Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build

[snivilous]

Part 3B: Breaking shit all night

(And picked up here)

This is when things got exciting, we tried to pull him back with no success as had the same effect happened to the 1st gen before. The 1st gen had no traction to pull him forward, and he had no recovery gear. So what we ended up doing was using a strap to hook a D-ring to a tree, and use that as a pulley and run straps through it that connected the Wranglers bumper to my winch. Luckily I carry about 60 feet of tow/snatch straps with me, let alone the 100 feet or so of winch line.

What I hadn't realized is how much power I was pulling, I was keeping the entire trail lit up so we could easily see what we were doing and then was about to operate the winch. Keep in mind the truck had been idling this whole time (about 3 hours in now), so I figured it'd be fine. Well using the winch at all made everything go dim. I still had the lights on, and then revved the engine up to about 2000rpm and started the winch again. At that point, once it took up slack and started pulling it killed the engine and battery even with it revved up.

LUCKILY, I also carry a portable power unit/jump starter. It's possible the Wrangler behind me could of gotten close enough to use jumper cables, but we would of had to have a second pair probably to reach back. So I hook the jump start unit up and the truck fired right up, well lesson learned about that... (I later found out we have 85A alternators, and I run 50A+ of LEDs plus the truck running plus whatever the winch draws which that alone can make the power go negative). I had to rev the truck to over 3000rpm just to pull the winch in with it unloaded and all the lights off. At this point, it was decided to use the straps to pull on the Wrangler.

With everyone standing clear, I gave her a few tugs and the Wrangler came right out (onto the trail, since we had a strap running from my bumper to another strap that then went through the D-ring router back to his bumper). At this point we all gave it a push and after awhile he got going, though his inexperience definitely didn't help. He didn't know when to give it power, hell he didn't even know which way to turn his wheels!

After he got going, I then hit that section with a little speed but didn't have any issues :shrug:

Same with the Wrangler behind me, though he hauled through that section!

Now was the hill and saddle, which we didn't have any issues with. Where it got even more exciting was going up the very LAST hill (back of the saddle).

The Wrangler behind me (black) had been having a really bad ticking for awhile, at least since our first trip. Well, it turned out it was a rod tick and that rod just happened to blow out right as he got to the top of that hill and his engine went bang! :toilet:

One of the guys riding with me was like "Oh shit look at the Jeep!" And we all turned around to see smoke billowing from the Jeep. We all ran over and found this:

Piston ring, remnants of the connecting rod (I think :shrug, etc. And when we crawled under it you could distinctively see a hole blown out of what looked like the side of cylinder #2 on the drivers side. Pretty gnarly! ...and cool

Here's his engine bay... yea he didn't have an air filter :snacker: You can see where the oil blew out onto the hood in the top right.

All things considering it was the best place for him to blow up, I pulled him over the crest of the hill and then towed him back to his house.

Ironically, when we got to the pavement we found one of my Asian roommates who [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] had helped save who apparently thought it was a good idea to go offroading that night in their VW or whatever and got stuck too. (It's not like they would of learned their lesson from the first time they went offroading there with me and got stuck in the mud until I took over driving :rockthrow.

Anyways! We had left at 7pm as a short trip, and got back after midnight. A blown engine, broken hi-lift, and some sore pride I think haha. On the plus side the 3rd gen pulled through as the recovery vehicle! Remember always carry at least enough gear to get yourself out of 98% of situations!

Thanks for reading! Hopefully update this a bit more often, but between all my studying and work it's hard to have any free time where I'm not offroad :amen:

 

[Cartzo]

The 1st gen got stuck on the first dip right away.
But the 1st gen, thinking he was smart, had four of us push him and got going and then just took off to keep momentum. Which was a BAD idea we found out again :flipoff:

For the record, I wasn't stuck in the dip I just couldn't make it passed the dip And I made it through without any pushing. When I actually got stuck is when the pushing commenced :boxer:

 

[NCrunner2012]

Cool story! Always gear up

 

[airmax233]

Sweet! that Lt is going to look awesome... like your rig keep it up

 

[Skidmarcx]

Looks like fun! Can't believe your buddy is in shorts with what looks to be normal shoes in the first pic!

