No expense has been spared for my back-alley house!

 

Nice work bubba! Keep it up... Anxious for whatever is next!....pics or otherwise.

 

Thanks Mark!

I guess my rear Spartan locker is breaking in. I can hardly hear it any more, and I don't feel as many rough transitions as it locks and unlocks during corners. I can even give the truck some moderate throttle in a corner and it will unlock correctly. I'm sure my driving behavior is adjusting a bit too.

Sometimes it won't unlock while doing a tight turn or backing up, but it's nothing I can't live with.

 

Yesterday as I drove home, the cops had my street blocked off for a parade. I had to convince the officer to let me cross the street, and he finally let me pass. As I turned hard to drive around his cruiser my tires chirped. He turned around quick to see what I was doing. Then as I rolled by him the locker unlocked with a loud bang. Then I cut hard to turn in to my alley after I passed him with the locker popping the whole time. I was fully expecting him to be following me in to my driveway with his lights on, but he didn't.


I just got a thought... what if I masked off a classic 1988 4Runner graphic pattern and hit my truck with gloss black? Masking it by hand would be quite a bit of work, but the results could be interesting.

This pattern:

 

Good grief of a beautiful charcoal 4Runner! Are you saying you want to paint it black with grey stripes or charcoal grey with silver stripes like that?

 

I'd keep it bedliner black as-is, just adding gloss black stripes in the pattern of the truck in the photo.

It certainly wouldn't look as nice as that charcoal 4Runner. I wish.

 

Have you thought about just sanding it down really well and slapping on some gloss black or charcoal grey metallic? I'm not saying it won't look good like that, it sure sounds interesting... I just think these trucks look so great with those original colors all shiny and such. Lol. But yours looks pretty damn good as it is, kind of that new look of flat black that is pretty popular. It couldn't be too much trouble to try it out could it ?

I've been thinking of taping off my paint and just doing a quick once over with some Toyota gold on the stripes... I just think it would be so difficult to do . I think I probably will just wait until I repaint and then either go with the same Toyota gold or maybe the gun metal grey to match the rest of my truck and armor and interior... James Dean creations does a nice job on those!

 

^ I do love a nice original paint 4Runner, for sure. Sanding mine down and repainting would be quite a bit of work though, and I'm pretty happy with how it is.

I REALLY like how I can drive through tight trails, hitting limbs left and right, and my paint doesn't show it at all. It IS perpetually dirty though, since it's hard to scrub the dirt out of the textured paint... but I don't mind a dirty truck.


Speaking of a dirty truck, I made it out to Hidden Falls yesterday. I was solo so I didn't get many photos, but I got this one.

 

Wow, what a weekend.

I hit up Hidden Falls again Saturday with my friend/co-driver Amy. I ran in to some of the great guys I met on my trip out Thursday, and we did a couple trails. This white Rubicon was following behind... it was his first time to the park. Great guys... we had a good time.



Until I backed in to a low cedar tree limb that ripped the hard brake line off my rear axle and tore it in two. This was my first time breaking anything on the trail. I tried to fold and pinch the line, but no luck. I got a ride in to town and bought a new line at NAPA. I bent it by hand, bolted it up, and bled the brakes. As good as new!



We got back on the trail. I was following some great guides for the park, and did some MUCH bigger obstacles than I've done before. I have to say, my 4Runner really blew me away. It is much more capable than I am as a driver, but I plan to catch up. I'll hopefully get more videos from the trip, but so far I have this video of me making my way up the second to last climb on Wildcat Stairway. With my IFS and 32" tires, it took a bit of work.


Did you see that tree shake at the very end? Well... it won.





I have so many mixed emotions about this. This is the first body damage I've put on this truck. I was SO proud of the straight side panels. BUT... I didn't get a ding from a careless shopping cart user in a parking lot. I got those dents at the top of a hairy climb and I'm proud that I made it up. I'm sure everyone's gone through this "first scratch" issue.

Here's a shot at the top of Wildcat Stairway (the damage is on the other side). I might submit this to 4WD Toyota Owner magazine. Sliders aren't on yet, but it's pretty representative, otherwise. I'd prefer to get an action shot, though.



I also saw this pretty nice looking 1st gen pickup for sale.





I left in the evening and got back to Austin at about 9pm. While eating dinner at Torchy's Tacos (if you visit Austin, you have to go here) I realized my phone was missing. I used Find My iPhone and saw that it was still at the front gate at Hidden Falls. This morning I woke up early and drove back out. The front office had found it thankfully, but not before it had been run over. Here's the condition of the Lifeproof case. The phone inside was basically FLAWLESS. Screen and camera are 100% perfect. I'm buying another Lifeproof case right away. Amazing.





