Project: The '81 "Yoter"

[a1gemmel]

I got a new power steering pump for the truck since my "rebuild" didn't fixing the whining in the current one. Grabbed a 1986 pump since the 1981 pumps seem to be unobtainium. Didn't know what my pump was anyways since I bought it for $40 on craigslist with the brackets and lines.

Anyways, turns out the 22RE pumps are different with a third port that goes to vacuum lines in the 22RE intake manifold and throttle body. Coulda figured that out if I popped the hood of my 4runner beforehand 
So I need a plug, does anyone know what the thread of that third port is? By my calipers I've narrowed down my guess to 1/4" BSPP or 14mmx1.5, both an inverse flare. 1/4" NPT is a slightly loose fit. I'll be able to check the 14mm tomorrow running to the hardware store for a bolt.

[a1gemmel]

14mmx1.5 was too large, ordered a 1/4" BSPP plug online. In the mean time I wrapped a healthy amount of teflon around a 1/4" NPT plug and snugged it in gently. It's not leaking, so this port probably doesn't see full pressure. Should survive until the right plug shows up.

[a1gemmel]

Eaton trutrac is coming out to put in a 5.29 grizzly locker I built a few months ago. It just wasn't performing with the 37" tires, even stomping on the brakes doesn't seem very effective.



I'm also revisiting the traction bar, started welding up reinforcement onto the axle housing but I got a little too aggressive running it nonstop and my Forney caught on fire. It melted the gas tube so I'm out of commission for the moment. Going to see if my local welding shop stocks this oddball style lead on Monday.





Good outing this morning with the boys, we were hoping for snow but the storm never hit.

[Gnarly4X]

... I got a little too aggressive running it nonstop and my Forney caught on fire.

HOLY GUACAMOLE!!  Never heard of a "Forney fire"!!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

[a1gemmel]

Realized I could finish up the traction bar with my stick welder, so burned in the rest of it. There may have been an "incident" involving sheared wheel studs on my daily that motivates getting the pickup off the lift.
There's also bracketing on the backside of the mount tying into the axle housing. I'd say there's about 8x more weld area holding it onto the axle now with all the added 3/8" plate to distribute the load, so when it does crack the axle housing again it's going to be way cooler this time.

[Gnarly4X]

Realized I could finish up the traction bar with my stick welder, so burned in the rest of it.

Hey a1gemmel... you brought back an old memory!! 

I learned how to weld with a stick when I was 14. My brother-in-law was a multi-certified Corp of Engineer welder. They sent him all over the country to weld in places no one else would go.

He gave me a little buzz box. He showed me how to strike an arc and angle the rods, gave me some metal, a big box of rods, a helmet, gloves, and said "You need to practice every day, and don't burn the garage down!"!

At age 16 I entered my sophomore year of high school and registered for the welding class. I think I was only one of a couple sophomores in the class, mostly seniors.

The first "project" the instructor had us do was to weld a 6" 3/8" plate at 90d to a base plate.  At that point I could run a pretty good bead.  A big-anal sphincter senior took MY metal piece and submitted it as HIS project piece.  I wasn't really wanting to make a big deal about, the seniors were known to give the sophomore a bad time. I didn't say anything. The instructor showed the best pieces to the class and bragged about the arse-whole's work!!  I wanted some really evil to happen to that senior.

Fast forward some time into the year. My good friend John was a big guy and a boxer. We are in the Student Union at lunch and playing shuffle board.  The SAME arse-whole that took my welding project happened to be there. He only knew John was a sophomore and made a big mistake by giving John some . John caught him with a flash left hook right in the face, blood spurted. The guy went backwards and landed on the floor. John broke his  hand and had a cast on it for weeks. John was really pissed because he was in the band and played the trombone.

That is one of my favorite memories from High School.

Now for the end of the story.... I still can run a better-looking bead with a stick than I can with my mig!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

Put 300 miles on the locker and traction bar doing some deer scouting, all is well.  Next up is fixing my topper's hail damage with some fiberglass and gluing the hatch back in.

