Mark_BC's 2000 Limited Salvage Build

[Mark_BC]

Last weekend I painted up the new piece. Underneath many areas I applied Eastwood weld-thru primer. I took off all the grey OEM primer where I was going to weld since I don't think it was weld-thru primer. It didn't weld properly on the test pieces. I used aircraft paint stripper and a wire wheel to remove it where welds were going.

Here's what the connection over by the firewall / windshield looks like. It's a jigsaw puzzle in there with different sheets of metal going everywhere so I think I took the best approach by just cutting it and welding it on. I have to insert the new piece a couple inches into this.

Yesterday I put it in for the last time with the Desert Dune OEM hood from my other 4runner so I can line it up with a hood that fits. I don't want to line it up with a Certifit ("sorta-fit") hood. The lines are surprisingly good, out by a millimeter maybe.

Here it is all clamped up and ready to go. It didn't fit perfectly but pretty good considering what this truck's been through. I used .023 wire I think (about the thinnest you can buy) with 75/25 Ar/CO2 mix on my Lincoln Electric MIGpac.

Here are my first welds on it. I was burning through a little bit so they aren't perfect welds as I sometimes had to chase the hole and end up with a blob. But they have good penetration and they hold. I added a few more than the original spot welds just to give it some extra strength.

Here is the little triangle I had to cut out of the A/C hole. I tacked it in 3 spots so now I'll just grind those smooth and fill in the rest with bondo.

Now onto the other side. This was the first line which was easier to weld than the spot welds. Sometimes I'd burn through and chase it which made a blob but overall the lines were pretty good.

I used my bottle jack and scissor jack to push the new piece up against the old one.

All done (the welding at least...)

Finally made that milestone; THE PIECE IS IN!!!! Man this has been a lot of work so far. And I still have a lot more work to do:

• Seam seal where required to keep the spot weld areas dry
  
• Grind the welds and bondo any holes / paint
  
• Find a white fender
  
• Finish painting the hood / make it fit properly / install scoop (on its way)
  
• Replace fuse box
  
• Fix / replace various brackets
  
• Replace / fix some bent lines in engine bay
  
• Fix broken parts of headlight shroud and grille
  
• Little filler pieces under headlights
  
• New bumper
  
• Transmission temp app

 

[Roamed YT]

Looking good, Mark!

Isn't it rewarding, the feeling of bringing something "back" that others would have discarded?

You finally getting some more seasonal weather? I'm coming down for a conference in a couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to my favourite Indian restaurant on Davie Street. We had 11 degrees here today!

 

[zoombyu86]

I have never seen those wheeled pressure washing things!!!! I am for sure getting one now.

 

[Mark_BC]

Looking good, Mark!

Isn't it rewarding, the feeling of bringing something "back" that others would have discarded?

You finally getting some more seasonal weather? I'm coming down for a conference in a couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to my favourite Indian restaurant on Davie Street. We had 11 degrees here today!

Yes rewarding, and a relief to be done with the welding. This restore has taken a lot more work than I thought it would. But in the end I'll know I have a truck that's good.

Weather getting nice here now, after a brutal February. Supposed to get warm soon.

I've been wanting to head north for a while now, maybe this summer I'll head your way.

 

[Mark_BC]

I have never seen those wheeled pressure washing things!!!! I am for sure getting one now.

It's great for removing salt but I should say that it isn't very strong with my cheap pressure washer (around 1800 psi I think) so it isn't going to take off thick mud. Maybe if you put it on a more powerful pressure washer it would be able to handle it.

 

[VernySanders]

Subbed to this thread and the snow and sand one. Great work! I live in Michigan so I know about rust but I was lucky enough to score a runner from California with no rust on it! Fixing it up this spring.

 

[Kanoe]

Impressive work man. You are getting there, it's looking great.

That rust cure 3000 is great stuff. I use that in the rockers on mine, about 1/2 can per side. It is still is in there 2 years later when I reapply. You'll see it drip on a hot summer day but who cares about that, right? I think the wd40 is too transient for the rockers, the 3000 stays on. Best thing is it smells nice too so it doesn't stink up the inside. Lay it on!

