Remember when I said we weren't going to be driving the 4runner as much this winter? Well it got pressed into service. Out of nowhere the whECHO developed a drivability issue similar to a coil pack gone bad. What's weird though is this suddenly developed after my wife slammed on the brakes to avoid an accident where a person completely ran a stop sign at a 4 way intersection. I haven't had time to really look Into it yet because of a lot of OT at work lately and fun doing snow removal today. A quick look under the hood didn't show anything out of the ordinary. I thought well maybe the battery broke loose or a belt went but all looks good. All fluids look right as well. No rush Black Beard to the rescue!

Here's a few photos from fun in the snow today.


Oh and an accidental shot,, kinda looks like I'm getting run down. Haha

 

Go little truck, go!

Amazing, isn't it? The 30+ year old truck still runs good, the newer (slightly ) truck died on ya. Go oldsters! Says the 63 y/o geezer

Have fun!
Pat☺

 

yeah nothing we have is new now. The Echo I don't know as well as the 4runner even though we have owned it 21 years now. I've done very little on it in that time but the coil packs and injectors are original. Rust is catching up with it now . It is the perfect candidate for a winter vehicle and since taxes are cheap at that age and the current price on vehicles I wouldn't hesitate to put some money into it.

The FJ is going on 15 now and I need to drive it more often than I have been recently. I did an oil change after six months and realized I had only put 1000 miles on it. That was probably mostly done on vacation in July.

 

today was a nice balmy day to do some automotive work! I guess I know the ol wrECHO better than I thought. Remember I mentioned the coil packs were original . "Were original " not anymore! New parts from the motherland. Ahh I could have worked on diagnosing the #2 coil pack but figured after 21 years new ones were worth the gamble. Last time it ran weird mice eat some of the wiring to the injectors. It runs great now. Well now the 4runner won't have to go out in the salt brine. Speaking of the salt I did wash it off the other day and lost some of my terrific job of painting on one fender, bummer. The paint on the roof is twice as old and has held up just fine. Oh well hopefully I will get some time this spring to fix things. The worst part about the salt was the only time the roads were bad was when I drove the 4runner. It rained the next day so back to fair weather driving again.

 

Out in the frigid cold today with the 4runner. high of 12 today. We noticed this vintage vinyl store when we went by last week.

 

White 4Runner? Vintage vinyl? Train layouts and old toys? We have a lot in common. I'm going to rig a shelf this week for my son's apartment so he can display some old LP's and still play them. I've got hundreds from days as a record store worker c. 1979-80. We're getting ready for the second snow event of the season. Grrrr.

 

I love 70s and 80s music too and my son is the one who is getting into the classic vinyl now. He is into a lot of 50s stuff. I really will listen to just about any music except country and what they call rap today cRAP.

Ha ha you have the unfair advantage in Virginia! Careful on them roads if they are untreated. As much as we hate the salt and days of sand salt mix up here. The roads are far more dangerous when untreated. Close to 30 years of working nights I have had my experience with that fun and that is why I've had 4 wheel drive since the late 90s. People would say to me " that's too expensive I just would not go to go to work on a day like that". That's cute and all but when you're already at work you want to get home and you have to go through a 3-foot snowbank at the top of a hill I'd rather have four-wheel drive. No more getting stuck in a snow bank at 3 AM for me!

 

cRAP, LOL!
Same here, music from the advent of vinyl to classic rock, no cRAp nor monotonous millenial music. Used to have lots of vinyl but disposed of them when we downsized.
Now I just have mp3s and streaming when driving. When I get to the point where I'd sit still and listen to music, I may buy vinyls again.

 

My son recently started getting into vinyl LPs also. Record stores are good places to seek out in our travels but always seem to cost me money, LOL. I’m kind of over the heavy-rotation classic rock and most stuff he gets turned onto I heard too much on the radio when it was new. But interesting to see what from the 80s and 90s has aged well. Recently he was on a Supertramp kick that I wanted nothing to do with. But after listening to their hit albums not just classic hits, i gained a new appreciation for them. He has also tried to Van Halen me to death. I’ll be hiding in the garage listening to Zappa, lol.

 

I've had 4WD since I bought my original '88 4Runner in '88. People go nuts here when it snows. I know we just made national news about the big traffic stoppage on I-95. No one mentions all the warnings and a particular area had pretty much a blizzard so roads could not be treated. No sympathy.