[a1gemmel]

I'm aware that this is a stupid amount of work to put into a 40 year old plastic topper. If this topper was a horse it would be put down. Actually, it would have been put down a long time ago. This isn't the first time I've patched it with fiberglass. Anyways, the things we do for the   a e s t h e t i c 

First step was to splint up all the cracks with self tappers and dead tree carcasses to keep the material all level. Some of the cracks I had to embiggen with a dremel to get the plastic to lay flush. After that I cut the screws flush on top. These splints will be removed later.

[a1gemmel]

Most of a gallon of resin and 40 square feet of fiberglass later most of the messy work is done. That's 1 layer of mat with 1 layer of cloth on top. Will let it cure for a few days (it's 45 degrees f in the shop now) before I start to sand and finish it.

[Gnarly4X]

Holy Hot Ca-ca!!  This FABRINATOR never stops!! 

Gnarls.

[toyodaaddict]

If that topper was on the truck when your Grandfather had it, than well worth the effort to try and keep it going 

[Gnarly4X]

If that topper was on the truck when your Grandfather had it, than well worth the effort to try and keep it going 

The concept and idea of preserving anything of "use value" is commendable.

I admire anyone with the skills and determination to fix or repair rather than discard something useful.

With the unabated costs of living and out of control inflation, being frugal may be as vital to future survival as an AR-15.

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

If that topper was on the truck when your Grandfather had it, than well worth the effort to try and keep it going 

Yep, that's a big part of why I'm preserving it. There are many toppers out there, but this one is mine!
Three coats of tractor supply oil based paint with hardener over three days - going to take a few days for it to be hard enough to flip over and reinstall the glass hatch.

[a1gemmel]

Coordinated an offroad recovery today that was sent out through https://offroadportal.org/.



That's me running the hi-lift.

Truck had broken a CV axle, the owner and his dad brought a replacement and swapped it in. With no manual hubs, we were concerned about even driving it off the trail with the broken CV flailing.


About 7 hours door-to-door including a celebratory dinner at McDonalds.

[a1gemmel]

Dyno date is booked for mid-january. I've got two baseline slots so I can run the truck as-is and then throw on factory size tires to see how much loss the 37s are worth.
Might have another recovery tonight, friend of a friend's 4runner slid off a canyon road. Details are scant.

[a1gemmel]

Installed the new winch today - the factory bumper mounts had to come off, the new bolt patterns for the winch and fairlead were drilled into my existing winch plate, and the lower core support had to be removed.



My turn signals are now taped in place until I can fabricate a new bumper 



Grille got trimmed to fit back in place.



I realized the grille blocked the controller plug, and I didn't like the angled fins so a bit more trimming:



An obligatory side pic. I wager this is as high and tight as you can reasonably tuck a fullsize winch on these trucks.

[a1gemmel]

2 more recoveries last night - yoinked an altima back onto the highway on my way to helping out a family member - they work at an inn up in a remote town in the mountains, winter storm had most major routes closed and they got stuck on a steep back road. Towed them a few miles uphill to the unplowed "highway" and used the 12.5 wides to pack enough of a track for them to follow me into town.

[Gnarly4X]

Well.....  a1gemmel!!

You have been making some huge deposits in your KARMA BANK!!

Santa Claus is com'n to town!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

Thanks Gnarls, it's been a busy weekend. I'll have some video of this 4runner we recovered today once I have a chance to edit it up.

[a1gemmel]

Here's the video evidence of this week's shenanigans:

[Gnarly4X]

WOW!!!  Awesome job on the videos!!

The 4Runner recovery is one of the most technical and tricky winch pulls I've seen.

You guys certainly know what you're doing.

Having lots of 4-wheeling experience makes a big difference for understanding the dynamics involved in terrain and physics.

The owner should be very thankful that there are 2 guys out there that have the ability, equipment, knowledge, and generosity to make a successful recovery.

Many forum members contribute to the pages here, but a1gemmel, you are making some very interesting and very nice contributions. 

