Bandido's Bad at Taking Pictures '03 DC Build

How she sits 7/7/2023


How she sits as of 2/26/2022


How she sits as of 9/27/2019:


How she sits as of 4/19/2019:


How she sits as of 12/17/2018:

How she sits as of 10/7/2017:


Suspension:
Front: Icon 2.5 Coilovers, Icon UCA, Energy Suspension Bushings, flipped LCA's, GX470 rotors, 14WA calipers
Rear: King 2.0 x 10" reservoir shocks, custom rear shock mounting, Wheeler's HD Leaf spring,

Wheels/Tires:
17" Granite Alloy GA640, 285/70 Wrangler Duratrecs

Armor:
All Pro Baja front bumper, All Pro Front & mid Baja skids, Trail Gear rear bumper, Trail Gear sliders, Bud Built Gas tank skid.

Recovery:
Hi-Lift, X20c Winch, LiteWay Tracks

Interior:
Pioneer MH380 head unit, Pioneer Low profile sub woofer (under passenger seat), 2012 Avalon power seats, Paranoid Fab .75 DIN Switch mount

Exterior:
Morimoto mini 2.5" HID set, switchback LED blinkers, Ebay Snorkel, Custom Bed Rack, LED pencil beam spot lights, yellowed fog lights, rock lights, reverse lights.

On Deck:
5MT swap, 2GR-fe swap

Future Plan:
Swingout spare tire mount-> on bed rack?, roof rack(steal from frontier?), bed rack drawers, Bimmer stability bar adaption?, Rear axle truss?, rear air springs, on-board air, aux fuel tank, grey water tank, T-case clock, custom Front susp build.

After owning my 01 5speed ext cab for several years, I decided to "upgrade" to an 03 Dcab... mostly for fewer miles, no rust holes in the body, and the added doors was a nice perk imo. As the thread title says, I am terrible at remembering to take pictures... so bear with me.
How she looked shortly after getting brought home(I painted the wheels before taking a picture):


On my list of things to do were suspension and tires as both the front shocks were blown, and with the ~2" spacer lift on the front end from the PO, all the ball joints/bushings were in my scope.
I went with Icon 2.5" coilovers up front with the Icon UCA, install was easy except for the steel press-in insert into the spindle... that was a huge pain, I should have measured and sanded the shit out of the bore in the spindle. Of course I forgot to take any pictures of that whole job, the only one I took was test fitting my friend's FJ wheels with 33" Duratracs.


The truck looks good like this imo, but it rubs the inside of the tire on the frame rail on both sides at the current ride height. These wheels are 17x8 with 4.5" backspace, so I'm planning on getting something similar. After some time browsing TireRack, I found a deal on some wheels and tires, like $1600 plus shipping for 5x LT285/70R-17 mounted and balance on a wheel from a manufacturer that I had never heard about, and at the price they were selling the wheels for, I was really nervous about their quality. The wheels are Granite Alloy GA460's a nice looking split six spoke design, and 17x8.5 with 4.25" backspace, so hopefully they wont rub so bad at full lock.


Took a nice wheeling trip out to west Virginia for a friends wedding, feeling satisfied with the wheels/tires. For the first 2 months ~6k miles there was no rubbing at full lock unless flexing, it still rubs on the frame, I did have to beat the pinch weld on the cab in the front wheel well or they would have rubbed there as well. I think the Icon front springs have settled a bit, the truck now has a decent inch or two of rake, I'll probably just crank the coils down a few turns.


I spent all of October (2016) planning what armor to buy, and then all of November/December waiting for deals, but I did end up purchasing everything I wanted except for rear shocks. Now I just need to find time to install, but first I'm moving to somewhere with a bit more space. Pic of all the stuff in the new garage:


I had some time to paint & install the skids and the front and rear bumper, went down to Tennessee after the fires in pigeon forge area, did some wheeling and camping... the E-locker failed this trip though, I had to manually disengage it to drive home. It had failed once before just after installing the Icon's but after some disassembly and some lube was working fine, Now I can see a crack in the housing, so I doubt I'll be so lucky.


