Anthony y El Burrito Blanco

Amazing job with the LT...hows the road handling with them?

 

Thank you. The road handling is fine - just as good or better than the stock setup with the sway bar on.

The only thing is that the coils are stiffer than they should be for my truck - they're meant for a V6 / access cab or double cab so I've got way too much lift without preloading the coils. If I was keeping the truck I'd go for 500 or 550# springs.

I think it'd be necessary once you got off road. The stiff springs on the street feel like I'm still in the stock truck though. Body roll is predictable and fun in the turns!

 

Well el burrito blanco is living up to its name - it's pretty much a pack animal for the new truck. Took some tires and wheels to get mounted today. Looking bro af lol!

 

El Burrito Blanco isn't getting much love lately - just being used for parts getting for El Frijole Negro and dd'ing. Here's some pics from my most recent run up to SLO to pick up a 2nd gen axle for EFN:

Gassed up at 4:30am to hit the road and miss traffic:



Got to Santa Barbara just as the sun came up and headed up 154 into the fog:



Cachuma Lake was looking full from all of the recent rain we've had this winter:



Got up to Santa Maria around 7:30 and slept for a few hours until I could meet Anthony at DTF:



A couple first gens under the knife getting full cages and suspension work. The white one is getting linked and a super charger. The black one is getting Anthony's new outboard spring setup in the rear:



This is going to be a show / race truck that has a lot of vintage details with 500hp + and 20"+ a arm / linked suspension:



Anthony's truck w/ a 2nd gen Tundra rear axle - the reason why he was getting rid of the 2nd gen Tacoma axle he sold me. Thing is so wide:



Got the axle:



Hung out with an old friend from SLO who used to be my manager at the Fremont Movie Theater and roommate when I lived there about fifteen years ago:



Anthony also gave me a tip on how to find cheap batteries with a warranty in SoCal:



All in all, a great trip.

 

Poor Burrito, not only a pack animal now, but a mobile workshop too. New project for El Frijole Negro. 3.4 5vz rebuild.

 

Just finished a month and a half of six day weeks (plus other stuff on my day off that doesn't leave time for mods). Been wanting to do this for awhile:



I had someone run into my passenger bedside a few months back and they transferred some paint onto my truck. It was from a car's sideview mirror so I was hoping it wasn't a deep scratch - sure enough it was able to be almost entirely erased with ChrisFix's method:



Before:




After:




Success!

 

No more mid / long travel:

I spent almost 40 hours over three days including a 24 hour wrenching / walking to the parts store session when I found out a mushroomed out alignment cam bolt had been the reason for strange noises coming from my suspension and had to file down the threads by hand to slide the bolt out in the middle of the night / early morning.

Day 1:

The project started on Thursday (took a couple days off work to make sure I had enough time - and I barely did) by cutting off the shock tower gussets. Man this was a b****. It was unnerving being that close to the brake lines on both sides and some (cooling?) hoses on the driver's side.

Here was my "garage setup"



Since I wrench on the street (even though it's the end of a tiny dead end w/ basically no traffic) I don't like to leave the truck on jack stands if I take an extended break. I popped off the uca's, ground off the shock tower gussets with my new Harbor Freight cheapy grinder, and put the truck back on its own weight in about 9 hours because of all of the random cuts I had to make. Here's a pic of how I noob proofed the brake lines, coolant(?) lines, and reservoir hoses (which I realized I could just move w/ the reservoir out of the way on the second side):



Here was the sketchiest cut I had to make - that corner was less than an inch away from the nearest hose. I got most of it with my grinder and the rest of it with my dremel, which I found awesome grinding / cutting disks for at Harbor Freight (packaging shown):





For some reason the second uca bolt kept pushing out the bushing sleeve as I was trying to finish up - I wanted to leave the truck driveable if an emergency came up that night, but gave up and pulled out the washer between the tower and the bushing to get the wiggle room I needed to get the bolt through. I even made a centering tool out of a spare uca bolt sharpened to a point, but it just would keep pushing out the metal sleeve in the bushing on the far side

Day 2/3:

This day, Friday, started off with a fun trip to the dealer for castle nuts for the lower ball joints - the only parts I was missing from my stock parts collection. $10 and a short walk later I would experience the biggest (until I started working on the alignment cam bolts 12 hours later) pain in the butt of all time.

In the slightly cave manny way the person who removed my lower ball joints had hit them with a hammer, the threads at the end of the bolts were boogered up enough that the new nuts would not fit on. After some checking to see if my ball joints were factory originals here:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/castle-nut-wont-go-on-lower-control-arm-lca-solved.497797/

I proceeded to dremel, file, and chase the threads on the bolts with the castle nuts I had bought. That only took 3 fun hours. Here's the highlights:

Uh oh - it doesn't fit



My main weapon of choice:



The "finished" product:



After that I spent the next nineteen hours swapping out the parts.



Just as I was on my last lca I found out that the front cam bolt was stripped and stuck in the sleeve and the rear cam bolt was stuck in the cam tabs, its threads pressed into the slightly off-center cam tab gusset. Here I was as the cam bolt issue started to seem reversible in this un-fun situation:



And the mushroomed out cam bolt after I had filed it down for awhile with a hand file at :



The next morning I was still awake and needed to go get some alignment cams asap as I needed to go to work on Monday. I found these at O'Reilly's:

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/d...ck=Search_02920_1442967_-1&pt=02920&ppt=C0322

They also have them here for nearly half price, but not that are able to be purchased on the spot at your local O'Reilly's. Either way I would have gotten OEM bolts, but the dealerships couldn't get any until Tuesday and I had to be at work with an alignment before I work on Monday. After a 3 mile round trip walk to O'Reilly's I checked for clearance on my new alignment cams. One needed to be made a little smaller and luckily I had my system down from the night before with a stock one that was burrowing into the cam tab gusset:



This was the best method by far for getting these cams to fit in between the walls of the gussets.