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

Thanks for the kind words, Gnarls

[a1gemmel]

I bought tire chains last winter but never used them. They were slightly too short, tirechain.com sizes their products for over-the-road tires so their 37x12.5R17 offering doesn't actually fit a mud terrain. They were kind enough to send out a pair of extensions for free, but I didn't want to push the issue and ask for 2 more extensions on account of I bought 4 chains...
Anyways, shout-out to https://www.ebay.com/usr/jrepp94 - he's the tire chain BRO. Called him up, told him what I needed and he created a listing and had them out the door in less than an hour. Great pricing too.
A 50 cal ammo can perfectly fits a single chain and tensioner.



Snow bashing this year is going to be awesome!

[Gnarly4X]

Hey a1gemmel,

The deposits in your KARMA Bank are working.

Do good things.... and good things will happen to you.

Here in AZ our club had several snow runs every year that there was good snow.

Getting stuck was a certainty for somebody.

Driving up a mountain from 1100 feet to 7,000 feet was not really bad on a snowy or icey highway.

Driving DOWN the mountain too often caused major anal pucker!!

I bought a set of 4 chains.  I hated putting them on at 7,600 feet elevation with the ambient air temp was 25d F.

They are a pain to put them on.  You have to be careful NOT to spin the tires too fast, they don't like being next to cold rubber.

BUT... they are like night and day for traction in snow.

For playing in the snow for 1/2 a day, I air'd down to 5 lbs.

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

Wishing you and yours a happy Toyotathon!



We did Christmas yesterday so instead of rattling around the house by myself I went out to find trouble in the Yankee Hill area. Immediately found said trouble when I snapped a steel valve stem off on a rock while giving a snowy climb a bit too much violence. Thankfully I had a set of apex performance valve stems in my glovebox I was meaning to install a year ago so with a bit of field improv I popped the tire off the bead and installed the new valve stem. Not sure how I feel about the product, they stick out pretty far on my wheels. The quick deflate feature is pretty trick though. Maybe I need to relocate the valve stem hole and add rock rings to protect them...



I've started carrying this electric chainsaw and it paid off here as I constructed a wooden jack stand.





I went to explore a gulch that I did a search and rescue at last year - an xj stuck going downhill. There were fresh tracks so I was feeling good, but then I reached the point where the tracks turned around and they had scrambled up the snow so much it was quite a slog getting back out. I threw on the tire chains and they absolutely ate the snow up - used the winch to pop myself back on top and the control of the dual cases with the bite of the chains let me crawl back up the trail with little drama.





I have some kind of power steering issue now after all the abuse - seem to have a lot less assist turning passenger. I need to get someone to steer while I look around to see if anything is binding up.

[Gnarly4X]

My 4-wheeling nowadays is strictly vicarious.

I really enjoy the photos and storytelling.

One of my greatest pleasures during my 20+ years of wheeling are the times we sat around the campfire at night with a big group and listen to the stories of past adventures.

Looking back it would have been so cool to be able to video or tape record some of those great stories.

I believe YOU will have lots of adventure stories to tell!!

If you would have had the pleasure of wheeling with my late good friend and most fun wheeling buddy, Larry, he would say "That a1gemmel is a fartsmucker!"

Here in AZ trail rocks are attracted to valve stems.  I had a set in my carry-kit.  I never thought about a block of wood for an emergency jackstand.

An electric chainsaw would have definitely been used on several trail runs I've been on.

Yeah... those tire chains in snow is biggly!

Gnarls.

[a1gemmel]

Thanks gnarls. I like having a thread on a slow board here where I can write short blurbs about whatever's going on with the truck, it's nice to look back later and read through to remember all that I've experienced through the years.

Got eyes under the front end, nothing obvious for binding but my steering box is slightly loose and I have at least one bad tie rod. Time to just pull the front axle apart and grease/replace as needed I think. Getting a look at the trunion bearings would be a good thing.

[toyodaaddict]

Wishing you and yours a happy Toyotathon!

That is a nice picture.

You have me thinking I need a set of chains again. You ordered these from Ebay?

[a1gemmel]

That is a nice picture.

You have me thinking I need a set of chains again. You ordered these from Ebay?

I got the initial set of V-bar chains from tirechain.com, they were a bit too short so I got extensions on ebay. If you call tirechain.com they can recommend the right part numbers to fit mud terrains.