[theesotericone]

Originally Posted by Kamikaze6rr

What else do I need to do?

That's cycle the suspension. Get your rig in the garage and pull out the front coilovers and rear springs. Then throw your tires back on. That allows you to fully stuff, droop and articulate. It's the only way to know for sure where you will rub and to address that.

These are 35's but the principle is the same for any larger then stock tire.

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by theesotericone

That's cycle the suspension. Get your rig in the garage and pull out the front coilovers and rear springs. Then throw your tires back on. That allows you to fully stuff, droop and articulate. It's the only way to know for sure where you will rub and to address that.

These are 35's but the principle is the same for any larger then stock tire.

Thanks Matt. That is something I have not done, but I will make the time at some point. Glad you provided that info...

Not much done today. Decided to simply put the horns here, as opposed to fabing-up some bracket.





I ran some wiring, did some more crimps and heat shrink of connections. I removed the factory plastic housing over this connector and used a male spade to run the trigger wire to the relay...



Hope to have time to finish-up tomorrow.

[TonyB66]

The fuse holder is for a standard sized fuse, not the mini blade types, and I don't have a 15A. So, I went with a 10A for now...



A metal zip tie holds the relay securely in place.



I routed the wires and packed the connectors with silicone grease.



With the grille off for about a year, it felt good finally putting it back.





I of course made sure both horns work before I buttoned things up. I also made sure that all aux lighting still works, including the engine bay ones (87a on the relay). The horns are louder than stock, so an upgrade. Not as deep as I'd prefer, but not high pitched either...

Will wrap-up the rear diff & e-locker breather next (waiting for some clamps).

[TonyB66]

The spring clamps finally arrived. I used several (8mm) for the e-locker hose.



The 1/8" fuel hose is a very tight fit over the hard line. Dish soap helped, along with a heat gun to expand the hose.



The old breather removed.



Pipe thread sealant, then wrapped in PTFE tape.



Snugged-up and then with some 100% black silicone around the base.





At the other end, I was able to remove the cover clips with a bent screwdriver I bought at the San Jose flea market when I was in junior high school. Have used it a lot over the years, never to drive screws. One clip slightly broke, but still is functionable.



I know it will get pelted of course, but I cleaned it up and painted it with several coats.



As with many others, I decided to put the breather in the 10 to 11 o'clock position.





The breather in place.



The routing of the 5/16" fuel hose. I prefer stainless steel zip ties.





I put some slack in the hoses to allow for movement and axle lowering, like for a rear spring swap.





I provided abrasion protection in a couple spots, using 100% black silicone, zipped tightly while it cures.





The fuel tank fill cover in place.



I think it was Charlie who said earlier that the auto transmission has a breather too, on the bell housing. Does the transfer case also have a breather? If so, I imagine it's also not easily accessible...

I checked fluids today: oil, coolant, brake, ATF, PS, windshield. Still not loosing oil with this engine! I added a bit of coolant to the overflow tank, maybe a couple tablespoons. All fluids good.

Driver seat removal next for some electrical work and for the HT mount...

[phattyduck]

Originally Posted by TonyB66

I think it was Charlie who said earlier that the auto transmission has a breather too, on the bell housing. Does the transfer case also have a breather? If so, I imagine it's also not easily accessible...

Here's the best I can do for pictures from my 4WD trans:







The transfer case and adapter housing are linked by the little loop of hose between the two shifter cover plates (on the left in the picture, passenger side in the truck). The breather to the outside is the metal cap on the drivers side (right in middle photo) of the front shift cover.

The transmission breather is located on the front of the main body of the transmission. On the 4WD transmission, there is a small pressed-in pipe that then goes up a few inches, right next to the "VZ" stamped on the bellhousing. Depending on which A340, that breather can be setup slight different (the 2WD trans just has a breather nub, no pipe. The car version of the trans has a rubber hose that often runs up near the head on the engine).

-Charlie

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by phattyduck

Here's the best I can do for pictures from my 4WD trans:







The transfer case and adapter housing are linked by the little loop of hose between the two shifter cover plates (on the left in the picture, passenger side in the truck). The breather to the outside is the metal cap on the drivers side (right in middle photo) of the front shift cover.

The transmission breather is located on the front of the main body of the transmission. On the 4WD transmission, there is a small pressed-in pipe that then goes up a few inches, right next to the "VZ" stamped on the bellhousing. Depending on which A340, that breather can be setup slight different (the 2WD trans just has a breather nub, no pipe. The car version of the trans has a rubber hose that often runs up near the head on the engine).

-Charlie

Your description, in conjunction with the photos are most helpful. They are on the "list" for a later day. Thanks Charlie.

Got some stuff done today, not much. I tightened the skid plates again, and when complete, I painted the bolt heads and applied blue fingernail polish, as I've done before. A couple...





