Things I am really glad I did to LMTV

[olly hondro]

As I drove around town today, getting a new Director's Certificate from the ADOT smog station, I reflected on all the mods I have made to the truck. Some stuff we do makes no difference, some stuff makes things worse, but here is a list of mods that I am really, really glad I did:

• Upgrade the seats.
• Install 16.00 R 20 Michelins. Though counter-intuitive, the truck rides nicer, steers easier, handles better, and stops better.
• The Eaton spool-locker thing in the rear diff.
• Remove the bottom leaf from the rear spring pack. Recall the truck is always empty/no load. Does not even have a bed, actually.
• Relocate the air tanks. They are light so can go anywhere. In stock location they are excellent rock grabbers.
• Ditch the polarity protection box and two of four batteries. and all the extra cabling.
• delete the front glad-hands, taking out four problematic valves with them.

And something tempting, but glad I DID NOT do: change out the differential gear ratio. With the 53" tires that would have been not enough gear for the low speed stuff I do.

Your thoughts?

 

[SCM35A2]

Post up some pics when you can.

 

[tpiekbp]

I love the idea of removing a leaf from the rear spring pack olly hondro! I hate the sewer sniffer rake and personally don't have much in the bed that would ever weigh the back down enough. Like you, I've reduced to two batteries in every one of my trucks and never had an issue, even at 54 below in MT or 112 in NM. Great minds, or at least mine and yours, think alike.

I am curious to see what you did for seats (if you have time to post pics) as that is my next upgrade.

 

[CarolinaFlyer]

As I drove around town today, getting a new Director's Certificate from the ADOT smog station, I reflected on all the mods I have made to the truck. Some stuff we do makes no difference, some stuff makes things worse, but here is a list of mods that I am really, really glad I did:

• Upgrade the seats.
• Install 16.00 R 20 Michelins. Though counter-intuitive, the truck rides nicer, steers easier, handles better, and stops better.
• The Eaton spool-locker thing in the rear diff.
• Remove the bottom leaf from the rear spring pack. Recall the truck is always empty/no load. Does not even have a bed, actually.
• Relocate the air tanks. They are light so can go anywhere. In stock location they are excellent rock grabbers.
• Ditch the polarity protection box and two of four batteries. and all the extra cabling.
• delete the front glad-hands, taking out four problematic valves with them.

And something tempting, but glad I DID NOT do: change out the differential gear ratio. With the 53" tires that would have been not enough gear for the low speed stuff I do.

Your thoughts?View attachment 854382

Looks cool!

 

[ramdough]

As I drove around town today, getting a new Director's Certificate from the ADOT smog station, I reflected on all the mods I have made to the truck. Some stuff we do makes no difference, some stuff makes things worse, but here is a list of mods that I am really, really glad I did:

• Upgrade the seats.
• Install 16.00 R 20 Michelins. Though counter-intuitive, the truck rides nicer, steers easier, handles better, and stops better.
• The Eaton spool-locker thing in the rear diff.
• Remove the bottom leaf from the rear spring pack. Recall the truck is always empty/no load. Does not even have a bed, actually.
• Relocate the air tanks. They are light so can go anywhere. In stock location they are excellent rock grabbers.
• Ditch the polarity protection box and two of four batteries. and all the extra cabling.
• delete the front glad-hands, taking out four problematic valves with them.

And something tempting, but glad I DID NOT do: change out the differential gear ratio. With the 53" tires that would have been not enough gear for the low speed stuff I do.

Your thoughts?View attachment 854382

You have a fun-as-hell looking truck. Sometimes I wish I had room for an extra truck to comply you.


Do you have a write up on what you did to fit the bigger tires?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[olly hondro]

I love the idea of removing a leaf from the rear spring pack olly hondro! I hate the sewer sniffer rake and personally don't have much in the bed that would ever weigh the back down enough. Like you, I've reduced to two batteries in every one of my trucks and never had an issue, even at 54 below in MT or 112 in NM. Great minds, or at least mine and yours, think alike.

I am curious to see what you did for seats (if you have time to post pics) as that is my next upgrade.

Good morning,

The seats are JEGS GS-1, not very expensive. See

I have read that Toyota Sienna seats are an easy retrofit, but best to check the fora (forums?). I prefer to comment only on stuff that I have actually done.

