The Art of Customizing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Toyota Steering Box Mount

As we sat down to discuss the project, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. We were about to embark on a journey of creativity and ingenuity, where the old rules would be broken and something entirely new would emerge. The goal was simple: to create a custom steering box mount that would elevate our Toyota's performance to new heights.

One of the first considerations we had to address was the design of the mounts themselves. We knew that the cheap, lazy approach wouldn't cut it – we needed something more substantial, something that could withstand the rigors of high-speed driving. And so, we set out to fabricate two additional mounts, using Toyota boxes as a starting point. However, I couldn't shake off the feeling that they were still too weak for the task at hand.

As we delved deeper into the project, it became clear that our initial design was going to need some significant tweaks. The drag link, in particular, was proving to be a challenge – its ride height was too high, and I knew that if we didn't address this issue, it would introduce bump steer into the equation. I spent hours poring over calculations and models, trying to find a solution that would satisfy both our creative vision and our engineering constraints.

One of the key considerations was the placement of the steering box itself. We knew that it needed to be positioned at ride height, but how could we achieve this without sacrificing stability? The answer lay in the use of shorter springs on the other side of the frame – by lowering the hunky top one inch, we would create a more level platform for our drag link.

As I stood there, my glasses fogging up with each passing minute, I couldn't help but think about the importance of condensation. It was a reminder that even in the most mundane moments, science and physics were always at work – and that's what made this project so fascinating. And, as an added bonus, I discovered a new appreciation for recovery mugs; who knew they had such a rich history?

With our design refined and our materials sourced, we began the process of building our custom steering box mount. We started by welding in spacers to create space for the radiator, which would soon become one of the stars of our show. The bolts that held everything together were strategically positioned to provide maximum reinforcement – a testament to our attention to detail.

Next came the fun part: filling in the little holes we had cut earlier and adding a bit of plug weld magic. It was a process both tedious and rewarding, as we watched our creation take shape before our very eyes. And then, it was time to add some structure – not just any structure, but one that would provide protection for the bottom of the radiator and serve as the foundation for our winch plate.

We built this new cross member using a design similar to the one on our more bear – strong, sturdy, and designed to withstand even the most extreme forces. And so, with each passing minute, our mount began to take shape, its various components working in harmony to create something truly special.

As we stood back to admire our handiwork, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. It was a reminder that sometimes, the journey is just as important as the destination – and that with patience, creativity, and a willingness to take risks, even the most seemingly insurmountable challenges can be overcome.

We had set out to build something new, something unique, and something that would push our vehicle's performance to the limit. And as we stood there, bathed in the golden glow of sunset, I knew that we had succeeded – not just with our custom steering box mount, but with our very own brand of innovation and ingenuity.

So, what's next? Only time will tell, but for now, we're content to bask in the glory of a job well done. And as we look out at the landscape before us, I'm reminded that sometimes, the best way to build something is not to follow the rules – but to forge your own path, no matter how winding or uncertain it may be.