 

[Fishwerks]

I feel like all of your runs turn into chaos. Way to carry enough gear for everyone though!

 

[snivilous]

Nothing too exciting, but figured I'd post some photos I took before heading to bed :bolt:

Went wheeling yesterday and today.

This was heading up Providence canyon. There were quite a few snow mobiliers out, and this one guy came ripping around a corner towing a sled with no one riding on it and the ****ing thing was taking up the entire road so I had to go as far to the side as I dared to get out of the way:

There was a steep drop off, and I couldn't go forward/back without sliding more. The dick who ran me off the road didn't even slow down or stop, and then his buddies came by and one of my buddies who had his Tacoma got into an argument about it, it was such bull shit so that really pissed us off. The Tacoma tried to pull me out with my long snatch strap but it just pulled me closer to the edge. Luckily an H1 (or H2?) had stopped when he was coming down the trail. So he pulled up near me and then we winched off of him to pull my nose back onto the trail. I know people hate on Hummers but that thing was pretty beast looking and the IFS was a sweet design!

We got just below the quarry and then the snow was too powdery, the Tacoma got stuck so I got to pull him out.

Fun little trip, it was a rush though since I had a date set in two hours when I left the dorm...though the girl flaked which if I had known she wasn't gonna show I would of been out longer! Anyways, onto today:

Went wheeling with [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and his 1st gen and the Tacoma guy again, was nice to be with only Toyotas :bigok:

The 1st gen did pretty good actually, his only issue was when he was trying to turn around in the middle of the trail since we couldn't get up any further past some switch backs and he buried his nose in the snow.

I brought a girl along on a pseudo first date (different girl than the flaky one) and I think she enjoyed herself, especially when I let her drive a bit and she said she didn't even know what offroading was before today :bigok: On the way down we pulled over and did some shooting too which was fun.

On the way down the 1st gen blew a tire out. The second tire I've actually seen go out/need to be replaced, and the first was from him too! Luckily(?) my Hi-lift had been broken off the bumper earlier on the trail so it was ready to go to swap the tire; on that note I think I need to figure out a new mounting option for the Hi-lift since that's the second time it has broken off (first being in Moab) and been bent/hit multiple times, even with it relocated higher. I might add some hoops to the bumper, and mount it onto/behind them since I think the front Hi-lift mount is so sexy

Then went hunting for food. No issues finding parking

Thanks for reading! :bolt:

 

[Cartzo]

On the way down the 1st gen blew a tire out. The second tire I've actually seen go out/need to be replaced, and the first was from him too!

Proof that those tires are/were shit.

 

[snivilous]

Well I went wheeling Wednesday night. Left at 10pm or so and got back around 1:30am. Priorities! :first: Seriously, I think I have an addiction... Study break, let's go wheel for 3 hours and get back after midnight!

Called up jacked up Taco guy and he tagged along.

Awesomely shitty night photo as always

All that light is exclusively from my LED bar, which considering it doesn't seem to penetrate very well I think is decently impressive considering I'm about 50 feet above and a few hundred feet behind the Taco.

What really pissed me off though, is my shitty traction control decided to take a shit. I went up a hill, slide back down but didn't put it in reverse so it stalled out, and then I fired it back up and the ****er wouldn't boot the trac/vsc/abs system. This has happened before, always inconvenient as hell since 90% of my driving is offroad and I usually need the traction system since I plow the trail through the snow. One of my sensors is "bad", but seems to work if it stays dry but I don't know which one it is... I still did better going everywhere that the supercharged and rear locked Tacoma even though I had totally open diffs and no abs (which was sketchy as hell since I had to back down this windy steep section at one point). And then driving back was scary since my brakes would lock up since the roads were icy.

