Run to the Hills! - Jason's Completely Stalled Colorado GTFO Build

Hey Jason if you need a helping hand with anything in the near future let me know. I'll be out of town for the holidays but will be free at the turn of the new year.

 

You're the man, Austin! I really appreciate that, and I'll keep you in mind.

 

Hell yeah!

I can't wait to see this thing out on the trails.

 

Trail Gear Rear Tube Bumper Install

It isn't huge progress, but it's still progress!

Got the new Trail Gear rear bumper mounted up last night.

BEFORE:




AFTER:

 

Looks sick Jason....sooooooo much better!!!

 

Thanks, Robert!

I'm really happy with it. The fit was absolutely perfect and exactly what I was going for!

 

Nice. Such a clean bumper design. I have always liked that one.

 

Thanks, man! I love tube bumpers on the 1st Gen trucks. And the simplicity of this one just always appealed to me.

Still looking forward to seeing that badass ride of yours in person!

 

Firewall Tubbing for 35s - Sealing and Finishing

I managed to get a little bit further with sealing up the driver side firewall tub.

In hindsight, I wish I would have done self-etching primer after all of the rust removal and prep work and before the seam sealer. But I didn't, and I'll just have to see how well things hold up going this route.

Anyway, this afternoon I was able to get a few good coats of self-etching primer down over the tubbed area as well as the seam seal.

The first thing I did was hit the tub itself with a wire wheel to remove any surface oxidization and also give the metal a little bit of 'tooth' to promote good adhesion. The next step after that was to wipe everything down with acetone, including the sheet metal and factory sealant beyond the weld areas. I forgot to grab a picture of everything post-prep, but this is basically what I was working with prior to that.





Then I just threw down a few light layers of the self-etching primer over the entire tubbed area and slightly onto the original surfaces beyond. Hopefully this will be a good base layer for the Flex Seal and Herculiner. The goal for today was just to get the damn exposed sheet metal cleaned up and covered up at the very least. Mission accomplished!

 

Id say your looking pretty good there jason. You're painted over the seam sealant and if your hitting it with herculiner that will give you an even better seal. Definitely do the flex seal over as the last layer of protection if you feel you need it. But that definitely looks solid to me

 

Agreed, sealing def looks great. Your tub job is so clean too, looks nice and smooth. Rear bumper looks good too! Might need to end up moving that plate to the tailgate eventually if you ever dig the rear bumper in anywhere. I've lost mine a couple times. :X

 

Thanks, Rob! I really like the idea of the flex seal over the bedliner in the tub area. It definitely couldn't hurt, and I don't want to take ANY chances with leaks.

Thanks, Mike!

The plate is just there temporarily, but I'm seriously thinking about relocating it to the tailgate permanently. I don't see a swing out in my future, so that real estate is available. I ordered the Trail Gear plate frame with the light last week. Maybe I'll rivet the frame to the tailgate and go that route...

 

Redline Hood Strut Install

As I was waiting in between coats of primer, I decided to knock out my hood struts once and for all. Like a lot of my pending mods, I have had the parts sitting on my rack for a month or two and I'm just now getting around to doing the work.

HOOD PIVOTS:

Despite the dire warnings in the instructions, I still dimpled the hood skin juuuuuuuust a little bit on one of the six holes. But that's all it was, thank goodness.





THE FINISHED PRODUCT:

I'm already hopelessly in love with these damn things. I must have lowered and raised the hood about ten times, giggling the whole time.

 

Thanks for stopping by, man!

 

Totally missed this.

The geometry is different on the shock. Mainly the lower mount is further out. This changes how the weight affects the springs.

I love the long travel. Makes the boring roads way more fun because you can go super fast. Haha rides amazing. Takes big bumps, holes and ditches so much better too. Can really push it. That may be a con too...

Haven't had an issue with width yet. Either drives over the problem or still fits.

 

Thanks for stopping by, Monte!

And thanks for the info on the long travel option! When I first got this truck, I just kinda assumed that I'd eventually go with a solid axle. But more and more I find the LT option intriguing.

Neither SAS nor LT are cheap, but for my purposes (overland travel, multi-day camping), LT up front might be the better way to go. I've had to do a fair amount of 'approach' driving on freeways and highways, and a helluva lot of washboards to get to remote camping spots. It seems like LT would be more suited to that as well as some medium-duty crawling. No personal experience to draw on to support that though.

The questions I have for the LT and SAS guys are the following:

• How does the rear end get set up to maximize the performance of the LT front suspension while still supporting fat ass overland loadouts?
• Is LT with an overland bias actually better behaved on pavement (highways specifically) and washboards than say, a leaf sprung (what I would consider a basic) SAS rig?

@SilverGhost, @Blackdawg, @3378jakesr5, @1999RegCab...

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

Truck is looking damn good brother! Wish my 3rd gen 4runner had that many miles instead of 200k.

 

Rear is easy to setup. You can keep a basic rear shock relocation for simplicity and tune the shocks and add bumps.

You can also grab a tundra or t100 rear Alex and then relocate the shocks outboard the frame. This is my plan. Lots of cool options then for shock setup and bumps.

I personally find the lt fun and easy for the stuff I do. And it'll hold its own in crawling. Like you. The rough roads to remote camping is what I do mainly. Driving them at 40-60mph with ease when before 15-30 was rouh is just a hoot. Fits my style better.

SAS is cool but I wouldn't get to utilize it as much for what I like. Which is 800-1200 mile 2week long trips offroad. There are way more miles of dirt road vs super rough rocky terrain. Id rather have lots of fun going fast for 80% of the trip than 20%. Because even so the rocky shit is fun in long travel.

Not that solid axles can't do any of that. They can. Takes a lot more tuning on the shocks to get it to be stable like ifs though and even then there are trade offs.

I also don't like the height a basic leaf sprinp SAS does. Way too tall. Aka tippy.

Links are the only way to go imo for SAS. Which also has its trade offs.

Id love a crawler one day. But I don't think Id ever make my tacoma SAS for long overland type trips. May as well buy a jeep. Which is awful awful awful on the roads and rough roads haha

For speed, reliability, and comfort. I'll stick to my long travel. It's so fun.


Also if width is a major concern. Frontrangeoffroad is coming out with a 2.5" wide kit for us. Should be interesting..

 

Damn. That's some good stuff right there, Monte! Thanks for the input!

I kinda figured that would be your position, and like I said before, it just made sense to me for the purpose of my rig.

I love the idea of a Tundy or T100 rear to avoid having to run crazy width spacers. Do you know off the top of your head what size ring those diffs run and if you can run an ARB?

Now that I hear all of this, I think my dream setup would be that FROR +2.5" LT setup up front (or even +3.5"), a Tundra rear axle with an ARB, my Marlin crawl box for the super slow, and a supercharger for pulling my shit up the passes and having fun over the washboards. That would be bad ass!

Thanks again for the input. So many people in here willing to share their experience. I really dig that.

 

Thanks! I'd love to have a 3rd Gen T4R! Always thought they were kick ass!