Paradise Blue Metallic Build

Some pics from the trip. Too bad it won’t let me upload the vids.

 

Sweet pics, that cave looks awesome. Need video!

 

do you have a youtube account
post the videos in there and link it here?

 

Didn’t get too many videos this trip. Going on a TLCA ride next month and plan on getting more. Heard some popping from the driver side a little, going to see if I can track down what it was, I think it might be the lower ball joint. They were cheap so it might be time to replace with OEM Toyota parts.

Truck can flex out pretty good, look at the front and rear tires once I get on the ledge.

 

Pics/video never do justice to how steep and rutted the trails are. Even with all the ground clearance, I was on my sliders many times. The new 35 mud tires made a lot of the trails pretty easy to walk up. Gotta get some bump stops setup so I don’t tuck the tires too much by next trip so I can go ham.

I love that 2nd gen SAS Tacoma. Thing is an absolute beast. 3 linked on 37s.

This is the ledge in one of my videos.

This pic showing that mud wall did a number on my new front passenger fender. Didn’t destroy it but cracked it in a few small spots. So fender bars will be in the very near future.

That old Chevy is on 42s if that helps put perspective to the ledges we were climbing.

 

Nice driving! That’s some gnarley wheeling. Are you running any lockers or lsd?

 

Thanks! I just have the rear ARB air locker. I was thinking about possibly doing a front locker in the future but didn’t know how much abuse the CV shafts could take with 35s and a front locker. I will most likely be getting chromoly rear axle shafts and possibly look for some beefed up front axles and a front ARB.

The truck drives better than it did stock after the new 4.88 gears. Since my truck was the first year of production, it had 3.91 gears and felt super doggy no matter what.

Currently working on my custom rear bumper tire carrier. Once that’s done I’m going to buy a pipe bender and start adding tubes to protect front and rear fenders.

 

Little bit of fiber glass work and some bar protection should do the trick. These things actually flex a lot more than I thought.


The duct tape was my hillbilly mod to prevent mud from getting in the intake since I didn’t have time to finish my snorkel before last trip.

 

A friend sold me a wilco hitch tire carrier for $200. I cut a lot off of it and mounted it on the stock hitch with some angle iron and plenty of welding. Turned out pretty good, didn’t give me a better departure angle but really strong. Might possibly raise it in the future but for now I’m happy. Starting my snorkel tomorrow.

 

Just finished the custom snorkel and added a new hi-lift mount. I used 3” exhaust pipe and welded the mount and top pipe on. Took a little adjusting to get it where I wanted. Im pretty happy with how the top angle turned out. All the other parts were purchased on Amazon.

I have a RedArc BCDC charger coming in and will be starting my dual battery system for the fridge here in the next week. Wish me luck lol.

 

After the last two off-roading trips I have noticed my brakes feel terrible. If I had to stop quickly I don’t have confidence they would do the job. So I’m thinking it’s time for a tundra brake conversion.

Seems pretty straight forward. Think I’m going to order a full brake kit from Amazon. I have heard good things about the Callahan brakes.

Also last trip something got in between my fan and radiator and chewed up the radiator pretty bad. Had a couple coolant leaks on the trail. Luckily someone suggested eggs as a temp fix. 4 eggs in the radiator and we made the 3 hour drive home with no issues. Guess it’s time for a new radiator and thermostat.

 

Just purchased the tundra brake kit along with a new grill, coil packs, wires, plugs, air filter, horn replacement, and all parking brake components.

Removed the messed up radiator and looked at the fan blades. Don’t believe it was the fan as it’s shows no sign of being scratched up and the marks don’t line up with the blades, even when pushed towards the radiator, so it must of been a stick or something.

Noticed my stock skid plates are getting pretty beat up, what’s a good option for an upgrade?

 

Well so far I have replaced the radiator, cap, thermostat, k&N drop in filter, new coils, plugs, wires and of course oil while I was at it.

When doing the plugs I noticed one of my plugs has oil from a bad valve cover gasket, lucky I already have a replacement, just need to do it.

Working on my tundra brake upgrade right now.

Also think I’m going to upgrade my skid plates. Think I’m going to get the front, trans, and transfer case ones from skid row off-road.

Beer is a must when working on vehicles.

 

NIce work man!
That's a crazy Radiator Cap...I've seen anything like that before.
Those old brakes were pretty worked!
Great taste in beer

 

Thanks! Funny thing is they have only been on for about 15k. It has been mostly driving to the trails and off-roading though.

That cap was off Amazon for around $20. Thought it would be nice to have a gauge to see radiator temp in case I ever have problems on the trail in the future.

The beer was pretty good but probably shouldn’t of drank the whole 6 pack lol.

 

Went out this last weekend and got to test the new brakes on some trails, it’s made my truck feel safe again. Stops amazing now but I think I might be doing a rear disk conversion as well.

Also made a custom grill. Bought a new factory one, cut out the inner portion and added some mesh, painted it all black and added a Prius emblem. Also added some new horns as my factory one shit itself.

Need to find a replacement rubber piece for my arb bumper. Lost it on a off-roading trip.

 

The skid row plates came in, the transfer case skid is on backorder so that’s going to take another month.

This weekend I plan to install the skids, replace door handles and start work on the dual battery system.

 

Got the truck cleaned up this weekend and installed my new license plate covers and the skid plates. Excited to test out the skids in the future.

 

Had an interesting experience the other weekend. Went out on a trail ride and my truck decided to drive away without me.

I had made it up a big obstical and turned the truck around to winch a 4runner behind me. There were some big ruts at the top of the obstical and it was mostly level ground. So I turned my tires hard into the side of the ruts, pulled my ebrake and left the truck running as I was going to pull the winch cable out then pull him out. As I’m pulling out the cable I hear some noise, turn around to see my truck rolling away. The ebrake has completely let go and I guess the rut wasn’t going to do me any favors.

My truck ended up rolling like 20-30 feet before dropping off this ledge. Luckily it went the route it did because much farther left and it would of rolled, much farther right and it would of rolled. Got pulled straight back after calling for some help. No damage except my new front skid plate got bent all to hell. It did it’s job and stopped the truck.

Replacing the skid plate and doing a few more upgrades.

Bought some toytec Boss coilovers with 650lbs springs to handle the extra weight of the 3 skid plates along with bumper and winch. Also going to remove my AAL from my OME leaf pack since the rear still sits too high. After that I’m going to get an alignment.

Also going to be getting a rear disk brake conversion along with a line lock for the rear. This cable ebrake is going to be deleted.

 

Holy crap, that's wild. Glad nobody got hurt and the truck took it like a champ.