7/14/2009
The annual trip to Rausch Creek, PA is quickly approaching and my tube was begging to get used so it was finally time to get into some tube bending. I'm starting off with a rear half exo cage since it will give me some rollover protection and provide lots of body protection from trees which is my bigger concern at this point in time. A full exo will be completed later on down the road when I have a little more tube at my disposal. Around my full time job and working on my own truck, I've been spreading my time out with helping some friends get their trucks ready for Rausch, as well as taking the time to enjoy everything the summer has to offer in western mass with fishing, golfing, motorcycle riding, and of course, wheeling, just to name a few activities. So as work will always continually progress with the truck, I try to make sure it is not my only priority in life.
6/11/2009-
Last week I fabricated and installed a set of sliders on the Toyota in anticipation of wheeling some really challenging private trails at Field 'N Forest in NH which Northeast Toyota Crawlers has access to through the NEA4WDC. I also had access to a trailer for the weekend so I decided to tow my Toyota to the trails/campground and I'm glad I did because it only took 15 minutes into the first trail to destroy my rear drive shaft. This weekend its off to a friend's machine shop to fabricate a new heavy duty shaft on the lathe as well as get around to making those delrin leaf spring bushings that I have been meaning to get to for the past couple months.
In the meantime, you should head over to the Adventures page to check out this weekends photos. FnF offers some of the toughest trails that can be found in New England so there was plenty of carnage to go around including broken ring and pinion gears and a snapped main leaf spring on some trucks that attempted a trail known as "the Devil's Bunghole". Nobody could even make it up to the even harder trail known as "the Devil's Taint"... we will leave that one for the buggies.
5/17/2009-
I recently got in on a group buy of DOM tubing to be used for making an exo-cage on my truck. The order arrived this past week, however, it was shipped to an offroad shop a few hours away so I have not yet been able to pick it up.
In the meantime, a friend and I decided to begin working on a new project together. The plan is to take a '93 Nissan Sentra LE, and turn it into a rally car for 2WD stage rally competition. It needs a new clutch, suspension, and fuel cell just to be a reliable car, and then we will begin racing in Rally-X which takes place in an open field marked with cones as we continue to build the car to fit the Rally America stage competition specs. This will be a rather long term project, with hopes that we will be able to enter the New England Forest national rally competition in Maine in 2010.
5/01/2009-
So it has been a little while since my last update. Not too much was done to the truck for a while. For much of the winter, it was too cold outside to find motivation to work on the truck and not until recently could I fit it into my garage. I did numerous short, fun runs over the past couple months, but I did not make any major modifications other than welding the rear differential.
Back in March, I purchased a diesel F350 for daily driving and for doing everything else (hauling, towing, etc) that I couldn't even dream of doing with a bobbed, dovetailed Toyota. Since then, the Toyota has been sitting a lot more but it still gets some attention. With the Umass Motorsports Car Show coming up tomorrow, I had some motivation to get the truck into the garage and give it a fresh coat of paint this week, following the same technique for painting that you can find in my "Tech Write-ups" Page. I used the same camo pattern from my last truck, but with new colors. I decided I wanted to go with something different, and whether it turned out awesome or hideous, I would rock it. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder.... this is sure something to behold.
1/14/2009-
Time has been a little short over the past week between moving into a new house and starting a new job, although I did get to take the truck out for a shakedown run this weekend. Saturday, I met up with Northeast Toyota Crawlers (NTC) for a run at a western MA trail called Rattlesnake Gutter which is literally, as of moving into my new house last Thursday, in my backyard. I wish I had more time to finish working on the truck before starting my new job this week, such as setting up the longer rear shocks and welding the rear differential, but the truck did great for what it was this weekend and I will get to the other tasks when I get a chance (and when the weather gets above 10 degrees F).
During the wheeling trip, we started a spur of the moment King Of the Gutter rock race (KOG 1) similar to the King Of the Hammers race, only MUCH shorter... and covered in snow. Three trucks including my own participated. The first was Steve-O with his exo'd 4Runner; he finished in a time of 2:35 and completely bent and destroyed his front axle housing. Next was me; course completed in 2:48 and I ripped my exhaust apart. Last was Belben who finished in his mostly stock Nissan Frontier with an impressive time of 2:52 and he bent his front lower A-arm... This is going to become a new annual event.