I should say the action of the rear leaf has been removed as I did not disassemble the pack to remove it, rather, I used a die grinder to cut them off while still mounted to the truck. So the height of the spring pack is the same, the lower leaf remnant is just a spacer. I never denied being a redneck Oh, if you look closely in the pic, you can see how I mounted the two batteries between the frame rails just behind the rear axle.

 

[olly hondro]

You have a fun-as-hell looking truck. Sometimes I wish I had room for an extra truck to comply you.


Do you have a write up on what you did to fit the bigger tires?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good morning,

I do not have a write up, but I will create a short video of that. Just off the top of my head:

Rears were easy as there is no interference with the hard mudflaps attached to the bed as it is removed. The rear rubber mudflaps are relocated to behind the under-rider using the same hardware.

Fronts: I removed the steps. Some guys cut a section out of them instead. Removal of the driver step exposes three pneumatic valves that need to be relocated. At first I did that, moved them to the underside of the floor but I did not like how exposed they are to mud and stuff slung up by the tires. Turns out those valves' sole purpose in life is to support front gladhand functionality. I never expect to tow this LMTV like its a trailer so I deleted the gladhands, the check valve behind the front bumper, and those three valves. If one was to search "LMTV brakes do not disengage/engage/work right" then he would discover that 90% of those problems originate with at least one of those four valves. Reliability is enhanced by deleting them. Um, what else...rather than modify the plastic fenders I took them off. They are ugly anyway. Cut a notch in the lower cab airbag mounting bracket as there is interference at full lock. Another note about the big tires: if CTIS regulation were to fail and the full 115 psi compressor output was presented to the tire, thats OK. They are rated for that. No danger of exploding tires that are not otherwise damaged.

 

[wandering neurons]

"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid". Old Army saying.
Now that you've shown me how to "remove" a rarely-needed spring leaf, I'll probably do the same to my M1081 that I rarely haul loads with. If need, I'll look at air bags to supplement the missing spring.

Slightly different topic: What did you do for shocks on your rig? Fox/Gabriel/Monroe/Bilstein? Now that I've done 3.07 gears with Eaton locker, shocks are my next project.

Oh, and I'm the goof that rigged Honda Civic SI seats in my cab. Not as bolstering as your racing buckets, but I can also tilt the seat back to get into the storage bins (left AND right).

And Happy New Year!

Good morning,

The seats are JEGS GS-1, not very expensive. See

I have read that Toyota Sienna seats are an easy retrofit, but best to check the fora (forums?). I prefer to comment only on stuff that I have actually done.

I should say the action of the rear leaf has been removed as I did not disassemble the pack to remove it, rather, I used a die grinder to cut them off while still mounted to the truck. So the height of the spring pack is the same, the lower leaf remnant is just a spacer. I never denied being a redneck Oh, if you look closely in the pic, you can see how I mounted the two batteries between the frame rails just behind the rear axle.

View attachment 854648

 

[olly hondro]

"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid". Old Army saying.
Now that you've shown me how to "remove" a rarely-needed spring leaf, I'll probably do the same to my M1081 that I rarely haul loads with. If need, I'll look at air bags to supplement the missing spring.

Slightly different topic: What did you do for shocks on your rig? Fox/Gabriel/Monroe/Bilstein? Now that I've done 3.07 gears with Eaton locker, shocks are my next project.

Oh, and I'm the goof that rigged Honda Civic SI seats in my cab. Not as bolstering as your racing buckets, but I can also tilt the seat back to get into the storage bins (left AND right).

And Happy New Year!

Happy 2022 to you as well.

I am currently experimenting with Monroes:

Implementing these requires using a bushing + smaller diameter bolt on the bottom side. I do not think there is enough meat on the shock eye itself to hog it out to use stock mounting hardware. The claim on the interweb is these are "MRAP shocks". Maybe so, maybe not.

 

[Guruman]

• The Eaton spool-locker thing in the rear diff

Can I get some details on the "Eaton spool-locker thing"? I might want one.

 

[olly hondro]

Can I get some details on the "Eaton spool-locker thing"? I might want one.

Yes, it looks like this:



It replaces the spider gears in the rear differential.