Later this week I'm going to rig a shelf so my 24 year old son can display some album covers in his groovy new city apartment. He took a music appreciation class for the easy A and has taught me a lot. He has a bottomless resource picking through my collection. Back years ago I put plastic sleeves on everything so the covers are mint. I have promos from B-52's, Pretenders, all those bands getting started in the early 80's. He's got a 70's Marantz system of his own. I really don't play mine much but still have the system and the collection. I was also nuts for 45s. LOL. He went through my party mix cassettes and digitized them last summer so I can play old playlists in the truck. I never bought any quadrophonic albums because I never had a system good enough. They were around pretty briefly so that album is probably worth a lot. It really is the 20 somethings driving the love of LPs these days. He gets some new stuff and they cost $20 or more. Crazy.

Gonna do this by trimming down J channel. Cheap and won't leave a lot of holes in the apartment.

 

Nice set up! That store had old stereo equipment too and the same receiver we have right in our living room lol. I digitized all my tapes years ago with a PC and my Sony duel tape player. Lots of 80s stuff. Some tapes I transplanted the insides into newer Memorex tapes because those have screws holding them together and it makes it easy to take apart. It was the foam piece in the center that went and made them sound do muffled. A lot of them tapes are on my 4runner play list. It's crazy to think something like 60 tapes are on my phone now with other music. Remember hauling all them tape cases?

 

A quick little project today.on yet another cold day. I found that you can still buy the rear wiper blade for the 4runner through Toyota. Until now I've just been combining and old one with a new one by sliding the rubber piece onto the old blade holder. I ran out of rivets like I used in the past to secure the blade to this modified 90 4runner arm. I wasn't interested in tapping the new holes for the screws so just use rivets. I also got a new piece to cover the bolt part of the arm. I got a little too excited and ordered 3 thinking they would work for the front 😅

 

I took a scouting trip with the 4runner to one of my favorite ice fishing places today. The ice at the boat launch looks like Swiss cheese because the state stocked it with 10 to 15 pound trout.

We also went by my new bait fish supplier who also sells really fresh tuna sandwiches, I don't know why I never see dead bait fish 😅.......

Photo from last year: bait, tuna sandwiches, coffee........

 

Loading up for another ice fishing trip with the 4runner.

 

What's funny, is that I just watched and episode of "Dirty Jobs", where they were recovering a truck that had driven out on a "frozen" lake, that wasn't quite frozen enough

I would absolutely hate to see the truck you've put so much effort into being featured in a similar episode. Or even be qualified to be featured, as it's sitting on the bottom. Be very careful! I know 4Runners are amazing vehicles, but they DON'T float!

I hope you had fun fishing, though
Pat☺

 

https://m.facebook.com/groups/348231...1674850852689/

 

looks fun till he hit water!!!!!!

I thought of trying that in the past with a tarp and small sled. The wind was 20 to 30 MPH this one time I took my nephew out. I would end up in water.....

 

no ice road trucking for me! It's actually not legal in this state. Although people have tried with grave circumstances. That's why every boat launch has a sign stating " end of the road " those states it is legal , I'll pass.

Here is my go to guide for ice safety.

We have 6 to 8 inches out there.

It was a real decent trip. Not a lot of fish but this pond was never my number 1 place to go. It just produced when nothing else did last year.

 

Looks like a llot of fun! COLD, but fun

I'm sure glad you put that chart of ice thickness up for us. I always wondered about walking my At-At out onto a lake. I would hate to get it out on the ice and break through. Those things are expensive, and the higher ups get real snippy if something like that happens. Now I know how thick it needs to be!

How'd your truck do on that road you showed? Looks like it might be a little slippery/slidey.

Keep having fun! This is where all your hard work pays off for you.
Pat☺

 

Pat, you clearly do know the power of the dark side! Vader will be mad if you wreck his AT AT! Look what happened when and 18 year old kid blew up the death star lol.

Yeah that chart was shared y the local police department, and the state last year. Good stuff.

that icy Road was a lot of fun. But I couldn't see it being much fun if you're in two-wheel drive, no problem for this thing. The mourning drive out there was a little White Knuckle at times. Apparently we got some snow at night I didn't realize. some of them roads a real Steep inclines and sharp corners and combine that with morning Rush Hour type traffic. People want to do a hundred through there but too bad if you're behind me haha. I have to say the 4Runner handles pretty good in the snow even in 2 wheel drive, with the weight of that cap and everything I have in back and the tendency to not want to peal out too much. Times like that I do prefer having a standard like this. You can downshift when you need to and up shift to keep from spinning although it is a lot like a pickup truck without all the bells and whistles of today's cars with vehicle stability control ABS brakes........ ..... it takes some driving to do, something my wife and I have done for like 30 years now with vehicles like this.