Back to basics 2014 CCSB

Took a little trip to Johnson Valley for new years with my old college club, the polygoats, for our annual trip. This was my first time not taking my diesel, camper, trailer, crawler combo, and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out not having a crawler to hit trails with. Did a short run over to Landers for the big rock and then Landers Brew Co with crawlers and go-fast guys. One of our crawlers promptly ripped his new track bar off as soon as he got moving in the bumps. The brewing company is super cool, and able to be reached all on dirt from the lakebed. Lots of taps, cool divey vibe and just a nice place to chill for a bit.

Our group's "go-fast" contingent is growing more and more, so we had PLENTY of people (10+ trucks, 3 UTVs, 5-6 bikes, etc) all head out for a trip to Slash X the next day. We all got lost, sort of got together, rolled a UTV (with my wife riding shotgun inside), lost the bikes back to camp, made it just past Camp Rock rd where the badass Bronco DNF'd his upper shock mounts and hit the highway, while a few of the trucks continued to Slash X (me being the slowest). A lot of the trails had the little chop that the other guys attribute to UTVs, but whatever makes it, FAAAAWWWKKKKK it sucks, in all of the trucks. Made it to a very packed Slash X, then hit it to Del Taco for gas and food. Somewhere along the way I popped a taillight fuse and didn't realize it until i was on the road home, oh well. Robbed another (no spare low profile mini fuses in the panel Toyota!?) from my wipers and all was good.

Trip was a lot of fun, just different. I don't mind not having the crawler really. While fun, it was just too much work, not enough enjoyment lately. Tacoma maximizes the fun out there, but I'd like to make it a bit more fun. My wife was upset I hadn't told her the bronco had been for sale (C/O and Bypasses on 4x4 beams, deavers and bypasses rear, caged, 4 seats, probably close to 18" travel F/R), and wanted to ride in the UTV all day rather than my truck, soooooo hopefully she's cool with some LT...

 

Truck needed an oil change, so while I had it in the garage, I finished up a couple little things I had been working on and never finished. I bought a Pelfrey fuse panel (and front skid) right before they filed for bankruptcy, and only got one of the things. Installed it awhile back to clean up some loose relays/fuses/leads and to get some Overlanding points. Debated on the fused power lead and ended up being too cheap for the breakers and just got a cheapo stereo type. After trying to install it in the dark for whatever reason, I decided that these trucks need an under hood light. I had some old rock lights from awhile back that seemed to fit the bill perfectly, so I installed a little rocker I had in my electrical drawer and promptly ripped the 50 gauge wire off it by accident. Fixed it, wired in some leads to the light and then installed the fused lead, and in my own stupidity, trying to route the wire, while hot, blew the brand new fuse... I'm a top-level installer, obviously. Anyway, it's in now and lights up the engine bay really well. Couple more small things and then I'm headed to Mexico for another bachelor party in a few weeks.

 

Oh, and the C02 mount load bolt dealio did end up putting a few little gouges in the tank, so I'm going to be working on another fix for it. Or scrap it, who knows. I'm thinking I'll try welding on a piece of angle as an upright, tied into the bedrail as well, and then strapping the tank to the upright with a large hose clamp or something. Maybe even integrate my Hi-lift mount into it?

 

Sounds like all of my wireing projects, difference is I say fuck it after I blow the 8th fuse.

 

Maybe circuit breakers really are our style...pop em all you want, just reset it when you're done hahaha

 

Went to San Felipe for a bachelor party, had tacos, no problems, bitchin time. I love it down there. A buddy fully stuffed his bronco, on the "highway" of all places. Destroyed the front end and compression fractured a vertebrae.

 

I was getting some rhythmic thumping at about 30-35 so I figured it was time to install the carrier bearing (SKFHB238040) I bought awhile back on Rock Auto

Got it all swapped, put it back in with my ~.4" home brew spacer and off a stop, the u joint was actually binding. Solid. Ended up buying new, longer bolts and some more washers and got it up to like .8" and it seems all good now. Good to know I could have just bought $6 in parts from Home Depot and been fine... Still had the rhythmic thumping, and it sounded like the front end so I checked my front shaft and found a good bit of play. Looks like the ECGS bushing is in my future...

