Thank you for the kind words, Hamzah. They mean a great deal; when coming from fellow enthusiasts, who're appreciative of the efforts being put in.
There are two questions I would like to ask. First, and of less consequence, the choice of name for this project, i.e. phantom. As I get, this will be a brazen, over the top, sun dance kid kind of a creature which will maintain no modesty what so ever. Which is good, I reckon if someone wants modesty, they should make a veil, not a juggernaut cruiser. But to my understanding, Phantom hints at something quiet, barely noticable and intangible. I hope you get what I am trying to say.
Let me try to explain...
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<table class="metadata mbox-small plainlinks" style="border:1px solid #aaa; background-color:#f9f9f9;"> <tbody><tr> <td class="mbox-image"></td> <td class="mbox-text" style="">Look up phantom or Phantom in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.</td> </tr> </tbody></table> Phantom may refer to:
The first bullet: This is a physical manifestation of the "soul" of the original FJ40 from which it's been built. An FJ40 which is now "deceased", but lives on in a different "sun dance kid" avatar.
The second bullet: This ride is something akin to those legendary creatures I'd seen in 4x4 magazines, websites, and motorshows. In that respect, it's a homegrown, Paki-power incarnation of those "fictional" beings.
The third bullet: The "distortion of the senses" bit, is perhaps the most applicable conventional definition. When you see the beast in real life, you think: "it's an FJ. No...it can't be. It's too big to be an FJ. But it has all the design features of the FJ...it HAS to be an FJ. But FJs don't have four doors, or ride so tall...it CAN'T be an FJ. It's something else. But I swear it's an FJ". I think that pretty much covers the "distortion of the senses" bit.
Besides..."Phantom" just SOUNDS so sexy.
Secondly, as you can see in the photo below, your rear shackle angle is already fully stretched. As I understand, a good 4x4 needs to have one of two things, decent flex, or in the absence of that, diff locks. With this kind of extension on your shackles, your flex will be quite limited to say the least. Unless ofcourse, your plan on locking diffs, in which case I cant think of any with the ring/pinion sizes you are running. Any bit of education on this subject will be appreciated.
Well observed. In a few days, the Phantom moves to the frame specialist, where we will go about mounting the engine onto the frame. Along with this, we will be mounting the shocks, shafts and other under-carriage stuff to the frame. The shackles have been loose-welded onto the frame, rather than hard-mounted. Any modifications / minor alterations required for those, too, will be done within this phase of the rebuild. But again...thanks for pointing it out.
Regards
Hamzah Faateh
Thanks for your input, Hamzah! Best wishes.