The project is now complete and ready for testing. The new radiator fits perfectly with the oversized steering box, providing a solid foundation for our vehicle's performance. With its custom mount, we're confident that this Toyota will leave all others in the dust.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat we're going to be doing today is pulling the engine transmission and transfer case out and since i'm a corvair guy i do not own an engine hoist believe it or not i've never owned an engine hoist so we're gonna be pulling this engine out with my wrecker because i don't have an engine hoist so that's why we're outside working in the dirt like common criminals like catalytic converter thieves working out here in the elements rudy made these yesterday so hopefully they're strong enough they should be just fine and i hoping the hood's up high enough i don't know pulling engines out the top is something i don't have a lot of experience with so stick with us and we'll show you what it's like maybe about right there i i guess that could just rise right there huh all right exciting special delivery coming here to check out what we've got these are heavy they're 1700 pounds a piece or something like that we got a project coming up this fall you're not going to want to miss and these are the axles for it destruction you know those are pictures you see at army surplus yards isn't this a might bit uh a far sight better looking air brakes oh yeah they are way bigger these are m these are mrap axles what'd you do weighs more than your bus this is our all right now that we got the engine and transmission out we're going to be taking a transmission over to st george transmission said transmission a lot yeah anyway the transmission is going over to st george transmission and the engine we're going to be pulling the stuff off that we need for the other for the new motor engine and here's a sneak peek what you're looking at is a 4.6 stroker from golan engines so i don't know all the specs but i'm sure there's a piece of paper that's going to tell me so it was broken on a dyno they did a dyno run on it 273 horsepower and 315 foot pounds of torque check out this decal golet 4.6 stroker we've got an aftermarket high performance head on it it's got 24 pound injectors got two large shirts everything we need all right sweet okay so we're taking this over to st george transmission they're gonna go through it it's working fine but it's got about 250 260 000 miles on it so they're gonna go through it replace everything with good parts and they're gonna bump up the line pressure just a little for the added torque and horsepower that we're gonna be making then we're gonna put it back to work all right so in a few weeks we'll have a rebuilt transmission hopefully back in the banana so this is the original engine in out of the banana it's a 2001 jeep cherokee this engine has 260 000 miles on it it's really not showing any signs that it's done but we just wanted a little bit more power and now is the time to do it so we pulled it out and believe it or not this thing never leaks it's seeping everywhere obviously but it never drips i can pull it on anybody's driveway no we're gonna we're gonna put it on a running stance like here the original engine of the banana five dollars pressure washering the engine bay of the banana pressure washer pressure washing you can sit in it oh there's nowhere to sit i'm sweating already i'm up i was up on the mountain this morning and it was 70 degrees and overcast and then i get down here and it's 105 and sunny so how'd lizzy do good job so the next step what is the next step trevor push it in the bay let it drip for a minute yeah so we've got to get a steering box on the outside of this so i'm thinking the next step for you is going to be to peel all this wiring back and tie it up in some meaningful way and then i'm going to take the plasma cutter to this probably cut back to here i don't know where exactly this has to go to get the steering box and i'm not going to cut any of this so maybe i'll just cut this out just get the steering box in and worry about defender later i should just stick to one thing what's the chances of that happening zero all right so i've mentioned a couple times that i really like the toyota steering box design because it's so easy to adapt contrary to what i've said about all the other things about toyota that are hard to adapt the steering boxes are amazing so i'll show you the difference here it has a nice flat surface so it's really easy to just fabricate something and bolt it to it like you know this frame flat right here it's not gonna be hard to adapt it to it the box off the jeep and this is like the same box on like dodge dakotas and some chevys and i don't know maybe fords who knows but they've got it's not flat you have to have an adapter something to make it flat so this the cherokee uses a spacer other things will notch the frames they'll build the frames for it but that's the number one reason also these boxes look a little beefier than the toyota to me anyway they do but i know from demolition derby these are not as strong as these are so that's why i use toyota boxes 86 toyota 4x4 alright so i'm super lazy so i like i like the idea of using this hole then i only have to fabricate two more mounts but i feel like it needs to be down another inch i don't know what to do because the cheap lazy side of me says to do that and there's nothing in the way of me making these other ones they'd be super easy to mount but what i'm trying to accomplish here with my depth is i need my drag link at ride height to be as level as possible and this is sitting high because there's no weight of the engine in here or anything maybe we should take those out and try to get this closer to ride heights right now but anyway i'm afraid we're going to have too much angle which will induce like bump steer like right off the bat so when it's level you've got quite a bit of suspension travel both up and down before the length changes from the angle and and introduces bump steer into the equation so that's what we're trying to learn the steering box placement now my consideration is i got to put in the right place