 

[Mark_BC]

So the weekend before last I finished the welding. Having thought about it a bit, I think I was too rushed. The left front is too short and I had to remove some metal from the top holes in the fender to make the bolts fit. It is about 3-4mm short. But oddly, when you put the fender on it pretty much lines up with the hood and headlights so I'm not sure exactly what's going on.

I realise what I should have done is loosen all the body mounts and pull it straight so that the front fits on right. I had no choice to weld it a bit short due to the front body mounts. If it bothers me in the future it would be a weekend job to loosen the body mounts and then chop it off next to the weld and do it over again, this time with a strip of metal to space it out. But it looks fine so not high up the list.

Last weekend I finally had some fun with it, took it to Saltspring Island to drop off some stuff.

Ah, sweet mangled metal...

I then did some light wheeling nearby in the ecological reserve. It was slow, lightly rolling hills with a general uphill. It was going great then after 10 minutes the transmission temperature light came on... so that had me freaked out and took over an hour to sort out. See this thread.

Too bad, I really wanted to go to the end of that road. Next time. There must be something wrong with the temperature sensor. According to the electrical drawings for the 1998, it comes on at 302 F and then goes off at 248. I know I didn't come anywhere near 302, and even when I had it down to 104, the light was still on. I had to unplug the battery to reset it.

When the A/T fluid temp. sensor affixed to the transmission case detects that the fluid temp. is 150C (302F) or more, the
engine control module operates and the current flowing through the GAUGE fuse flows to the A/T oil temp. warning light to
TERMINAL OIL−W of the engine control module to GROUND, so that warning light lights up, informing that the A/T oil temp. is
high. When the A/T oil temp. drops to 120C (248F) or less, the engine control module stops operating and the warning light
goes out.

Here is what the transmission fluid looks like. It is the browner rag which is still pretty good and red. The brighter red rag is from fluid that I know is good.

So I'm confident I didn't damage the transmission but I'll do a full flush soon anyways. The fluid was about a half quart low due to filling the new trans cooler and hoses to it. A guy in a Jeep Cherokee stopped by and gave me some Dexron III which I added and now I'm a little overfilled.

Here she is on the ferry to Crofton, right near the front of the line.

 

[Mark_BC]

I did this last week / 2 weeks ago. I drove my rescued 2000 Limited to Calgary and back to Vancouver in the middle of winter weather. That's a couple thousand k's. Nice to have the part time 4WD transfer case. It performed flawlessly except a couple times while cruising at speed and overdrive on, when I started going up a slight hill and put on the gas a little bit, it seemed to get confused about shifting and clunked and made a hard shift. Popping it out of overdrive immediately stopped the problem by forcing a shift.

I slept one night in the back in the freezing cold and snow up a logging road. It plowed through 8" of snow that night. I was worried it might not start in the morning but it fired right up with 27 F reading on the Scanguage. I was warm in my sleeping bag, it didn't even get below freezing with the windows cracked open a bit.

I previously replaced the front rotors with some from a 2002 from the wreckers. I took a chance that these ones wouldn't be warped and they aren't. Man this thing drives so smooth. Amazing considering what it looked like this time last year.

And I gave it a good spray underneath with Fluid Film first, as well as Rust Cure 3000 (linseed oil) in the doors and rocker panels since it doesn't stink as much -- come summer when it all heats up and volatilizes.

I'm really liking this 4runner and I'm going to turn it into my built rig. New front bumper from Coastal Offroad, winch, 33's without a lift so I'll have to trim the fenders. There's also still some more repair work to do from the crash -- crunched fuse box, and paint and replace the fender, re-install the AC system, some bent body mounts -- are the main ones. Plus fix the Limited climate controller, put in new airbags. It just goes on and on...

 

[Mark_BC]

This 4runner has been my DD for a couple years now. The Leaf is better on gas but doesn't have the range or 4x4 capabilities...

I just did a couple thousand km trip up to NW BC including some great 4x4 trails. Performed flawlessly. This thing is really capable with the rear + centre locker and full time 4WD.

I put some OME 960's and Bilstein 5100's on the back. It is about an inch too high for my liking but it handles the weight in the back well.

Now I just need to weld together the Coastal Offroad bumper and put on a new white fender (I mangled the current one when a pine log got pulled up into the wheel well). Then it will start looking real nice.

