92Shawman's 1992 3VZ-E SR5 Pickup

Yeah I'm guessing all of the connections are good and it should be set up pretty well. He was an operator for 30 years and was a net controller, too, I'm pretty sure. They did tornado watches and had an early warning system set up!


You know it! I was about to come back in with a comment on how expo it was.

Tacos and Runners! I have a 2014 runner checked out for next week just because I can and I wanted to see how the new ones are. Those inverted leafs are on one of the older ones, a 2006. There are one or two first gens still around, too, I think.
Gotta love those gm contracts for you guys.

 

Photo dump/trip report from Mojave Road:

Rolled into Afton Canyon in the dark and the wind on Thursday night, this was Friday morning:

IMG_0941_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_0938_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Some water crossings!
IMG_0955_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Little deeper for me on 31's
2015-05-22-MNP-020%20copy by at_olw, on Flickr

IMG_0957_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_0965_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

2015-05-22-MNP-043 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

 

Ran into this guy on the hiking trail. It was fascinating to see him imitate a rattlesnake/pit viper by curling up and shaking its tail like a rattle. Had there been leaves on the ground it would've been much more intimidating!
IMG_0959_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Quite lush in the creek, there! A welcome change to windy and dusty Afton campground.
2015-05-22-MNP-026%20copy by at_olw, on Flickr

The road follows the train tracks for a while.
2015-05-22-MNP-072 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

And in that canyon we found some slot canyons! One of them was called spooky canyon, and it was actually quite spooky. Really seemed like more of a cave at times, but it was also spooky because there was climbing gear left in the canyon to get up some of the big ledges. The lower one was quite sketchy and I'm glad we didn't rely on it. Given that one, we didn't feel comfortable climbing up the larger ledge with the gear that was there, so we turned around.
IMG_0989_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Found one big enough for the trucks
2015-05-22-MNP-050 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

 

Found some cliffs with pretty colors and a crazy mine:
IMG_0974_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

After the canyon petered out the scenery changed to more of a dune/wash, which was interesting for the first few miles but definitely grew old. There was one area where the road was actually driving on dune-like sands, which was really cool. Sadly, no photos of that.

That took us to Shaw pass:
IMG_0990_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And then back into the washes until we got to Soda Lake and Traveller's Monument:
2015-05-22-MNP-095 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

2015-05-22-MNP-092 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

We made a detour to try to lengthen the road itself because we had four days to kill and people do it in a day, so we turned south at one point to try to get to some interesting-looking topography. Once we got there, yeah, it was pretty interesting, but the way there was a lame road that crossed water runs every 500 feet or so, which really slowed us down. The road through the topography was packed full with power lines, too, so it wasn't even that worth it! Ah well, not all detours turn out to be interesting.

 

That took us over to the lava beds and some lava tunnels!
IMG_1013_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

From there we headed over to a known dispersed camp site.
The look back towards the lava fields. Crazy clouds!
IMG_1017_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Found a nice Joshua Tree to pose next to
IMG_1020_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The Mojave Road Mailbox:
2015-05-22-MNP-123 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Rolled into camp after a long day and there was no one there, so we had our choice of sites and a nice calm night!

The next morning:
2015-05-23-MNP-125 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

 

The next day we went to Hole-in-the-Wall in the center of the preserve and it was pretty cool! It was a lot more amazing when I was a smaller kid, but it was still impressive!

Petroglyphs
2015-05-23-MNP-130 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Hole-in-the-Rock Trail_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The trail went through the middle of those cliffs!

The infamous rings...that really weren't that strenuous, but, ya know, average tourists...
2015-05-23-MNP-137 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Drove along a supposedly rugged dirt road that turned out to be quite mellow:
IMG_1046_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

That took us around to the East side of rock springs so we could descend down the rutted downhill, that wasn't really that bad, either.
IMG_1052_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1056_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

2015-05-23-MNP-165 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Rock spring:
IMG_1057_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Nice views!
IMG_1065_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1067_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1061_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Headed over to New York Mountains and found a nice camp set back into the rocks with some legit 4wd rocks and hills to get there.
IMG_1079_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1072_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Hiked up to a rock pile of a mountain to check out the views. The scramble was fun and provided some nice open views!
New York Mountains Panorama_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Blooming vegetation along the hike:
IMG_1090_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

2015-05-24-MNP-236 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Then drove out:
IMG_1110_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Having a good time
2015-05-24-MNP-251 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

2015-05-24-MNP-248 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

IMG_1118_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Headed out past the old school bus and car:
2015-05-24-MNP-284 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

And then to Paiute Pass:
IMG_1134_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Finished the road at the Colorado river with a ton of people boating in the water for memorial day.
Headed up to Laughlin for gas and then decided to head back into mojave for a campsite.

