TheNatural's 2012 Totally Expo Trail Limo Build

Failed to find a 1-1/2" socket to borrow. Ordered one on Amazon, but bumper install is delayed until next week

Anyone with a swingout with tapered roller bearings... how tight do you make it? I imagine too tight will be bad for the bearings, but I haven't done this before. Swingout shipped detached from bumper (I imagine for size reasons).

 

I have the same one on order and as ive read and spoke with billy it should open and close with slight resistance, just so it cant swing freely on its own. awesome build by the way, wish I lived on the west coast!

 

No worries man! We aren't making any plans. We have some places we would like to go, but we figure anywhere from 6 months to 6 years, or anywhere in between.

 

Thanks! I can work with that.

Does NB have much wheeling? We passed through in the FJ last summer, but it was a sight seeing tourist trip and we didn't even look for anywhere to get stuck.

 

That's amazing! I admire the hell out of your ability to drop everything and go for a completely undetermined amount of time. I get really stressed when I don't have work lined up for when I get back from a trip, the anxiety kills me and makes the trip no fun at all

 

haha thanks man! there's totally some stress there, but if we run out of cash (we will) we can just settle down where ever and work on a farm to make some gas money or whatever it takes! It would be nice to sort out some sort of way to get some cash flow coming in while on the road, but that sort of things comes with just doing it I find. We really want to make it to Argentina, but heck, even if we just get to Panama and have to turn around, we would be stoked just to have tried. And maybe we could come back, work for another year, then finish our trip later! We're pretty easy going, and there's no rush. Maybe we'll just love mexico so much that we don't even want to go past there! who knows! haha

It really just hit us that we can either work, eat, sleep and die, or try to do something exciting with our lives. Carpe Diem!

 

surprisingly it does, all depends on how far you want to travel, there are a ton of logging roads that will take you all over the province and there are a lot of unique things to see off of the beaten path, only downside is there arnt a lot of maps or directions just have to google earth it and get out there and explore and find routes on your own, also a lot of tight trails but as long as your ok with some pinstrippin

 

I'm located an hour outside of the capital back towards Quebec so theres nothing real hard but still a ton of fun to be had

 

There's so much room for activities! While I was cutting stuff up, I trimmed the bedsides back 2" around the wheels. Moar room for moar tire



If it doesn't rain tomorrow the high clearance bumper goes on. I'm about ready to bolt it up but I need to recruit another set of hands. Things left to button up:
-remove stock spare (new bumper will have full size spare on swingout)
-actually bolt on the new bumper
-dump exhaust after axle. looks super dumb hanging so far down there now
-install the new tail lights (one old one was broken)
-drill new hole to mount the bedside stiffener bracket (forward of the wheel). I cut the old bolt location off when I trimmed fenders, but I bent the bracket a bit so it'll work in a new spot.
-trim the fender flares and reinstall (probably not tomorrow - waiting for clips to come in the mail and China takes foreeeeever)
-locate a stock trailer plug. I smashed my stock one on a rock and replaced with an aftermarket generic one, but it's a different enough shape and bolt spacing that it doesn't line up with the cutout in the new bumper. Might check out some junkyards in the future, for tomorrow I just wont have trailer connectivity

 

It lives! Still need the socket from Amazon to show up so I can install the swingout, and the fender clips from China (eBay) to put the flares back on, but I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far.



I'm experimenting with new painting methods.. as you can tell from my sliders, the primer & bedliner I have been using does't offer enough rust protection. For the bumper I tried: 2 coats Tremclad primer applied by brush, 2 coats Tremclad flat black oil based paint applied with brush, 1 coat rattle can bedliner for some texture and a hard finish, 1 thin coat tremclad rattle can flat black because I've noticed the bedliner fades pretty quick in the sun. I applied the first 4 coats by brush because I did them in my parents garage at Christmas time and it was too tight to risk over spray on all their stuff.

 

I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING! So jealous of all you Southerners this time of year. My 1200km drive this weekend looked like this

 

I miss real winters though... it was 84 last week... now we're expecting snow on Saturday... this back forth crap is annoying.

 

My front end has been squealing for a while now and I haven't had weather good enough to want to work on it. So embarrassing. IDK WTF makes that squeak noise, but if I can't figure it out easily I'm frustrated enough to replace ALL THE BUSHINGS AND ALL THE BALLS* when spring comes. I wish I had a friend to turn the wheel and bounce on the suspension while I listened.

PS I tried the uniballs already. cleaning and applying dry lube made no improvement so it's not the usual culprit.

*UCA bushings, uniballs, LCA bushings, LBJ, cab mount bushings, rad core support bushings, tie rod ends (inner and outer), and steering rack. Did I miss anything?

EDIT: and do spindle gussets, cam tab gussets, and wheel bearings while I'm there. Because brand new everything sounds like a good idea to me and my 5 year old truck.

 

bushings for steering rack since you'll be in there...

 

I keep looking at the KO2s on sale at 4WP... They have some fantastic deals on 35s on procomp rims in packages of 4, and 2 packs of 4 is perfect for truck, expo trailer, and a spare for each.... But they'd be KO2s....

 

@NYCO inspired me. I went out to the scales just now and weighed in at 5324lbs (well really it was 2420kg because Canada). That's with my 240lb ass in it, and all the recovery gear and basic safety stuff that never leaves the truck. But that's without the bedrack and tent, and also with my little light winter tires on. I have some welding to learn before I put the rack back on, but I'm very curious to see what she weighs in summer mode!

 

Finally worked up the courage for this cut. Somehow this was harder for me than butchering the bedsides the other weekend.

 

Improvement

 

Me, yesterday: "Oh, I'll just quickly run this coax along the frame for the new CB antenna location"
Me, over the last 2 days: "Oh look, some other wiring I should do while I have this panel off" ... repeat x 99999
Me, just now: "Hmmm. I wish I had a dash and a drivers seat for tomorrow."

 

creeping up there!