Also cut off the tailpipe

 

Now that our little So Cal cold snap is over, after about a year using the hokey cigarette plug-in seat heaters in my Wet Okole covers, I got around to hard wiring them in. The wife will use seat heaters when its 90 out, so she'll enjoy them. First off, when I started working on them, I realized the odd heating I was feeling on these was due to the fact that the Y connector that links the seat back and seat bottom sections had gotten unplugged from the seat bottom pad. The connections are a pretty weak friction fit, so I put some shrink wrap over them to hopefully keep them together a bit longer. The large slider switch the seats use was more than I felt like tearing apart and working with, so I just electrical taped them to high (low is a negligible difference from high and has given me stereo feedback occasionally) so the switches wouldn't get bumped to off.



Next I cut off the plug ends and stripped back to wire in the leads to a common power I ran off of the Driver Rear Window switch fuse using a

$9 Nilight Fuse Holder Add-a-circuit Fuse TAP Adapter Mini ATM APM Blade Fuse Holder-10 Pack , 2 years Warranty

fuse tap from the fuse block under the change drawer, pictured below. I chose this because 20A is nice, and nobody really sits behind me, so it's rare that they would share a load. Also, window still works using the driver door control when that fuse was pulled, so it's just the rear switch.



I ran a common 16 gauge power wire through the dash and center console, where I split it and attached the leads from the seat heaters. I believe I read that they both will pull 5.2A each (Post #12 ), so it might be a hair undersized, but It's what I had on hand, and I doubt I'll be running both of them at the same time very often. I pulled the center console piece and nervously drilled two holes and massaged them to fit some spare switches I had (hence the non-matching look) due to all of the

$13 AutoEC New 3pc Car Truck Rocker Toggle Switch Red Light On-Off Control 12V

switches in the 3 pack I bought failing me. The actual center console needed a bit of dremeling to fit the switches too, but not much. After a bit of wiring, I got everything hooked up and verified it worked. Pretty happy with how it turned out, and even if it didn't bypass the switch issue, it's legit enough for me. The slider switches are under the front of the seats right now, but it might be possible to stash them up in the console somewhere, there's a bit of room under the cover between the switches and shifter.

 

Carrier bearing update:
Back to shitty off a start. I think I just get some decent axle wrap that causes the joint to bind a little at the pinion. @ARCHIVE have you heard anything about it being that the u-bolt plates are straight cut with no bent lip on them? Seems like the only real difference in my setup since, but i'm not sure.

Since I finally searched around and thought I might be getting the rhythmic thumping at around 35 from the front drivers side shaft needle bearing, decided to just go ahead and try swapping it for the @ECGS bushing. I ended up borrowing the tool from a very nice guy off here (thanks again @whatstcp !!!) and got it popped out for the bushing relatively easily. IMMEDIATE improvement. One of those times where you didnt realize how bad something was until you fixed it. The whole front end just feels so much tighter and smoother. Great upgrade over mine, which visually didn't really look bad at all...

Need to get out and go on a trip soon now that hopefully the bulk of this rain has passed...

 

I know man, I was expecting missing needles, cracked cage, general mayhem. Nothing. Mine was seriously just at like 32-36mph, nowhere else, but everything just feels generally smoother now. Also no play on the shaft like before.

 

Absolutely nothing to do with the ubolt flip.
What springs do you have?
What hangers?
Do you have a carrier bearing spacer?
Have you replaced your ujoints?
Are you aware there is a Toyota recall on the ujoints?

 

All my other plates have had the little lip on them for my rick crawlers, just wondering if that edge had any effect. I have the Icon springs in the middle setting, hammer hangers and shackles are on order (wife bought them after Andrew at AccuTune gave her a tip haha), Carrier bearing has been spaced down about 3/4", havent replaced ujoints, they didnt seem to have any play, truck has 45k on it. No, unaware of the recall.