In the short-term, that's it for projects under the truck...

With the paint out, and it being 80 degrees here, I touched-up the sliders where the rear doors had rubbed after the install of the poly body bushings.



And after. Both sides were done.



Which then had me finally want to address the rear bumper, these two pieces. I have no idea why I never painted those parts. But, it's time...





This stuff works well and pretty fast.



I'll clean them up tomorrow and paint.

I found some dust caps or thread protectors the right size for my HT.



I typically carry a knife on me, and/or a multitool. I however like to have one easily within reach while seated in my vehicles. Decided upon this one.



It slides-in and secures very nicely here.







I like how everything is coming-together under the seats. So, I then removed it again.



Super easy to disco the switch box with the two thumb screws. I plan to use the power from the old seats to charge the HT...

I put one on the other side too for the passenger.





While cleaning my dresser, I found an Apple sticker and decided to put it here.



Matt, if you are checking-in, I hope you are doing well in this crazy market. The Apple sticker reminded me of sweet trade today. Got AAPL in pretty much all of my accounts at 256.86. Not saying it or the market won't go lower, but the charting homework got me in at a great price today... And should things go further south again next week, I have a buy order for AAPL in the 232s. That would be nearly 100 bucks off the high!

[theesotericone]

Originally Posted by TonyB66

Matt, if you are checking-in, I hope you are doing well in this crazy market. The Apple sticker reminded me of sweet trade today. Got AAPL in pretty much all of my accounts at 256.86. Not saying it or the market won't go lower, but the charting homework got me in at a great price today... And should things go further south again next week, I have a buy order for AAPL in the 232s. That would be nearly 100 bucks off the high!

I'm doing fine with the market setbacks. I took some hits but when your up 31% it's a lot easier to take a 14% hit, I left all my APPL alone. I thought about buying more but I threw a bunch of cash at NVDA. I picked them up at 245 which is a 29% discount from their high two weeks ago. In my portfolio they are my biggest performing stock. I've optioned them a few times and have done very well.

The next earnings reports will be interesting to try and trade off of. Also, bollingers for AAPL and NVDA are insane right now. I went back to 2008 and the spread now is bigger then during the last crash. Lots of differences though. The economy is strong, unemployment is still low. If the feds drop rates in 3 weeks, or sooner, I think this correction will be done. Unless COVID-19 really does become the apocalypse. lol

[Jidaran]

Originally Posted by TonyB66

I typically carry a knife on me, and/or a multitool. I however like to have one easily within reach while seated in my vehicles. Decided upon this one.

Do you know what model you have? My Kershaw CQC-5K just gave up the ghost and I'm looking for something similar to replace it.

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by Jidaran

Do you know what model you have? My Kershaw CQC-5K just gave up the ghost and I'm looking for something similar to replace it.

Bought that one long ago... Not high end, but Kershaw makes quality stuff for the price. Checked my Amazon orders and it's the Kershaw Cryo. Still sold, and still pretty well-liked it seems...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you don't mind one a little bigger and more expensive, I bought a couple of these more recently and they too are quite nice. Sometimes they drop to about 50 bucks...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Matt, saw your response, and I'l get back later. It's movie night here...

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by theesotericone

I'm doing fine with the market setbacks. I took some hits but when your up 31% it's a lot easier to take a 14% hit, I left all my APPL alone. I thought about buying more but I threw a bunch of cash at NVDA. I picked them up at 245 which is a 29% discount from their high two weeks ago. In my portfolio they are my biggest performing stock. I've optioned them a few times and have done very well.

The next earnings reports will be interesting to try and trade off of. Also, bollingers for AAPL and NVDA are insane right now. I went back to 2008 and the spread now is bigger then during the last crash. Lots of differences though. The economy is strong, unemployment is still low. If the feds drop rates in 3 weeks, or sooner, I think this correction will be done. Unless COVID-19 really does become the apocalypse. lol

Glad to hear Matt! Was sitting all cash in a few accounts, lightly invested in others, so I've been layering-in... Hoping to pay-off the mortgage with the proceeds of this opportunity, so hopefully I can make the most of it.

I've been following the coronavirus, more recently COVID-19, long before it was big news out here. I'm what some would call a "China watcher" and how they, the CPC (Communist Party of China) responded was quite concerning. I've learned to be quite critical of the regime... COVID-19 has rocked the markets for sure, and hopefully we'll have a better understanding of the impact it presents soon, finances aside.

Since you use Bollinger Bands, it seems that you are into indicators and technicals. Me too, quite a bit actually. The Keltner Channel is very similar actually and I've come to favor that over BB. It uses ATR or average true range to create the bounds, or top and bottom lines, as opposed to SD or standard deviation. Both are great. I simply found that the KC gave me more actionable alerts, less false positives. That said, I turned my dad onto the TTM Squeeze which combines the BB and KC, and he loves it. I played with it a little, but have not been able to dedicate the time to test it, as he has being retired. Fun stuff...