for bump this steer do it i've got some shorter springs over there it's got to go down it has to go down there's no two ways around it's gotta go lower but you gotta go down the hunky top one inch it's gotta go down one inch lower huh my glasses are fogging up far more dangerous to be doing this blind than doing this with one eye it's not just fog it's like liquid it is condensed into liquid condensation is disgusting well just the way that he put it and where it came from condensation hey what you got there my mask off recovery mug where can somebody get your own uh that's offroadrecovery.com all right okay about right there that do it that would probably do it like budget a little bit because i think we're going down another inch about on the suspect so it is day let's say seven yeah and we are working on the steering box mount we're going to show you how that's going down we've already welded in the spacers for the new locations right here here and here for the toyota steering box sits on the outside of the frame it's going to clear up just tons of space for a radiator so these are the bolts that are going to hold the steering box on but right now i'm just using them to pre-load this this reinforcement plate that we're putting on so that it's nice and tight sandwiched together really good so that will be strong okay so the next step is to fill in all these little holes that i cut for little plug welds and then we've got uh i've got to get the structure down here on both sides and get the the new cross member across here that goes under it protects the bottom of the radiator and it gives us the structure to mount the winch plate to and it's going to be the bottom of the radiator support so it's going to be built similar to the way we did it on the more bear so and we got to get it all done before we cut this out because i'm worried about this kind of shifting and moving with this missing and when we cut this a little bit because we have cut a little bit of it out it's definitely under some some forces some stresses so that's why i want to get it anchored before we cut it wow those are big ones they're going to be welded in good all right so this is how this goes okay i did a lot of thinking yesterday that's all true you're supposed to go out walking after midnight that's not too bad we'll start the bidding at scrap cost we'll give you a dollar if you take it yep all right well that didn't move at all i believe what we set out to do we did it's gonna fit so that is the new radiator and it's going to be replacing the old radiator right there these are really wide but man that is short this is the same radiator that's in the more air so it shouldn't struggle at all to keep this cool okay so we have got the steering box kind of mocked up in place and mounted on its real mounts you got more reinforcement to do this lower cross members slash radiator support slash radiator protector slash frame thing we got it in place we've got more i mean there's more to do but you can see that the steering box fits the oversized radiator fits um there's going to be some considerations as there always is when you're doing a lot of custom work but yeah this is where we're at i am very happy with how this is coming together and thanks for watchingwhat we're going to be doing today is pulling the engine transmission and transfer case out and since i'm a corvair guy i do not own an engine hoist believe it or not i've never owned an engine hoist so we're gonna be pulling this engine out with my wrecker because i don't have an engine hoist so that's why we're outside working in the dirt like common criminals like catalytic converter thieves working out here in the elements rudy made these yesterday so hopefully they're strong enough they should be just fine and i hoping the hood's up high enough i don't know pulling engines out the top is something i don't have a lot of experience with so stick with us and we'll show you what it's like maybe about right there i i guess that could just rise right there huh all right exciting special delivery coming here to check out what we've got these are heavy they're 1700 pounds a piece or something like that we got a project coming up this fall you're not going to want to miss and these are the axles for it destruction you know those are pictures you see at army surplus yards isn't this a might bit uh a far sight better looking air brakes oh yeah they are way bigger these are m these are mrap axles what'd you do weighs more than your bus this is our all right now that we got the engine and transmission out we're going to be taking a transmission over to st george transmission said transmission a lot yeah anyway the transmission is going over to st george transmission and the engine we're going to be pulling the stuff off that we need for the other for the new motor engine and here's a sneak peek what you're looking at is a 4.6 stroker from golan engines so i don't know all the specs but i'm sure there's a piece of paper that's going to tell me so it was broken on a dyno they did a dyno run on it 273 horsepower and 315 foot pounds of torque check out this decal golet 4.6 stroker we've got an aftermarket high performance head on it it's got 24 pound injectors got two large shirts everything we need all right sweet okay so we're taking this over to st george transmission they're gonna go through it it's working fine but it's got about 250 260 000 miles on it so they're gonna go through it replace everything with good parts and they're gonna bump up the line pressure just a little for the added torque and horsepower that we're gonna be making then we're gonna put it back to work all right so in a few weeks we'll have a rebuilt transmission hopefully back in the banana so this is the original engine in out of the banana it's a 2001 jeep cherokee this engine has 260 000 miles on it it's really not showing any signs that it's done but we just wanted a little bit more power and now is the time to do it so we pulled it out and believe it or not this thing never leaks it's seeping everywhere obviously but it never drips i can pull it on anybody's driveway no we're gonna we're gonna put it on a running stance like here the original engine