Really ****ing pisses me off whatever is wrong with it, and the one thread on the entire internet about the issue just says "your sensors are dirty, clean them". Except this issue seems to happen if I go through a puddle, and even then only 25% of the time... So after I get done with my homework hopefully I can go to [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] place and pull all the sensors, clean them, put silicone EVERYWHERE and try to seal or at least figure out what the hell is going on. It's one thing to know the system won't boot up when I'm in the parking lot, but when I'm on a steep icy trail in the middle of the night and the system cuts out I can't deal with... Worst comes to worst I'm going to replace all the sensors and hopefully have that fix the problem. I just don't get why the computer works most of the time, then sometimes turns off except since it will start working a few days later the sensors obviously aren't getting fried and work...

Also, after talking to [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] I think I will install the beginnings of an internal cage and mount coilovers for the rear suspension onto the roll bar. That is the tentative plan now. I was worried about losing cargo space, but I think I can go far enough out on the axle to go through/near the wheel well (similar to the 1st gen roll bar mods bolt in locations) so I won't lose much cargo space. And then I can have cargo levels on the roll bar to hold my tools, cargo box, water, fire extinguisher, etc. So it should help organize everything, give me a roll bar/beginnings of a cage, and then make the suspension much easier.

There is no practical way to have trailing arms and I think that's more than I want to bite off when I do the rear end, and then I'd have to still stuff a cantilever setup underneath the truck. The only issue now is the longest coilovers I have found on polyperformance are 18" and I'd like to go further but maybe that will work (and they are over $800 a piece for just the shock). So roll bar, triangulate the rear, and mount two 18" coilovers--the rear end should be a piece of cake

Anyways, thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll figure something genius out about why my wheel sensors blow dick.

 

[JBurt]

Sounds like a plan. Are you going to tie the roll bar in with the frame?

 

[snivilous]

Sounds like a plan. Are you going to tie the roll bar in with the frame?

It's definitely going to be structural, but I'll have to think about how I want to go. Obviously tying into the frame is the strongest way, but I need to research a bit and see how much the body moves in relation to the frame and if that'd be an issue.

 

[Cartzo]

"No ABS and open diffs"

OHHHHH NOOO!!! The world is going to end!! Oh wait no, you're just on the 1st gen level now

 

[Broker]

It's definitely going to be structural, but I'll have to think about how I want to go. Obviously tying into the frame is the strongest way, but I need to research a bit and see how much the body moves in relation to the frame and if that'd be an issue.

Mine moves about 1-2" on the rear frame mounts when I'm hitting hard. I have a video from driving around that shows it if want to see some proof on it. This is the only reason i want to move my cage work up faster then i was planning.
I plan to plate my cage to my body to help reduce the body/frame movement.

If you are planning to just use a 1st gen roll cage and mount shocks to it, I think your in for a rude awaking of how weak the sheet metal is on these vehicles. I would give that setup about 5mins offroad before it tears the sheet metal.

 

[snivilous]

If you are planning to just use a 1st gen roll cage and mount shocks to it, I think your in for a rude awaking of how weak the sheet metal is on these vehicles. I would give that setup about 5mins offroad before it tears the sheet metal.

That's why it'll be a custom roll bar and tied into the frame. It'd be tricky enough designing and analyzing how to mount a roll bar to the body that can without two 16" coilovers and roll impact, let alone the dynamics of the body moving relative to the frame which the axle moves relative too.

I looked around a little more and still can't find any coilovers over 18". Guess if I want more than 18" of rear travel then I'll have to go with trailing arms, but that's a bridge to cross when I get there. [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and I looked at the bottom of the 4Runner while fixing the wheel sensor, I forgot how much of a pain in the ass the gas tank is. To triangulate I will definitely have to relocate it, probably to the spare tire area which has additional benefits like moving the CG further back and centering it. There's obviously still a lot to look into and this is just thinking out loud.

I want to look into reverse triangulated 4-links or a "radius arm without track bar", which essentially would be radius arms combined with diagonal links integral to the arms to define the axle side to side. Off the top of my head I don't see why this wouldn't work if you designed and built it to withstand the larger forces that the two links will see, perhaps I can get around relocating the gas tank then and stop the axle from shifting.

