Not a whole lot besides some use and some research. I've taken her to the desert a couple times and other than a warning light on the way home the last time which I haven't checked out; she ran great. EDIT: I also fixed up the front signals, headlights and the front electrical where I was confident it wouldn't catch on fire. :facepalm

Next steps are the rust and quite possibly an engine swap. I haven't done the front end yet due to the serious possibility of some serious engine compartment work for the swap. That may dictate some different choices on the long travel side of things and a very serious conversation with Nate. EDIT: This is also what stopped me on pulling the harness and starting to replace things there. If I go with the swap, lots of that will go along with the brain.

I have some more measurements to do and a bit more research on geometry for the 4x part of things before committing.

 

You mean you took it off-roading and you didnt post any pictures??? Lol jk Sometimes we're just having too much fun to take any haha

Ha i think we should always be confident that the our wiring jobs should never catch fire. Hey what kind of engine swap were you planning on doing? And are you planning on doing a write up on it with lots of pix? im just curious because i would love to follow an engine swap thread from the very start to the end. I will do an engine swap some day too just not sure if i have the knowledge to do one myself.

 

The off-roading was mostly getting our butts and packs out to the locations. Not so much working the truck out. I don't have enough confidence in her yet for that. Was mostly sand wash river beds and some lowland back country mountain roads to trailed heads on the east side of the sierras.

Absolutely the work will be documented well. I've met up with some local guys that do work with the CARB/Refs and tons of experience with swaps in everything you can imagine that requires everything from just mounts to complete chassis fabrication.

I need to finish up my research on the diesels. I don't really care about drop ins, I'm now more concerned about long term part availability and reliability plus future proofing the mounting choice. Pretty much everything is on the table. These guys really specialized in LS motors and the Refs basically wave em through if that's what they do now. Of course there's things that need to be done in the compartment to make that work but nothing that I haven't done on rods before.

Once taxes are paid, I should get started on the body work which is not insignificant.

 

Couple pics from the last few months:

 

Dang, A Diesel swap would be amazing! I want a roaring v8 in mine lol
Those pictures look great. Where is that? That stone house looks cool. I'm always drawn to abandoned stuff like that.

 

I want the LS too but a diesel is a far better choice if I can pull it off.

That's the top of Mt Whitney at dawn.

 

Have you seen the toyota v8 turbo diesel. Man i would love that thing in my truck lol. Sounds like a beast!

 

Yeah, there's a ton of diesels out there that would be excellent choices. I've been trying to find the simplest solution once installed for long term care and parts vs something like a straight up powerplant with likely another decade or two of wild enthusiast support like the LS options.

 

So I am going to replace my locks hopefully in a few days and got my set in. Only thing I'm missing is my gate lock now.

 

One of the best anti theft mod

 

Soooo hey whats up man. Just checking in on a few threads. i havent seen any updates on ya at all. You still active on here? How is the 4runner?