Fully polished TuRD

Well I was getting ready to start the parts gathering and planning to link this thing over the winter, but my wife quit her job (awesome for her!) So I can't go dropping money on coilovers and shit LOL!!! Gives me more time to piece meal buying brackets and stuff as they come on sale and learn the calculator. In the mean time, figuring out how to get the steering to run cooler..

 

In with the new cooler:

 

Went wheeling at good evening ranch in WV this weekend. The new steering cooler works way better than that heat sink style one. Great weekend of hard wheeling, the damage report is I ripped off one corner of the rear bumper, a rear axle hub seal started leaking on the drive down there, put a hole in a sidewall and an airbump finally died. The park is awesome and glad I was able to finally wheel a decent chunk of it!!





Supposedly this guys leading the WE rock series. Fun watching a west coast comp guy getting denied on east coast sloppy muddy rocks!! Badass 4steer buggy on spidertrax axles.

 

Video that one of the buggy people took
https://youtu.be/VtStx6bJpqY

 

Looks awesome, bet the drive up there is gorgeous too

 

Yea it is!!!

 

Learning that east coast slippy sloppy is key.

 

That and having a rig setup for it as well. A quad steering, super low slung, low geared buggy on sticky treps with a small V6 isn't really the right rig for hardcore east coast obstacles. Worked awesome on the dry rocks and for cone dodging!

 

Well the new front shaft didn't last long, I knew I should have just built a square one.

 

How thick is the tube?

 

.095 I think.

I should have shipped these off to hi angle driveline, he doesn't seem scared to make thick tubed Toyota shafts. I used a local "go to" offroad driveshaft shop.

 

I think that's what mine might be as well. haven't messed it up yet, but then again I haven't sat on it on a an obstacle.

Gonna go .120 now? Dunno how that would do on the street

 

It's a front shaft and realistically this truck will never be in 4wd on the street again. I'll probably just build a square shaft for it at this point.

 

Oh well nevermind then. Easy

 

Do you put around 5.5 qts in it during an oil change? I couldn't find a clear recommendation due to all the forums on the HiAce being in Japanese haha.

 

I had to trim mine down a lot due in the front to some mistakes I made when I did my SAS, I put 5.5qts in it and run the larger filter on it. I imagine it holds the 6qts a 3.4 takes though.

 

Woah how did I end up on your thread! Well thanks for the info, that's kind of what I figured it'd take.

 

Built a new.bumper:

Finally decided to fix my most hated mod, this is what I get for listening to TTORA back in the mid 2010s on how you can't fit 12s without hacking up the bed.

Fired up the tig welder to stack some dimes.....


Which is exactly what I didn't do, hit up my local truck stop for a patch panels:

A few self tappers later and holes fixed

Words cannot express how happy I am not to have straps hanging down or worrying about shit falling out of those holes!!! I should have done this a long time ago!!

Currently the truck is on jackstands awaiting parts to repair my leaking hub and a tap for bigger rear hub bolts.

 

So the truck has been down for a month. My rear hub was puking gear lube all over, so I had to replace the outer axle seal and I figured while I was in there I would upgrade the hub studs to 7/16 12pt ARPs. Well that project took forever, wrong taps, parts delays, wrong size bolts etc.... I also decided to fix my driver side spring and shackle mounts that were 1.75" further forward than the pax side. Also got my rear air bump cans finally mounted up and made some landing pads. Truck should be out of the garage this weekend FINALLY. Onto the pics:
Tiny Asian stud, big black American bolt


Bump cans:


Driver's side landing pad


Pax side:


All I left after that before an end of the month wheeling trip is to build a square front drive shaft, but I have all the parts for that and it should go quick.

 

Went wheeling at hawk pride in Alabama last weekend. Truck worked great, no complaints. I really need to push this front axle forward to get some more up travel so it rides better. As usual I drove 75mph there, wheeled hard for 3days and drove it home.