 

Check this thread out, recommending 3* shim with RXTs. It doesn't really make sense why the RXT would need a shim, but maybe it is just a fact.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/sold-icon-rxt-leaf-springs-full-pack.580763/
Do you notice significant axle wrap? Pointing the pinion up a few degrees is a good idea on Tacomas anyhow.
Hammer hangers may help this situation because the shackle pivot is a little lower than stock, rotating the pinion up a hair.

 

I actually already put a shim in it, that was my first attempt at the fix, then I just kept increasing my carrier bearing spacing. I also think this SKF bearing I got off rock-auto isn't really worth a crap. I should really try mounting a go pro underneath to take a look at it.

 

Ok, so its been a running problem. I had a customer (before any Archive parts were installed) tell me he had axle wrap with RXT, he called Icon and according to him, they told him to remove a leaf to reduce spring rate to help, which doesn't make sense and I don't think he tried that.
If you look at design of RXT at front of pack, the 3rd leaf doesn't support the upper two very much, indicating to me it could be prone to wrap, especially with the extra leaf removed

 

I'll have to look at it Thanks for the tip! I may grab some new u-bolts and see if I can add a sort of anti-wrap leaf to the pack maybe, or...just leave it and deal with it haha.

 

Like you said, get a go pro under there and see what is happening.

 

Went on a trip and bought a few things. Decided to do another overnighter in Anza Borrego and didnt realize it was #SuperBloom weekend until the day before. Oh well.

Made it to Calcite Mine Road to check out the one we missed from our last trip, and it was a really cool spot, with some fun little wheeling to get back there. Thanks to a tip from @turbodb we found some really cool slot canyons too.




One of the veins of calcite dug out, used for sights on military planes in WWII




Slots were pretty rad....



After a little lunch, we cruised over to the same spot we stayed at last time, expecting it to be very packed. Passed hundreds of tourists trampling flowers for a cool selfie, walking down the middle of the highway, etc. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful out, but the crowds really kill the enjoyment when they're inconsiderate and in large numbers.









The trip there was a busy one, with WAY more jeeps and such on the trail than last time. Miraculously, there was one spot left so we set up and went on a hike up the canyon.







We came back to find plenty more people had made their own camps around us. Oh well... We enjoyed a nice night around the campsite and things were fine until a large group showed up around dinner and started a party 50 yards away from us, that lasted into the night. My wife couldn't sleep (we forgot the earplugs) so she went over and read them the riot act and they calmed down.





Packed up and booked it out of town home, where the superbloom we had seen was nothing compared tot he poppies on the 15 freeway in Elsinore. Simply incredible, other than the massive traffic jam it created.



Perfect spot for a picture:







All in all a great trip....just need to find those more remote spots to get away from the idiots...

 

Did a little more truck work this weekend. Finally got time to get my @At The Helm bumper after getting it powdercoated.

At the shipping terminal:


Installed over at the AccuTune shop



Picked up some expensive lights too, just waiting on the weatherpack tool to wire them up.

Since I was at the AccuTune shop, and they had a lift, we decided to do some more work. and threw it on the lift.

Turns out my rear shock eyelets are getting sandblasted pretty good with all my broverlanding


Went to install another new carrier bearing due to some nasty vibes on takeoff only to find 2 roasted u joints, one of them real bad. The dried up one jut happens to be the grease zerk one, of all joints....




The vibes remain, so I may try spacing the bearing down a little more, or maybe just nuking the whole damn truck and going back to sports cars.

 

As is tradition, I go on vacation to Europe and my buddy Andrew at AccuTune decides he really wants to install things on my truck for me. It's a pretty sweet setup. He knocked out the hammer hangers from @ARCHIVE that he talked my wife into getting me for my birthday and did a little tune touch ups while he was in there.




This past weekend, we headed out to Big Bear and ran Rattlesnake canyon, Heartbreak ridge and some others, planned out by @bprout. Always forget to get poser shots for the gram, so this is all I got. Need to get the truck in the dirt some more soon...