Description Quantity
Price
Amount
one - locker 32 spline for RF-611 meritor
1 $860.00 USD
$860.00 USD

Subtotal
$860.00 USD
Shipping $30.00 USD
Total $890.00 USD
Amount paid
$890.00 USD
Amount due
$0.00 USD

 

[MatthewWBailey]

Good morning,

The seats are JEGS GS-1, not very expensive. See

I have read that Toyota Sienna seats are an easy retrofit, but best to check the fora (forums?). I prefer to comment only on stuff that I have actually done.

I should say the action of the rear leaf has been removed as I did not disassemble the pack to remove it, rather, I used a die grinder to cut them off while still mounted to the truck. So the height of the spring pack is the same, the lower leaf remnant is just a spacer. I never denied being a redneck Oh, if you look closely in the pic, you can see how I mounted the two batteries between the frame rails just behind the rear axle.

View attachment 854648

Pretty cool mods. I might do some of those. I used a set of Audi Q7 leather seats from eBay that were $900 from a wrecked Audi....pics.
Comfy and there's lots of fun work to wire up the seat heaters and Recline functions. I passed on wiring up the side airbag deployment cylinder which is inside the seats.

 

[MatthewWBailey]

Yes, it looks like this:

View attachment 857208

It replaces the spider gears in the rear differential.


Description Quantity
Price
Amount
one - locker 32 spline for RF-611 meritor
1 $860.00 USD
$860.00 USD

Subtotal
$860.00 USD
Shipping $30.00 USD
Total $890.00 USD
Amount paid
$890.00 USD
Amount due
$0.00 USD

Will they ever make an air locker for those rears? I've used these spooling lockers in Ford trucks in the past but never liked how they felt on pavement.

 

[hike]

As I drove around town today, getting a new Director's Certificate from the ADOT smog station, I reflected on all the mods I have made to the truck. Some stuff we do makes no difference, some stuff makes things worse, but here is a list of mods that I am really, really glad I did:

• Upgrade the seats.
• Install 16.00 R 20 Michelins. Though counter-intuitive, the truck rides nicer, steers easier, handles better, and stops better.
• The Eaton spool-locker thing in the rear diff.
• Remove the bottom leaf from the rear spring pack. Recall the truck is always empty/no load. Does not even have a bed, actually.
• Relocate the air tanks. They are light so can go anywhere. In stock location they are excellent rock grabbers.
• Ditch the polarity protection box and two of four batteries. and all the extra cabling.
• delete the front glad-hands, taking out four problematic valves with them.

And something tempting, but glad I DID NOT do: change out the differential gear ratio. With the 53" tires that would have been not enough gear for the low speed stuff I do.

Your thoughts?View attachment 854382

Old thread I know @olly hondro; wondering what use case you designed your rig to accomplish? You moved the rock grabbing tanks where?

 

[coachgeo]

Old thread I know @olly hondro; wondering what use case you designed your rig to accomplish? You moved the rock grabbing tanks where?

all your answers here

https://www.youtube.com/@ollyhondroM715

 

[hike]

all your answers here

https://www.youtube.com/@ollyhondroM715

What an interesting build–

 

[littlesfmtv]

Good morning,

The seats are JEGS GS-1, not very expensive. See

I have read that Toyota Sienna seats are an easy retrofit, but best to check the fora (forums?). I prefer to comment only on stuff that I have actually done.

I should say the action of the rear leaf has been removed as I did not disassemble the pack to remove it, rather, I used a die grinder to cut them off while still mounted to the truck. So the height of the spring pack is the same, the lower leaf remnant is just a spacer. I never denied being a redneck Oh, if you look closely in the pic, you can see how I mounted the two batteries between the frame rails just behind the rear axle.

View attachment 854648

A fellow Nigerian institute of technology alum I see. What was the pucker factor on that first cut?

 

[Littlejacy]

Pretty cool mods. I might do some of those. I used a set of Audi Q7 leather seats from eBay that were $900 from a wrecked Audi....pics.
Comfy and there's lots of fun work to wire up the seat heaters and Recline functions. I passed on wiring up the side airbag deployment cylinder which is inside the seats.

Ha! I n had a GREAT time taking my girl in to get the windows tinted...kids were speechless!