Quarter Million Mile Build - The Mule

Sweet! Let me know if you start a thread for it on here or YotaTech so I can follow the progress.

 

Took it out for some trail riding this morning on Peavine to scout for deer. It was a little bit slippery with the recent snow and cold temps but as the day warmed up so did the trail. I hate mud at the end.

 

How does the 22r handle the 35" tires?
I went on a run with Jeeps this weekend and my 31s did good but 35s look sweet on the yotas.

 

In town it has enough pep but in the hills it could use a little more. When climbing anything steep it needs to be in low with the 4.10s that are currently in it. Those gears will be getting swapped in the future.

 

My speedo cable was making a pretty obnoxious noise the last few months, especially since its gotten cold. This past weekend I decided to try and make it go away. Got the dash apart and cluster out. The bottom right tab on the cluster was broken so I used some JB weld to put it back together. I bumped it while it was curing and then completely broke it off again when reinstalling it

I drove around with the speed cable exposed and, while steering with my knee, sprayed lithium grease in there. I did this for a couple of miles until I thought I got enough in there. Put it all back together and took it for a spin and the noise was gone. I did notice this morning that it was kind of making the noise again but definitely not as bad. From all the stuff I've read about this problem it seems the only real, long term fix is to get a new speedometer cable. I checked with the auto parts store and they don't have them and I also read that toyota is one of the only places to get them. I do have a credit with toyota right now so I might drop the duckets on a new one and be done with it. I'm also going to p'n'p on saturday so maybe one of the yotas there will still have one

The tab on the right bottom was broken off. Trying to jb weld it back together.


Drove around and sprayed grease

 

And so it begins!

Addicted Offroad front tube bumper ordered.
Warn M8000s ordered.

This weekend in pulling the thirds

 

Just ordered 5.29s, ARBs front and back, and a dual compressor

 

159lbs of awesomeness shipped yesterday! Two day turnaround from ECGS, so fast that now I'm scrambling to get my new birfs and axles to the house.

 

Keep up the good work, love this thing!

 

Thanks man!

I got the rear all tore down last night. I'm running low on truck funds so I'm not getting chromemoly axles until later.

 

Do you find that this truck is easier to work on than the other, simpler I guess?

 

It is with the exception of bolts that haven't been moved in like 30 years . It is crazy how basic old trucks are, makes me start to think I actually know what I'm doing which we know is not the case!

 

I've got my eye on one, that I'm hoping will come up for sale at some point. Looks like it would make a great project truck. He's done some work but it still need a lot of TLC. I slow down to look at it whenever I'm in the area but haven't had the chance to talk with him yet.

 

Go throw a note in the windshield!

 

That'll have to wait till I can convince the wife I need it first

 

I understand that. I pretty much had to grovel for mine

 

Updates

 

Making progress. I cut all the unwanted metal brackets of the housing, cleaned all the old grime off and hit it with some rattle can. Installed the new eco inner axle seals, new diff, 30 spline chromo axles, and got the knuckle assembly all buttoned up including a set of trail gear knuckle seals. While I had the rear axles out I took them to a brake shop and had them work on the frozen bell crank for the ebrake. While they had them apart we noticed all the rusting parts and old junk so I said F it and had them redo all of it for another $100. Got that put back in with the new diff so the rear is done too. My only hurdle right now is getting the old tie rod off of the drivers side knuckle arm. When I was tearing everything down the passenger side popped right off with a tie rod puller but the drivers side was so seized it bent the tie rod puller so after messing with it for a bit I decided to just cut the tie rod arm in two and come back to it later. Well here I am and I still can't get the F'er off. I've soaked it, heated it, hammered it, pickle forked it, on and on and it won't budge so tonight I'm going to start drilling it out and be done with it so I can start driving it again since the taco is making a fucked noise which I can only assume at this time is a CV about to go boom (haven't driven since last week when it started).

Marlin high steer arrived last Friday so next up is burning in the PS mount and installing that stuff after which I can put on my last ubolt flip. And then I'll be done with mechanical stuff and on to some armor items.

We're getting there, slowly but surely