Exploder_M
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How did that tranny cooler crack? Was it from the mounting bolt tightened too much of a load or angle it was mounted or possibly just age?
What a Trip Mammoth Rip: October ‘24
- Thread starter Turboyota
- Start date
Turboyota
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I’m guessing inadequate/faulty dip braze during the manufacturing process. It’s not very old…
theycallmeWALLY
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Looks rad! Watching this one like a hawk!
the bodj
Well-known member
This man makin it happen!
Cooler was hard mounted near the rear of the cab. Like @Turboyota said, it looks like a factory defect. Tiny little pin hole near the intake port. No other indication of damage.
Epoxy fix lasted 100 miles of dirt yesterday, but gave up the ghost on the way home today. It’s seeping slightly now. Never had to add any fluid, but everything near the cooler is damp with ATF.
Random photo dump.
the bodj
Well-known member
Currently going through my photos. Gonna collaborate with Rouse on the write up. For the time being, here is the lovely specimen himself, for your eyes to gaze upon
SaltyMethods
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Magestic...
Turboyota
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Last edited:
SaltyMethods
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the bodj
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Love me some tube steak
84projectFORD
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The equal amount of manhood sexiness pictures and badassery vehicle pictures is top notch
the bodj
Well-known member
Alright, Turbo is taking too long since he actually works at his job. Here's my write-up:
Got the lights figured out with the help of Jesse from the Fab Lab on Thursday night (not factory, but works as it did from the factory).
So the majority of the group got up north around midday on Thursday. My wife and I had to work, so we left at 8pm Friday night. We left so late for a couple of reasons. 1) let traffic die down, and 2) Brad's Tacoma had a pinhole leak in his trans cooler. I ordered one Thursday evening via Amazon and had to wait for it to arrive to bring up with me. Turns out by the time I had gotten there that they 'fixed' the leak by layering fiberglass and epoxy to plug it up. Worked good enough for the 108mile dirt loop we did, plus the 330 highway miles home!
Anyways, my wife and I hopped in the truck along with our little dalmatian, Marlow. The pup had never been on an offroad trip, so we were nervous how she'd do. She was a trooper, and didn't have any anxiety, even when blitzing whoops or jumping the truck! It took us 5.5 hours to get to our destination, which is Dusty's home. I had met him once while passing through on a previous trip, but 'known' him for years now. He and his wife opened up their home to 6 of us (plus the two of them) to use as base camp. It was awesome sleeping in a bed after the many hours of driving we did each day, and I'm so thankful for their hospitality.
We woke up to breakfast burritos and coffee, then got the trucks loaded up and ready for the day. During a radio check I had found that my race radio was not turning on? My trans temp gauge also was not working on the drive up, which I had thought was due to accidentally grounding the terminals while reinstalling the dash (that was indeed the issue). I had forgotten that I powered the gauge using the same power from the radio, so a quick fuse swap and we were in business and hit the trail at 10:30am, basically directly from their driveway.
Maybe three miles into the run and I pulled over to rearrange some stuff in the back to give Marlow more room. I opened my door and it nearly fell off! The top hinge pin had completely fallen out somehow. Everyone was quick to jump in with an assortment of hardware, including $$$ 12 point aerospace hardware (aerospace engineer has the hookup). Some 5/16" socket head cap screws and nuts and we were back on the trail. (my pictures of the hinge accidentally got deleted).
The first stop was a high peak with a small cabin and fire lookout. The views were incredible, and it was fun looking through the window of the lookout at the instrumentation used to call out fire locations.
Yours truly. The wind at the top was frigid.
Wife made me take a picture next to the sign for irony
We continued on through beautiful pine forests, open meadows, rock gardens, and aspen groves. The colors were in full effect.
Pretty cool to cruise through whoops with this as the backdrop
The lineup:
1. My truck, a 2002 GMC Sonoma, TTB, 4 Link, full cage front to back, 6.0L LQ4 w/ 4L80e trans
2. 4th gen Toyota Pickup, 22RTE motor, custom front long travel, 4 link, full cage
3. 1st gen Tacoma, Total Chaos long travel, Deaver leaf springs, mostly caged
4. 1st gen Tacoma, not sure who made the LT or much of the specs on this truck
5. 2nd gen Tacoma, Total Chaos LT, some rear springs and shocks. I also don't know much about this rig
6. Class 11 VW bug. This thing is killer. It kept quite an impressive pace the entire time
7. 1st gen Tacoma, Total Chaos, custom 4 link, full cage
Some random pictures along the trail
Got the lights figured out with the help of Jesse from the Fab Lab on Thursday night (not factory, but works as it did from the factory).