 

[Mark_BC]

More pics

 

[Mark_BC]

Finally replaced the fender with a white one. I actually had 2 beige ones, one with the limited flare and one SR5 that was on the car. I couldn't get around to painting the limited one until the weather warmed up and.... it's done. Not perfect, but not embarrassing anymore. Next is to weld up the Coastal Offroad bumper and this thing will really look nice. The white wheels look great.

I used Duplicolor Color Match rattle can paint. It doesn't match perfectly but pretty close. i also got some 2 part clear coat that I'll apply sometime later when the hood is painted the correct colour. I now have 4 different shades of white on this car -- the original paint, the hood, this latest fender, and the wheels. All different paint.

 

[Mando4RUN]

Great work!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mark_BC]

2022 Trip

I had almost 4 weeks of vacation to spend driving around BC. But I had an engagement for the first weekend in the Shuswap that had a hard date. So I had to leave Vancouver Thursday Aug 18. Not only that but a bat flew into me a few weeks earlier and I needed 4 rabies shots to be safe and I had to coordinate the final 2 locations I'd be in around BC at that time. So the first week was pretty much booked up but I made the best of it.

I literally replaced my front brakes the day before I left and lucky I did since one pad was basically at the screecher. I used OEM pads and got a spare rotor set I had kicking around turned at a local brake shop for $25 each. Braking performance improved noticeably afterwards.

I managed to stuff everything in and head out on time. My transmission was getting hot up the Coquihalla but I made it to Merritt that evening.

Just past Merritt on the highway I saw signs for Kane Lake Recreation Site so I decided to take the exit and headed there along a well graded gravel road. The scenery was pretty and I got there after dark and had some food and went to bed. Pretty funny with cows mooing all around but they went to sleep.

The next morning I checked out Harmon Lake Rec Site which is right next door and there was a loon swimming around but it hadn't made any noise all night. That rec site had a row of RV's and generators on the shore so not my thing.

The road continues south to spit out on another highway so maybe I'll do the whole road one day; I like travelling forest roads in BC that actually get you through somewhere since most of them are in-and-back-out jobs, up valleys that don't connect through. But that morning I turned around and went back out onto the highway and headed for the desert of the Okanagan and my rabies shot in downtown Kelowna after lunch. After that I made my way north to my weekend engagement near Enderby.

Monday morning I left my engagement and had a few days to kill before my next shot on Friday in Kamloops. So I couldn't go too deep in the bush. I headed to Hidden Lake that day which was beautiful but another typical rec site with RV's and people everywhere.

So I continued along the road and followed the fresh logging roads which aren't even shown on Google Earth. I went way up the mountain but as the crow flies I was only a few km from Mabel Lake and the valley below.

I found a place to park up in a clearcut and then a thunderstorm hit. This is the interior wet belt and in summer when it's bone dry on the coast it stays wet in the interior from thunderstorms which allow cedar and other trees to grow that need more water. The storm was really windy and I thought the trees on the cutblock edge would come down but they didn't. Most of them were larch which is pretty cool. I thought maybe some forest fires would be started from all the lightning but it didn't seem to do much.

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On my way back down the next morning I dug up two naturally seeded larch seedlings beside the road which would have had no life anyways and I'll plant them at home. Here is a planted one which is very happy growing in the old clearcut.

Also on the way back down I went by some groundwater seepage coming out beside the road in the middle of a clearcut and I never miss an opportunity to collect that to fill up my water bottle since you don't need to filter it. I had about 5 gallons of storage. There's no shortage of water anywhere in BC when travelling; the issue is minimizing the time and work needed to filter it.

 

[Mark_BC]

The next morning I headed back down and found some larch seedlings growing beside the road and dug up two and put in my old hummus container. I'd have to keep them alive in the car for the next few weeks. I crossed the Shuswap River at Ashton Creek and headed west to Enderby to get some gas and auto parts. A few days earlier I picked up an Icom VHF radio for driving the logging roads, after a year long wait due to chip shortages and I didn't have time to install it. So I was hoping for a nice rec site beside a lake with not too many people around where I could spend a couple days installing it and working on my driver side DIY front mud flap which was rubbing.