The way the truck drives with all the armor and the tires feels so much different than the '01 ext cab 5 speed that I loved, I think one of the primary reasons is the auto trans, at highway speeds it does a bit better than the MT due to the lower cruising RPM... but I think I'm about ready to start addressing the power problem, so the first step is brakes! I don't know what pads/rotors the PO had on there but they felt fine and stopped the truck well, until with the bigger tires I had to stop from ~65 twice in about a minute while towing the honda. The first stop was fine, the second was not. After browsing the forums, I decided to get a GX460 caliper and rotor to increase stopping power, this was supposed to be a bolt on mod, but I found I had to take about .100" of the mating surface of the caliper to install the brakes correctly. After bedding the Bendix pads in, I was unable to get any brake fade even when towing my girlfriends CRV with the trailer brake off. I'm not a big fan of the pedal feel, but it didn't change much from before the new calipers, so SS lines are on order. I managed to take 2 pictures this time! (can you guys believe that these are all the pictures I have of my truck?)
Before:

After:



Update:
So as can be seen in a few of the earlier pics in my thread, the headlight lenses that I had were very foggy, I had polished them up once, but that only lasted for 2 months or so... but beyond the lack of lens clarity, even with nice sylvania bulbs, its extremely annoying to see your own shadow on the road ahead of you when someone in a late model vehicle is behind you. So I purchased some CAPA certified headlight housings, a 35w HID projector kit with 5000k temperature bulbs, and the appropriate wiring components off Amazon for about $170 all told. I painted the chrome parts of the reflector housing matte cement gray, and decided against putting a backing plate on the shroud, so some light still escapes into the former halogen reflector bowl. I also ran a wire from the parking lights to the 3rd pin on the blinker bulb, the effect looks nice, but I think I'm gonna get a switchback LED to have more light output during "fog light" operation. The headlights are WAAAAY brighter in lowbeam than the sylvania bulbs, and have less glare when driving by my truck in my girlfriends car, the highbeams are brighter, but the difference isn't as substantial as it is with the lowbeams.
Finished product with the stock 4157 amber bulb (below low beam cutoff):


A picture of the housing with the flash, maybe I'll remember to take a picture when the sun is out, or a picture of the light output!


Light "leakage" around the shroud that was included with the HID kit:

 

Update: Locker actuator replaced!

As I said in a previous post, my E-locker is toast, I suppose if I tried reeeally hard, I could rebuild it, but time is money, so I looked for some other options. I was having a lot of trouble sourcing an E-locker actuator for a reasonable price, people wanted as much as $300 for a used one, and new from Toyota it seemed like it was $600!! I knew that this was gonna be an expensive fix, but thats ridiculous!! Rock auto didn't an actuator listed, but they did have an "E-locker actuator for a '95 land cruiser front differential" after some internet sleuthing, it seemed like this might work! So for $240 shipped, I got a brand new actuator in the mail a few days later, here's some side by side pics:



Unfortunately, this wasn't quite as plug and play as I'd hoped, but it was still pretty easy! The only differences were that the new part had a different electrical connector, and didn't have a threaded hole on the front for the rock shield. I spent a while trying to de-pin the connectors, but couldn't figure them out and elected to cut & solder. Then I drilled out and tapped the hole on the front to fit the M8x1.25 bolt to hold the rock shield on. I also painted the aluminum surface on the actuator that mates to the diff, hopefully this will prevent the galvanic corrosion that destroyed my first actuator.
Locker now works like its supposed to, takes way less time to engage than any of the first gen lockers I've had up until now, which have all been well used so that makes sense...

Unrelated, I also installed the switchback LED's in the blinker housings, they are pretty awesome. Constant white due to running a wire from the corner markers as I said in a previous post, and then they go "off-amber-off-amber" when using the blinkers. I forgot to take pictures last weekend when I went out to Dirty Turtle for some wheeling, but not a lot of folks were around, and without the locker I had a solid hour where I was regretting waiting on the winch... that big hole in the bumper needs to be filled!!

