Yeah, it's hard to put the shine back on... but I'm nearly certain that the "shiny" ship sailed when the barn burned.

Even silver, it looks less ghettofabulous than the truck did before! It's amazing how much that one piece of plastic can change the appearance of the whole front of the vehicle.

 

maybe tan grille with a black "toyota" logo? (or visa-versa)

 

That's a good idea, I might try that.

 

What is that rubber around your windshield?? I need a new windshield and may go that route instead of trying to save the chrome trim. I would go black grill with tan logo.

 

I just told the windshield guy that I needed a piece of universal rubber trim installed. I don't think he even charged me for it.

 

Call American Glass. They are in Fresno. Ask for the hotrod guy. He did Dbcfrs as well.

 

Double post. A thousand apologies.

 

cool, thanks

 

I give her props

 

Yeah, it's a cool shot. You should see the terrain that was in FRONT of my truck. We call it the ampetheater, because it is a large, wide chute composed of multiple layers of granite, such that they create what appears to be rows of stadium seats. You could probably seat 300-400 people in it, just looking over the Sierras to the east. It's amazing. I'll try to dig up a shot of it (unless Maltese, Dbcfr, Datsayota or one of the other locals has one and beats me to it).

Since WabFab is having a sweet sale until Christmas, I bought myself a present. IFS eliminator kit is on the way. I am going to ground myself from truck purchases for a while (like, until after tax season!), but I didn't figure that I would get a better deal than this ever. I still have to purchase some steel bits and new shocks for the rear, in order to complete the Chevy spring swap to match the front, but just about everything is in place. I'm taking a couple weeks off in December, so hopefully at MINIMUM, I can get going on rebuilding the axle and getting hangers tacked in. We need to get Dbcfr's truck done first.

 

solid axle swap!! I am jelous.. one day I will have that too.

 

@ mountain cop. If you don't mind me asking, what did American glass charge you for the windshield install all said and done? I recently got a nice crack in mine and it has been leaking previous to that, so it may be its time to go.

 

Mike- I don't remember. It was pretty reasonable. Under 2 bills I'm sure, and I think it was closer to one, like $140 or so.

Cougar- The SAS might benefit you. I have a line on a 2nd V6 4.88 third member, so my 4.10 4cyl third with Aussie might be on the auction block soon.

SAS progress: Dbcfr and I are doing two trucks at once, and are also adding a 2nd transfer case in his and doing a chevy spring swap in the rear of mine at the same time.

I haven't been taking as many photos as I should. Here are a few of Dbcfr's axle after and during our reinforcement:

















The axles are painted and drying right now. Hopefully tonight I can make some headway in getting my front Chevy hangers built. I am going to build a square front drive shaft that will have to work until I have the time and money to put my 2nd transfer case in.

Dbcfr's axle is a piece of art. He filled and ground the front surface until it became on flat piece of steel. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was planning on keeping it clean and showing it off down at the mall.

I have had my 60" Hi Lift bouncing around the back of my truck for the last few months. I finally got tired of it. I set the thing on my front Trail Gear winch mount (that still doesn't have a bumper attached to it) and found out that the bolt holes line right up to the holes on the bar of the jack. Dbcfr has some tubing that I will use to make shims and I will get some bolts from Napa tomorrow to bolt it up in front.

Further updates as events warrant- MC

 

Looking good

:wabbit2:

 

For a few weeks now, I've had a slight stumble occur at idle after the truck has been running for a couple of minutes or more. I had an hour to look at it yesterday afternoon. When I tugged a bit on the front spark plug wire, the connection came apart, leaving the crimped piece of metal attached to the plug. Time for new wires, and plugs while I was at it.

The old plugs looked like this (left to right = front to back):



The front plug was a bit cleaner, but a bit darker than the other three. The others all appeared to be running a bit hot, and had a fair amount of carbon buildup. Nothing was fouled.

New plugs and wires in at 142k (for my future reference)

The truck idles better... but not right yet. The stumble is still there. I'm fairly certain I have either a vacuum problem or a faulty EGR. Now, without this going into an EGR vs EGR delete thread, I must remind you that I live in Commiefornia, and the EGR must be present and operational.

 

SAS progress:

We finished building Dbcfr's front axle today, and got started on mine. It is sitting in the shop right now with one knuckle on and one mostly on. It turns out that my donor axle didn't have all of the 10mm bolts that hold the felts and rings in. I need to get seven of them, one of the small hub cones, and one of the axle washers. Looks like I'll be hitting Marlin sometime this week.

Hopefully tomorrow we can get my axles in and everything assembled one one side at least, and get started on the IFS removal from Dbcfr's truck.

Pics from the day:

Dbcfr's housing:


New breather barb. We chased the obscure British threads with a standard 1/8" NPT die and put a 1/8" barb in for a breather hose. The threads chased well, and the barb probably would have spun in fine without chasing them at all.



I got started with my Chevy spring hangers



More tomorrow- MC

 

SAS, day (aw heck, I'm too tired to count):

We had a bit of a setback on my SAS today. I had located a brace of V6 4.88 diffs that I was going to use front and rear on my truck. I picked one up today and found that it is a 4.56 (41 ring, 9 pinion). I'm hoping that the other one is the same. If it isn't, then I will be running with my stock 4.10 rear and a 4.11 front that came on Dbcfr's donor axle. Till I get that figured out, we benched my axle and got to work on some IFS removal from Dbcfr's truck.

We were able to remove all the front drivetrain, suspension and bracketry and get most of it smoothed down. Plasma makes life easier.

Here are some random images that may or may not reflect the above-referenced activities:

 

everything is lookin great so far! good thing its not your daily driver...

 

Well, MY truck is still in one piece. We are still working on Dbcfr's, and it has only been out of commission since last night. We think we can get the axle hung today and drive it out of the garage this afternoon. If that is the case, it will only be down for about 24hrs. In other words, this could be done to a daily driver over the course of a weekend if needed.

 

I couldn't find that radiator anymore. Is it a direct fit radiator or do you have to mount an electric fan for it to work