spencermarkd's I had a 2nd gen (now 4G T4R) but mostly just spend all my money on motorcycles thread

I'm thinking about doing that to my CT as well - maybe rip out the speedo and put in a trail tech too.

 

I'm awful at keeping this thread updated. I did a bunch of work to the BMW over break. Fork seals, fork oil, checked the valves and changed the leaking valve cover gasket along with some new plugs. Then a few days later did the coolant, oil change, air filter, and oil filter.

 

Also finally did a truck mod! New TRD shifter ball. I've been eyeing it for a while but never pulled the trigger. Got an Amazon gift card for xmas and got it finally, so worth it.

 

Update: 3d printed a stupid simple cap to cover the chrome at the top of the shift boot.

 

Haven't done much to any of the bikes lately, sadly but I did take off work early today to go ride around once it started snowing. The little CT is too much fun in the snow. I got it freaking filthy though, so I tried to give it a bath in the garage, worked surprisingly well. Squeegeed the puddle out the garage door, dried it with a microfiber and the blow gun. Both pics pre-bath, for the record.

 

Did some work on the BMW today. I changed out the chain guide rails. What a messy pain in the ass. Turns out I probably could have waited another 5 or 10K miles, too, the original ones still had plenty of life. Then gave the chain a good scrub and lube. This winter commuting has been hell on it.

Decided to do a quick how-to, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJdMr_UK90Y

 

It’s been awhile since I did anything to any of the bikes, or the truck for that matter.

I have some air hoses on the BMW I should have replaced on the BMW today but instead made a crate for the CT90. I looked at milk crates, but thought they were all way too large. I didn’t want it to extend out the back, because of how small my brake light is, and didn’t really want it much wider than the coils of the suspension, for looks hah.

I took a $9 bare pine crate from Walmart, chopped off 3 inches from the end with the circ saw, then shorted the bits I needed and nail gunned it all back together. A can of grey rusto and we were in business.

When I swapped in the Lifan and added the started battery, it clearly didn’t fit in the battery box. Out of shear laziness with a little necessity I used a rok strap and put it on the rear rack and it’s always bugged me a little. I was able to slip the wires through the slats of the new crate and added a few bits of scrap wood to hide the battery a bit.

Used some nutserts and long bolts to make the battery box/cover quickly removable. Drilled through both pieces then pressure fit the nutserts into the crate. The bolt extends into the box and locks it in.

Next time I have some free time I think I’m going to measure for some boxes that I’ll 3d print to fill in on the sides of the battery in the box. Throw a spark plug, a couple sockets, registration, etc etc in there.

The crate itself is just held in with a scrap of wood under the rack, with two bolts, a few fender washers, and some wing nuts. Should be removeable in like three minutes. Kind of annoying to wedge the wood in but it’s not awful and not permanent. The wing nuts fit around the middle can of a six pack, couldn’t have planned it better if I tried.

Lastly, I had ordered some stickers a while back. Heck on wheels, heck raiser, and a small risk happy one. I had the heck on wheels taped on to line it up and found the risk happy. Really glad it showed up when it did, I think it’s perfect on there.

 

Vermont? I hope that's Heady Topper.

 

Gah I wish! It’s a sixer of a passionfruit guava gose from a local brewery. I don’t have high hopes for it, ordered a six pack with some togo food and they were out of the IPA I wanted. It seemed a better choice than the oatmeal stout, given the weather hah.

I’m actually in Washington State. Registered the bike in Vermont using the loophole because I bought it (along with 2 other “bikes”) in terrible shape from a local farm without titles. Once this registration is up in July I’ll transfer it to WA, get a title in the process, and get it a proper WA plate.

 

So fun fact..

I might be selling my truck in the morning. I'm waiting on a text for them to say whether they want it or not. If not, I have 3 in line behind them.


Fingers crossed I'm replacing it with a 4th gen 4runner at some point this summer though.

 

Text came in about half an hour ago. Sold. It's going to my good friend who I've known for 10+ years though, she lives like 15 miles away so hopefully I'll still see it from time to time.

$15,000 for a 2008 TRD Sport AC 6MT w/ just under 150,000 miles. She got a hell of a deal.

I'm assuming I'll still be around though, even just for the moto bs thread haha.

Hopefully plan is to find an early 4th gen 4runner for around $7k and put the rest towards the wedding next May.

 

GX470

 

Oh don't worry, I've been looking at those too. Prices seem to have been hit harder than 4runners lately though, they're priceyyyy in this area:

Edit: at least pricey compared to the $7ish grand I was hoping to spend on a beater for the next couple years. I'd love to not finance and get into another car payment. And I was hoping to set aside $8,000 or so for the wedding from selling the tacoma

 

Stick around, we like your bikes.

 

Well, me being without a Toyota didn't last long.

Buying this (hopefully) today: 2007 SR5 Sport with 183K miles. 4.0l v6, sadly not a v8, but yolo. At least it's not a pre-05 w/ headgasket issues. Super clean inside and out.

 

Still just absolutely tickled with the new rig. I'm loving the "driftwood pearl" color. I have a giant cart of parts on rockauto ready to go to just get a baseline maintenance done.

 

Alright, updates time:

- Up until today I haven't done much to the bikes since the last updates
- on the 4runner though:
+ changed almost every fluid, including trans drain/fill a few times now
+ got new blacked out headlights off Amazon, melted those on the first trip, then bought TYC replacements off rock auto
+ changed out front struts, rear shocks. Pretty sure they were still original and entirely blown out. Just went with KYB stock height ones from rockauto, they'll do for now.
+ discovered both CV's were torn and leaking, bought replacements and they've been sitting on my garage floor for several months now, along iwth new UCA's
+ replaced the head unit with a cheapo carplay one, works great
+ LED everything inside now




But TODAY! I made a huge quality of life improvement to the BMW... Heated. Freaking. Seat.

Bought a $19 kit off Amazon, a $35 pneumatic stapler from harbor freight and went to townnnn. (Stapler was also clutch for xmas lights this year). First step was to mark the underside of the seat in about 10 places to make sure when I put the cover back on it was lined up correctly. After that I started pulling staples, this part sucked. There were lots of weird spots where it was very difficult to get any kind of a tool in to get under the staples. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes of pulling later I was here:


The seat pad has tape on the underside then came with more tape to go over top. I cut a hole through the seat and had it come out existing holes at the bottom of the seat.


The kit came with a complete fully assembled harness, just snipped the lead wires to length and put eyelets on them to direct attach to the battery. A few zipties later a voila: heated seat.


On high it gets toaaaasty, about 134. It'll be nice as a pre-heat, but probably too hot to run for a while.


On low though, it's perfect 100-105 degrees. This is going to be absolutely amazing on cold commutes. Why didn't I do this years ago.



There's a little bit of lumpy-ness near the front of the seat where the wires enter the pad and the resistor is, but eh, it was an old-er seat anyway and was starting to stretch.

 

Hopefully no

 

I'm actually concerned about that haha it came with a relay wired in, but I think that's just for the hi/low switch portion of it. So if I accidentally leave it on, it could theoretically be on until my battery shuts off (li-ion auto shutoff ftw). I need to wire in a real relay and tap the gps power wire or something. Shouldn't be bad, just don't have the parts laying around for it yet and didn't think ahead.