I uploaded my pictures from this trip to the "Wheeling Trips" page which is the first that I've updated it in quite some time. I am also attaching links to picture albums from others who were on the run so be sure to check those out.
Although there is still a lot to be done on the truck, work is going to progress much slower now that building the truck is not my #1 priority like it was when I had a couple weeks off recently. That does not mean that work will cease, though. Work will continue and updates will be made as often as possible so look out for more to come and new write-ups to appear in the near future.
1/6/2009-
Due to quickly approaching time constraints, I decided to forgo other tasks and jump directly into mounting the dovetailed bed today. The process was a fairly simple one... put the bed on, drill some holes, and tighten some bolts. Some trimming of the under-bed supports was necessary to get the bed to sit flat on the frame where it needed to, however this was nothing that a couple minutes with a cutoff wheel couldn't solve. The bed was saved from my old Tacoma before I sold it back to Toyota and I had previously bobbed it 13" (process shown under "Tech Write-ups"). Over the fall, I also put in some free time here and there to dovetail it by 16". I will be compiling a write-up of this in the near future.
I am incredibly happy with the end result. I am also happy with the fact that the tailgate still functions, being able to open and close securely just like it always has. I do still have some remaining work on the bed such as bondo-ing the "bobbed" tailgate and making fender flares/mud flaps to cover the rear tires considering they now stick out almost entirely from the bedsides. I also have some body armor to install such as bumpers and sliders to which the fender hoops will be attached.
1/5/2009-
After adjusting the alignment and changing which hole in the high steer arm the drag link connects to, the steering feels better, but still leaves something to be desired. After a closer inspection, the truck appears to shift side to side when the wheel is turned due to worn out front bushings in the front springs. To correct this, I will be machining a pair of bushings made from delrin which is a hard, wear resistant plastic. This should tighten up the steering and get rid of the "wander" thats occurring during normal driving conditions. I will most likely be machining these sometime in the next week or so once I obtain the material and have time to get to a machine shop.
Tonight, I began the bed swap by removing the original bed from the truck. Before proceeding, I have a few tasks to take care of like welding the rear differential and making new shock mounts which will be easier completed with the bed removed. The Tacoma and mini truck tail lights use the exact same wiring connectors so that will be convenient when finishing up the bed swap.
1/2/2009-
Its been cold out over the past few days, yet progress still continues steadily. I needed to shorten my drag link which was re-used from my Tacoma which had a wider frame and didn't have a tap to cut more threads in the tube, so I cut out a section in the middle, butt welded the two ends back together, and sleeved the joint. I then installed shock mounts and brakes, reassembled the hubs, and started the truck up only to find out the my rusty fuel line sprang a leak while I have been working on the front end.
Today I had to deal with the issue of replacing fuel line and bleeding the new brakes before I could take the truck out for its maiden voyage. Brakes felt sluggish due to the fact that the GM calipers require more fluid than the Toyota calipers, however, I am still capable of locking the tires up on the street. Steering needs some adjustments as well, so I will be playing with the alignment this weekend as I make the truck suitable for daily driving once again.
12/30/2008-
The past two days have been busy ones. Sometimes, things go smoothly the way you want them to, and other times... they don't. Yesterday I managed to replace the bushings in the rear of the front springs, get new U-bolts, and figure out where to place my shackle tubes in a timely fashion. However, yesterday was a prime example of why you should only tack weld parts until everything is in place.
It turned out that when I placed a spacer in between my frame and spring, placed the shackle at the angle I wanted, and marked where the hole should go, I forgot to take into account that the shackle will apply a force in the lengthwise direction of the leaf spring. This stretches, or flattens the springs just a tad, but enough to make my shackle angle way too flat. I had already spent a great deal of time sitting on the floor torching through the many layers of metal that comprise the frame to get the shackle tubes in, and moving those holes was not something I wanted to consider doing. So to make life simple, I broke the 6 tack welds holding each of the front spring mounts to my homemade cross member, moved them half an inch forward, re-tacked, and viola... perfect shackle angle by moving the axle only slightly forward. Had I fully welded the front spring mounts just because the axle was in a decent position already, I would have had no easy way of correcting my mistake. Anyways, enough rambling. Point of the story, don't fully weld your parts until you are completely sure where they need to be located.