I picked up some nice local corn on the way there and at Lordco I got some electrical fittings for the radio. I also asked for some grease for my drive shaft zerks since I didn't have time to do those either. The guy said they don't have any grease due to supply issues and that soon it would be food we run out of. Bummer.

Enderby is pretty cool and I had lunch at a nice cafe then headed back east towards Mabel Lake where I saw on the map some rec sites north of the highway that looked remote. I forgot to get gas...

I stopped by the Shuswap River and got my feet wet. Kayakers put in along this stretch and float down. The Shuswap connects all the big lakes in this area with a convoluted network of waterways.

I stopped at Cooke Creek Rec Site on the river and checked the map. I actually needed to go up the forest road directly opposite this site so I headed up that road, gaining elevation. I was exceited about what I would find since 4x4ing is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. I was heading for Dale Lake.

I encountered a washed out bridge with a steep little ravine to cross. The concern would be my departure angle and getting stuck but someone put some beams across and I got through without incident.

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Then soon afterwards I came to a totally washed out crossing of the main creek. I wasn't sure if I'd get through. Then a side by side came by and I talked to them a bit and they went through. I decided to follow and he video'd me which was great. Always good to have another person taking videos... It was the toughest crossing I've done. The front wheel spun a bit on the exit due to no front locker but I took another run and got through. The rear locker is probably what got me through. It would be nice to have a front locker. And I decided not to bring a spare CV for the weight savings. I don't think I'll do that again.

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I continued along and crossed another washout with a really narrow steep exit and made it to Dale Lake which was mostly lily pads. This rec site was clearly abandoned which was great, exactly what I was looking for. But I was wondering how I'd get back out since I didn't want to go back through the creek crossings. I set up in the pretty spot and the side-by-side guys came back through having explored further along. They said I could probably connect through to the main road to the north west. He just bought some property up in this area and was checking out different access points to it. He said he could follow trails all the way to Revelstoke. It is a neat area up there.

I had dinner and then like usual the thunderstorms were off in the distance and eventually hit me with rain and wind.

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The next day I spent installing my radio which went pretty well. The main firewall grommet was wrecked so it wasn't too hard to shove extra cables through it. I just used VHB tape to mount the radio on top of the dash. A merlin stopped by to say hi.

 

[BretMann]

It's coming out great so far!

 

[Mark_BC]

I stayed at Dale Lake for 2 nights and left the morning after that. One evening some motorbikes came by on the opposite side of the lake so there must be some sort of trail over there. There was, and I followed back along the road and instead of turning off to where I came from, through the creek crossings, I kept going up the forest road which appeared to join up with a bunch of other roads further east and get back to the highway. Luckily Google Earth was still working on my phone since reception was spotty. Previously when I am out of connection, GE just shuts down which is a real pain. I don't know why they do that since the images are cached on the phone and it still gets my location from GPS so there's no reason why it can't just keep being functional when out of range. But it needs to initialize or something.

I followed the road for a while which looked promising and I climbed up in elevation. The forest was becoming more luxuriant with the higher precipitation up here.

I crossed the power lines and went by Elbow Lake.

There were wolf and bear tracks in the mud.

I was really hoping the road poked through at Grassy Lake to the main road just past it. Unbelievably, the road doesn't connect the 500 m through.

So I had to go back down to the power lines and I was a little concerned since I didn't want to backtrack through the creek crossing from the previous days. However, I followed the power line road and it was promising, descending back down towards the main valley.

It is a pretty fun trail with some very steep sections. Unfortunately 1st gear low (in an automatic) isn't low enough to allow engine braking to keep you slow on these steep loose descents. I had to also use my brakes which is a bit of a pain since you don't have as much control, plus they get hot.

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I soon popped back out on the highway a short distance from where I entered a couple days before.

I continued on down to the end of the pavement at Mabel Lake to see what was there. I was hoping there would be gas but unfortunately it is only available for boats. So I would not be able to continue up northwards across the forest road to Revelstoke. I'd have to back track back out to Enderby, which wasn't a bad thing since I needed to get a move on.

Mabel Lake is an interesting place; full of summer vacationers. Not exactly my thing but it's a pretty spot.

I then headed back to Enderby, had lunch at the same place I did before, and made my way towards Kamloops via a recreation site in mind I found on the map where I would spend the night. I stopped at Armstrong to mail some stuff off and it was like a furnace, over 40 Celsius. Shortly after I turned up the forest road to the mountains towards Pinaus Lake. The road is steep and slow so my transmission was getting a little hot but still OK.