Anyways, we found the problem with the wheel sensors:

Right rear one somehow got snagged and ripped off. We soldered it back up and resecured the wire.

And here's Cartzo's tire that he popped last weekend:

And then a good ole 1st and 3rd gen :hail:

 

[smallfry]

Scroll down to post #11 and see what some did for their rear. There's another down for that that you just kind of see what they did.

LT 3rd gen. rear suspension - YotaTech Forums

 

[snivilous]

Okay, so hopefully I can remember everything that happened. In short, I went wheeling three times this weekend, and just got back from [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] from working on the runners.

So the main wheeling trip was Saturday. We went to Hyde Park which is like the 4th time I've been there in the past 2-3 weeks so it's getting kinda old, but since I go out so much more than everyone else it's like they haven't done it for awhile and since I can't say no to wheeling I go along :redbrick:

So fun story, on the way there I hit this decent sized bump/whoop at like 20-25 which isn't too fast compared to how I usually test the suspension but it made my traction control/abs/VSC turn off again. Which I was suspicious of since it would engage and almost seem like it was recalibrating every time I started the truck. Once I met up with my buddy in the ZJ I looked under the truck and found that the fix to the right rear wheel sensor wasn't the only issue, the wire for the sensor had been torn in TWO spots, the one we fixed on the axle and another spot above the upper link near the shock mount. The ZJ was putting on chains since his wheels blows, and since I was going to be running open diffs and no ABS I chained up my front tires too. This was the first time I had ever run chains before, the concept is obviously straightforward and everything but it took a little bit to figure out the optimum way to tighten them down since we were just using bungee cords (which we went through like 6).

That being said, chains are pretty amazing! I can only imagine what it would be like with them on all 4 tires or having traction control diverting power. I'll definitely have to grab the second pair next time I'm back home!

We went up the main trail further this time than I did the first time my traction control blew out, and I have to say it was pretty damn sketchy!

Any side slip and your heart stopped! The girl riding with me kept freaking out, which I don't blame her. Definitely not something I would of wanted to run on my own, and a fair bit risky/stupid doing it regardless. There was essentially no trees, and the trail was wicked narrow with no ability to go down/up the sides since it was so steep. Even with a second vehicle, if one of us had started to go off the trail it would be extremely hard to get them back on as well as being nigh impossible to back down let alone find an alternative method to get down the hill.

No issue though, we made it to the ridge!

The snow was wicked deep on the top. This was where I started snapping bungees left and right, the only way to make progress was high rpm in 4Lo and just chew through everything and the bungee cords just couldn't handle the chains being flung around so fast. The ZJ was dragging his diff in the snow on his 33s, and I sit considerably lower for perspective.

Here is a picture of the snow going up past my sliders, and my tires are nowhere near actual dirt:

Probably one of the coolest pictures I've taken:

We got to where the trail Y'ed and scouted ahead, but it was getting dark and I had to remount my chains since they had fallen off so we turned back after getting me chained up. No issues going down, but a lot of snow had fallen since we had left the bottom of the canyon.

That's the end of the pictures for that trip, that night I went to Hyde Park again and ran all the other trails there with my buddies riding along. They wanted to see how well the 4Runner handled stuff at speed, so I took them through some decent dips and bumps in the 30-40mph range which was pretty fun. Still amazed at how well my suspension is doing considering it's barely a step above stock, can't way for the LT so I can bump that speed regime higher!

 

[snivilous]

Then Sunday after we realized the Broncos were going to get demolished, we got a call from a guy that had gone off a trail and needed help. So me and two other guys and then the ZJ went up and met with an Xterra who took us to a ZJ that had gone off the road.

This is on a trail where a new ski resort is being built in northern Utah. I forget the town it's outside of, but it must be less than 5 miles from the Idaho border since we went aways north.