The rest of the day today was spent making a leaf spring spacer for the passenger side so it sits even with the other spring perch on top of the diff casting, fully welding the shackle tubes, and turning a couple pieces of tack welded steel into an incredibly strong front spring hanger. Tomorrow will be setting the castor angle, welding on shock mounts, bolting up the drag link and drive shaft, and bleeding the brakes. Hopefully this will take place early enough for my test drive to beat the snow forecasted to come in the afternoon. Cheers.
12/28/2008-
The truck is now sitting under its own weight which is a big milestone. Over the past few days, I was able to completely clean up the frame and build a custom set of leaf springs using the factory rear pack with the addition of some old Tacoma leafs and some other miscellaneous add-a-leafs found in the garage. After a new front spring hanger was tack welded together, the truck was lifted off its jack stands to check for height/location. Front spring shackles were not able to be setup yet because the rear bushings in the springs need to be replaced so for mock up, spacers were inserted between the spring eye and frame.
12/23/2008-
The build is officially underway! The past two days have been spent organizing the garage and disassembling the front end of my truck. The independent suspension has been removed however the frame still needs to be cleaned up before installing the new front axle which is now back together and sitting on its new 35" BFG MT's. All of the removed IFS parts are for sale so if you are in need of any spare CV shafts or a new differential, take a look at the classifieds page and make an offer.
12/4/2008-
Last week's Thanksgiving break gave me a good chance to get some progress made on the new build. First, I was able to install a set of 63" Chevy springs in the rear of my truck. I made a writeup based on the swap so head over to the Tech Write-ups page to check that out.
I was also able to set up some used gears and replace all four ball joints in the front Dana 44 that will be used for my solid axle swap in a couple weeks. The final accomplishment for the weekend was completing the dovetail of my old bed saved from my Tacoma and narrowing the tailgate.
Now its back to school but with less than two weeks remaining in the semester, its time to order up the last few little things before really getting this build off the ground.
11/20/2008-
The '98 Toyota Tacoma that I learned so much about off-roading and fabricating with was recently bought back by Toyota in September of 2008 after a significant crack was found in the frame.
With the money from the buyback, I have since bought a '93 extended cab Toyota Pickup to build into another rock crawler. I have also obtained everything needed to turn the new truck into what the Tacoma was as well as a few new goodies for the garage such as a tube bender and horizontal band saw. The buildup should be well underway in the next month so be sure to check back soon for updates!
The annual trip to Rausch Creek, PA is quickly approaching and my tube was begging to get used so it was finally time to get into some tube bending. I'm starting off with a rear half exo cage since it will give me some rollover protection and provide lots of body protection from trees which is my bigger concern at this point in time. A full exo will be completed later on down the road when I have a little more tube at my disposal. Around my full time job and working on my own truck, I've been spreading my time out with helping some friends get their trucks ready for Rausch, as well as taking the time to enjoy everything the summer has to offer in western mass with fishing, golfing, motorcycle riding, and of course, wheeling, just to name a few activities. So as work will always continually progress with the truck, I try to make sure it is not my only priority in life.
6/11/2009-
Last week I fabricated and installed a set of sliders on the Toyota in anticipation of wheeling some really challenging private trails at Field 'N Forest in NH which Northeast Toyota Crawlers has access to through the NEA4WDC. I also had access to a trailer for the weekend so I decided to tow my Toyota to the trails/campground and I'm glad I did because it only took 15 minutes into the first trail to destroy my rear drive shaft. This weekend its off to a friend's machine shop to fabricate a new heavy duty shaft on the lathe as well as get around to making those delrin leaf spring bushings that I have been meaning to get to for the past couple months.
In the meantime, you should head over to the Adventures page to check out this weekends photos. FnF offers some of the toughest trails that can be found in New England so there was plenty of carnage to go around including broken ring and pinion gears and a snapped main leaf spring on some trucks that attempted a trail known as "the Devil's Bunghole". Nobody could even make it up to the even harder trail known as "the Devil's Taint"... we will leave that one for the buggies.
5/17/2009-
I recently got in on a group buy of DOM tubing to be used for making an exo-cage on my truck. The order arrived this past week, however, it was shipped to an offroad shop a few hours away so I have not yet been able to pick it up.
In the meantime, a friend and I decided to begin working on a new project together. The plan is to take a '93 Nissan Sentra LE, and turn it into a rally car for 2WD stage rally competition. It needs a new clutch, suspension, and fuel cell just to be a reliable car, and then we will begin racing in Rally-X which takes place in an open field marked with cones as we continue to build the car to fit the Rally America stage competition specs. This will be a rather long term project, with hopes that we will be able to enter the New England Forest national rally competition in Maine in 2010.
