Sweeeeet! I hope this helps with your overheating a little bit, hoping to stave of the inevitable radiator replacement. Nice work man!

 

Has it still been running hot after the knock sensor repair?

 

You guys are so lucky to have the 50% off sales. Wish they had things like that here. Looks like you scored well. Good to hear you passed emissions. I am sure that is always nerve racking when that comes up.

 

Great Rig. It was good to meet you and do some wheeling. Thanks for keeping us company during the trail fix!

 

I didn't get out and video much, but here's what I got of your rig the 2nd day





Hopefully you or Mark can get those included in a video edit or something, I'm not really techie enough to do all that. It was good to get out wheeling with you and meet Faby, I had fun and am looking forward to future trips.

 

So i figured i would just go ahead and add all the pix Faby and i took with our phones and Nikon Coolpix camera. I'm sorry for the pix guys. I i could have sworn i got more pix but im assuming most of the better ones were taken with Mark's Canon camera. Seriously wish we would have taken some pix of each of the rigs individually and of our campsite. We didnt get many chances to snap action shots. Oh well. Here's what we got.

Myself, My buddy Julio, and neighbor Ruben all packed and ready to leave to Angels Crest.


Here we are on (i think) Mt. Emma road waiting for the other 3 rigs to show up with Zach, James, John and (i think it was his son?)
From front to back we have Chefyota4x4 red 4runner, my neighbor Ruben's tan 85 pick up, My 89 charcoal gray 4runner, My friend Julio's 86 toyota pickup, My Coworker John's 2012 4runner, and Johnnyboy's blue 2nd gen 4runner.








Some pix of my Coworker John's 2012 4runner headed up hill then getting pulled over the top ridge with Mark's rig.






My friend Julio's 86 pickup. With Faby and Zach(zpd426 on yotatech) in the background


Not too long after starting we began we had one of our Yotatech members clutch burn out. I didnt get pix of that but a about an hour and a half after that happened, my next door neighbor and buddy Julio both left and towed him out onto the nearest hwy. Ruben and Julio both left home after that.

Not too long after we began to move on forward we ran into Zach's t100 breaking an upper balljoint on the passenger side. Unfortunately these are the only pix i got of his t100. Worst part of all is that this damage happened on a pretty nasty incline. His left wheel was completely straight. While his passenger wheel was turned WAYYY to far off to the left lol i think in these pix they had already moved the wheel some.






Video Faby took of the guys at work.



They eventually used tie downs to hold it back in place just enough to roll the truck back down the hill to a somewhat semi level surface before it popped out again. At this time Johnnyboy was just arriving from the auto store with a replacement uppper ball joint.

While the guys were installing the new ball joint we decided to have a bit of fun with the crevaces in the floor and take some poser flex shots! lol
Here is my Cowoker's 2012 4runner


the rest are all mine with a few of Mark's truck included. Sorry i thought i took some of your's but i must have used your camera to take the pix of your truck mark.






























After the guys got the upper ball joint on we drove away and the lower balljoint gave in and kicked the bucket as well! Talk about bad luck. We didnt even get to the main fire road lol By the time this happened the sun was already going down. So we spent a good long while waiting on Zach's friend to get back from a super far long drive out to a distant autozone store. Once he got back Mark and i lit up the night while the guys worked on the rigs. Here are some pix of the work area.




The following day Faby, Me, Johnnyboy and Mark all went out for some wheeling after sleeping in and having some breakfast.
I know Mark and johnny got most of the pix and videos of this day. I only got this one video of Johnnyboy going up a steep bumpy incline with his 4runner


I'm sure we'll have many more pix and videos to come once Mark posts them on his page.

 

looks like even with the breakdowns ya'll had a great time

thank you again rich for the picts of your engine its been confirmed the 90's issue is a about to die 3.0 timing idler got a tiny bit of slack in the belt an spun it it growled an grinded to a stop very quick SO im on ebay lookin for replacements

 

Awesome flex!! Great scenery as usual!!!Its so amazing you guys can do this in january and it looks like summer.

 

Thank you man. Thanks for coming down. Shît happens all the time on trails so I wasn't really tripping about the break down. My only complaint was the it was cold as hell! Lol
The way I see it I wouldn't want people to just take off and leave me stranded if I was stuck. So its all good. It was still fun.

You're welcome. And boy I wish you the best of luck replacing that man lol. I know its a big pain

Thanks man. Im happy we got some flex pix in. Its funny to be because the last time I was here my truck was still stock and getting stuck in everything lol.
You would imagine it be hot right!??. But it just looks like summer because we were in a desert like area. It was still cold as heck though.

 

Hey Rich, Faby, Mark & Guys!

Looks fun! Glad for you, guys, for teh fnu and the fact that you were able to quickly and safely deal with the breakdown.
Regarding ball-joints, Those things are critical, especially at high speeds, so I'm concerned... Do they typically just go without warning, or would there be some symptoms/warning signs (like excessive play) that we can catch when we do inspection per FSM?

Regards,
Ray

 

Great photos and Video. Looks like a great time as always with you guys. Definitely jealous that you can wheel like that all year round.

 

I found out the joint I had was Chinese, Also with my coilover conversion i should not have been using the stock droop stops. Usually there will be play and wandering on the highway. just get the toyota ones. Check them for play every 6 months or so.

