we drew tab D, which we needed to keep our bottom bar parallel to the ground. After that, we drew tab B with enough room for the bushing to clear the rearend. Then, we measured center to center of our bushings on tab D and B, ours was 9-3/4-inches. To find tab A, we subtracted 2 inches off of 9-3/4-inches. This gave us our Instant Center.

10. We cut out our cardboard patterns, then cut them out and drilled them.

11. Steve handmade our adjusters on the lathe by using some 1-5/8-inch DOM tubing and some 3/4-inch fine thread F911 bolts. F911 are super-duper high-grade bolts, and they also make great paperweights.

12. Here, we have our tabs, bushings, and sleeves. Bushings and sleeves can be picked up at most off-road shops, or can be found through most of our advertisers. Steve made our sleeves out of 4130 Chromoly.

13. Using our speed square, which we bought at a local tool supply warehouse, we got the first angle for our 2x3 crossmember. This made it easy to mark our steel for good straight cuts on the chop saw.

15. By using our concrete pattern, Steve tacked it together-before placing it on the table and clamping it down-to keep it straight while welding.

16. We measured in 4 1/4-inches from the outside of our crossmember, which gave us enough air-bag clearance from the framerails. Then, we marked out the width of our bushings to find our tab placement.

17. We bolted our tabs together by using our inner-bushing sleeve and a thin washer on one side. This would ensure they wouldn't pull while welding them.

18. Using our previous measurement of tabs A and C, which was 7-3/4-inches, we placed our upper tabs on our crossmember.

19. In order to keep our crossmember square, Steve made measurements from the front of our crossmember to several points on the truck. He then tacked the crossmember into place while keeping good cab clearance. Also, he ensured that our crossmember was even with the top of our frame.

20. To place our lower four-link tabs on our rear-end, we measured center to center of our lower tabs on our crossmember (measurement X), then measured between the inside of our backing plates on our rearend (measurement Y). We then subtracted the distance X from Y, which gave us measurement Z (Y-X=Z). We then divide Z by 2, which was our distance from our backing plate to the center of our lower four-link tabs on our rearend. (Z /2=lower four-link tabs) for example:
50-1/4 inches - 28-1/4 inches = 22 inches
22 inches / 2 = 11 inches
11 inches equals, backing plate to the center of our tab.

21. Setting our pinion angle 1 to 3 degrees down from the back of our transmission, we put our rear tabs into place. Remember: it's upside down, unlike we did the first time, ha ha. Also, notice the awesome ghost in the background.

22. We put our rear-end back into place and centered it.

23. Once again, we set our pinion angle. Then, we measured between our two bottom tabs, (tabs C and D) to find out lower bar length, which ours was 30-3/4 inches.

24. Not everybody has a cool work bench like us. It's a doored '57 Chevy truck, thanks to Eron.

25. We cut our bottom's bars at 32-3/4 inches and used 2x2x.188 wall square tubing.

26. We measured 1 inch and marked our center.

27. Now, we used a 1-3/4-inch hole saw to drill our ends to accommodate our sleeves.

28. In order to get an accurate set of bars, we measured out our overall bar length on our work bench.

29. Using C-clamps to hold our bars flat, we put our bars on our make-shift table and set our sleeves into place to be tacked.

30. We drilled our holes for our 'bags on the drill press, which were drilled half-way down the bars for a 2:1 ratio.

31. We cut out two 'bag mounts that looked good, then drilled our 'bag-mount holes, and used the hole saw to make our fitting hole.

32. We knew that our 'bags collapsed to 3 inches, so we used a piece of 2x3 to tack our 'bag mounts in place.

33. Once our plate was in place, we made gussets for support, then we put our Slam Specialties 'bags into place to check for clearance and an appropriate fit.

34. Making sure our rearend was still centered, we then tacked our upper tabs as far outside as we could with enough room for airlines, fuel lines, and to make sure we had as much triangulation as possible. We also tacked a piece of tubing on our bung so that we had somewhere to tie our upper bars into. We had picked up the bung at a local off-road shop.

35. For our upper bars, we used 1 1/4x120 wall tubing. Steve took the bars down to Bio Kustumz and used their tubing bender to get them nice and curved to clear our 'bag mounts. Here, Steve makes marks to start fitting the bars.

36. We used our chop saw and grinder to notch our tubes for proper fitting.

37. We checked our fit before tacking.

38. Here it is, the finished product. It's now ready to be torn apart to be fully welded. We're also ready to head to the FFF show and show off what we had accomplished in less than a week. Stay tuned to see what else we did in this week, including the body-drop.