well ive now driven past 30,000 miles since i moved from Alaska January 19th, and the truck has honestly gave me little to no issue. after so much bike trips, wheeling trips, and camping, you can tell she was starting to get tired.. THIS is the type of stuff im talking about
as you can see from a small portion of my adventures, she needed some love..
- i started with shattering a headlight housing, which lead me into color-matching my housings to my TRD PRO wheels (gunmetal grey) with leaving the chrome shroud on.. looks great! i was very iffy from leaving the chrome to going to a color but it turned out very clean and subtle.
- ended up re-adjusting the king coilovers as i was starting to get a lot of rake after they broke in..
- i recently have been feeling as if my clutch is nearly done for, engaging really late and seemed to be holding onto dear life.. i was about to pull the trigger on a LCE clutch kit until i decided to send black bear pass with the sketchy clutch issue.. to my surprise, my friend un-jammed my master cylinder threads and i was able to adjust my clutch even further! i had adjusted clutches before but it just stopped and boogered up, leading me to thing i was at the end of adjustment on my master cylinder.. he is a toyota technician and recommended me 3 parts; slave cylinder, master cylinder, and a different style clutch spring. after ordering all 3 from toyota, i performed an EASY swap over with my brand new aisin parts and my clutch feels great again!
- my CV axles have been starting to make gnarly noises and pops/bangs so i decided i might as well swap them with NAPA lifetime warranty CV axles and keep these 2 as spares while have the chance.. a little smooth talking later (told them i worked at the local dealership next door and to put it on their account for massive discount
) and i ended up with 2 CV axles for under $100, and two lifetime (adaptive one brand) Tundra calipers for $140!
- my brakes have been toasted for awhile now and figured i was TIRED of the noises, shakes, and pulling on heavy braking. i called up toyota dealer and ordered OEM rotors and pads ( with shim kit ) for the new brake setup! painted the calipers blue to match my king coilover springs, cut my dust shields, and installed the TBU in 57 minutes.
- i recently got a new job these past few months being a fabricator for a sprinter van conversion shop.. we get great deals on a lot of stuff and i really like the quality/look of our LED ceiling lights we use, and all out on/off button switches.we use 5500K lights for a classy look inside and we had a bunch of 6500K lights collecting dust on the shelf. i took them and installed them onto my truck! the 6500's are temporary until i get new 5500K's ( the pure white just looks way too cheap to me now) i installed 2 on the ceiling and 2 on the hatchback to use as my "kitchen" lights and are connected to 2 separate switched on the upper panel in the rear. ill be doing a full in depth writeup when i get the new ceiling lights in!
- installed USB/ cigarette ports with constant power (on a switch) on driver side rear hatch area
-installed RAM mount onto center bezel cover in the cockpit for my phone/tablet
-custom pieces to my blackout curtain setup back from water-jet
- installed one additional Baja Designs LP9 race light. i found a killer deal for a single lp9 on craigslist and ended up getting it with a pair of squadrons for $120.. with only having 1 and dont care to fork up more money on lights (nearly $600 for a light) i decided to just mount it in the middle for now. it doesn't look terrible but sort of looks like mike wazouski.. laugh all you want but this sucker in combination with my light cannons are CRAZY bright!
with winter coming in the next few months id like to have more prep on protecting my frame for this winter in these harsh salt lake city winters.. rust is my biggest fear on this build and want to keep it as rust free as possible.. i am getting my ARB lockers shipped from alaska down to me this week.. hoping to have 4.88's/ARB's in by late october
thats it for now!