BimmerTim's Tacoma Build (tdi swap) and Trip Reports

Next time you wrap a big unbroken surface like the camper (like the extra cab roof / rear cab portion) what would you try doing differently?

 

I don't know that I would do it myself again. It took the majority of an entire weekend to poorly wrap that topper. Haha.

If you're wrapping it to change the color, but the original paint is nice, just be patient and use heat. I would also suggest wrapping some smaller pieces and learning how to use heat before trying a larger panel like a topper. If the underlying paint is not very good or delaminating, you're gonna have a bad time. The clear on my topper is peeling, which made repositioning impossible, as the clear would come off with the wrap and it wouldn't stick again. I also noticed after I returned from Washington that the wrap is pulling up in some of the tighter corners due to the clear delam.

I did end up doing the roof of the topper in one full sheet of white at the very end. I wanted to do a white roof to keep the heat down in summer. That large flat panel went really well. I had a helper that basically held the sheet away from the surface while I move from the centerline of the roof out and forward smoothing as I went.

Also, good vinyl is worth it. I've used good 3M wrap, but this time I just wanted the topper to be black and I used Vvivid Amazon vinyl and it was much more difficult to work with.

 

I have 3m 2080 and my truck has ok paint but just has different colored doors and body panels I want to get rid of. Good advice on the smaller parts like the tailgate first.

 

Continuation of my previous post, just less interesting.

This trip to Seattle was only the second time being in the PNW in winter and I completely forgot that the mountains end up pretty much closed off. It just didn’t really occur to me, as that the Midwest doesn’t get the amount of snow, nor does it have the hills/mountains that the PNW has.

I attempted to go explore the Rainier area, but the road was only open up to Crystal Mountain. I did try to find something to do around the West Fork of White River, but the snow got deeper/slushier than I thought I should tackle alone. No lockers and skinny tires are not a recipe for success. I ended up stopping around the Halfcamp Trailhead on the way up to Crystal Mountain and pulled out the snowshoes to explore a bit.

After enough of the snow I decided to head to the opposite side of valley and check out the Olympics. I started out trying to go to High Steel Bridge again, but the forest road out to it was closed. Boo. I can’t believe how much standing water there was along West Skokomish Valley Road. Maybe it was just the season, but boy there was water nearly up to some of the front doors of the houses along the way.

From Shelton I just headed North on 101. I had all my camping stuff with me, so I didn’t have a real plan as I made my way. I stopped a bunch of times to check out different parks and cool sights along the way. I made it to Port Townsend where I decided that I would keep driving, but heading back toward Seattle. I popped over to Hwy 3 via 104 and head south through Bremerton, over Tacoma Narrows and back up toward Seattle.

The only other day trip I took was to Bellingham via backroads along the coast and back to the South side of Seattle on backroads along the mountains.

I used to think I wanted to move to Seattle, but the more time I spend there the less I feel that way. I do think that area is some of the most beautiful in the country, but so does everyone else. It really seems like no matter what I try to do, or try to go, a ton of other people had the same idea.

For the time being I’ll continue to be a tourist in Seattle.

 

After three weeks of Seattle winter, I was ready to see the sun again. In all fairness I did see the sun for a couple hours on a few occasions while there . I had mixed feelings about leaving, but I planned a pretty rad trip back to Minnesota, so I was getting eager to set off.

As soon as I got South of Tacoma the sun came out. Haha





I had to put sunglasses on! It was amazing! That didn’t last long…



I made my way just into California and settled down for the night in the Southbound rest stop just North of Yreka. I always forget that rest stops are not good for sleeping, because of the insane amount of lighting. In the morning I saw that just across the river from the rest stop there was a pretty nice little gravel parking area that would have been way better. Oh well, marked for next time.

As I head South the sun started to peek out from behind Mt Shasta off in the distance.





It’s hard not to appreciate a sunrise like this.



And finally, Mt Shasta is presented in full. Much more impressive than I was expecting.



I’ve never driven South through California via I5, only some combination of 101, and I wanted to see something different. Terrible choice that I won’t make again. I didn’t take another picture until I got to Bakersfield, and even then, I only took a few pictures to send to my mom, because we used to live there like 20 years ago.



One of my favorite memories of the short time we lived in Bakersfield was camping up around Lake Isabella and the drive up the Kern Canyon, so that’s where I decided I’d camp for night two. Sunset here was amazing.







Good night.



Sunrise was even more amazing.



I popped down to the river to check it out.









Back on the road my plan was to continue heading through the canyon and out into Owens Valley and turn South toward Barstow. However, I was soooo close to Owens Lake, Keeler, and Cerro Gordo… I couldn’t help myself, but I didn’t have a lot of time if I was going to keep schedule.





It’s so wild to see the Sierra Nevada range full of snow on the left and the dry desert mountains of the Panamint range on the right.





I took video of this entire trip, which I periodically look back at, but very little of it is interesting to anyone but me. The trip up Cerro Gordo Road might be the most interesting bit of this trip, so here is a not-so-short video of just that.



I hope to make more videos like this documenting cool roads and passes on my journeys. Hopefully you find it interesting.

I didn’t have a lot of time to explore the old mining town, and I wanted to be respectful of the fact that the owner and some helpers were working as I was there. I spent most of my time in the museum and wandering around the town. No buildings are currently open other than the museum. I would really like to come back as a volunteer when I have more time to dedicate.

The view from the mine is crazy. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to live and work here.



The drive down was maybe even better than the drive up.





I made my way back South to Barstow, where I needed to stop to buy a couple more SD cards. From there I was planning to camp in the Mojave near Needles. There is an old army training base from WWII called Camp Ibis. There isn’t much left aside from some pretty rough trails that make up the grid of the old roads. I camped at the very center.



At around 12-1am I was woken up to bright lights shinning into the back of my truck. I kind of just sat up looking out the back window to see if anyone was going to get out. But after maybe 30 seconds or so the truck backed up and drove around my truck and back onto the trail and head back toward the road. I couldn’t tell for sure but given the rooftop lightbar and the shape of the tails I believe it was just a cop checking out the random truck in the desert. This was the first time I ever had anyone pull up to my truck in the middle of the night. When they pulled away, they sat at the edge of the highway for like 30 minutes and then just took off. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep particularly well the rest of that night.

In the morning I started driving pretty early. I bypassed Las Vegas as I headed toward St George, UT, by going through Lake Mead National Park. I took the opportunity to pick up the America the Beautiful Pass. It would prove to pay off on this trip alone. I tried to take pictures in Lake Mead NP, but none of them would do it justice. What I can say is that if you have the chance to check it out, 100% do it. It’s huge and amazing, and red, and the alluvial systems feeding the lake are so wild.

As I passed through St George and eventually through Hurricane I couldn’t help myself but to drive past Winder Towing as a fan of the channel. I was taken aback by the landscape surrounding Hurricane; snow-capped mountains, sand dunes, plateau, and canyon. Wild.





Next up, a quick stroll through Zion NP.



I didn’t take a lot of pictures in Zion, but I may make another drive-through video, because it really is amazing. The arches and the tunnel, and the huge smooth rock mount faces.

On the other side of Zion I stopped in Kanab before turning South through Kaibab National Forest, where it started snowing pretty heavily. I was hoping to stop at the North rim of the Grand Canyon as I’ve never seen it, but it was closed. Sad. That kind of forced me to head East along Vermilion Cliffs National Monument toward my stop for the night in Marble Canyon.



If I’m correct this is kind of the transition area between Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon NP. I ended up staying at Lee’s Ferry, which was a pretty rad campground.











I was super disappointed to learn that I was a short 5 miles from Horseshoe Bend, but it was an hour and a half out of the way, which I couldn’t make work on this trip. The lighting leaving Lee’s Ferry in the morning was a pretty good consolation, though.







I didn’t take many more pictures through the rest of the Arizona or New Mexico, even though they are filled with unreal landscapes and views. I just don’t have the camera or lenses to capture the grandeur of it properly. I also had to deal with finding some alternate routes on my way to Albuquerque that set me back several hours. I wasn’t able to make it to my next destination before I got tired, and ended up stopping at the second and last rest stop of the trip just East of Albuquerque. This would also prove to be one of the coldest nights of the trip at 19 degF.

The next morning I woke pretty early and hit the road. My plan was to hit it pretty hard while I had daylight. I finished up New Mexico, burned through North Texas and Oklahoma. My stop for the night was a pretty nice State Park just outside of Tulsa called Keystone State Park. My site was right on Keystone Lake and lent to a pretty great sunset.

My brother lives in Springfield, MO, which isn’t too far from Tulsa, so I tried to sleep as late as I could to try to meet up with him for lunch. We grabbed a bite, BS’d for a bit, and he told me that I should take a detour up to Ha Ha Tonka State Park to check out the cool burned out mansion on the hill. Man was he right.





This place was a legit castle. Apparently, the original owner started building the house in 1905, but was killed in Missouri’s first car accident in 1906. His sons continued work on the mansion and it was completed in 1920, when one of his sons took up residence until they ran out of money and were forced to leave and was turned into a hotel and lodge. In 1942 the building was completely destroyed by a fire, leaving only the stonework standing. The property was purchased by the state in 1972 and has been actively preserved since then as part of the state park.

If you get a chance, go. It’s worth it.

My last stop of the trip was my mom’s house just outside of St Louis. Unfortunately, she tested positive for Covid just before I arrived, so they left out an extension cord for me to hook up in the driveway. I stopped at Walmart to grab a 1500W heater to stay warm overnight as it was to get down to around 10 degF overnight. I also wanted to test out 1500W to make sure it would be enough, as I just bought a 2000W diesel heater so I can do considerably more winter camping.

The remainder of the trip consisted of the boring drive North through Illinois and Wisconsin. I did stop at a friend’s house near Madison that I hadn’t seen in a while.

A total of 6005 miles later I was home. With a well-deserved shower I was off to bed.



Until next time.

 

I like your style of travel. Itinerary and timetable not set in stone.
Reading this reminded me that the journey can be the best part.

 

Yeah, I don't like being planned out with too much detail when I travel, because if something goes wrong it just adds stress for me. I prefer planning in a fluid way, so that I have a ton of options along the way and can make pretty much anything work. I prefer to set destinations, but not times. For me, that ends up being the most relaxed way to travel. My day job involves pretty meticulous planning, so it's a welcomed reprieve.

 

While on the Colorado BDR trip I started to hear some clunking in the front end and was starting to develop a wobble on the freeway. The clunking I assumed was going to be lower ball-joints and the wobble was likely a combination of that and maybe tire balance. I had kind of forgotten about this as winter was approaching and I didn’t have too many trips lined up, so the truck was just being used around town for truck things.

Before heading out to Seattle I swapped over to snow tires, because the Cooper ST Maxx are terrible in snow and I knew I’d be hitting some on that trip. I was glad I did for about a total of two hours on the entire loop. In any case, the tire swap is kind of important to note for the rest of the story.

As I set off toward Seattle the front end wobble became apparent again, but only at certain speeds and not too bad. When I got to my sister’s house I grabbed a prybar out of my kit and tested the ball-joints, which I had also done while on the Colorado trip, and again they weren’t really noticeably bad. But when I grabbed the driver side wheel I could turn it ever so slightly left and right. I slid under the truck again to check out the inner and outer tie rods, and when I pushed up on the inner the whole thing shifted up in the boot.

Ok, so this is clearly steering rack bushings. Makes sense as the truck has 285,000 mi on it at that point and it has a slight leak. I did a bit of looking around at options, but it kind of seems like the OEM Toyota rack is the best option. I ordered a new one just before I left to come home so that it would be here when I got back. I had also previously ordered Whiteline rack bushings.

Another thing that has been a bit annoying is a creaking noise from the rear of the truck when I take off. As I was leaving Zion the noise started happening any time I would engine brake. When this first started I jammed a bunch of grease into the u-joints and slip-joints and the noise faded for a while. I did order new Spicer u-joints for front and rear at that point.

I did a bunch of research on the double cardan joint and decided that I would leave that one alone and if it seemed bad when I swapped the other joints I would just order a new/reman shaft then.

When I got back from Seattle I procrastinated on replacing this stuff right up until the weekend I had to leave for another trip. Luckily for me it went pretty smoothly.

While pulling the rack I learned that my skid does a great job of hiding leaks on my truck. It’s like a built in oil catch basin. The rack was disgusting and you can pretty clearly see the gap between the rack and the bushing.





For anyone interested, this is the rack I ordered.



And here are the Whiteline rack bushings. I only ended up using the larger one on the passenger side, because all of the rack bushings were new in the new rack. The new rack also came with new boots and new inner tie rods! Score.



New rack installed. The only issue I ran into was the high pressure line from the pump was seized and I had to cut it. Luckily I was able to grab a new one early the next morning to wrap the job up real quick.



Looks like Minnesota is starting to take it’s toll, so I should probably sort that surface rust out this summer.

I didn’t take any pictures of pressing the u-joints out or in, mostly due to hand constraints, but I think I found where the noise was coming from…



It wouldn’t have mattered how much I greased them, these joints were packed with rust preventing the grease from going where it needed to.

For all four u-joints (front and rear of front and rear shafts) I used the same Spicer joints.





While I was in there I also replaced the center support bearing, though the old one didn’t really seem bad.





Hopefully all this driveline and steering maintenance takes care of that wobble and vibration…


PS. It didn’t

 

I can relate to all that. I don't get to travel that way now though... cause I married a "planner" who seems to want to get to the destination in the quickest and most expensive way possible. LOL.

 

In my last update I replaced the steering rack, u-joints in the rear drive shaft, and center support bearing in an effort to solve a driveline vibration that I started noticing on my way home from Colorado last year. With a bit more time in the seat I’ve determined that the vibration is notable between 55-60 mph, then it goes away, comes back at 70 mph and gets worse after that. From 55-60 mph I can feel vibration in the steering wheel, but at 70 mph the vibration is pretty much the entire truck.

TLR – I checked a bunch of stuff: I ruined my tires.

What I didn’t mention is that I wrapped up that work on a Friday night, grabbed an alignment Saturday morning, packed my bags and took off from Minnesota to Atlanta for a trade show. Since this was a work trip the gas to and from would be covered, and break-even for the company compared to a flight and rental car for a week. Win win.

As soon as I left the house and hit the highway I knew I hadn’t solved the driveline vibration. I made it down to Atlanta after spending the night just outside of St Louis. No incidents aside from the driveline vibration that seems to come and go. I pondered on this issue throughout the week of the trade show and ultimately came to the conclusion that it had to be something with the wheels, tires, or somehow a tie rod or ball joint. I really don’t think it’s a tie rod or ball joint as I just messed with the steering and the tie rods both seemed pretty solid and I couldn’t get any movement or noise from the ball joints. However, just because I can’t feel or hear movement banging around on the front suspension with my meat hooks doesn’t mean there isn’t play under load.

While consulting the internet from the comfort of a hotel room I decided that I was going to try balancing the tires, but not at shop and not with wheel weights. I’m sure many of you have tried this, and semis do it every day, but I decided to try balance beads from Counteract.



If you’re not familiar, balance beads are fine glass beads that go into the tire when mounted. The inertial forces of the tire rotating keep the glass beads on the outside of the tire. The goal of balancing wheels/tires is to get the center of mass as close to the geometric center of rotation. The most well known method is obviously to add weights to the edge of the rim. Another method commonly used to balance semi tires is to use balance beads. Balance beads work on a slightly different principle. Balance beads spread out at the outer surface of the tire are actually making it harder for the tire to become imbalanced. The additional mass at the farthest point from the center point has the dual effect of counteracting on unbalance caused by changes in momentum from heavy spots, but the added mass makes imbalance harder to feel.

I’m not sure these are the right answer since adding 6-8 oz rotating so far from centerline will almost certainly increase the power required to spin the wheels and will decrease fuel economy. How much? I’m not sure. Specially given that the 31/10.5R15 from Cooper are about 45lbs a piece. In any case, I’m tired of vibration and with the balance beads I should never have to balance these again. Willing to give these a shot I order a set and had them sent to my parents place outside of St Louis. My plan was to stop there for the night on my way home as well, but I should have enough time when I get there in the evening to install the balance beads.

On my way I stopped at Harbor Freight and picked up a bead breaker. The beads on these shouldn’t be too bad to break. Worst case I could always setup a 2x6 and drive up it with another car to bust the bead.

All in all, the balance beads were pretty simple to install. One wheel at a time I pulled the valve core, busted the tire bead on one side, dumped the balance beads into the tire, tossed the valve core back in, and aired the tire back up. Before reinstalling the wheel on the truck I removed all of the original stick-on weights. The hardest part was dealing with the clearly returned and broken Harbor Freight tire bead breaker. Thanks Jackson, TN Harbor Freight.

Eager to find out if my driveline vibration is resolved I jumped in the truck and took off for a test drive. No change. None. Literally exactly the same. That was hard to believe since I not only added the balance beads, but I also removed the stick-on weights. Maybe it really was tie rods or ball joints.

Well, I did a bunch of internet searching that night, because I was so frustrated that the vibration was still there. I hate chasing problems. I mean, probably everyone does. I’m just saying. What the internet told me was that it could very easily be the driveshaft angles. My understanding is that the pinion angle may be too low causing vibration at those very same speeds. Ignoring that fact that my truck isn’t lifted, which is when this matters, I ran to the hardware store and picked up washers and a digital level. Back and forth and back and forth I shim and measure to get the angles all perfect. Jump in the truck, sure I had solved the issue, down the road for a test drive. No change.

%&#@!

Back home I started troubleshooting. I pulled the shocks and springs out of the front end to take pressure off the front suspension while still being able to articulate it. This did prove to be useful, as I did find that the right lower ball joint wasn’t great, though not terrible. To be sure I replaced them both with new OEM ones. I checked the tie rod ends, but those were good, so I left them alone. I tossed the shocks and springs back in and tossed the front wheels back on. Test drive, no change.

I pulled the rear half of the rear driveshaft out. Test drive in 4wd. No change. I pulled the front half of the rear driveshaft out. Test drive. No change. Put the rear driveshaft back in and pulled the front driveshaft. Test drive. No change.

I put the entire truck up on jackstands, grabbed my dial indicator and checked all four wheels for bends and out of round. Nothing to note. I pulled the wheels off and tossed the dial indicator on each hub and pushed and pulled to see if I had some bad wheel bearings, even though there was no wheels bearing noises happening. The only thing I found was some axial play in the right rear and it was pretty easy to move. Even so, it was only 0.018”.





Not satisfied this was the smoking gun I put the rear end back together. One other thing I noticed when the rear end was up and I spun the rear wheels was that the tires didn’t seem to spin perfectly round. They kind of had a bump in one spot, which was kind of abrupt in the treads. To rule the tires out I swapped my snow tires onto the rear and went for a test drive. Not a significant change. Back at the shop I swapped the snow tires onto the front and went for a test drive. No vibration…

My tires? Why? How? They are 4 years old with ~20,000 mi, but neither of those should cause the tires to vibrate like crazy. They have a bit of feathering, but not bad. I swapped the fronts back to the rear and vice versa, and I did notice that the vibration was less, so I went with that for now.

I had to run them for now as I had a trip planned. It was still miserable, less so, but that vibration is not ok. Racking my brain and searching the internet for clues I couldn’t find much, so it must be that Cooper tires just weren’t what I thought. I was talking to my dad about all the deer I had seen on the most recent trip and the tires/vibration came up. I trust his opinion on this stuff because he was a mechanic for 35+ years before retiring. He was about as confused/frustrated as I was about the situation. Of the cuff I mentioned that I had noticed that the vibration seemed to be worse right when Id hit the road and they were cold and it would get a bit better as I drove. Immediately he said, “That sounds like delamination. We used to see that at the dealer when people would drive too far on a flat tire before bringing their car in.”

The puzzle pieces, they are aligning. In Colorado I was getting super frustrated at the rocky nature of the trails in the rocky mountains and I aired down farther than I normally would. Usually I run 15psi, but I went down to 10psi to try to deal with the trail. I didn’t air back up until we hit the pavement back in Wyoming. The last day of the trip was primarily sand and well maintained gravel roads and we were moving at a pretty decent clip. For hours. And hours. That’s when I also remembered that the vibration became apparent on the way back from Colorado, but I assumed it was whatever was clunking in the front end; steering rack wear.

I ruined my tires. Case closed. I drove pretty fast, for hours, at 10psi on all four. Don’t do that. You will ruin your tires too.

In the end I picked up some 16in 3rd gen 4runner Limited wheels that I’m going to “refinish” and a set of 255/85R16 Toyo Open Country M/T. If I need new tires I might as well go to 33s, shucks. I wanted the BFGoodrich KM3, but that size is apparently on national backorder. I also checked on more Cooper ST Maxx, but again not currently available. I’ve heard a lot of good things about both the BFGs and the Toyos, and I’ve learned a lot about airing back up, so I’m sure these will be good.



+


= Good

Before more trips I’ve got some work to do. I have so many parts, both maintenance and upgrades, to install.

 

Great build thread man. Really enjoyed reading it. Keep up the good work!

 

Thank you. It's sometimes hard to tell if folks are reading and enjoying. I know I'm not doing anything groundbreaking, but it's still fun to document and look back at. If anyone can find entertainment, inspiration, or how to from any of my posts I'll be happy. I know I've gotten a huge deal of inspiration from the threads here, both for building the truck and for trips and reports. When I bought this truck I was looking for a Ford Ranger to swap a diesel into for a daily truck. I never thought I'd find a dedicated Toyota forum, start taking trips, camping out of the back, or wanting to build a cool adventure truck.. What an amazing unintended consequence.

 

It’s been a minute. I’ve done some trips and some work. For the time being, I’ll leave it with a picture, until I can spend some time building a real update.

Tdi swap incoming. Finally.

 

More Mods...

Tires, Pinch Welds, and Leafs

The new tires showed up and I decided to be super cheap and mount the tires by hand. It went pretty quick, but it’s kind of a pain.



They’re a bit bigger than the 31s.



Not surprisingly, they rub on the rear of the front fenders…



One part of the remedy to that was I maxed out the caster by locking the rear lower control arm bushings all the way out and locking the front lower control arm bushings all the way in.

The other part of the remedy was the pinch weld mod. There are tons of DIYs for this, so I won’t go in depth.







The combination of all the caster and the pinch weld mod did the trick. No more rubbing even at full lock and full articulation.



During the COBDR and some other local trips I noticed that the rear was hitting bump stops pretty often. This isn’t terribly unexpected with the stock springs, the topper, and the bed/gear in the back. So, I ordered and installed a set of All-Pro Expedition springs.



That’s better.

 

After doing the Colorado BDR and having such an awesome time my friend and I decided we wanted to try the Wyoming BDR with the addition of my friend’s dad in his 4th gen 4Runner. I really appreciate that the BDR site supplies the routes, and for that I try to patronize them and buy the paper maps and trinkets from their site.

I still like to build the route out in Gaia as it helps me to visualize the route and explore the surrounding area for other things to see or explore.



As you can see here I like to plan a bunch of different camping, gas, and photo/interesting locations along the trip. This helps to reduce stress on the trip and allow us to just drive until we don’t want to anymore for the day.



That day had come, June 18, 2023, to hit the road from MN. My friend and I met up with his dad just before we hit South Dakota and started our motorpool.



Our first stop was one of my favorite places to camp along the way to/from the West, Black Hills, SD. We found a spot about 20 minutes out of Deadwood.



Other than most of the camp site I had planned being occupied and having to backtrack a couple of miles, the first night was great.

Out of bed and on the road to Baggs, WY we started getting into some heat. I do have working A/C in my truck, but if I use it I can’t maintain highway speeds… Gotta love that 3RZ. Luckily, something I’ve never experienced quite so dramatically happened, it down poured and dropped the temps.



From 101 degF to 70 degF. What an absolute gift.



I really need to do a better job of taking pictures on my trips. I look back as I put these together and kick myself a bit.

As we left South Dakota and entered Wyoming we were met with a beautiful view overlooking Salt Creek. The West side of the Black Hills really cemented my appreciation for the area.







We made it to Baggs, grabbed a bite to eat at a little local diner. From there we headed north to the trail. Almost immediately the cows were out. I really had no idea how many cows we would see on this trip…



I also got to see my first actual cowboy. I feel a little bad for taking his picture, but I needed to document it.



The first 40 miles or so were in this open plain, albeit with a good amount of elevation changes along the way. As we entered the Sierra Madre it started to get colder and cloudier and we soon found our first snow of the trip.



We soon approached the first “expert” section of the BDR, which heads up and over the Bridger Peak Pass at 10,961ft. However….





We made it nearly to the summit, but being in the trees and on the North side of the mountain, the snow just became to thick and sloppy for us to continue. We did try, but just ended up needing the kinetic rope after only a few feet. Back down the mountain to the normal route through the Sierra Madre.

It was getting pretty late and we were pretty tired from the miles we put on going from Black Hills to Baggs, to here, so we found a little logging turn out and set up for the night.

In the morning we shoved off toward Encampment, WY, and beyond to the Medicine Bow Mountains. Given the events of the previous day we decided to stick to the normal route all the way to Centennial, WY. Here we stopped off for gas and a quick lunch before heading into some more fun areas.



We first made a stop along the Snowy Range to take some pictures.











After the Snowy Range we tried to take a small detour around a reservoir, but again we were stopped by snow just a mile or so down the road, so back to the main route again.

This time we were greeted with more fun, and the deepest water crossing I’ve done to date. Even though it’s not much, it’s still more than any of us have been through previously.





It all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to pull out my camera, but as I was rounding a corner on a gravel round leaving Medicine Bow Mountains I had to skid to a stop as a cow and calf moose were standing in the middle of the road. They just stood there for a second and the took off around the corner out of sight. I waited for just s bit before I followed. They were pretty far up ahead, but I slowly followed until they darted into the woods. As I pulled up to where they had left the road I shut off the truck to listen, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Either they stopped and were staring at me from the depths or they move silently. I like to believe the later, but who knows. If I remember I’ll post a clip from my dash cam of the events.

We moved North out of the Medicine Bow Mountains into the town of Medicine Bow. It was getting to be mid afternoon, but I figured we could make it through the Shirley Mountains and up to Alcova Reservoir to camp for the night. From the moment we left the well-traveled gravel road to head up into the Shirley Mountains I became less inclined to believe we were going to make it to the reservoir. The small headstones were brutal and unrelenting, to the point that we couldn’t go faster than about 5-10 mph or we’d lose teeth. There was a pretty cool old cabin, though.



The glimpses that we’d get of the valley below through the trees were amazing. There was supposed to be a lookout, but we searched for a good 30 minutes with no success. We were a little hesitant to go down one path as there was a pretty rough looking trailer home right next to the trail with a car next to it. There was also a fence, but I was under the impression that the land was public. It was getting later and we didn’t want to disturb the locals in an area we would be staying in, so we just moved on.

We set up camp just on the side of the trail as it was completely dark and we were still in the Shirley Mountains, far from the campground at the reservoir. I also don’t like driving on these trips in the dark, because the purpose of the trip is to see parts of the country that I don’t normally get to see. We woke up to a beautiful view of Shirley Basin, but we could really only enjoy it from our trucks as it was so windy and cold, so we decided to just get moving and stop once we got down the mountain.

Soon we arrived at Alcova Reservoir, where we stopped by the water and had some breakfast and coffee.







We also got to endure a man screaming at his wife and kids as they packed up their camper. I will never understand how people can live with so much anger.

From Alcova Reservoir through the ranges all the way to the Wind River Range was an a really amazing drive through what seemed like one of the most remote places I’ve ever been, but it would have been pretty underwhelming to photograph. There was one spot that we stopped for a snack that was on the rim of a basin called Beaver Rim. The views were huge, but so far off there were hard to capture.

As we approached the Wind River Range we came upon the Carissa Mine, which is an old gold mine.







Just South we were to stop in South Pass City for gas as mentioned on the BDR site, but I’m not sure where there was gas available. There is a small town where locals live and then a tourist town that is open as an Old West type attraction, which was closed when we arrived.





I wasn’t on fumes, but based on math I was going to be cutting it close getting into Lander. I had a ton of camping laid out through the Wind River Range; Lake Louis, Fiddlers Lake, Frye Lake, Sinks Canyon, etc. Something about the not so long ago grizzly bear attack death of a hiker not to far from where we were made me drive past them all. There are few things I fear, but grizzlies are one of them.

That being said, the view coming down into Sinks Canyon was amazing.



There are houses/cabins on the far ridge looking out into the plains. I can’t even imagine.



That night we found a spot in the Lander park to sleep for the night. It was so packed, but very chill. We asked the waitress the next morning why, which is when I learned that Lander is one of the climbing capitals of the US.

We stopped at these interesting red and white formations outside of Lander that were so out of place in the rest of the landscape. They seemed to protrude out of nowhere.



One thing I didn’t realize before this trip was that there was so much remote mining of natural gas. We came across a ton of these old signs and warning lights between Lander and Ten Sleep.





We came across some cows napping in the road. The larger ones got up quick, but the little guy couldn’t be bothered. I had to get pretty close before he decided to move.



Not too far on we had a bit of a showdown with this guy…



We passed through Ten Sleep heading toward the Bighorn Mountains. As we were making our way up and up and up, my truck was getting slower by the mile as we approached 9300ft and turned off toward Medicine Lodge Canyon for the night. Aside from no cell service to book a site it was a really great campground to stay at. The neighbors came over with firewood and stories, and we enjoyed the company and hospitality before heading to bed.

In the morning, we stopped at the Bighorns viewpoint, which had some pretty epic views…





Continuing North the next expert section can be found at the Adelaide trailhead. We decided to give it a try again. Right out of the gate the trail was a steep upward climb like nothing I had done before, which isn’t really saying much. Past Antelope Butte to Woodchuck Pass we went. Near the top of the pass we started to see snow again, but not too much in the trail, though, until one section that dove into and back out of the trees. Several people had been this way and drove off the path around the snow. I don’t care for this approach, as we’re on public land on beautifully maintained trails, that I’d prefer to have stay open for the future.

We stayed in the snow. It was a bit of a challenge, and two of us emerged with just a few scratches to prove it. The third, though, that pesky 4th gen 4Runner, he was stuck. As I was turning around a few Jeep guys started driving across the meadow covered with flowing water to avoid the snow. They made no progress in about 30 minutes, other than to tear up the grass and fling mud everywhere. Just as I had turned around and made it back to the 4th gen, he got out and was on his way up. I tossed it into reverse and backed back up the trail. That was when I remembered there was a section that was a bit muddy that we had to just goose it to make through. It was too late and I was up to my rockers in mud. Rather than dig myself into a deeper hole we decided to pull cable to tie off to my friend’s truck. With a little clutch work it came out easy. I turned around and made it cleanly through the mud going forward, caked in my own poor choices.

We were able to make it through the rest of Woodchuck pass without much trouble, other than very dirty compared to the rest of the trip.



Up at Burgess Junction there was some kind of Jeep or Off-Road event going on. Tons of people and motorhomes all over. Gas here was very expensive. Like, they know they’re the only game in town and what are you gonna do about it? Expensive… But, we needed it to finish our trip, so $$$. Heading North out of Burgess Junction the roads were gravel but quite smooth at they wound around, up and down. For a few miles we were following a Kia sedan or some such car.

When we came to our turn off there was a group of UTVs parked having some food that looked like they were coming from where we were going. They told us the snow was pretty heavy up the road, but we might as well check it out. They were right, only about a half mile or so up this little trail the snow just started and we couldn’t see the end.

I had seen another route we could take back up the gravel road a bit, so we head that way. At that trail there was a nice little creek to cross and up into the woods. We made it only a few miles before being turned around by a large field of snow again. Around we turned and head back to where we had turned off the gravel road. Luckily, continuing on the gravel road got us right back to where we would have landed without the snow the first time.

Now was the home stretch. If we could make it through the next 10 miles we’ll have completed the Wyoming BDR, and likely to be the first of the season, given the general condition of the snow pack and how undisturbed it still was.

The first few miles were basically just a gravel road out to what seemed like hunting properties, maybe. A lot of larger campers just off the road, but well spread out from one another. About 5 miles up that road, or so, the main road takes a right turn, but our path continued straight. I could already see it… snow. The first patch wasn’t too wide, so we just took turns ramming into it and then being pulled out, which worked after only a couple of tries.

The road was clear-ish, but muddy for the next mile or so, until we came upon a patch of snow that covered most of the road, which was a shelf road on the side of Sheep Mountain. I was in the lead, and narrowest, so I gave it a go. I felt the rear slide to the downhill side a bit, but with a little throttle it made it through. The next two had a bit more sliding going on with mild to moderate staining to the underpants, with the third even stopping mid slide. Luckily, he was able to get it moving again and through without further sliding.

Beyond Sheep Mountain we plucked away at one snow patch after another, so far lucky enough to have only encountered patches no more than 10-15ft wide, although deep and heavy. We were close, maybe 3 miles from the boarder and the gravel road that would take us back to the highway home though Montana. But the snow was just too much and too deep. The last recovery took the other two trucks anchored together due to the stuck driver getting too excited to use caution heading into the next snowbank.



With his head hung in shame, we knew this was the end for us. The 4th gen 4Runner was the heaviest and the lowest ground clearance of the group and he was turtled from the first two feet on. During the recovery he was so high-centered that I was basically pulling dead weight.



Until next time, Big Horns.



Another fun thing… I crossed 300,000 mi on the way home. I can tell.

 

Since getting back from the Wyoming BDR I really started to feel the age of my truck. Over 300,000mi on the stock 2.7 and she just doesn’t have much pep left. Not to mention the 16.7 mpg average.



Since I can recall I’ve wanted a small truck with 4wd, manual, and a diesel. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t exist in the US. I did find a couple of Hilux for sale in Canada, but I wasn’t sure about importing and titling at the time. Plus, with an imported engine you run the risk of being stranded if something breaks on a trip.

I have also been into European cars for 20-ish years, and have own a couple of 2000 era TDIs. That is a plentiful engine around the US, Canda, Mexico, etc. So, I found a 1999 VW Golf TDI Automatic that was no longer acceptable for the road as a donor. In hindsight I do wish I had gotten a slightly newer TDI since the ECU is not flashable in the early cars, they use solder-in chips. The automatic was intentional, because the auto came with an 11mm injection pump where the manual only came with a 10mm injection pump. Not that I plan to hotrod it much, but it does open some doors for power.

After a few years of preparation and not wanting to take apart my truck, because I use it for camping quite often, it IS finally time. I will be attempting to be more live updating this part of the process. I’ve only been working on it for a couple of weeks, so this an update that will bring us to today.

I started by pulling the 2.7 3RZ out of the engine bay to see what I’m working with.





A very dirty engine bay. I don’t have water in my workshop, so I bought one of the portable battery pressure washers that use the same battery as my lawn tools. I would say it’s very convenient, but if you’re hoping for high performance look elsewhere. For what I need, it’s perfect. I can put in a little extra elbow grease and scrubbing if it means I can clean parts up at my shop.



I have a few 1.8t engine blocks laying around, so I decided to test fit with one of those to check oil pan to diff clearance. There wasn’t any… I also wasn’t sure what angle to set the engine at, so I ended stripping the 3RZ down and setting it back in the bay.

With the 3RZ bolted back in I made some super janky transmission locating brackets.









The transmission staying in the same place as stock will ensure that drivetrain and shifter angles all stay the same. I don’t want to stress other parts by raising the engine and changing angles if I don’t have to.

Next, I wanted to see how the TDI engine fit in the space. I had read about vacuum pump clearance issues. I was worried about the FWD turbo VNT actuator location, and I wanted to see how the oil pump would clear the front diff.







All things considered, it fits pretty well.



The vacuum pump has no issue with clearance and I could put my hand between it and the firewall.





The VNT actuator, however, is a different story. The actuator sits only about 1/2in or so from the passenger mount bracket on the frame. There is no way the stock mount is going to fit there. The stock mount would be a very tight fit, but doable on the driver side, but not with A/C in the stock golf location.

I would like to get this on the road as quickly as possible so I can start finding the bugs and working them out. I have some trips planned and I don’t want to be worrying about stupid things.

I also want to use as much of the OEM Toyota and VW parts as possible. For the A/C I have two options;

1. Redesign the driver mount to allow A/C pump and lines to fit, and have custom lines made. This is also not ideal, because the Toyota A/C is on the passenger side and the VW will be on the driver side. If the pump were to fail on the road you cannot route a belt to bypass the A/C pump without custom brackets and pulleys.

2. Design a bracket to mount the Toyota A/C pump on the TDI block and find OEM VW serpentine parts to run the A/C separately.

I chose option 2.

With a little research I found that in Europe the Seat Leon was offered in TDI without A/C. What this does is remove the A/C pump from the main serpentine belt on the TDI, and with the added benefit of relocating the power steering pump lower.

Here is the original TDI serpentine layout.



And here is the non-A/C Seat serpentine layout.



I also found that older Audi A4 and VW Passat 1.8t came with the A/C running on a second serpentine belt with the pump mounted on the passenger side.



The secondary serpentine belt is a 5 rib belt, which is exactly what the Toyota A/C pump is. The Audi/VW also has a tensioner system I can work with and a crank pulley that has both serpentine belt spots.

Another key is that I can now leave the A/C and pump until absolute last. If I had run the A/C on the main serpentine system I would have had to figure it out before putting miles on or risk damaging the pump.

My next mission really became figuring out how to mount the engine in the bay. I needed to design brackets to bolt onto the engine, remove the original brackets on the frame, and design new brackets to mount on the frame.

Lets start by 3D scanning the engine and the engine bay.





With the engine and bay scanned I can cut down on the point clouds to make the parts easier to work with and start modelling. I designed a driver side mounting bracket, and passenger side mounting bracket, and a bracket that will be welded to the frame. I made sure to keep the positions of the brackets to be welded to the frame the same from side to side. The rubber mount is the most basic, but robust mount I could think of. I couldn’t build a car without using parts from a BMW E30, so the rubber mounts are from an E30. Haha.

Tucked in there you can see the driver mount and then the passenger mount.





The passenger mount was a bit more of a pain, and I ended up with 3 revisions. I wanted to make sure that it was small enough to allow removal of the starter, which is super tight, but I also wanted it to be strong enough and minimize deflection. I performed FEA on both the driver and passenger mounts… I ended up at about 300 factor of safety before permanent deformation.

Here is a view from the back with a bunch of the scan cropped to show how the mounts work together.



Once the general designs are sorted out you have to make sure they can be fabricated. I chose to use 3/16” A36 plate for the design. Each piece can be cut and bent by SendCutSend, but I’ll have to do the welding.





Once split up into the plate parts I made drawings and uploaded them to the SendCutSend site.



There was a little back and forth with SCS, but they were in production within about a week and at my door a week after that.



I quickly got them tacked up.





Once I knew they fit I welded them out. I would make a few changes to make assembly easier in the future, such as adding some slots and tabs and chamfers for welding.



After welding they were fit up again and confirmed they didn’t warp too bad.





Happy with the mount arms on the engine I turned to the engine bay. The brackets on the frame needed to be removed.









There was quite a bit of cleanup to do to remove the welds, but it went pretty quick. There is a decent amount of undercutting from the factory welds (The black “cracks”). Believe it or not, that is not from me cutting the brackets off. I only nicked the frame in one spot on the driver side. I think I might gouge them out and fill them with weld, if even just to look nicer.







That is where I left off at the shop. This week I plan to set the engine back in the bay to align the brackets on the frame and get those welded in. I also have a few other bracket and braces to add to the frame while I have it this far apart and accessible.

I think I’ll also powder coat the mount arms on the engine.

 

Made good progress this weekend on the tdi swap. Not terribly exciting from a reader standpoint, but exciting for the builder. Ha.

I set the engine back in the bay with the trans locating bracket in place one final time. I was able to mark the location of the new brackets to be welded on the frame. I did have to make a small notch around one of the rear welds on each bracket, but they went in without a hitch.







The E30 rubber mounts fit perfect. I’m hoping they’re soft enough to keep the noise, vibration, and harshness to a minimum.





Next wase to put the engine back in to verify everything fits. Then stand back and start planning the rest of the bits and bobs.









The starter is easily replaced with this slimmed down passenger mount.





I won’t be using this pan, so ignore that part. Quick undercarriage shot.



Next up will be planning out the radiator and intercooler setup. I have an idea, but I need to do a bit more work before I commit. One thing is for sure, there is a ton of room for activities up there.

 

I made two decisions with this swap that made pretty extensive oil pan modification necessary; I wanted to keep the angle of the engine the same or very similar to how it sits in the mk4 which pushes the pan to the driver side, and I wanted to keep the engine at the exact same elevation and angle as the 3rz which sits pretty low in the bay.

I started by 3D scanning the original tdi oil pan and turning it into a usable model. I added the oil pan model into the 3D scan of the bay and engine where it became even more obvious that the pan was going try existing in the same space as the diff in a very big way. If I were to just notch the pan around the diff I would lose nearly half of the oil capacity, so that wasn’t going to be a good solution for me.

I started trimming the oil pan model to fit around diff and try to add the volume into a front sump design.




Happy with this design I broke it up into smaller buildable parts that I would just weld together. Those, again, ere ordered from SendCutSend.




At this point I got the flu and didn’t want to move for a week and a half. When I finally got off the couch, I started by tacking the bottom of the sump portion of the pan together. I forgot how bad I am at TIG welding aluminum, but it went pretty well.







I was planning to weld the inside of the seams, but after attempting that I stopped. Welding the outside will be fine…
















Before I can weld anymore pieces on I need to trim the pan. In order to avoid oil contamination and generally making my welds look worse than they already do, I bought a new TDI oil pan to start with.







The new pans you can buy all have provisions for an oil level sensor, which the pan I scanned did not have. It doesn’t look like it is different in any other way and it will get cut off with the mods, so I should be good to go. Taking measurements from the CAD model I transferred the important points onto the new pan. I used a marking tool that is essentially a vertical dial caliper with a carbide scribe attached.
















After measuring and checking again it was time to cut…




Now I get the first look of the sump mocked up.










When I had the individual parts made I intentionally left larger flanges in a few places with the intention of marking and trimming the excess off later. One of the main bits of trimming is the back of the upper portion of the pan. You can see on one side there is a pretty big gap, which is because I used the wrong reference point when marking this piece for trimming. Luckily I was able to just trim to shift it over the other way.










With the little drain bit mocked you can see the remnants of a mistake I made trimming. I forgot that the side of the pan you see here is angled, so the cut needed to also be angled. The first mock up made that obvious to me, so I filed the cut at an angle which dropped the total height. Not a big deal, just need to goober weld in there.







There is also this bit of pan left at the back that I need to trim. I’ll be cutting it at the line shown here.




I test fit the other filler pieces as well. You can see the gap from my angle snafu pretty clearly.













Before you look at the next set of pictures, please remember that I am not a welder, moreover I am not an aluminum welder. Just an engineer pretending to be a welder.













I still have to drill a hole and weld in a bung for the drain, so it’s not totally done. Overall, I’m happy with it. If I learned anything from this little side quest, it’s that I really need to practice aluminum fabrication and welding. I also warped the flange a little bit, which you can kind of see in a few of the photos, but when I test fit it onto an old 1.8t black I have it flattened without much fuss and the Hondabond will seal up real good. I “might” take it to a real machine shop and see if they can mill it a bit flatter, but that would require someone seeing my work up close and I’m not sure I’m emotionally prepared for that.

I also have this new oil pickup that I’ll modify to suit the front sump and it’s depth.




I’ll also be fitting the engine back into the bay soon, with the diff in there, so I’ll grab some clearance photos at that point as well.

 

Do you have plans to hydrotest the pan to check for leaks?

 

Yeah, I'll fill it with water and watch it drip onto the ground. I hope it doesn't leak, but my welds tell me it probably will.