Thanks Punjab! I just saw the tanks on ARB’s site this morning. Based on your experience would you recommend one? I just stopped by the freight dock and picked up my 55” Weatherguard Black Aluminum Toolchest for the truck. My plans were to mount the compressor in the toolchest so there’s certainly room for a tank as well.

 

I think it depends on what you want to use the compressor for. If you're just airing up tires at the end of a trail or running lockers most people say just get a good compressor that can keep up.
If you plan to use a lot of air tools and make regular trail repairs a 3-5 gallon tank can prove useful. I can also imagine some overlanding/camping/mountain biking reasons that it would be nice to have some compressed air on demand without running the truck.

 

Sounds good. Thanks for your insight Punjab.

Today was a snow day so I checked the condition of the toolbox which arrived yesterday in damaged packaging. Fortunately the box arrived unscathed. Set it in place to double check the fit and it looks good.

 

Here’s a view from the side.


And a view from the top. The box has been pre drilled and rubber grommet installed for power to 12V accessories. Grommet is visible looking down the side of the box closest to the truck bed.

And then this afternoon Fed Ex dropped off the OME suspension lift kit!

 

Snow melt/ mud day so I worked around the house and on the Yota. Finished up the passenger side tailgate latch catch. Started on the driver side rear spring with the OME kit and did ok until I got to the front bolt. The bushings on the front bolt would not allow me to remove the bolt. Finally I took a torch to it and the heat cooked the bushing and the battle was over. The spring went on very easily.



Here’s a pic of one of the original bushings which has endured a little wear and tear.

And the passenger side spring removed easily (thanks again to the torch) so I painted everything up and hopefully all goes well tomorrow. Salud!

 

Wrong picture. Here the parts are painted up. 🙂

 

BFH works well on the bolts too! (5# sledge was my tool of choice along with some slide hammer action)

 

I agree Ivans’s. I was smacking it with the hammer and I could feel it move but as it turned out all it was doing was flexing back and forth inside the rubber bushing. Took me a while to figure out what was going on. Anyways I had a little time to work on it today and got the passenger side spring pack in along with the two rear shocks. The truck now has a lean toward the driver side of about 1/2”. Wish the engine was in I’d take it for a little cruise and see if things settle down properly. Here’s what I’m talking about.

Here’s a pic of the underside.

And here’s a pic of the shackle angles. You can see there is a slight difference between the two sides.

Also the new rubber brake line is too short now so it’s time to shop for an extra long one.

 

The truck is almost level this morning after settling 3/4” on the high side and 1/2” on the low side.

 

Good to hear! I used to concern myself with things like this, then had kids & grew outta that stage of my life. Hopefully, you will also? ✌️

Most roads are crowned in the center anyway. 😀

 

Good points Ivans’s. I’m a leaner anyways so it honestly doesn’t matter that much 🙂

So I moved up to the front of the truck where there is plenty of work left to be done. Per the FSM it appears this truck is missing a “stability bar”. Also at some point in the past the inner fender was cut out to improve access to the steering gear box. I’ll have to think about what type of patch to install in the inner fender.

 

Damn that part around the gear box looks like it was cut out with a prison shank. You could weld some sheet back in there or you could try a fiberglass patch.

Underneath the bed looks great!

 

That’s a great analogy Punjab! I’ve never tried fiberglass but that may be the way to go. Wish I had one of those floor mounted tools with the hammer action top that massages steel into whatever shape you need. And knew how to use it. And knew what it was called.

I’ll do some research on the fiberglass and how it attaches to the steel. Thanks!

 

Weekend greetings fellow Yota fans. Had to pass on a minor triumph with the rear brake bellcrank. It’s been sitting in a container of Evapo-Rust rusted in an immovable position without swiveling as it should. Each week I’ve been pulling it out of the Evapo Rust, placing it in a vise and tapping on the arm with no discernible movement. Then refreshing the Evapo-Rust and letting it sit another week. Finally today the arm moved and after several liberal doses of PB blaster it’s moving quite freely. Here it is ready to be put back into service.

 

I ordered several parts this week from SDTruck Springs (new sway bar, brackets, etc. to replace the non existing one which is back ordered until 4/26-5/3), Energy Suspension (bushing kits,bump stops,etc.) and Moog (tie rod ends, drag link rebuild kit, etc). The tie rod dust boot caps just arrived Saturday. Didn’t need for anything else to show up since I’m already behind at work 🙂


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Just arrived home from work to find more goodies from Energy Suspension. The bump stops in the foreground are a GM bump stop but they were the closest in size I could find to the small stops that hang down from the frame just behind the front axle and above the front leaf spring. They’re a bit oversized compared to the OEM Toyota stops but since the OME springs lifted the truck 2” I figure no harm using them.
The bushing kit in the middle is for the torsion bar and the large bump stops in the background I’m using to replace the OEM bushings that sit on the front axle in between the spring pack U bolts. Again they’re oversized compared to OEM stops but probably pretty close to the right size considering the added lift. Cheers!

 

After giving much thought to rehabilitating the existing dash pad or to somehow fabricating one I decided a few weeks ago to order a new one. It showed up this evening.

 

More parts from UPS tonight. Sway bar bushing kit (sway bar is back ordered until 4/26-5/3) from Energy Suspension and a set of brass rods (punches) ranging in size from 2-8mm off Amazon for a very reasonable price. Since I don’t own any brass punches and need to disassemble my front axle to install a new third member assembly the brass rod assortment seemed like a good way to go.

 

Hopefully this bizarre emoji will accurately represent my excitement towards your truck.

 

Cool emoji! I agree it’s easy to get excited about these first gen Toyota 4 x 4s. 😎