Lux's '01 Build

Nice truck!

 

photo from @Blues0010

 

Posted that to Instagram too lol I love that shot

 

Updates:
Removed Flares
Removed sway bar
Yellow vinyl over LEDs cuz rice
Began rear bumper build
Diff breather mod
changed diff oil

Went wheelin up north with NJBS thread


Took flares off and found some rusty spots on the quarter panels, filled the holes by grinding down old clips and painting them the oem black touchup. Gives a much wider looking stance



Yellow vinyl


Flexing


explored abandoned building



Fresh pic

 

Same as how mine looks now. I personally like the look. It makes the tires look wider than they appear. I just going to have to find a way to cover the lil clip holes, so they don't rust

 

Yea I like how it looks too, the line from the flare and the holes is the only problem, painted fender clips don't look too bad to cover the holes tho. You can get them for a couple bucks for a big bag of em on eBay then I just shaved them down with a sander and painted with touch up paint which I also got on eBay awhile back

 

no major mods but took some more trips to the city


and added a new sticker

 

Enjoying reading about your mods. Especially the bed rust cutout and metal fab stuff in general. Nice truck and nice pics.

 

Haven't updated in months, lots to add, but not much new for the truck unfortunately

Went to a local spot that I personally hate to attempt to get my brothers friend unstuck, he was stock height and on street tires and tried going through some thick mud in light rain under a bridge, didnt end well. Couldn't get him out cuz i didnt have enough weight, my brother tried his hand at it and floored it, bending my bumper pretty good. luckily a full size diesel came down and pulled him right out.



Went to NYC for the NYIAS, parked somewhere in chelsea, also got shots of the city from brooklyn later that night





Had nothing better to do so went out to get pics




Went up to buttermilk falls near stokes state forest alone, just some easy trails but nice scenery



Decided it was finally time to fix my oil leak after thinking i blew another rod bearing, you can hear the same knocking that I heard when I blew the first motor in the beginning of this vid. I was surprised to find so much oil had leaked out since I just checked it the other day. I looked at the leak and it almost looked worse than it was, so I had to do something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUdDVca9bR0

Clearly this is because of rust.. drained the oil, sanded it all down as much as I possibly could, lots of brake cleaner, and then a thick coat of jb weld everywhere. I tried to put it along the seam on either side too. then painted with high heat rusto

Still holding now, a few months later.

Brakes were making an awful noise, started grabbing a bit while braking too and pulled to the left or right once in awhile. Found them past their life span, the inside pad was bare metal and the rotor wasn't salvageable, this would have been the perfect opportunity to do the tundra brakes, but I didnt have the money so some cheap rotors and pads had to do for now.



Went wheeling down south with my 4runner friend and jeep guy. The 4r didnt have any sway bars disconnected and was sitting on a pretty bad lift. He's got 33x12.5s on there and was surprisingly not rubbing much though. We aired down but he still was struggling with some of the easier hills, mostly due to a lack of flex, next time I think a sway bar dc should help him out (among other things). The truck performed fine, don't think i came across any hills I couldn't do but Ive been down here several times before.




Went up north a week later with jeep guy and my brother @Sofatank, his truck did well but was leaking a lot of oil and the brakes are on their way out, so some of the hills were a bit sketchy. We didnt do anything new, just some of the old hills and trails, my brother had to leave early for work so me and the jeep guy went down a new trail up on top of a hill, it was a nice trail, kinda tight, a few obstacles, nothing super bad. I got hung up on a large tree limb on the way down though, came down hard on my bedside but luckily had no damage at all, not even a scratch, gonna need to get some bedside protection lol. Jeep guy pulled me off and we made it through the rest with no issues.





