Got out wheeling yesterday around Squamish. Hit the 4.5K line a couple of times, unstuck a fullsize that was hung up on his bumper using a Hi-lift, shovel & rockstack under his rear wheels.

Went exploring further up the Mam Main, the snow really starts just after the 8mi marker. We bashed in for another k or so. Its melting quick, but theres still lots of it up there.

Turned around and went for a drive up Ring Creek Rd. Found a good track with some nice & deep...

I put the last 4 bolts in the front bumper assembly today. I had to drill 2 new mounting holes in the bumper bracket, ended up using bike chain lube as a cutting oil on the drill bit. Worked really well.

Also mounted the winch on temporarily, wound the cable on the spool. Turns out I have a gremlin in the system though. I can power the line in, but I cannot power the line out. In fact it powers in. Freespool works fine. This is a 4 pin controller. I rekon there must have been a mix...

I replaced my dented & brush painted hood with a fresh one, rattle canned black of course.

Also replaced the valance & repainted the wiper arms. Looks a hella lot better from the drivers seat now.

While I was working on it, I also put my front receiver together & mounted my bumper (again). Its nice to have a real bumper up front again, and not that temp thing I had up front.

I think I need to change over to a heavier gear oil in the...

Got my tires mounted & balanced today, slapped 'em on this afternoon & I'm pretty pleased so far!

Obviously going to need to do a bit more driving before the final verdict is in, but I'm thinking Hells Yeah!!

33x9.5.15's, tall & skinny

Woot Woot!! I'm picking up my 33x9.5's on saturday, BFG AT's.

Look out pizza's, here I come!!

After driving around today on the new V6 brakes, all I can say is awesome. Well worth the time & effort.

Especially with my fantastic new brakes!! I just did the V6 Caliper/Master/Booster swap. What an amazing difference! For the grand total of 16 bolts, it is good value for wrenching.

The parts came off of a 93 3.0 Runner, and ended up on my 86 4cyl Runner. The calipers/pads are noticably larger than the originals, although I only had to trim about 1/2 an inch off of the heat sheilds to make them fit.

Next task is to sort out the E brake, its definatley the weak point...

Wow, tried wrestling these out of my parts truck last night, but ran out of daylight & beer.

The outer CV was getting hung up on the lower A arm, so I tried pulling off the boot to slip it thru, no go. I guess that if I'd removed the upper bumpstop I could have free'd up a bit more droop to get the clearance, but alas, ran out of beer & sunlight.

The parts truck is gone now, so my neighbours will be happy. And I now have my workspace back in my driveway, so...

This has been a really busy week for me on the truck(s).

I've been spending most of my free time pulling parts off of the spare truck, I've got the V6 calipers, the front & rear diffs (which are easy to pull now that I've already done it once & now own a slide hammer), parted out a bunch of body parts, and some of the interior.

The whole street stunk of skunky diff fluid, the rear diff put forth the most evil looking & smelling fluid I've ever seen. Front...

Well, I test fired the winch yesterday, and after cleaning all of the contacts, bus bars, and leads.....it works!! Well thats a releif.

The next step is to get my front receiver mounted. I've found an old trailer hitch at the wreckers, which will get welded & bolted to my original cross member. I'll loose a little bit of approach angle, but I'll gain the option of having a winch. A fair trade in my books.

Also went to Whistler yesterday and found a cb radio in the...

So I've been spending the last couple of days working on my winch. Cleaning terminals, checking continuity on the leads, painting the housing, and tightening up all of the nuts & bolts.

I reckon another gentle day of putzing around & I should have it all put back together & operational.

The only real fault I can find with it is the winch remote will not work on the power out mode, only power in. I guess that its not that big of a deal until I can find a...

Also known as gaining access to your heater core.

I've gone through the winter with no heat coming from my front heater, on Defrost or Vents. The seperate heater in the back works fine, due to having its own heater core.

So naturally I figured that the core must be blocked, and set about relacing it.

Step 1, Buy replacement. I figured on trying a 2nd hand one, gave it a quick flush through & it seemed OK.

Step 2, Drain coolant &...

Last June (!) I picked up a used Warn 6000lb winch, it came complete with a schitty grill guard & some rust.

Well, I ditched most of the grill guard, ground off the rusty headlight wings, and generally tidied it up a bit.

In August I took it to a welder to have a length of 2" square tubing to get welded to the bottom of it & voila! 1 obnoxiously heavy multimount.

In the last couple of weeks I've been slowly getting round to refurbishing...

Armour

1)Smitty Built Tube Bumpers. I've chopped the rear one to gain some extra clearance. I removed the bottom tube back to the upright, freeing up @ 5" of room on either side. The front bumper is currently in the "re-furbishing" process. I am making a stronger front mount for it with a 2" receiver for my winch.

Future Armour plans

2 Rock Sliders.

3) Swing away tire carrier on new rear bumper. Going to make the new...

This truck is used as a DD and a mission rig, so in the space of a week, I'll drive it a couple of hundred k's on hardtop, and then come weekends it'll easily cover almost the same on FSR's and access trails.

So, all of my mods have to be durable, not interfere (too much) with hwy manners, cheap, and ideally use OEM or readily avaliable parts.

Vanessa's used mostly for camping, gaining access to hiking/climbing/skiing areas, and exploring. Harder or more technical...

Welcome to the BackCountryBlog!

In the following entries you'll find accounts of my adventures, trips, wrenching, and idle musings.

First off, a little background on me. I was born at a very young age, and it took me years & years to grow up big & strong.

At about 17 I bought my first 4Runner, totally not intending to as I had my heart set on a Heep. However my dad found an 87 at the dealer for a good price, and so I took it for a ride and...