After a 3 hour nap, a few hours later (6) I was finished with my truck back to stock (minus the sway bar, spindles, and steering stops. Victory! I even sold the kit in one night once I had it all cleaned up and ready to buy!



This was a big learning experience for me. Truck feels a little loose up front w/o the sway bar. I'm looking for someone that wants to trade spindles and stock steering stops if you know anyone!

And my truck went from looking like this:



to my little stock donkey:



Phew, it got me tired just writing this minimal write up for this

 

Did a little more work putting the ol' burrito back to stock:

Took off the shims I had used to help the drive angle out a little when the front got more lift that I anticipated from the mid travel springs:




Checked my torque settings to make sure nothing moved after my return to stock marathon and somehow ended up painting the front suspension & fender wells:



Getting closer to selling it once my other truck is ready to daily drive

 

Well my little burro is living up to its name once again - putting those recall leafs to work on my trip to Bakersfield freshen up EFN w/ a new engine and trans - rollin' with at least 1000 lbs in the bed - put some respek on that bro-lean.

 

Back in that #camperlife

 

Put in a new free-to-me carpet and some of these in the bed:


Did a pretty good detail job and hit rain twice in the summer (!)



On the way to Hesperia to pick up new doors for the bean:




Got the doors:



And it rained on the way back - super rare for summer and saw 3 + accidents in 10 miles from heavy rain on the grade coming down to San Bernardino.



Picked up some fenders and bedsides for the bean in Lake Elsinore and SD and slept in the burrito for a few hours in the morning on my way home. Had a nice sunset in Lake Elsinore:

 

The little white burro got me through the internship program for my teaching job. Love its reliability - almost 40k miles and no error codes or problems whatsoever. At least it's making life easy for me (cough school is a pita, cough).

 

GO BEACH! I'm an LBSU alumni and work for LAUSD. I grew up and work next door to HP in SG.

Nice write up btw. I like to see how trucks evolve over time. I'm new to the Tacoma experience.

 

Small world. What do you do for LAUSD? Nice truck btw. There's a couple double cabs at HPHS - one is my assistant principal's. I knew we were going to get along when I saw that one was his! lol

 

Yeah, I'm loving the Tacoma. Looks nice and rides really smooth. Your AP will automatically give you positive reviews because of the Tacoma.

 

Went for a mini road trip - first non-work or school related thing I've done in 2 months

Left from a training in Van Nuys at 3 and hustled out to Phoenix! Just turned 140k as I was leaving LA:



There was a lot of smoke in San Bernadino - here you can see the tallest mountain in SoCal - Mt. Gorgonio in the smokey haze:



Drove non-stop for 8 hours minus a couple fueling breaks.



It was around 11-12 when I got to Phoenix. I decided to see the town a little.



I figured this one would appeal to my students - them Takis tho lol



An artsy one in the old part of town (thanks to mechanicjon who gave me a short history lesson on Phoenix!)



I hadn't anticipated the time change - by the time I would have made it to the campground I was planning on sleeping in, I would have had 3 hours to sleep before meeting up with mechanicjon, so I called that one a no go and slept in a parking lot lol:



The next morning I met up with @mechanicjon early. I got a short lesson on Foreign Exchange Trading, we grabbed a bite to eat, and then got some gas. Seeing how the highest I paid in CA was $3.40 on the way out, I think I'll be returning just to buy gas lol:



Then we went to an amazing place - his friend's all things Toyota Treasure Chest. This guy had anything from a SAS'd truggie bed single cab first gen to a minty 3rd gen 4Runner that needed a new front clip after a wreck. Everything needed work, and work everything got. I was really excited to get a chance to see all that stuff. I counted about 10 vehicles from pre-comas to his 2nd gen Tundra tow-rig all Toyotas and all getting worked on - it was epic! I didn't want to be intrusive so I didn't ask to take any pics though.

Jon had to get a few things done that day so I headed back west for a few miles and got off the highway to drive down a dirt road I found. Nice scenery in AZ!






Got back on my way and headed towards Mojave National Preserve - super strong winds blew sand all over the place. I think I made a wrong turn and it ended up taking 8 hours again



But it was all worth it - back in Mojave National Preserve, one of my favorite places after 3 years!



It's some rugged terrain!



My burro waiting patiently for me to come back:



The view returning to the road



Man what a trip. About 1200 miles, thanks for a good time hanging out with @mechanicjon and two hikes in 2.5 days. I couldn't have asked for more!

 

Anytime. No pics of the main reason for the trip?

 

You only saw were he works on stuff. Not the other storage yards which I've only seen 2 of them once each, out of 5 yards.

 

I think the defining moment for me was when he said other dismantlers call him first when they get Toyotas in. I'd definitely like to come back when I have another few days. Thanks for the tour of that corner of his place - I'd like to see more of Phoenix, it's a nice place!

 

You can swing by my ever increasing Toyota ranch as well next time haha. Although I think the Toyota ranch is about to pick up a Nissan friend for race car things.