Cynicalriders "J0hnny5 is ALIVE!" 01 build thread.

Will do!

Truth. I mean it was my only front recovery point so I had to choice a couple times. Glad I got a beefy front crossmember and recovery points now!

Fuck yeah! Thanks dude!

Haha truf. #NFG all day.

Better shots of the front crossmember:




Painting:





Back on:

 

Got the IFS skid back on kinda. Need to find a way to hold the center nut in place, can't get a wrench in there to hold it and cant tack weld it anymore either. Was thinking quick steel.

Also might need to re-drill new holes for the rear mount or maybe work with BPF on new mounts. I kind of have a lot on his plate still for him to do so I may just drill for now.

Also re-did the blue light behind the skid to use a SS reflector I made. Made a super ghetto brake to bend it up ha.

 

Looks good dude! I'm still dumbfounded as to most guys having to have the frame extension on their 01-04's for that bumper.. When I had it I actually cut my frame down and sunk the crossmember that comes with it back into the front body mounts! But mainly because when I put it on before doing any of that it stuck out nearly 6" from the grill.. I got it down to 2" from face of the grill. I like that bumper and the way Scotty sends them with that crossmember one because if welded correctly it's strong as fuck, two it's still essentially a bolt on bumper and 3 it makes for a solid spot for front spring hangers if you go leaf sprung sas down the road haha you need to make a trip down south a bit and let's hit windrock or gulches sometime!

 

Fuck yeah the crossmember beef's it up for sure while keeping the bumper itself relatively light and easily removed solo if need be. Do you have a side profile shot of yours when you had a winch on it? I am worried we didn't leave enough room for the winch but I'm hoping it will go just barely under the grill. I love my grill and the work I put into it so i really hope I don't need to hack it up too much.

And fuck yeah! Been wanting to make a trip down to windrock for a while now. Is that the place that has night runs too? I can't remember which place @ToyRyd04 told me that does. Want to get some rock lights and do some night wheeling. Hoping this winter will have tubbing and 35's in store for me. Just depends on which NJDB will help me out with that painful process.

 

Thats Big Dogs that has the night runs, havnt been further south yet....but imagine e there has to be a few other places that allow night runs.

 

If your looking for rock lights these look pretty rad

http://all4offroad.com/rock-lights.html

 

Yeah those were the ones I was planning on getting. Love following them on IG. They had them for $15 a pair on black friday I think.

 

Welp finally fixed my leaky front driveshaft. Used as my guide. He stated that the toughest part was going to be unstaking the 30 MM nut and he was right. Shit was a bitch and a half with the crossmember right in my way.

Leak symptoms:


In order to collapse the drive shaft you gotta take the grease fitting off and squeeze the shit out like toothpaste.



So sand. Much oil. Wow.




Old vs new:



Cleaned up the companion flange real nice. The outer seal was dry as a bone so I left it alone even though I bought it just in case.



Mid way through my wife came home telling me her car was bucking. It was idling very rough as well. The last time this happened it was an ignition coil so I thought it was that but it turned out to be the plugs. There definitely is a larger issue I need to figure out, current theory is that deposits destroyed the plugs.

 

@cynicalrider Good timing on the front output seal........its on my todo very soon list.



Make sure you check this out about the wife's car.

http://www.altimaforums.net/spark-p....html?s=ac6b2f61c33574fce01d0fc06c50e51a&

 

Good looking out dude. I'm told I can probably get the screws out of the cylinder with a magnet if that is the case. Then I will need to tear it apart and fix those screws this weekend.

 

Sooo I was taking advantage of the glorious weather we were getting in December last weekend to get some painting/mods done. First up was getting rid of the really annoying fast blink on the turn signals since I installed LED's.



Super easy relay swap that took maybe 20 minutes. Hardest part was removing the rear bolt to get the fusebox out.

Next up was to finish the seal work from last week by filling the t-case and and filling the front driveshaft slip yoke back up with grease. Figured while I was there I was going to grease all the zerks. Also used that opportunity to poke around the frame as a normal maintenance procedure. Then this happened and my heart literally sank.



Bright side is I went to Toyota of Langhorne this week and had them inspect the frame. They gave me this to drive in the mean time:



Many cupholders. Such tampon holder. Crushing disappointment slush box. Wow.

Got a call from them saying the frame will be replaced! Fuck yeah! So now I'll be tearing all my shit off and prepping for it to get the frame replaced. I really want to make it as easy as possible for them. Talked to the two techs who do the work and they showed me a 2nd gen in progress. Was great talking to him, expressing my concerns, and letting him know of all the prep I'll do for them. I'll use the opportunity to re-strip and paint my sliders, touch up the rear bumper and re-work some electrical shit on it. Signed a release and took the truck back in order to do all the work. I am bummed all the work @PSU Taco85 had helped me with needs to be re-done now but I am going to try to salvage as much as I possibly can. I really am happy I am getting a new frame though which will solve my seized LCA bolt issue and knowing I'll be able to start from scratch on a frame and keep it as good as possible for as long as possible.

Since I still had a nice day to work with I prepped and primed the rear diff with some weld thru primer in preparation for another appt at BPF to mount my diff armor.



And got an air chuck/gauge from Amazon to finish my CO2 setup.

 

I am not sure if it would be worth the trip but a close friend of mine owns Jersey Coast blasting down here in Rio Grande. He could blasts those sliders back to bare metal while you have them off so you can start fresh.

 

While it's tempting to do that considering how long it took me to get them to bare metal last time, I don't think it's worth it unless it was only like $50 haha already gonna be spending a ton of money very soon so I'm trying to budget where I can.

 

I hear that, I am going to get him to blast my trans skid after I straighten out the twist and BPF to weld some cross bars. I've had by front skid done twice now. It's nice not to have all those layers of paint and it also leaves a nice etch on there too so the paint sticks to the metal better.

 

I have a couple PC places really close to me. It's very tempting to have them do both bumpers while I wait. I rather have that than anything. This is how I got the slidah's looking when I got them last time:

 

Damn that must of been some work but they turn out good.

 

Yeah they turned out great. I did them with POR and they held up for about 2 years but it's back to looking shitty again. The rust just spreads so damn fast.

 

I wasn't crazy about the POR 15, I've had pretty good luck with the rustoluim semi gloss.

 

Yeah I painted that over the POR. Maybe I'll just try that by itself? I just put VHT's roll bar and chassis paint on the bumpers which I really liked. Might also be a good option since the POR has been disappointing.