A couple days later went wheeling with @cynicalrider, @sente3, @Sofatank, jeep guy, and his friend to break in mikes new diffs. Was all south jersey, we hit some old trails first, didnt have many issues, @cynicalrider got to use his locker to get up a tricky hill and I had to back out of one, then we went to hit another spot that was mostly soft sand. I kinda felt my clutch slipping a bit here but nothing too bad, my brothers clutch slipped a ton cuz he was really getting on the gas up a small hill, left a smoky trail and basically glazed it over, his clutch has since been pretty messed up. Did my first small jump here too, only thing that broke was my driver side pod bracket, didnt find out until I got home but its pretty obvious its broken in some of the pics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTXgFot4ug0








Went up north again with @Subway4X4, @TacoJeep92, @Sub-Zero, and jeep guy. Everyone did fine, don't think we had any issues. The goal of this trip was to explore some new trails which turned out to be pretty nice, it started raining about halfway through while we were eating lunch, the rain didnt cause too many issues but there was no way we could come back up a very slick rock we went down, lloyd tried it to no avail. both lloyd and matt were slipping a good bit even on the bypass however. Ryan led us to another hill at the end, I didnt have any issues here but lloyd needed to be winched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9-dwBI50og







repainted my grille, basically the same color but had a different name, can't remember what it was, also painted the emblem black this time.


My friend spotted me


went to weehawken again for some night pics




And finally, happy 4th




Thats about it for now, hopefully Ill update this a bit more often lol

 

When your brother smoked his clutch, was he in low range?

 

he says he doesnt think so, guess that was a contributing factor, I don't think I was in low very often while there either

 

Yeah when you are in low traction situations like that and are on an incline you are loading the clutch quite heavily. I burned my clutch out pretty badly a couple winters ago trying to get up a steep incline in snow. I had no idea that even if you aren't "using" the clutch, you risk burning it up on inclines with no traction.

 

Im broke so no updates, but took more pics

 

Great looking Taco!!!
Just wanted you to know that you should check with your insurance company. Once they give you a check for a totaled vehicle they will not give you another one. In other words if your are in another accident they will not cover the cost of replacing the truck. You may even be paying premiums for that coverage, they will be happy take the money but its up to you to know if they will pay out if your truck is in another crash.

 

Went on a trip to AOAA with the Northeast TW crew, had a great time, was my first time out camping too.
Didn't run into many problems, but got stuck twice (both times in mud)..

I was trying to avoid mud and water the entire trip because only a day before the trip I had to install my front diff actuator since my 4wd was out since july. When I installed it I found that the plastic nipple on the actuator for the breather had broken off, I didn't have much time to fix it so I just assumed it wouldn't be a huge deal and went anyway.

Everything was fine and the actuator was pretty dry but when we went down mud road I slid into a nice sized mud hole and got stuck, my friend pulled me out and the actuator was still bone dry but i decided to temporarily fix the broken nipple to avoid any future headaches if we came across anymore large water or mud crossings like mud road. @Subway4X4 had some JB weld and a toothpick on hand so I just broke off the pointy end of the toothpick and JB welded it into the hole. The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly, my brother and I got some cool stuff, met some cool people, and had a good time, can't wait until next year.
A couple of these pictures are from @Blackout14


And yes these are the same pictures I've posted in 10 other places, I didn't get many pictures ok

 

@Lux Can you post a close up picture of your LED pods? I'm curious as to how you mounted them. Thanks!

 

Do you have hub to fender measurements in the front and rear with the OME 881s with 1/2” spacer? I’m thinking of going that route.

 

Sorry guys! Didnt even get the notification for these for some reason, my bad.

I mounted the pods using one of the square holes that was already in this piece of steel and then drilled another for more stability. I have since taken them off and am looking for another solution because they were kinda shaky and when I jumped the truck the one side broke because the steel it was mounted to couldn't take the weight (hence the really shoddy tacks). My new solution is gonna be using the bolt hole at the front of the frame, but I'm not sure how they're gonna look yet. here are some pics of the bracket:

24" front 25" rear. I think I posted this in your thread, don't remember

 

Here's my new bracket, it's just 3/16" plate with a hole for the long bolt for the front of the frame and some studs welded to the front to hold the pods, I don't know if I like it yet lol

 

Thanks!