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Everything is complete, well, almost.
Box and topper combo is mounted, front bumper is primed and mounted along with the winch, summer tires/rims on, and brake lines finished
So here is what I meant about the lower ball joints
02 lower ball joint tie rod hole
vs 03 lower ball joint tie rod hole
The bumper prepped for primer
dark green self etching primer
I was short on time sooo….
I threw the bumper on so I could get the box mounted
Today was a huge debacle with brake lines, bought all the brake lines I thought I needed, didn’t have enough, was driven back to the parts store (before I started) to get more. Alright, now I thought I was ready, bent up half the break lines and realized the abs system uses buble flares, great, so went back to the parts store to get all the lines for the master and abs which must both use buble flares, so I got my lines, bent up two lines, removed the fitting from the cut line from the master to the abs unit….. “you have to be kidding”. The fittings at the master are double flare, the only fittings that are buble flare are the 5 lines from the abs unit, so I had to buy 4 of 5 lines over again in imperial thread 3/16 line, then use an imperial to japanese thread buble adapter on one end and a double flare japanese adaptor at the other end.
In the end it worked out, drove to get some gas and brakes work well, a slight amount of air in the system still but I’ll deal with that tomorrow.
I think looks pretty cool in person, looks different, in a good way, haven’t decided on a colour yet but im thinking matte grey/battleship grey. I’ll be getting rid of the roller fairlead for hawse in black at some point.
I agree I think it looks great, sorry to hear about all the issues with the brakes. Brakes are the worst
Hard to believe but my 460000km work truck turned expedition build made it all the way to Moab, Utah and back, and all I did was check the engine oil and trans fluid which turned out to be a waste of time, haha.
The cap is even better than I initially thought, my mountain bike fits upright without even removing the front wheel which is super convenient. Had two bikes in there, cookers, folding table, two water dispensers, tools, shovel, folding chairs and more and still could have fit another 4 rubbermaids in with the other 8.
Saw a lot….a lot of cool rigs in Utah. A lot of new tacos with everything imaginable out of the expedition catalog, same goes for 5th gen 4runners, bumpers, tire carriers, sliders, roof racks, jerry holders, pretty much whatever you can buy or upgrade was upgraded.
Saw a cool first gen taco access cab with tube doors, an sas’d first gen 4runner with no front driveshaft crusin the streets, lol and here’s another sas’d pickup at the grocery store in La Verkin, Utah
Didn’t do much wheeling actually, I didn’t mount my skid plates while the body was off and it bit me in the end. Also, my cams on my driver side lower control arm were way off so the driver side tire rubbed quite a bit and frankly I was driving so much every single day that I couldn’t wait to get on the mountain bike. I also prefer not to run harder trails without another vehicle and didn’t feel like crashing other groups parties.
Just did the Gemini Bridges Rd (cause it was on the way to camp) which is a car road pretty much as far as I remember. Also drove into Canyonlands from the bottom at potash road and up the Shafer Trail which is super scary.
I figured since I was so close to the grand canyon I might as well go there
The highlight of the trip was walking the red bull rampage site
Night pic camping in behind Zion National Park
It was an awesome trip, got 8 mountain bike rides in and camped 16 of the 18 nights, 13 of which were free which is how camping should be.
Now that I’m home I have all the little things left to do and fix properly, like remove the probably 30 zip ties holding everything together, install the skid plates, put in the new carrier bearing, swap the rear third (I didn’t have time to change either), spark plugs, air filter, snorkel(you don’t need a snorkel in the desert, lol), wire the winch and change the engine oil and make the steering wheel straight cause it was pointed to the right the whole trip.
And one of my favorite pics
That really looks like an incredible trip it is pretty wild that that truck can drive all the way across America. Trip of a life time for sure I’d love to pick your brain about it sometime. How did you break up the driving?
So true about the campsites being free. The pics from Zion are 1000x better than any campsite in Ontario, that’s beautiful
The most incredible trip I’ve ever been on, probably spent 3-4 days planning the route during the winter, the plan was to get to Des Moines, Iowa on the first day, and Denver, Colorado by day 2, then a short 5 hour drive to Moab. 1st day got all the way to Omaha, Nebraska. Stayed in a motel luckily cause there was a massive rainstorm, the warning siren sounded at 3am, don’t know what it was like outside that night and don’t want to, but it was really bad. 2nd day got to Grand Junction, and from there Moab was really close. I’d say if you’re planning to go plan for 3 days driving to get there, budget 2 nights in a motel cause you really just want to get there. Route plan was Moab (Arches, Canyonlands), Valley of the Gods Road, Monument Valley, then motor all the way to La Verkin(ended up going to the Grand Canyon on the way), then Zion and Bryce Canyon, up through Fish Lake back to I-70(ended up taking Scenic Rd 12 through Escalante instead, then 24 (passes by a cool ohv site) back to I-70,)
I pretty much drove the whole time, my Uncle was the navigator.
