MARYLAND TACOMAS

Ha, that one is hard. I'd rather butcher a hog.

 

From my day.

Still getting use to the new sight picture but after a few tweaks to the front post and windage got consistently better. The rest of it is just rusty ass fundamentals.

 

Looks good. Caliber? Holes look bigger than .223. More .308.

 

Nope 223 the rifle is a 556 chamber

 

Trick of my old eyes, I guess. Good shooting.

 

Nice grouping killer. How many meters out are you? Hard to tell from picture but looks like 100?

 

Had a lady I work with tell me I look nice because for once I made time to get a haircut. Then she tells me my face looks fat... Not sure where she was going with that compliment. I could only laugh and ask her why she didn't just tell me I look average?

Hope you got a laugh on this chilly Saturday morning. Matt is coming over to get his sliders for his 3rd Gen today! Pics to come.

Off topic, any of you fine, modern gentlemen have a FJ they're willing to let us measure up for parts?

 

chilly is right. had ice on the windshield this morning.

 

I left the house at 3:30 and the car was ice free, got to Baltimore at 5. Must be colder where you are!

 

Do you know what the bearing/sleeve pivot point part is called or where it can be purchased that guys use for their swing out tire carriers?

 

depends on what kind of swing out you want. sounds like you're taking about a spindle mount. essentially an a spindle from an idler axle on a trailer, but instead of a hub on it, it just has a DOM sleeve on it. if that's what you want, I've gone through ruff stuff before. http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/STIRES.html you can also get their "bumper kit" if it fits your design. http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/R2126.html I prefer to put a little more beef into a trailer hitch, so I got a 12 inch receiver, instead of the little nub they send.

however.......if it fits the design of the bumper you are building, I prefer to use two pivot points, with either bushings, or rod ends. http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/Forged-Poly-Bushing-175-OD_p_1944.html with two threaded mounts, this allows you to adjust the carrier when it sags a little over time.......and it will sag. you see a lot of people closing their swing gates and having to lift up the end a little to get it back into the fully closed position. the guys with spindles will just have to deal with it. but if you have two adjustable pivot points, you can fine tune it to close without getting hung up.

 

if you do go with the spindle mount, instead of welding tube directly to the spindle sleeve, I highly recommend manufacturing a clamp similar to this. that way when it does sag, all your customer has to do is loosen two bolts and raise the carrier a small fraction of an inch,

 

I was referring to the spindle mount and I assumed it would sag, that is a long moment arm with a good amount of weight on it.

 

Good call. That is easy enough to do. They have a tube bumper on their 2nd gen 4Runner and want to add the swing out tire carrier. Easy to make, just want to make sure that point is solid.

 

tube bumpers are harder to make spindle swings aesthetically pleasing on, because it's awkward trying to weld round bar stock (the spindle), to a tube. whereas on a plate bumper, you just cut holes in the plate and slide your spindle in. however.....tube bumpers tend to be much more rigid, so you will see less sag over time with their setup.

 

Also, tell your customer, that as it sags over time, that can be in part do to the bearings wearing. that spindle uses standard trailer axle bearings. they can get replacement bearings online for a couple bucks. nice quick fix every couple of years.

just in case I didn't describe it well, the double pivot setup is extremely common (see first picture), but very few people integrate adjustment into it, esseentialy wasting half the benefit of having two pivots vs one. here's an example of the adjustable setup (see second picture).

 

Yeah. He sent me a few pictures of his bumper, then a few designs of what he saw with a tire carrier. It does look somewhat awkward. No good way to weld it to the tube.

 

did I give you my email? if I did, and the customer won't mind, send me the pictures (or post here). there are a couple cool tricks you can use (sleeveing the spindle and such) to help blend it into the bumper.

 

It's a 25 meter target the distance is probably slightly more than 25 meters I need to actually measure but the target simulates a 300 meter target and its used to zero your AR at 25 meters.

 

all I know is I wanna bow hunt yer backyard!!