As long as the electric actuator housing is not damaged on the elocker its prolly fine. Those things are impossible to find alone. Your runner looks really nice by the way!!

 

Zpd, not a problem. Glad I could help get it to the road so a tow truck didn't have to come out to the first breakage at the very least. That would've been one hefty tow bill! Definitely gotta get another run in before summer when I'll be too busy, I didn't get to see your rig in action very much.

Husker, I'm assuming your replying to the post where I showed the pic of the box 4x4yota sent me the elocker in? Yeah, the motor is fine, just 1 wire cut. Should be easy enough to just solder it and seal it up. Of course the gears are shot, but that's why I got it so cheap. Maybe I should tell USPS that they're the ones that destroyed the gears and get them to replace them? Not likely...

 

Well, not much to report on my rig, didn't have to do any trail repairs, exactly. I definitely have a more pronounced wobble in my steering at anywhere from 40 on up to about 65, though. For all I know, my pitman arm is original, 262k miles on it, and I've got quite a few miles on the idler arm, though the bushings still look pretty good in it. Also, I haven't seen the videos yet, but Mark said he was noticing that when I lifted a front tire, it was sort of jumping up and down as it was turning in the air. Pretty sure that's from not limiting the down travel by shimming the droop stop like I had done last time the 4wd was installed. Cheap autozone remans this time, I had EMPI cv's before that Stewsrunner has now cause he was gonna put them on his Runner.

Here's the only video I really have of me wheeling, towards the end you can see the hopping the front end was doing, even after I let off the throttle almost completely


Mark got some various videos and flex pics hopefully he'll post them, but parts on their way now are brass idler arm bushings, pitman arm, both inner and outer tie rods, and new adjusters(full new sets means I can have trail spares already close to proper alignment). I guess I should get an upper and lower ball joint for a spare, too. I've never changed my uppers out since I bought my Runner(76k miles ago!), and my lowers are showing cracks in the grease boots(damn desert). After I replace all my steering, I should be able to reinstall my wheel spacers again(love that little bit of added stability, even if it does make the tires rub a little). Updates when the parts get installed, hopefully this weekend!

 

The hole in the hood was to avoid a body lift for the engine swap right?

 

Yeah!

Although more because I was cheap and didn't want to shell out any more money than I had to unless it meant higher quality parts. I should've just gone ahead and gotten a 1" body lift, I think, but one day I'll just get a Mustang style scoop to cover that hole up.

 

I think the Mustang style scoop is cool, practical and seemingly much less work.

 

Hey buddy,.... The pics are all on PB... Imachefbrotha user id. The album is "Angeles Crest January 3rd thru 5th_2013" ... THERE ARE a couple doubles... Maybe 5. But I think the only doubles are of my car.

My YouTube is imachefmang .... They are all uploading as I type. Ttysoon... It was excellent hanging out man! I really enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie... Your class act dude... To hang out again soon. Good god I hope that I'll be healthy enough by KOH!

 

Hey Mark. Thanks for posting everything up. I love the pix. But u might wanna change that photo album date to "2014" instead of 2013.

 

Sweet, thanks Mark. I'm gonna go ahead and just pirate the ones of me and a few others from your PB!

Saturday morning wake up pic from Mark's hooch


Bit of a late start, but I had to have breakfast, so I'm cooking while Richard sets up their tent/mobile cabin


4 Runners and 2 Tan pickups, waiting for ZPD426 and a couple others


And this is me, in case anybody didn't already know what I look like...pretty sure Mark was trying to get a smile out of everyone, and this is my smile


Drivers group shot


All the rigs lined up after a "test" hill climb just to see if everyone's low range and 4wd was working properly


After a bit, the clutch issue happened on a gentleman's extended cab. That thing was a real sleeper! No lift, dual cases, ARB in the rear, and looked like some springs that just leveled the rig out with the weight of the expedition gear and canopy in the back. I stayed with him while the main group moved on, so this is about the time I caught back up to them when ZPD426's rig blew out his upper ball joint. So since they were working hard to get the trail repair done after I went for the parts run, we naturally screwed off and did some ditch wheeling. I think Mark got something stuck in his wheel well...