Hearing that the Fed might ease as soon as tomorrow, and it might be an international, coordinated effort. Regardless, the market is expecting something soon, as you said. The fact that Friday was not just relentless selling yet again is a sign that buyers are stepping-in, finally. We closed near the highs of the day on the highest volume yet during this downturn. The S&P 500, Naz and Russell 2k all bounced nicely off support areas on Friday. It was textbook. It would have been more reassuring to see those indices close above the previous day's close, but that didn't happen. Well, the Naz did though, by about 1 point. Even if that was the bottom, it quite common to re-test it soon, so we'll see....

AAPL is the only company stock I buy these days. I also trade quite heavily two ETFs: SPY and QQQ. They don't move as fast as a single company stock of course, but I find that to be a good thing sometimes.

Just charted NVDA as I had not owned it in a long time. I believe my dad still has some. Should the market turn down again on us, 232 or so looks to be an appealing place to get more. Should things get ugly, or uglier, 190. Just an observation...

Jeez, that was not planned. I did actually get some stuff done on the 4Runner this morning. More small stuff...

No more rust on these two rear bumper pieces.





With the driver seat out, I examined the connector I had tucked-away that once provided power to the factory seats.



It has three wires, the blue is hot, black/white is ground. This is with the engine running.



It's live when the engine is off though, which is fine for this application (charging my HT)...

I don't quite understand the the other wire though. With the engine running, using the same ground I get.



I won't be using it, but curious what that wire was for, why it reads as it does, like a non-charging battery.

I snipped-off the connector and got busy.





On the unused wire, as seen in the photo, I put some liquid tape on the end. I then folded it back and wrapped it with electrical tape, likely never to be seen again...

I re-threaded the four seat bolts as they had seen better days, and got the driver seat back, hopefully for a long time. A shot of the HT charging (the amber lights are barely visible).



Was done by noon, in time to go on a three hour hike with my oldest in Rosendin Park, which is like a 3 minute drive from our home. Would have walked there, but we always visit the library late Sat afternoon, so we took the 4Runner.

Got a couple compliments on the 3rd gen, which was a first for me. Hey, it's on dirt!





Might take some time off to work on the taxes, which I had hoped to start a couple weeks back...

[theesotericone]

Originally Posted by TonyB66

Since you use Bollinger Bands, it seems that you are into indicators and technicals. Me too, quite a bit actually. The Keltner Channel is very similar actually and I've come to favor that over BB. It uses ATR or average true range to create the bounds, or top and bottom lines, as opposed to SD or standard deviation. Both are great. I simply found that the KC gave me more actionable alerts, less false positives. That said, I turned my dad onto the TTM Squeeze which combines the BB and KC, and he loves it. I played with it a little, but have not been able to dedicate the time to test it, as he has being retired. Fun stuff...

Hearing that the Fed might ease as soon as tomorrow, and it might be an international, coordinated effort. Regardless, the market is expecting something soon, as you said. The fact that Friday was not just relentless selling yet again is a sign that buyers are stepping-in, finally. We closed near the highs of the day on the highest volume yet during this downturn. The S&P 500, Naz and Russell 2k all bounced nicely off support areas on Friday. It was textbook. It would have been more reassuring to see those indices close above the previous day's close, but that didn't happen. Well, the Naz did though, by about 1 point. Even if that was the bottom, it quite common to re-test it soon, so we'll see....

AAPL is the only company stock I buy these days. I also trade quite heavily two ETFs: SPY and QQQ. They don't move as fast as a single company stock of course, but I find that to be a good thing sometimes

I've had QQQ in my watch list forever. I've yet to act on it. I'll take a closer look at them.

I don't have a lot of time to truly study the market so BB allow me to do it quickly. I use E-Trade and they're charting software is pretty easy to use. I'm long term in my IRA right now. The 10 year plan is to keep busting my ass at work and save enough trade daily. It's a high risk idea but I can always go back to busting my ass if it doesn't work out. It boils down to that age old adage. It takes money to make money.

Nice work on the rig. You can tell you care about it with the attention to detail you always strive for. I was that way until I started wheeling it hard. Now my rig looks like it's gone 5 rounds with Tyson in his prime. lol

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by theesotericone

I've had QQQ in my watch list forever. I've yet to act on it. I'll take a closer look at them.

I don't have a lot of time to truly study the market so BB allow me to do it quickly. I use E-Trade and they're charting software is pretty easy to use. I'm long term in my IRA right now. The 10 year plan is to keep busting my ass at work and save enough trade daily. It's a high risk idea but I can always go back to busting my ass if it doesn't work out. It boils down to that age old adage. It takes money to make money.

