My Big Can of Worms Build

lol it's been a year, but I'd say you arrived right when things are getting interesting...

 

So I've been looking for some coilovers on Offer Up, RD, CL, here, etc. These popped up in Antioch (SF Bay Area) on RD:




I wasn't planning on getting bypasses until much later, but for the price the seller wanted, it was time to just send it. #Banzai style spontaneous 900 mile road trip!

7:30 pm Drove up to SLO with a friend and take a break from driving. Arrived at 11 pm

No pics - already dark...

1:30 am left from SLO to Antioch - arrived at 5:30am - seller's family had toys! Super nice people too!

Left around 6:00 am and headed 250 miles back to SLO.

Still dark on the way down through San Jose.





Stopped to gas up for the second time in Salinas - it was nice to see familiar places again after several years...



Stopped in SLO for lunch. My friend gave me a book shelf for my classroom - it was 72" on the money!



Left around 1 pm. Saw some coastal fog for the first time in a long time coming over the pass to Pismo:



Got back around 5:30 pm. 22 hours, 900 miles, 0 sleep since I had woke up on Saturday morning about 30 hours before lol. But it was all worth it, plus these were a bonus.




They need re-vavling and some longer hoses on the co's. Bobby from Solo talked to King and King will swap out the 700lb Main springs for 600lber's for me. So glad there's little needed to do for these to work out

 

Sweet dude, those are gonna kick ass. I doubt I'll ever go full LT considering the kind of nonsense I get into doesn't really warrant it but I'm still super jelly. I'll be a weirdo with front LT and rear MT haha, just finished revamping my rear end today...

 

Nice! The difference between rear setups doesn't make much difference for most of what we seem to like to do with our trucks anyway. It's not like you're going to be hitting whoops with all your camping sh*t bouncing out of the back...

It really is just fun to tear down a dirt road or two and explore all day (I like hiking too - that's usually a big part of my trips). The most important consideration for me is keeping my truck capable of doing the things I want.

 

Had a fun, event-filled day!

Went to King around 11.



Found these guys coming in from a Pro-2 truck to get re-clocked (those are my 'baby' 2.5's on the bottom).



I was helped really quickly and there was no charge for the lighter springs.



Called Paul at Solo and he told me my parts were ready! Had a couple hours to kill and I was right down the street from CSULB and I decided to not be lazy and go to the gym. Free street parking since it's a holiday.



The sky was nice looking with all the rain dropping in the mountains.



Saw this BAMF Bronco while pulling up.



Waited for a few minutes to talk to Bobby.





There was a green 2nd gen getting backhalved and this truck in the back with a LS3 sitting in the engine bay ready to get plumbed in.



https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/solo-motorsports-extreme-travel-kit.287485/

Bobby and Paul were helpful in answering all my questions and even said they'd have someone pick up my kit to have the uniballs pressed in once I paint my kit (saved $150 from getting it powdercoated).

Bonus round: A box from ECGS showed up two days early



The most badass part of all the stuff I received today though.



ARB zip ties... for when you're done fooling around

Half of me wants to zip along all the sharp edges on the kit with a sanding barrel on my dremel and the other half wants to just paint it already. We'll see. Until then.... fab porn for me to fap to.




Unedited shots.



I love doing business with Solo. They really take the time to help out their customers!

 

Bought some tools...



Laser cuts on the kit were a left a little burred so I decided I will knock them all down and round off the corners - I was running out of dremel attachments anyway.

$24 WORKPRO 276-piece Rotary Tool Accessories Kit Universal Fitment for Easy Cutting, Carving and Polishing

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0109U88KE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also got this so I can revalve my shocks and coilovers and eventually hopefully save some money.

$150 Mitutoyo 700-118-20 Quick Mini Digital Thickness Gauge, Inch/Metric, 0-0.5" (0-12.7mm) Range, 0.0005" (0.01mm) Resolution, +/-0.001" Accuracy

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007FFT40A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I gotta go to my cousin's wedding back in Maine this weekend so I won't be working on the kit... next weekend I'll try to get it smoothed out and at least primered with some self etching primer.

 

Can never go wrong with Mitutoyo, my calipers are as good as the day they were bought.

 

They were recommended to me by Tim, @TMFF - he's been dealing out some helpful info to me!

 

Tim Is the man out here in Colorado. He's servicing my shocks in 2 weeks. Pick his brain. He's always willing to teach and help.

 

There was some rain this morning. Kind of wrote the day off, but then it got nice and managed to de-bur the spindles, prep them, and get a couple coats of self etching primer on them. The arms should go a lot faster - there's a lot less unwelded edges on them... Little by little.

 

Got everything deburred and primered - grinded off some of the discoloration from the welds. The old painter in me from my younger years just won't leave lol

 

Got this idea for adding logos to the LCA's since I'm spending the time to paint these bad boys:



In other news, I may have to pull the engine again to get a CARB badge welded onto the driver's side header. I asked DT if they'd let me just do the y pipe to keep from having to pull the engine out completely lol

We'll see

 

When you're stuck inside tired after work, but there's something that's telling you to make progress on the truck

 

I take it DT won't let you weld the badge yourself, that would save time, or maybe just an engine bay sticker.

 

My bad - I didn't update - they said they're mailing one to weld on to me The CA law is that the badge has to be fixed to the component - that's what they told me anyway and I remember the guy I bought the truck from had to install a brand new cat because the one he had on it didn't have the number stamped into it even though he showed them the model number and the carb number for the cat before I bought it.

Weird - I think people can pass with a sticker for the sc, but I don't know, whatever DT says, I'm happy that they're sending me one - saves me a 3 hour round trip. They didn't sound too happy with the guy who forgot to weld it on. I emailed them a pic of where they said it would be...

 

Oh, well at least you can probably buzz it on through the wheel well on the passenger side. Does it have to easily visible or just present

 

They said they put it on the driver's side header, but I'm going to see if I can have it welded to the y pipe. A lot easier to see and get to. I'll call around to smog check shops - I figure they'll probably just say it has to be visible from some humanly possible angle haha

 

I would sure hope so considering the carb ID on my header is in the underside and my header is on the passenger side cause 4cyl. You'd have to use an inspection mirror to see it.

 

They might fail you because they'll say it's written backwards

What headers do you have? For some reason I thought you had LCE...

 

Haha, yeah I have the LCE header. I like it, turns out it is really strong too, when my exhaust fell off in death valley it held it for a solid 15 or so dirt miles. I had problems with the stock manifold and collector, the manifold cracked and the collector warped so I just gave up and bought the LCE. Been happy with it