Anyways, it had gone over a day earlier and been there for a night already. The guy and his girlfriend who were in it had skiied down back to town and were fine. We tried everything we could to pull it out but nothing worked. It was high centered on a tree, then leaning against another tree, and of course off at that steep angle and blocked up in snow. Even with my winch and a come along we couldn't budge it. We tried multiple ways of pulling/securing it but nothing could get it going, too much weight considering the angles we had to work with.

The guy said he had called the ski crew building the mountain and that they could use one of the snow cats or graders/dozers to pull it out the next day so we had to leave. Bummer we couldn't get him out though!

Then tonight I went to [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] to work on the 4Runners and fix (again) my wheel sensor and he wanted to check his valve clearance.

I wish the 5VZ was as easy as the 22R to work on :redbrick:

Here is the plug in the second area the wheel sensor cord got ripped out of:

I couldn't open the plug up, so we just cut it out and rerouted the wiring a bit and now she (so far) seems to be working awesome :thumb3:

I also found out my LED bar gets a sheet of ice built up on it:

Doesn't hurt performance really

Anyways, that's about everything exciting so far.

I've been working a lot more trying to be able to afford the LT. I've started shopping around for uniball/spherical bearings. Polyperformance and Total Chaos are around $100 per uniball, though I've started finding them for around $50, and then bushings are like $12. Hopefully I can buy all my joints for $250 or so. I want to have most of the raw hardware bought by my next paycheck so I can then focus on coilovers. I've been shopping for some 10" coilovers on DR and race dezert but nothing has been popping up lately. I might just get Fox 2.0 remote resi coilovers which are $292 a piece. It's not like I'll be doing very much until the rear end is built, and then I can just sell them and get 2.5" coilovers.

Anyways, thanks for reading! Hopefully will get some good pictures this weekend since I'm planning for Friday and Saturday wheeling at a minimum!

 

[Illestreker]

check out filthymotorsports.com for hardware.... ive bought stuff from them before because they have quality stuff and best prices I was able to find at the time.

 

[TheArkMaster]

Damn man. We really need to get all of us Utah guys out and about on a good wheeling trip!

 

[snivilous]

Damn man. We really need to get all of us Utah guys out and about on a good wheeling trip!

Yea dude! If [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] was willing to head south then we could just take one of the runners and split gas; we also have some potentially big plans coming up around spring break so we could stop and go wheeling around SLC maybe!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Also quick post, just went wheeling for a few hours with the Taco guy again. Snow is coming down hard in Logan, let alone in the canyon there is at least a good 6" of fresh powder and just keeps coming!

Traction control is working properly and was fully tested, 4Runner didn't get stuck but I had to pull the Taco over the top of a rise and then he got actually stuck so had to pull him out again. Good times

Something super annoying that I found today was one of my wheel sensors is either bad, going bad, or just messed up. I extensively tested this, when I am in 2WD no issues. If I am in AWD and come to a complete stop (stop sign, stop light, etc.) and then accelerate at any rate the throttle will either drop for a second or totally turn off even if it's totally dry. In 4WD (transfer case locked) no issue.

The first time I worked on the wheel sensors I originally took the front drivers side sensors out since I was going to check/clean all the sensors, but then I saw the snagged wires and fixed the rear sensor. My guess is, since I have no issue in 2WD, is that the front left sensor is somehow not registering properly (or at a minimum any of the front sensors, but the rear are fine). So right now I am either driving around with the transfer case locked or in 2WD, which some people may say is normal but for someone who has never needed to constantly switch from 2WD to 4WD it's kind of annoying (and I switch a lot since back roads/parking lots are slippery as hell, but then the main road is relatively dry and stuff). ANYWAYS, hopefully get that checked out soon and find an issue since it's like $130 to replace the sensor... Probably pull the one I already pulled in the front, see if anything is messed up (which it looked like a hall effect sensor so it would just engage as a magnet passed or something) and then reset the computer and recalibrate the VSC since I've had issues in the past of VSC engaging after I lifted it without recalibrating. If anyone has an idea please do tell... Thanks for reading and have a good day!