Nice work on the rig. You can tell you care about it with the attention to detail you always strive for. I was that way until I started wheeling it hard. Now my rig looks like it's gone 5 rounds with Tyson in his prime. lol

We have a fair amount in common, minus my rig not being an off-road machine, at this time at least. So, I'm envious Matt. Just so dang busy with work, planning retirement, being a husband, having two little ones, now taking turns being sick, aging parents, a house remodel that is thankfully almost done... Not complaining, just competing interests, all dang important ones. I want to be exceptional in all of those endeavors, not just adequate or just good. Wrenching, even little crap like I've been doing lately is seemingly therapeutic. I enjoy it too...

Indeed, it takes money to make money. I've owned stock in great companies (by multiple measures) before only to wake-up one morning to identified "accounting irregularities" or a gulf explosion that hammered the investments, and for a long time. I like to make big bets and now do so in the SPY and QQQ, essentially the entire S&P 500 and NASDAQ, not a single company. Those won't go to zero, and if so, we have much larger concerns.

I make an exception for AAPL as I know it like the back-of-my-hand, but also because it is involved in so much. It's tech broadly, it does hardware, making computers, phones, devices, but also its own software. Heck, even chips. Services are now huge, second after the iPhone. It's also a consumer play, corporate also (never saw Macs in business world a decade ago), retailer, it's involved in media banking/finance, health more recently. It's quite diversified and has over $200B in cash and a darn decent dividend too. I find it to be one of the safer bets, especially at certain entry points...

My primary broker is TD Ameritrade, recently acquired by Charles Schwab, assuming it's blessed. The ThinkorSwim platform is very well done. I've been using it long before TDA bought it. Works great on a Mac, and not many trading platforms can say that... I also have a TradeStation account, and their platform is more customizable or programmable with EasyLanguage. I purchased something called MultiCharts, and it's built upon EasyLanguage. I really like the ability to backtest ideas, like:

For this group of stocks, for this date range, show me all purchase points based upon this criteria - BB did this, this moving average is above that one, and volume was a certain % above normal.

You get the idea. It can be refined to improve the results, better entry prices, less false-positives, etc. Alerts can be set or even trades made based upon upon such criteria (program trades). One can do so first in a paper account before setting it free in a live one; and even then draw-down limits can be established to ensure funds are not used excessively.

Have a passion for this stuff too, and it will be a big part of my retirement income generation, on the up and downside. Buying puts is a great way to make money on the way down, and/or protect a long position.

Ok, need to get started on the taxes! No updates on the 4Runner, other than looking to get better wiper blades...

[T4topher]

Hey Tony, truck looks good man! I just did the breather on the bell housing of the transmission. It was not easy for sure, you have to cut the metal tube because it’s not like all the other breathers. The only tool I could fit in there was a dremel type tool with a 1.5” cutoff wheel. Front diff/transfercase also have breathers which are much easier to get to.

[phattyduck]

Originally Posted by TonyB66

I don't quite understand the the other wire though. With the engine running, using the same ground I get.



I won't be using it, but curious what that wire was for, why it reads as it does, like a non-charging battery.

I snipped-off the connector and got busy.

Seatbelt switch. It is 'powered' through a pull-up, not a direct connection to the battery. If you aren't getting a seatbelt warning light on the dash, leave it as is.

-Charlie

[TonyB66]

Originally Posted by T4topher

Hey Tony, truck looks good man! I just did the breather on the bell housing of the transmission. It was not easy for sure, you have to cut the metal tube because it’s not like all the other breathers. The only tool I could fit in there was a dremel type tool with a 1.5” cutoff wheel. Front diff/transfercase also have breathers which are much easier to get to.

There he is! It has been a while...

Thanks man. I must admit, when returning from the hike, when I saw it in the parking lot, I thought to myself - damn, it's starting to look nice, finally. Still not a fan of the cladding, and I think it looks odd not being the same color as the bumpers (black). At some point I'll paint the whole thing....

Helpful info on those breathers. Sounds like that transmission breather is not removable or easily removable. I use a Dremel quite a bit, so I might do the same. Did you have any concern about debris entering that tube? Once you cut through it, did you then slide a 5/16" hose over it, and hose clamp?

As you might have noticed, I extended the front and rear diffs and e-locker. Did you also extend the transfer case?

Thanks again. Hope Fatherhood has been treating you well.

Originally Posted by phattyduck

Seatbelt switch. It is 'powered' through a pull-up, not a direct connection to the battery. If you aren't getting a seatbelt warning light on the dash, leave it as is.

-Charlie

Charlie, the wealth of knowledge seemingly has no end. I like to think I would have noticed a seatbelt light, now you have we wondering what that looks like. I'll take a look again... If not, agreed, I'll keep it tucked away. Thanks again.