 

Update:
Finally found a deal on an MT!
Also gonna update my first post to include "current mods", "on deck", and "future" mods similar to other threads.

Anyhow, after spending just over a year looking for a good deal on a 5MT, I finally found one via FB marketplace which seems to have replaced craigslist in my area for random/junk ads. So for $350 picked up, this is what I got:


The guy was pretty cool, he had his own private 1st gen yard, with just over 30 trucks! The truck this unit came out of must have been wheeled pretty hard as the trans is caked in mud, however it supposedly only has 140k on it after the truck was totaled due to a fire. So now I've got all my odds and ends, except an ECU, but I doubt I'll get one... Regardless, the build will be on hold for the winter as my other rides aren't winter friendly, and I have to go to Japan for a month for work.

 

Nice rig man, I love that armor

 

Damn that bumper looks so good!

 

Nice build! A 1st Gen DCSB with a 5MT is the ultimate truck. I'd love to build one someday.

 

Nice build!

 

Sub for □- /○\ -□ shock mount

 

Tangentially related to the build, finished my other car enough that I can drive it to work... which means I can take the truck apart as needed!!

 

Sweet MR2. My brother used to have one that I helped him with on. What all do you have done it?

 

Thanks!
The Mr2 forums kind of migrated to facebook, so I don't really have a build thread going on, so no ez link.
If you want ALL the details I can post them...
Basically a 91 turbo chassis, gen4 3sgte at ~17psi, exhaust, intake/intercooler, cosmetic upgrades visible, cheapo monocoque racing seats & SFI 16.1 5 point belts, shocks & springs, WRW geometry kit, zzw30 steering gear.
edit: also HD axles and boost controller.
All in all its a blast to drive, weighs in around 2800lbs, runs a mid 11 1/4 mile but the corners are where it shines best!

 

Finally a truck update!

This weekend, with RRG trip in mind, I re did the heim joints in my Icon UCA's, I ended up buying SS replacements from summit vs the replacement kit from Icon. These units aren't the teflon lined SS spec only available from Icon, however in my experience the performance will be sufficient and they won't develop as much play nearly as fast as the teflon lined units, which had almost a full 1/8" axial play in them.


I also ended up doing the front right wheel bearing as it was in terrible shape, and it seems like the tie-rod inners are due soon as well. And your eyes don't deceive you!! I put the sliders on and am finishing up welding them today, but first I'm planning to head up to the CB cruise in for a bit in the MR2.

 

Nice work! IIRC, my brother's was a 93 T-top chassis. We did a forged bottom end motor in it with a tubular mani and a t3/t4 50 trim with a Berk Technologies IC. That thing was scary to drive sometimes. It would just whip the tail out quick. Here's a couple pics I dug up from forever ago...
That thing was a PIA to work on with the motor being in the back!

 

Nice build, hopefully I'll see you around on some of the trails

 

Update:
Bought my ass a house, so thats cool... I've been working a ton this summer, which helps me afford the house, so less time for other things (the truck).
Home-ownership has given me quite the welcome especially since the storm a few weeks ago took down several of my new-to-me trees and new-to-me fence posts, and I didn't even know until several days later returning from a business trip.
Fortunately my Dad and Uncle were able to bring the last of my shit from MA down, including my saw, they also helped clean up and rebuild!
Unfortunately it seems like one of my Leafs on the LH side has cracked, as the truck now has a healthy lean to the left, hopefully I can address this weekend, but at the cost of missing out on another CKR meetup
Pics related.

Some say I have a type...

 

Laaaame

 

Nice house man! Congrats!

Sorry about the broke shit. Come to Rush and drown your sorrows and ride with someone.

 

@beertimecontinuum

its time, lets see what I can do.
10" kings
Wheelers 8 leaf.
TG frame boxing kit.
A bunch of metal from seats/belts in the mr2.
Some bolts.
Some bigger sturdier bolts.



Some friends stopped by to help me get the bed off this evening, spending the rest of /today/ getting this rear end situated.

 

Good start! Gonna angle them kings in? Like 30* / \ ? Also I was in Lex today for the first time in a while, too bad I missed the fun