The rec site beside the lake was decent, only a few people around. There is lots of bird life in the lake, an osprey, lots of ducks, and a family of quail was scooting around the shore. There was also a loon serenading everyone. The water is brown, not too appealing; but I wasn't there to go swimming.

While turning around in the campsite the driver's side front mud flap got stuck while the wheel was turned and mostly came off. I had made it to protect the underside of the car from being pelted with rocks on the gravel roads. It is made of rubber pond liner and fender plastic to give it some rigidity. This is the wheel that had been pushed back a half an inch from the collision before I bought the car. Unfortunately the wheel is just too close to the pinch weld to prevent contact with the flap on this side. The passenger side was fine. I removed the remains of the mud flap and would search for more fender liner to rebuild it after I had pounded down the pinch weld – later.

 

[Mark_BC]

In the morning I washed the dust off the back of the car and headed out. I was hoping to find a higher trail to hike up along the way since I really needed some exercise. The lake is in a high valley and the road rises up even higher before again going back down the mountain to the surrounding lowlands.

There's a bunch of roads in this area, just like all over BC. That's what's cool about BC, all the public backroads everywhere. Every year old ones get taken over by nature, and new ones are built for forestry access. You can pretty much just get a backroads map book and compare with Google Earth, and find somewhere to get off the beaten path.

There are a few cabins beside the lake and then the road veers away. Near the top there is this reminder of what happens when you don't have 4WD up here:

I then started the switchback descents back down to the main valley and highway. It's a dry climate but they were rutted and still wet indicating a summer rainstorm had come through.

I didn't find anywhere to hike so when I was almost at the bottom I just decided to park the car and hike back up the road. I was dealing with jumper's knee so I brought a walking stick and favoured it. I still managed to get up to the 3 km mark; it felt great.

I then had to head to Kamloops for my final rabies jab, after which I could head over to the Chilcotin and get away from civilization for the main part of this summer's trip.

On my way out of Kamloops I stopped at Canadian Tire and managed to find a mini grease gun and a tube of low-temperature grease. Also one of marine grease. They were almost out and I got them both. I tried to find an auto wrecker to search for fender liner material but it didn't come together.

I was going to look for a place to camp somewhere in the forest roads to the south of the highway. This is desert country so the back country should be interesting. I found my turnoff just before Savona. This is a really scenic drive through the desert.

I pulled off a side track that looked promising but it just led to a closed gate into a ranch. I did get some prickly pear cactus which I had been wanting for a while.

I continued on and decided to try to go to Fehr Lake. The signs at the entrance to the back country clearly stated that I needed to stay on roads / tracks, but there was definitely a track going to the lake so I was happy with that. I was on the cleared right of way for a big gas pipeline which goes right beside the lake.

I parked in a grassy area just above the lake. It was pretty windy and I wasn't too hungry so I didn't cook that evening, just ate cheese / avocado /crackers, the usual stuff. A rainstorm blew through which didn't dump a whole bunch of rain but enough to get everything wet.

The smoke from forest fires increased in the evening.

 

[Mark_BC]

Fehr Lake is kind of interesting. It has a sluice gate on the outlet with a long walkway elevated over the lake. It is in the desert so it must be very alkaline. It is full of snails and other interesting life. Not sure if there are fish in it.

After packing up I continued along the forest roads heading westwards, trying to pick the lowest elevation route to stay in the interesting desert terrain. It did move up in to the forest though and soon I entered an old forest fire. Judging by the extent of regrowth, the fire likely only happened the year before. The fire damage was intermittent, creating a patchwork of surviving and dead stands, with many trees escaping. I'm sure many of the douglas fir survive being burned as well and bring out new leaves.

I walked around the burned forest a little bit and found these interesting tunnels in the ground. I don't understand where they came from. They aren't tree roots as the wood would not burn so completely. Maybe they are animal burrows that became exposed when the surrounding vegetation burned off.

The burned forest continued for quite a while and the trail got muddier as I west west, indicating that the rain had been heavier over here than where I was last night. Eventually I joined with Barnes Lake Road, which turned out to be a layer of sticky mud – that kind of mud that doesn't fling off, it just sticks to your wheels and gets thicker and thicker.

