The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Looks good, but I meant the support

 

lil bit.

 

That is purty. And what i need.

 

mine was in 3 pieces. and the sheet metal under was tearing. Wasn't any saving it.

 

I wonder if I could adapt that to fit in with the stock sheet metal, mines not cracked through all the way so maybe I can salvage it before everything falls apart. I don't know how long the patch plate I put in is going to hold.....

 

Use the rubber height adjusters, mine took I think one full turn to even out the hood post rad bushings

 

BTW, if you're going to get the AeroCath latches, get the real thing. There are a lot of companies that make knock offs where the main housing is plastic and is known to fail if put under stress and not an aesthetic addition. AeroCatch uses aluminum housings. The huge price difference will tell you what you're buying.

 

Thank you. I love the simplicity of the fix. I'd likely do the same, now that I've seen it.

Thanks. Yup. Keep her happy! That popup is like a transformer! I had no idea that they could do that!!!

Thanks Alex for pics / description. Core support in square tubing looks really good!

Congratulations! You've won the geographical lottery of the world! San Diego is such a great place for diversity of terrain. Our backcountry has a rich mountain gold mining history, the impossible desert railroad, desert cattle ranchers of the 1920's the Butterfield Overland Mail route, native american sites and artifacts, are all very accessible with 60-90 minutes of travel.

Since you're new to off-road and want to learn and do more. I would suggest this for starters:

1. Get and old junk spare wheel / tire combo from anywhere. Drill a 1/4" or 3/8" hole in it. Then practice repairing the tire with tire plug kit in your driveway. You want the tire plug kit with the "T" handle reamer, and plug applicator. Buy more plugs to augment the kit. Practice it more than once.
2. Acquire a decent air pump. I recommend the Viair 90P compressor for about $90.
3. Also get a 10"x10"x3/4" piece of pressure treated plywood. You'll use it for bottle jack when offroad.
4. Practice using the factory spare tire tools to drop the spare tire and then hoist it back up. Do this in your driveway to make sure everything is good to go and the factory didn't mess up with the tools. Also exercise the bottle jack to make sure that works too.
5. Make sure you have all three (plug kit, compressor, plywood) with you when you leave pavement.

 

Did you find ones that are made of aluminum?
I looked at a couple models on their website and the ones that mentioned it says they are made out of some type of plastic/composite material.
Mine was a composite style material that came in their branded packaging.

 

I think these are them. http://www.aerocatch.com/

 

I misspoke. They aren't completely made of aluminum. I remember reading about the knock offs that the pin threaded attachments were weak and would rip out of the base. I had to revisit that and double check. My mistake. Could've sworn there were some aluminum ones.

 

Swapped out a set of LCA's, thanks for the inspiration @Crom and getting me the spare set @GHOST SHIP !

 

I still need to do mine. Got another project on the bench that is taking priority though. and money. and time...

 

It cost just over $200 for the bushings and ball joints.

 

Here’s my 16 year old daughter fixing her tire.

 

Looks good! How many miles on your OE arms?

I haven't said too much about the Whiteline bushings on my truck since installing. I was looking at them this weekend and I had some thoughts.

They work well, and I like them.

They provide better steering input for control of the truck and I get good road feedback. I like that. What I don't like is they introduce more maintenance on the truck.

There is no easy way to service the bushings (reapply grease) without partial disassembly that I can see. The grease also collects pebbles / sand. For the time being I don't think it's a problem, just cosmetic. But until I disassemble and inspect I can't be 100% sure.

When it comes time to reapply grease, my theoretical plan is to: jack stand truck, pull the wheel, clean bush, loosen the LCA nuts, and use the needle adapter with grease gun to get in there.

With my truck low mileage now, I'm not sure when that's going to happen.

 

They had just over 100K on them and were pretty much shot. Good idea on greasing them at regular intervals.

 

Tire update 74,810 mi

On Saturaday I rotated my tires myself. I also pulled the rear brake drum covers and clean and adjusted rear brakes. Like a dumbass, I tried to pull the drum cover with the brakes on for a minute. Why is this so hard?!?

I used my 5-tire rotation pattern.



I noted wear on each tire:

Code:

Front Driver (FD) 11/32" center, 13/32" outer
Front Pass.. (FP) 8/32"  center, 9/32" outer
Rear Driver. (RD) 16/32"  center & outer  (New tire introduced into first rotation ~5K miles ago)
Rear Pass... (RP) 10/32"  center & outer
Spare........(SP) 10/32"  center & outer

Tires overall are in good shape. I noted only three damaged parts.

• Slice on shoulder, exposing cords in tread. This is bad. Toyo states that the cords are located at 2/32" of tread depth. This is currently my spare. Should be retired.
• Small slice missing near tire bead on interior of wheel.
• (1) missing tread block.

Everything else is normal.

Post-rotation drive was very good.