of the banana five dollars pressure washering the engine bay of the banana pressure washer pressure washing you can sit in it oh there's nowhere to sit i'm sweating already i'm up i was up on the mountain this morning and it was 70 degrees and overcast and then i get down here and it's 105 and sunny so how'd lizzy do good job so the next step what is the next step trevor push it in the bay let it drip for a minute yeah so we've got to get a steering box on the outside of this so i'm thinking the next step for you is going to be to peel all this wiring back and tie it up in some meaningful way and then i'm going to take the plasma cutter to this probably cut back to here i don't know where exactly this has to go to get the steering box and i'm not going to cut any of this so maybe i'll just cut this out just get the steering box in and worry about defender later i should just stick to one thing what's the chances of that happening zero all right so i've mentioned a couple times that i really like the toyota steering box design because it's so easy to adapt contrary to what i've said about all the other things about toyota that are hard to adapt the steering boxes are amazing so i'll show you the difference here it has a nice flat surface so it's really easy to just fabricate something and bolt it to it like you know this frame flat right here it's not gonna be hard to adapt it to it the box off the jeep and this is like the same box on like dodge dakotas and some chevys and i don't know maybe fords who knows but they've got it's not flat you have to have an adapter something to make it flat so this the cherokee uses a spacer other things will notch the frames they'll build the frames for it but that's the number one reason also these boxes look a little beefier than the toyota to me anyway they do but i know from demolition derby these are not as strong as these are so that's why i use toyota boxes 86 toyota 4x4 alright so i'm super lazy so i like i like the idea of using this hole then i only have to fabricate two more mounts but i feel like it needs to be down another inch i don't know what to do because the cheap lazy side of me says to do that and there's nothing in the way of me making these other ones they'd be super easy to mount but what i'm trying to accomplish here with my depth is i need my drag link at ride height to be as level as possible and this is sitting high because there's no weight of the engine in here or anything maybe we should take those out and try to get this closer to ride heights right now but anyway i'm afraid we're going to have too much angle which will induce like bump steer like right off the bat so when it's level you've got quite a bit of suspension travel both up and down before the length changes from the angle and and introduces bump steer into the equation so that's what we're trying to learn the steering box placement now my consideration is i got to put in the right place for bump this steer do it i've got some shorter springs over there it's got to go down it has to go down there's no two ways around it's gotta go lower but you gotta go down the hunky top one inch it's gotta go down one inch lower huh my glasses are fogging up far more dangerous to be doing this blind than doing this with one eye it's not just fog it's like liquid it is condensed into liquid condensation is disgusting well just the way that he put it and where it came from condensation hey what you got there my mask off recovery mug where can somebody get your own uh that's offroadrecovery.com all right okay about right there that do it that would probably do it like budget a little bit because i think we're going down another inch about on the suspect so it is day let's say seven yeah and we are working on the steering box mount we're going to show you how that's going down we've already welded in the spacers for the new locations right here here and here for the toyota steering box sits on the outside of the frame it's going to clear up just tons of space for a radiator so these are the bolts that are going to hold the steering box on but right now i'm just using them to pre-load this this reinforcement plate that we're putting on so that it's nice and tight sandwiched together really good so that will be strong okay so the next step is to fill in all these little holes that i cut for little plug welds and then we've got uh i've got to get the structure down here on both sides and get the the new cross member across here that goes under it protects the bottom of the radiator and it gives us the structure to mount the winch plate to and it's going to be the bottom of the radiator support so it's going to be built similar to the way we did it on the more bear so and we got to get it all done before we cut this out because i'm worried about this kind of shifting and moving with this missing and when we cut this a little bit because we have cut a little bit of it out it's definitely under some some forces some stresses so that's why i want to get it anchored before we cut it wow those are big ones they're going to be welded in good all right so this is how this goes okay i did a lot of thinking yesterday that's all true you're supposed to go out walking after midnight that's not too bad we'll start the bidding at scrap cost we'll give you a dollar if you take it yep all right well that didn't move at all i believe what we set out to do we did it's gonna fit so that is the new radiator and it's going to be replacing the old radiator right there these are really wide but man that is short this is the same radiator that's in the more air so it shouldn't struggle at all to keep this cool okay so we have got the steering box kind of mocked up in place and mounted on its real mounts you got more reinforcement to do this lower cross members slash radiator support slash radiator protector slash frame thing we got it in place we've got more i mean there's more to do but you can see that the steering box fits the oversized radiator fits um there's going to be some considerations as there always is when you're doing a lot of custom work but yeah this is where we're at i am very happy with how this is coming together and thanks for watching\n"