Unfortunately Yotatech's forum software is still messing up posts from Flickr, so here's a link to the Flickr page in order to keep with the terms of service since I'm hotlinking the images from my account: /

 

nice video. do you have a locker in the video? if so. looks like you need to air down a bit more. i dont see much tire flex. looks like you need some gears, 4.7 or dual case.

 

Yeah, I've got Spartan lockers front and rear. I was thinking the same thing about tire pressure, I certainly agree. I was at 15 psi. I've been paranoid since a buddy pinched a sidewall at 12 psi, but I have higher ply sidewalls than he had so I should run lower.

 

what?? locked front and rear and having trouble?? i run mine at 15psi during the summer and 10-12 in the snow. maybe its the different tires we run. im only locked in the rear. should look into 4.7 single t case or dual case it. going slow helps

 

Well, you know how videos are, you really can't tell how steep this is. It was STEEP. Fall-down-trying-to-climb steep. It was also my first time up so I wasn't choosing the right line to get around the ledges too tall for my tires.

Hopefully I'll get ahold of some of the other videos that were being recorded from the sides and top that will give a better perspective.

 

True that videos don't show how steep. Guess the loose dirt didn't help with rocks in between. I climb rocks that are taller than my truck with little effort but I didn't have loose dirt.

 

Freaking great....I have seen other videos of my buddy from Dallas at that staircase....it is nasty and lots of hard and loose combo with tons of shale. Sorry bout the carnage....that SUX, proud war wound or not!

4.7 crawl box or duals would definitely help... But some of it is just the limitations of traction with mildly modified stock IFS suspension. HOWEVER, ....at 15 pounds and only locked in the rear with my stock drivetrain I made it up some pretty crazy ass stuff at Tierra del Sol. the only reason I mention this is because it can sometimes come down to something as simple as a free wheel manual locking hub not engaging properly or binding at too hard of an angle on full turn steering/droop. I noticed a few times that you were hitting the gas at a full turn which is a little bit dangerous as far as your CV's. Especially if you are at full droop. I'm sure you're fully aware of this and you just gotta get up the hill sometimes, lol.

Either way you made it and it looked like the day was a lot of fun man!

 

Yeah Mark, I was actually pretty easy on the power when I was at full lock. All the revving you hear is me slipping the clutch to keep the torque low on the wheels without stalling... fingers crossed on the CVs!

At this rate I may be looking at new (bigger) tires sooner than I thought. I'm missing a few lugs with a few more barely hanging on. Just a couple examples below.

 

Wow those are the guard dawgs?.... Aren't those pretty new? Obviously you're up there as much as you can get out and you're hitting the rocks and I gotta tell you that shale stuff that just explodes out of the rocks is your burning out kind of? it just shreds your tires man... Its like really sharp plates of marble... I use to do this fire camp training when volunteering with the forestry for some perks... we would run up this hill that was around 40 degree angle and was just completely covered in that shale. if you didn't tie your pants extremely tight to your boots you would pay! Even then, it would literally cut Levis to shreds in just one trip up the mountain!

I could be wrong and just seen the video incorrectly... But I would definitely get in touch with them if that's happening all over the tires. It looked as if you were doing this, but maybe try 2 turn the wheel back and forth every couple seconds as your spinning your rears at the base of a rock.... It will usually help you creep over once you get one of the other rear tires to start heading up over the edge. I know how it is man, you have to literally be in it to know exactly what is going on and how difficult something else to get up. there's a little spot in the Angeles Crest where Richard and I went, and even locked it is such an odd angle that you can't really see on film and it is very soft talc like dirt the gives way around 6 to 8 inches in a matter of a second once you start to lose traction and spin them... and within that second you've drifted in the rear at least a foot to 3 feet. it looks like nothing on the film but Richard could tell you it is extremely steep on the one side and basically would be a nice roll right into some thick Mesquite. Lol.

 

Yeah Mark, I do the wheel left-right thing sometimes, but I was trying to minimize how much time I spent spinning my wheels on the edges of these ledges, so I think I was more focused on line.

You're also right that the rocks are very sharp where I'm at. I don't THINK the damage is abnormal, but I'll keep an eye on it for sure. I doubt Treadwright warrants for off-road wear, and I wouldn't really expect them to.



I should be installing a CB tomorrow! Hopefully I can get it all hooked up and the weather will hold out for another Hidden Falls trip Saturday. I've had a long couple weeks at work, so I' pretty pumped about getting back out on the trail.

 

Nice, regarding the CB.... thanks for sharing the links.

Can't wait for more trip pics! Lol

 

Ha some of my tires have chunks missing like that too haha. I'm just glad I have thirteen 33/12.5 tires lol ill be rockin 33's till I go through all of them before I upgrade to 35's haha