5/01/2009-
So it has been a little while since my last update. Not too much was done to the truck for a while. For much of the winter, it was too cold outside to find motivation to work on the truck and not until recently could I fit it into my garage. I did numerous short, fun runs over the past couple months, but I did not make any major modifications other than welding the rear differential.
Back in March, I purchased a diesel F350 for daily driving and for doing everything else (hauling, towing, etc) that I couldn't even dream of doing with a bobbed, dovetailed Toyota. Since then, the Toyota has been sitting a lot more but it still gets some attention. With the Umass Motorsports Car Show coming up tomorrow, I had some motivation to get the truck into the garage and give it a fresh coat of paint this week, following the same technique for painting that you can find in my "Tech Write-ups" Page. I used the same camo pattern from my last truck, but with new colors. I decided I wanted to go with something different, and whether it turned out awesome or hideous, I would rock it. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder.... this is sure something to behold.
1/14/2009-
Time has been a little short over the past week between moving into a new house and starting a new job, although I did get to take the truck out for a shakedown run this weekend. Saturday, I met up with Northeast Toyota Crawlers (NTC) for a run at a western MA trail called Rattlesnake Gutter which is literally, as of moving into my new house last Thursday, in my backyard. I wish I had more time to finish working on the truck before starting my new job this week, such as setting up the longer rear shocks and welding the rear differential, but the truck did great for what it was this weekend and I will get to the other tasks when I get a chance (and when the weather gets above 10 degrees F).
During the wheeling trip, we started a spur of the moment King Of the Gutter rock race (KOG 1) similar to the King Of the Hammers race, only MUCH shorter... and covered in snow. Three trucks including my own participated. The first was Steve-O with his exo'd 4Runner; he finished in a time of 2:35 and completely bent and destroyed his front axle housing. Next was me; course completed in 2:48 and I ripped my exhaust apart. Last was Belben who finished in his mostly stock Nissan Frontier with an impressive time of 2:52 and he bent his front lower A-arm... This is going to become a new annual event.
I uploaded my pictures from this trip to the "Wheeling Trips" page which is the first that I've updated it in quite some time. I am also attaching links to picture albums from others who were on the run so be sure to check those out.
Although there is still a lot to be done on the truck, work is going to progress much slower now that building the truck is not my #1 priority like it was when I had a couple weeks off recently. That does not mean that work will cease, though. Work will continue and updates will be made as often as possible so look out for more to come and new write-ups to appear in the near future.
1/6/2009-
Due to quickly approaching time constraints, I decided to forgo other tasks and jump directly into mounting the dovetailed bed today. The process was a fairly simple one... put the bed on, drill some holes, and tighten some bolts. Some trimming of the under-bed supports was necessary to get the bed to sit flat on the frame where it needed to, however this was nothing that a couple minutes with a cutoff wheel couldn't solve. The bed was saved from my old Tacoma before I sold it back to Toyota and I had previously bobbed it 13" (process shown under "Tech Write-ups"). Over the fall, I also put in some free time here and there to dovetail it by 16". I will be compiling a write-up of this in the near future.
I am incredibly happy with the end result. I am also happy with the fact that the tailgate still functions, being able to open and close securely just like it always has. I do still have some remaining work on the bed such as bondo-ing the "bobbed" tailgate and making fender flares/mud flaps to cover the rear tires considering they now stick out almost entirely from the bedsides. I also have some body armor to install such as bumpers and sliders to which the fender hoops will be attached.
1/5/2009-
After adjusting the alignment and changing which hole in the high steer arm the drag link connects to, the steering feels better, but still leaves something to be desired. After a closer inspection, the truck appears to shift side to side when the wheel is turned due to worn out front bushings in the front springs. To correct this, I will be machining a pair of bushings made from delrin which is a hard, wear resistant plastic. This should tighten up the steering and get rid of the "wander" thats occurring during normal driving conditions. I will most likely be machining these sometime in the next week or so once I obtain the material and have time to get to a machine shop.
Tonight, I began the bed swap by removing the original bed from the truck. Before proceeding, I have a few tasks to take care of like welding the rear differential and making new shock mounts which will be easier completed with the bed removed. The Tacoma and mini truck tail lights use the exact same wiring connectors so that will be convenient when finishing up the bed swap.