 

Thanks a lot, Zach; I'll do that.

 

Just watched your John Bull video again.

Thanks for posting that!


I have a video up of my winch dropping dead.

 

Hows it going Rich? Haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope all is well.

 

Thanks. Its definitely nice having a variety of different terrains here in California. I haven't tried all of them yet. But rock crawling in big bear is definitely the biggest adrenaline rush for me.

Damn those Chinese and their cheaply made parts.

Thanks for viewing it out. I'm glad you liked it. Btw I checked out your winch video. Wtf? Did you ever find out what it was? I'm gonna have to test out my winch in the driveway just pulling up the slight hill attached to my dads work truck. See of the rope pulls the truck with no problem.

Hey man. Thanks for asking. I haven't even been on yotatech lately. Been ridiculously busy lately. After the last trip I got word from my boss that he wasn't gonna be able to keep me employed at our location or open up another shift for me like he had originally promised. Of course this made me mad but it is what it is. I was more concerned that he just told me 1.5weeks before my school started when I had told him since way back in early November to let me know if I need to look for another job or not. Anyway needless to say. I found a job. It is Saturday and Sunday's unfortunately but hey it pays the bills.

So for the last 2 weeks I was working the last job Mon thru Friday 40hours a week while I began my new job. And on top of that they offered me 2 more days which would be wed and thurs from 8-12-7pm.

So I was pretty much working 2 almost full times jobs for my last week amd a half of work.
Now I only have the 2nd job and still adjusting to the drastic time schedule change. Im so used to having a monday thru friday morning shift that I got spoiled. Unfortunately for me I won't be doing any offloading trips any time soon at all. I just started my first day of school yesterday to become a Certified Surgical Technician. My schedule at school is gonna be mon through Fri from 8am to 5pm. And with working graveyard wed/thurs 12-7am and saturday and Sunday's mornings into swing shift I am pretty much left with no time at all. Whatever time I do have I am gonna need to use toward the massive loads of homework, studying, and most of all SLEEP.

I am very anxious to actually begin the classes. Yesterday was only an orientation. But out week will start up this coming monday and we already have a bunch of homework to complete for that day.

All I've got to say is that I am pretty exhausted right now. But definitely I look forward to this school. Ill keep you all updated.

 

Good luck Richard, I wish you the best of luck and success. I know you can do it, the schedule may seem daunting, and it is...but you need to just put your head down, focus, and drive on.

When I got out of service I went to school full-time, worked full-time, and served at least one weekend and sometimes two weekends a month in a specialized national guard unit.

You will become the master of cat naps, have a portable alarm with you all the time so you can set it and not oversleep when napping.

Be careful when you drive, you'll be very sleepy.

Purchase a digital audio recorder and re-listen to your lectures at work.

Do not miss any days of school, it is better to fall asleep in class than skip it and sleep at home/car. Professors remember those who are there every day and could mean the difference between a pass or fail.

Limit your caffeine before an exam, you tend to over think and sometimes forget what you studied. I remember I amped up so much one time my hands were shaking when filling in the circles on a scan-tron, good thing that exam wasn't a written exam!

You can function clearly with 4 straight hours of sleep every 24 hour period. Ensure you get AT LEAST 4 hours of sleep before exam days, plan for it with your work schedule. Meet with your professor and ask for as much notice as possible so you can arrange time-off.

When you complete this...you'll view everyone else as a girly man!

Another success story to keep you motivated, is recently my niece received full scholarships (including housing and medical benefits), $30-33,000 a year stipends, and numerous fellowship grants from the top 3 universities for the doctorate programs in bio-chemistry. University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Harvard University. I think she's choosing Columbia.

She was one of the popular cute girls in high-school and lost her focus, she was devastated when she didn't get into any of her chosen 4-year universities while her friends were all accepted. She settled for Cal State Univ. Long Beach (my graduate school alma mater she took no comfort in knowing I went there!! bhahahaha...) Instead of giving up, she re-focused, studied her ass off and gave herself no time for a social life the past 4 years. She will be graduating Magna cum laude and ended up having the top universities courting her to their 6-year doctorate programs. She will be attending school with a full-ride and them paying her nearly $75,000 (stipends/fellowship grants) a year while she goes to school!! Imagine that...an ivy league school paying her to go to their school. Can't imagine what the private sector or government will be paying her after having her doctorate. She will be working on water purification, which I believe leads to working for homeland security to protect our nations water system from terrorist biological contamination warfare. So I guess she does have some of our family's military bearing in her, makes me proud!

 

Rich,
I am really sorry to hear about the job loss. I have been there myself. My wife and I got married in 2007 bought a house in 2007 and I lost my job three months later in 2008.

We ended up having to move to Iowa and use all of my retirement fun that I had built up through the years just to get by. We almost lost the house before we could sell it and I couldn't find any decent work to pay our bills. So I was doing so much side work after my day job that we never saw each other.

She worked nights and I worked days for almost three years before we were able to get on our feet.

It might be hard and an uphill battle , but you will get through it all an be a stronger person when it's all over.

Just keep your eye on the end goal and do not quit moving forward.

 

On the bright side week days are awesome to get stuff done and study. Good luck buddy. I'm sure you'll do great.

 

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