Luckily I only had a few km to go before hitting pavement. I decided that I would stop at Barnes Lake to pound the pinch weld in the wheel well. It's good to have a full set of tools for doing this kind of work in the bush.

Barnes Lake Recreation Site was ideal for this since I needed water to wash off all the mud before doing this operation. It has a lot of aquatic life and I waded in the beach to fill up the containers to slosh up under the wheel well.

Back on the highway towards Ashcroft, I kept an eye out for dead fenders on the side of the road and it wasn't too long before I found something.

I stocked up in Ashcroft then headed to Cache creek where I needed to do some errands on the internet, and I had a great burger at the local burger joint. I called to book some space at the campsite at Lillooet and then hit the road to get there before dark.

Texas Creek Campground is a nice place and I parked on the lawn. Tomorrow I would do the mud flap rebuild. They have nice mountain spring water coming out of the pipes and I filled up all my water bottles. Interestingly, one of my bottles had a leech stuck in it that would not cone out – from Barnes Lake. Good thing I didn't go swimming there.

I was excited to be starting the real remote part of my trip the next day.

 

[Mark_BC]

I spent the morning getting organized, finishing up some online things since I'd be incommunicado for a while now. I re-fabbed my front mudflap using the roadkill fender material to stiffen it.

And I re-greased all the driveline zerks with my new mini-grease gun which I now really like due to its size. One of the zerks on the main cardon joint is hard to get to and it looked like it had never been done. Anyways, I was satisfied now with the driveline.

I took a trip into town to stock up and parked beside this awesome JDM HDJ81. I had a talk with the owner and his girlfriend, they were super helpful and only the previous week they had been up to Poison Mountain, where I'm going which is the connecting road through the mountains to the Chilcotin Plateau to the north. They said there was a lot of ongoing forestry activities up there and a new road had been constructed with a “Seven Meter Bridge” or something, but they weren't able to connect to it from the historical 4WD tracks up there.

I filled all three 5 gallon jerry cans and headed north out of Lillooet to the Bridge River Road which starts where the Bridge River empties into the Fraser.

I have done lots of backcountry wilderness trips in the upper Bridge River which I wrote about here and here. This year, I'd have the car to power me so a little bit easier on my legs... plus I had the tendon injury in my knee so it would take months of rehab to get back up to strength.

The Bridge River Road is a bit scary with steep slopes dropping off to the canyon and no guard rail; on a gravel surface with frequent larger rocks that had fallen from above.

Eventually I got to the Horseshoe Bend which is an impressive erosion bank. There is a view point at the southern end and I scraped my underside on a rock pointing up from the flat parking area. Funny how that's my first underside contact... I guess I didn't judge my clearance properly.

The highway skirts along the top edge of the erosion bank which doesn't seem to too scary while you are driving it since you can't see over the edge mostly; but from above it looks pretty sketchy.

Soon after this I got to the Yalakom River FSR which turns off to the north (area is called “Moha”). There is a lot of information and signage at the turnoff with some signs from the local indigenous group warning that there is no through road. I hope this area stays open to 4WD explorers, not only for the beauty of the area, but also because it's the only link northwards on the west side of the Fraser River.

I checked out a recreation site down by the river as a potential campsite but there was already someone there and it didn't look too appealing. After leaving this site I passed a Forest Service truck coming back the other way. I wonder why...

As I climbed up the valley I noticed smoke ahead; there was a forest fire nearby.

It was actually directly across from the Beaverdam Creek Rec Site I'd be staying at which is in a nice open meadow on the valley bottom beside the river. As I drove in there were some quad guys loading up onto their trucks and they soon left; but there was plenty of room in this really large campsite, including a corral.

Unfortunately they threw their vegetable food scraps in the river which I guess is OK ecologically since it's no different than any other riverside vegetation falling in, but the problem is it drifted downstream to my campsite so I had onions and other vegetables stuck on the rocks of the river right where I wanted to go in for a wash. Although, it was very cold so I didn't spend too much time doing that.

The fire was on the eastern side of the valley up high on the mountain, and the helicopter was flying back and forth to the west where there is a pond they were filling the bucket from.