1/2/2009-
Its been cold out over the past few days, yet progress still continues steadily. I needed to shorten my drag link which was re-used from my Tacoma which had a wider frame and didn't have a tap to cut more threads in the tube, so I cut out a section in the middle, butt welded the two ends back together, and sleeved the joint. I then installed shock mounts and brakes, reassembled the hubs, and started the truck up only to find out the my rusty fuel line sprang a leak while I have been working on the front end.
Today I had to deal with the issue of replacing fuel line and bleeding the new brakes before I could take the truck out for its maiden voyage. Brakes felt sluggish due to the fact that the GM calipers require more fluid than the Toyota calipers, however, I am still capable of locking the tires up on the street. Steering needs some adjustments as well, so I will be playing with the alignment this weekend as I make the truck suitable for daily driving once again.
12/30/2008-
The past two days have been busy ones. Sometimes, things go smoothly the way you want them to, and other times... they don't. Yesterday I managed to replace the bushings in the rear of the front springs, get new U-bolts, and figure out where to place my shackle tubes in a timely fashion. However, yesterday was a prime example of why you should only tack weld parts until everything is in place.
It turned out that when I placed a spacer in between my frame and spring, placed the shackle at the angle I wanted, and marked where the hole should go, I forgot to take into account that the shackle will apply a force in the lengthwise direction of the leaf spring. This stretches, or flattens the springs just a tad, but enough to make my shackle angle way too flat. I had already spent a great deal of time sitting on the floor torching through the many layers of metal that comprise the frame to get the shackle tubes in, and moving those holes was not something I wanted to consider doing. So to make life simple, I broke the 6 tack welds holding each of the front spring mounts to my homemade cross member, moved them half an inch forward, re-tacked, and viola... perfect shackle angle by moving the axle only slightly forward. Had I fully welded the front spring mounts just because the axle was in a decent position already, I would have had no easy way of correcting my mistake. Anyways, enough rambling. Point of the story, don't fully weld your parts until you are completely sure where they need to be located.
The rest of the day today was spent making a leaf spring spacer for the passenger side so it sits even with the other spring perch on top of the diff casting, fully welding the shackle tubes, and turning a couple pieces of tack welded steel into an incredibly strong front spring hanger. Tomorrow will be setting the castor angle, welding on shock mounts, bolting up the drag link and drive shaft, and bleeding the brakes. Hopefully this will take place early enough for my test drive to beat the snow forecasted to come in the afternoon. Cheers.
12/28/2008-
The truck is now sitting under its own weight which is a big milestone. Over the past few days, I was able to completely clean up the frame and build a custom set of leaf springs using the factory rear pack with the addition of some old Tacoma leafs and some other miscellaneous add-a-leafs found in the garage. After a new front spring hanger was tack welded together, the truck was lifted off its jack stands to check for height/location. Front spring shackles were not able to be setup yet because the rear bushings in the springs need to be replaced so for mock up, spacers were inserted between the spring eye and frame.
The build is officially underway! The past two days have been spent organizing the garage and disassembling the front end of my truck. The independent suspension has been removed however the frame still needs to be cleaned up before installing the new front axle which is now back together and sitting on its new 35" BFG MT's. All of the removed IFS parts are for sale so if you are in need of any spare CV shafts or a new differential, take a look at the classifieds page and make an offer.
12/4/2008-
Last week's Thanksgiving break gave me a good chance to get some progress made on the new build. First, I was able to install a set of 63" Chevy springs in the rear of my truck. I made a writeup based on the swap so head over to the Tech Write-ups page to check that out.
I was also able to set up some used gears and replace all four ball joints in the front Dana 44 that will be used for my solid axle swap in a couple weeks. The final accomplishment for the weekend was completing the dovetail of my old bed saved from my Tacoma and narrowing the tailgate.
Now its back to school but with less than two weeks remaining in the semester, its time to order up the last few little things before really getting this build off the ground.
11/20/2008-
The '98 Toyota Tacoma that I learned so much about off-roading and fabricating with was recently bought back by Toyota in September of 2008 after a significant crack was found in the frame.
With the money from the buyback, I have since bought a '93 extended cab Toyota Pickup to build into another rock crawler. I have also obtained everything needed to turn the new truck into what the Tacoma was as well as a few new goodies for the garage such as a tube bender and horizontal band saw. The buildup should be well underway in the next month so be sure to check back soon for updates!