Richard and Faby


Me


Mad Flex!






Then my nightly maintenance...switched the idler arm bushings from top to bottom(both looked good, though), tightened up some of the steering joints that could be, and removed the wheel spacers just to reduce the stress on my steering components. Mark felt the need to document it...




I'll go retrieve Mark's videos here in a bit

 

The "Test" hill


2nd hill we did, no video of me, but my front left tire lifted like the Bronco's does in this video. A couple guys tried it going slow, kept loosing traction cause of a bump and dip, so when I hit it, I went for 2nd gear and hammered down a bit. Pretty fun, I usually don't lead foot wheel


This was when everyone was ditch wheeling while the guys were working hard on the T100


Repositioning for my most pathetic flex of the day pics


And on to day 2, just Mark, Richard, Faby, and me.


At about 7 min in on this one we actually do something. I took a wrong turn first...

Got down this hill and decided it was late enough as we were already gonna be doing final breakdown of camp and dinner in the dark. Good call by Mark on that one. You can see the front tires hopping when I got to the top, I still think it's the cv's binding. I guess I'll find out after I fabricate a diff drop or limit my droop more.


And Mark shot some pov from the top of that hill back to the paved road


Hopefully I got that mostly in order, if not, tough. I had a great time, found some weaknesses and was reminded about things I knew I should've had done, but was just too lazy to do. Can't wait to go do it again!

 

Vids came out nice. That ditch wheeling looked fun! I was bummed I only had 3 working wheels at that point

 

I'm glad to see you've got your 4WD back! You removed all of the components when you drove through Truckee, right? How's that locker doing in the rear? Oh and I still have you axles, but we can discuss that in private. The truck is looking good, man. I only hope to wheel with you guys someday, maybe I could ride passenger with someone sometime, now that i'm pretty much rig-less.

 

Yeah, the time we met I'd just removed all the 4wd gear except the transfer case. My sas just keeps getting delayed, and my dd Subie blew it's engine, so I had to reinstall everything in prep for driving to Oregon again. The elocker is getting to be one of my favorite mods on the rig, and I can't wait to have front and rear. When I went on that parts run for the ball joint, I unlocked my hubs at pavement, of course. Coming back I was in a hurry, so I didn't lock them in, just locked the locker and put the t-case in low, drove right up to where the pics are of us ditch wheeling!

If we're ever planning something within a reasonable distance, I'll pick you up and even let you have some wheel time.

 

Well we didn't wheel too much at Hammers with my rig being a bit of a limitation on most of the trails out there, but we got some in. And I took some damage, of course. Came down on a medium size rock on the driver side, dented the rocker. Sliders will be just after the 35's and the trimming needed for the 35's. Hopefully this will be the last documentation of the Runner wheeling on 33's!



I'll get a picture of the damage soon, and maybe Mark will put up his pics or send them to me.

Also, not by fault of OME, my front shocks were toast and the Runner was trying to steer itself for me a bit too much. HUGE thanks to Anthony1 and ChefYota for setting me up with a pair of Edelbrock shocks. Made crawling and highway driving much more controlled again.

 

Are your signal lights zip tied on too?

 

Uh...I'm ashamed to say yes...
Not sure if it was my year's mounting anchors or what, but the tabs that came on the Marlin bumper were too thick for them to go through far enough to snap in place for the screws to actually hold them. One day I'll mount them properly or mod the corner lights to be the signals.

 

That's how mine are mounted. Going to have to fix that for a vehicle inspection.

 

I don't have to worry about inspections, but it's something that's pretty cheesy and I really should fix. Too many big issues to fix first, though.

 

Excited to see it on 35s! How much do you plan on trimming?

 

As much as it takes, then a bit more! I'm not too worried about looks now that this isn't my daily driver(well, not supposed to be anyhow), but I am gonna take some time after the trimming to make sure I get some patch panels welded in. Sorta like this: http://www.trailslesstraveled.com/ar...y-lift-height/

My thinking is that I make room for 35's on the ifs, then I can fit 37's without any more modifications after the sas(or at least I hope so).