Pretty sunset along the way:
IMG_1137_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Needless to say, we arrived in camp late at night again, so the next morning we got some photos.
IMG_1142_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1148_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

And we had one last half-day to kill so we checked out Calico Ghost Town and mine area.
The Ghost Town was $8 for like a 30 minute visit, so we skipped that and went for a wheeling adventure instead!
IMG_1157_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

IMG_1160_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

2015-05-25-MNP-306 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Humpin' along. I whip my antenna back and forth
2015-05-25-MNP-308 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

Looots of mine shafts all around! Didn't check out too many of them and none of them very deep because they were quite unstable.
Calico Mining Pano_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

2015-05-25-MNP-341 copy by at_olw, on Flickr

And then we finished up and headed back onto the freeway towards home, parting ways when I needed to stop for gas
Until next time!

 

Great pics man. Looks like it was a fun trip!

 

Wow Kevin! What a great looking trip!

 

Thanks, guys!
Yeah, it was a nice trip! A bit more relaxed than we are both used to, so we kept trying to pace ourselves down, but then ended up doing long days and getting into camp late. The areas we explored kinda off of the main mojave road were the most amazing, particularly New York Mountains. Definitely the highlight for both of us.

 

Well I started changing my tie rods out and noticed the problem with the noise coming from the front end is actually my wheel bearings! So now I just need to get parts and learn how to do that...
The tie rods were shot anyways, so it's not like I wasted money on that.

 

Did you get the job done?

 

Yeah I finished the tie rods today. It actually made the steering a lot nicer, too, so I'm glad I did it even though it's not the noise problem. I also took the idler arm off to replace the bushings because they might be going, but I couldn't get the cap off so I gave up and put it back on. When I had it off the bushings didn't seem that bad, anyways, so I didn't feel too bad about just putting it back on.
Wheel bearings should be relatively easy, at least compared to first gen tacomas, as I understand it. I just need to source a 54mm socket...

 

Oh and I deleted the swaybar finally.

 

Alright, Ball joint spacers are out, front differential drop is out, OME torsion bars are in, and the ride is wonderful! A lot of what I read online when I was first researching aftermarket suspension said that the OME torsion bars on their own were uncomfortably stiff and that the ball joint spacers and relaxed torsion bars was better. I disagree! As long as you don't crank the torsion bars ridiculously high then the ride is wonderful. Even better than bj spacers with relaxed torsion bars. Maybe that's the removed swaybar talking, but I'm very happy with the new setup (will be even happier after an alignment and new wheel bearings) and should've done it instead of the spacers!

 

My wheel is quiet again!

I was hearing this god-awful grinding noise at the front driver wheel that had steadily gotten worse. During the Mojave road trip it got so bad I was nervous about driving home on it. I thought it was just tie-rods, but that didn't really make sense. Then I thought it was wheel bearings. Only after pulling everything apart to change the wheel bearings did I realize that it was actually something with the steering knuckle!
So I pulled it apart to look at the steering knuckle bushings and they looked alright, but the seal between the cv axle dust seal and the knuckle bushings was extremely worn and there was just a film of broken down grease inside the knuckle. So I ordered new seals and asked if I should replace the bushings. The guy at toyota said that they probably don't need it, so I didn't get new ones.

Here's where the real fun begins...the knuckle seal that toyota sent me turned out to be the seal that goes on the cv axle, not at all the same as the knuckle seal. So I went back to toyota and the part number is listed as that particular knuckle seal, but we looked back at the substitutions and someone accidentally substituted a cv axle part number instead of an updated knuckle seal. Then, my guess is that whoever fixed it thought that the seal was supposed to be the cv axle seal, and so that's how I ended up with one of those. I was able to order the number from before the screw up and that came yesterday and it works!

Today I just put everything back together and I did actually change the wheel bearings, as well. Took it for a test drive and it's beautifully silent! Yessss

Oh and I have a new-to-me kenwood tm-v71a dual band ham radio and a Larsen 2/70 nmo mounted antenna installed now, too! Guess I'll get some pictures of that soon...

 

Face plate
Still haven't decided if I want it on the cup holder or not. It might bounce around too much. It was the easiest thing, though, and it's nicely accessible and readable.
DSCN0246_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Radio
I just ziptied the mounting bracket to the bottom of the seat and mounted the radio to that. Lots of room around for heat dissipation.
DSCN0247_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Antenna!
DSCN0248_edit_small by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr