3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

Dude it's the best feeling when you can finally romp on them now. I was in the same boat for YEARS. 5125's in the back with OEM mounts and Bilstein 5100's I got used from @ToyRyd04 before I did a rear shock relocate and ADS's on all 4 corners. The night and day difference offroad is insane.

BUT there is something to be said about all the places these trucks are more than capable of going to on relatively minimal suspension, you just need to go slower is all.

 

You saw the hack job I did on that cab mount to begin with. I promise I'm not going to be critical of your tie-ins.

Looking great! Really appreciate all these updates throughout the week.

 

Appreciate you taking good care of my little brother out there.

 

So your going to 63's from a set of custom Alcan's?
Please do elaborate as I was thinking of going to Alcan or Deaver or someone for a set of custom progressive leafs

 

Yes. I have been very happy with my alcans. They handle all my weight fine, but I had my heart set on 14s and made the commitment without really knowing what that meant to make it all work. The original plan was to run the alcans with the 14s, but now that I have looked at it all and taken some measurements I just dont see any way the alcans would be able to take advantage of anything close to what the 14s have to offer. That led me to 63s.

One big trade-off I was making with the alcans was that I was limiting up travel with a 2" bump stop drop in an effort to keep them from going too negative and extend the life of the pack. At the cost of $90 bucks from a junk yard, I am a lot less concerned about wearing out the leaf pack with a bit of negative arch on the 63s than I was with an $800 custom alcan pack.

 

Gotcha. Makes sense.
Yea I haven't seen anyone able to utilize anything more than a 12in shock with factory length leafs.

 

Well it's been a couple weeks now and I have had some time to romp on the new suspension out in Moab. The truck did awesome and I am very happy to finally have it all put together. Both my up and down travel (6.5 up and 7 down) are significantly improved, in addition to a much softer ride all around. With all the weight back on it, height wise it landed within 1/2 inch of where I was with my alcans. Theres definitely some more body roll at speed, but I still have the adjusters on the softest setting and havent played with them so theres some tuning I can do on the road.

Unfortunately I dont have any side view shots of the suspension flexed out, but I am told it looked awesome and the rear axle didn't even come up going over golden crack.

We did the trifecta, and Moab rim. Random pics in particular order.

 

Saving Part numbers for later:

Remote clutch master reservoir PN 31402-20160.

Remote clutch master res Bracket PN 31408-60010

Clutch master float PN 31426-22020

Cap Assembly PN 314053-5020

 

Copied from another thread...

I put in some hood pins this weekend to deal with my rusting catch and associated hood flutter:

I am also starting to collect parts for a brake upgrade.



Snagged this tundra/sequoia cylinder and booster for around $100 from a local yard. Missing the check valve but that's easy enough to replace.

I would love to do the 4runner brake upgrade at the same time just for the sake of bleeding the system once, but I am running 16s and not sure I want to fork out the $2k for tires and rims to go to 17s to accommodate the larger brakes.

For now the plan would just be the tundra master/booster and replacing the last of the rubber shit with hard lines to firm things up.

My 2009 sport has the shared reservoir for brakes and clutch, so I am planning to order the separate bracket and reservoir that I think came on the 2nd gen offroad model, since the the tundra setup doesnt have an output for the clutch.

 

Still trying to get a good pic of these chevy springs stretched out with the 14s. Here is the best I have been able to capture so far. It's a lot harder to float tires than it used to be so, mission accomplished.

 

Wow

 

The amount of travel you're getting with your soa setup is just sick dude

 

It's those chevy springs. I am very happy with it. It's a completely different truck. I still have yet to find a spot where I have it completely flexed out and been able to snag a photo with a tire floating.

 

Did a little DIY winch repair this week by replacing the standard warn umbilical connector with a 5 pin XLR cable end, and spliced/extended wires out the side of the controller for an in cab switch which I'll wire up when I re-install I winch.

The issue I had was that the 12v pin inside the winch controller completely corroded. I tried to take the easier route and just replace the one corroded end with a new one, but couldnt find the right size round connectors for the warn pins.



So, I cut out the old connector out with a hot knife and soldered this up. My soldering isn't pretty on the XLR cable, but it works again, and once all is said and done, I expect the umbilical will only be backup if the in-cab switch fails.

 

Saving parts for my brake booster/MC upgrade.

Should be everything I need to move the brake lines from where they normally come out on the passenger side on the tacoma master to the driver side of the tundra master. Mine are 12mm which matches the tundra, but unfortunately I can't find any ready made lines with the correct fittings so I'll be flaring my own.

 

Never flared my own brake lines before. Not too terribly difficult. There were several attempts that were cutoff and re-done, but I think they are all clean enough that they will work without leaking.

 

I did something overland as fuck over the holidays. I bought a stupid expensive smokeless fire pit to take camping and use for cooking. This is sort of a product review, but more importantly this is me defending how much money I spent on something I dont need because I think its cool.



In and of itself, buying this thing isn't all that "overland" until I tell you what I paid for it...over $500 with the cooking setup and safety accessoriesike the spark cage or whatever they call it. After trying the smaller Ranger setup, I am upgrading to their medium offering which is the Bonfire size, which was almost roughly $1000 for the same accessories I paid closer to $500 for.

Backstory:
Back in December, my old man who lives 1500 miles away from me back in my hometown of PA sent me a text that he bought a smokeless firefit from Solo, their largest size available, the Yukon, as a replacement for our old brick firepit where we have gathered around since I was a kid. When I first heard about it, I wasnt too pleased because I like my traditional fires. Here's his new setup:





I went back to visit over the holidays and sat around his new fire pit to see it in action and even though I was skeptical, I was honestly impressed. So long as you keep the wood below the top of the fire pit, it is almost completely smokeless. Thinking back to my most recent camping trip where we were dancing around the smoke all night, and taking into consideration that they were having a sale, I decided to buy the smallest size, the Ranger (which I dont recommend as it's too small) with pretty much every accessory. The fire pit alone is $299 but was on sale for $219. By the time I was done with the unnecessary accessories like the screen, cooking setup with cast iron grill, griddle, and carrying cases, I was into for over $500.

I took it camping for the first time this weekend in 20-30 degree overnight temps and a little snow on the ground. I really wanted to test out the cooking hub and cast iron cooktops as well as see if its viable for heat source in sub freezing temps. Overall,
I was absolutely thrilled with the heat output and cooking setup. I cooked the most perfect medium rare steak ever over this thing on my first try.

My only complaint is that THE RANGER IS TOO SMALL TO ACCOMMODATE STORE BOUGHT WOOD. Store bought wood will stick out 4-6 inches above the top of the pit. It works that way, burning the bottom quickly and allowing you to collapse the log into the fire, but it will be smoking above the pit like a traditional fire. The thing fucking rips with good fuel below the line.

The problem for me is that I am not going to cut down every piece of store bought firewood to half length in order to make this work. I carry a chain saw, hatchet, and splitting axe on almost every trip, so no big deal on gathered wood, but I burn enough store bought shit that I said fuck that noise, I need a bigger pit.

Fortunately, I am just inside of my 30 day window from original purchase and they will exchange my USED Ranger size for the larger Bonfire size, and the sales from XMas are still going on. The Bonfire should be able to accommodate store bought logs on a diagonal.

Here's some shots showing what I'm talking about with wood size






Steak and foil pack potatoes using the "hub" to elevate and the grill cast iron. Most perfectly cooked steak I have ever made:




As much as I hate the idea of carrying more shit like a steel fire pit in the truck....for most of the summer, I carry a propane fire pit and an extra 15lb propane tank so that I can still have a "fire" during burn bans that permit an on/off valve. So the space is already allocated in the bed of my truck.

So yeah... long story short, with the pending upgrade, I spent damn near $1k on a portable, smokeless firepit and some very specifically designed cast iron that will only fit that product. I am also waiting to check out a wood burning stove for the purpose of a single pan or pot of water on a future camping trip.

 

I've spent a lot more than that on neat toys.

 

Like your onewheel?