Here are a bunch of pics,
Campsite #1, near Canyonlands
Balance Rock, Arches Park
random view, Arches Park
Campsite#2, super eery feel at this site only stayed one night. Right on a knife edge, bordering the Navajo Desert, weird black clouds( I mean black, not grey, black), dead cow about 50 feet from my tent, weird sounds but nobody around for miles, and high winds at night…… aliens?
here’s those clouds, just an illusion created to hide the mothership trying to land, “hey we got a breach, humans, two of them on the mesa, captain: sh!t we’ll have to circle around”, haha
Monument Valley
Campsite #3 views, outside of Zion Park
Campsite#3
La Verkin Overlook
Kolob Terrace Rd views
72 foot canyon gap, Red bull rampage, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76VEPXYaI0
Bryce Canyon
Rest stop on the way home, Colorado
Got the snorkel installed recently
Enlarged the hole for the flex tube, I could have probably clamped the wood in place and not drilled into the inner fender but I’m a professional hack,
test fitting
Eyeballing where everything should fit up
The 100 series (ebay landcruiser 100 series) snorkel fits like a glove, except for the radio antenna which is relocated inside the topper, still not wired up though
new u joint and carrier bearing
Made a new tool
dinged the nut
Got the spark plugs changed, used my new “workbench”
And then out of the blue, I realized I had a 9 led third brake light, so I wired it up
Headlights and windows finally clean
Almost there
Did a bit of general maintenance this weekend, wasn’t very productive with the heat. There were some things that needed to be addressed. Replaced one of the steering rack bellows, changed the front diff fluid, swapped the fill and drain plugs for the front diff from my other diff cause they were completely stripped, reinstalled the inner fender liner and finally got to adjusting the alignment. The driver side cams definitely weren’t torqued to spec when the frame was replaced at the dealer. I evened everything out and put a little more caster in and straightened the steering wheel. Got the front splash guard mounted, was debating redoing the engine pan skid plate, after some measuring and thinking I realized I wouldn’t be able to make it much better, also waiting for some cooler weather and want to spend a little more time drilling and relocating the bolt holes so that’ll wait for another day.
I changed the front diff fluid with amsoil this time around. The fluid I changed out looked oem toyota, clean but the particles on the magnet were coarser (Moab?) than those from my other diff which was using royal purple, I’m interested whether or not the amsoil is any better than royal purple, pretty much the only reason I use royal purple is cause it already has the friction modifier for my rear diff, otherwise it’s too expensive in my opinion. From what I’ve read the amsoil is good stuff.
P.S. It’s so nice having the fresh frame under there, no more rot
Oh man, those are some awesome camping spots. Great write up, jealous of your trip. Glad the truck is coming along!!
Update: 469999km. Went to start my truck after it had been sitting a while, thought maybe my battery would be dead, nope started up just fine, let it run for a few minutes, turned it off. A few minutes later decided I’d head into town to pick up 2 40″ inch brake lines, some brake fluid and diff oil in preparation to swap in the lower km lsd third member from the green truck. Turn the key, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank…. nothing, won’t start. “That’s weird”. Look under the hood, pop the fuse box cover off, everything looks fine, pop the cover back on, turn the key crank, start, “hmm… odd”. Make it about three km from the driveway, turn onto the highway, step on it, made it to about 50km/h, truck sputtered and died, pulled onto the shoulder. Crank, crank, crank, crank. “What now”. Tow home and a bit of research, fuel pump relay, popped the one out of the green truck fuse box, popped it in, crank, start. “haha”.
So, picked up everything I needed to swap the rear third. Get everything on jack stands and pull the passenger side tire, brake drum covered in diff fluid, “great”, and the inside of my wheel about a half inch of dirt built up on the inside where the fluid settled. So the vibration problem solved now time to fix the leak, luckily I have a spare axle/wheel end, cleaned the brake shoes swapped them and the wheel cylinder over, put the third in, slid the axles in, redid the brake lines, bled the brakes and poured in the diff fluid. Everything is perfect now.
Today, figured I’d hook up my winch, free spool it out, and spool it back in to see how my new winch works. Turned the key, hooked up the controller, started spooling in the winch line, winch line about halfway spooled in, the truck turns off, “weird”, turn it back on, “oh radio was on, turn the radio off, spool the rest of the line in, “works good” turn the truck off. about an hour later turn the key, click, click, click “oh I must have killed the battery”, try to jump start it, click, click, click… nothing. “So I really killed the battery”.
So tomorrow is new battery day, going to check if my alternator is charging as well.
Oh yeah, and I tried to swap the spiral cable and guess what
2003 spiral cables are different than 2002 spiral cables, so I guess I’m not fixing my cruise, at least not in the near future.
At least the gasket maker sealed my rear diff, right?
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