So the majority of the group got up north around midday on Thursday. My wife and I had to work, so we left at 8pm Friday night. We left so late for a couple of reasons. 1) let traffic die down, and 2) Brad's Tacoma had a pinhole leak in his trans cooler. I ordered one Thursday evening via Amazon and had to wait for it to arrive to bring up with me. Turns out by the time I had gotten there that they 'fixed' the leak by layering fiberglass and epoxy to plug it up. Worked good enough for the 108mile dirt loop we did, plus the 330 highway miles home!
Anyways, my wife and I hopped in the truck along with our little dalmatian, Marlow. The pup had never been on an offroad trip, so we were nervous how she'd do. She was a trooper, and didn't have any anxiety, even when blitzing whoops or jumping the truck! It took us 5.5 hours to get to our destination, which is Dusty's home. I had met him once while passing through on a previous trip, but 'known' him for years now. He and his wife opened up their home to 6 of us (plus the two of them) to use as base camp. It was awesome sleeping in a bed after the many hours of driving we did each day, and I'm so thankful for their hospitality.
We woke up to breakfast burritos and coffee, then got the trucks loaded up and ready for the day. During a radio check I had found that my race radio was not turning on? My trans temp gauge also was not working on the drive up, which I had thought was due to accidentally grounding the terminals while reinstalling the dash (that was indeed the issue). I had forgotten that I powered the gauge using the same power from the radio, so a quick fuse swap and we were in business and hit the trail at 10:30am, basically directly from their driveway.
Maybe three miles into the run and I pulled over to rearrange some stuff in the back to give Marlow more room. I opened my door and it nearly fell off! The top hinge pin had completely fallen out somehow. Everyone was quick to jump in with an assortment of hardware, including $$$ 12 point aerospace hardware (aerospace engineer has the hookup). Some 5/16" socket head cap screws and nuts and we were back on the trail. (my pictures of the hinge accidentally got deleted).
The first stop was a high peak with a small cabin and fire lookout. The views were incredible, and it was fun looking through the window of the lookout at the instrumentation used to call out fire locations.
Yours truly. The wind at the top was frigid.
Wife made me take a picture next to the sign for irony
We continued on through beautiful pine forests, open meadows, rock gardens, and aspen groves. The colors were in full effect.
Pretty cool to cruise through whoops with this as the backdrop
The lineup:
1. My truck, a 2002 GMC Sonoma, TTB, 4 Link, full cage front to back, 6.0L LQ4 w/ 4L80e trans
2. 4th gen Toyota Pickup, 22RTE motor, custom front long travel, 4 link, full cage
3. 1st gen Tacoma, Total Chaos long travel, Deaver leaf springs, mostly caged
4. 1st gen Tacoma, not sure who made the LT or much of the specs on this truck
5. 2nd gen Tacoma, Total Chaos LT, some rear springs and shocks. I also don't know much about this rig
6. Class 11 VW bug. This thing is killer. It kept quite an impressive pace the entire time
7. 1st gen Tacoma, Total Chaos, custom 4 link, full cage
Some random pictures along the trail
the bodj
Well-known member
The trail hit some high elevation with very steep sides, so not many pictures were taken during that section. My wife kept her head in her hands and refused to look out hah. Not many pictures during that section.
Anyways, we dropped back down to "not mountain top elevation", which was still like 8000ft lol.
Ripped around the beach a bit
Such a great group of people!
At this point the truck was working too good. Decided to hit a small sand jump on the beach. I saw Rouse go first and he seemed to be going a pretty good speed, and barely got off the ground. I figured I'd hit it 3/4 throttle in first and I'd be solid...
Welp...
The result of that first big jump was the loss of my headlights (again). It was a rough landing, but the truck still drove great, so I figured I'd use the bumper lights to get back to the house. While cruising at a pretty good pace along a graded dirt road, I hit a cattle guard hard and the truck shut off and wouldn't turn back on. After maybe 30 or 45 minutes of trying to jump the fuel pump, spray ether in the intake, swapping relays... we decided to tow it back to his shop to work on it with better lighting and get out of the cold wind.
While being towed back into the neighborhood (a pretty hilly area) the strap had slack in the line due to me not having much in the way of brakes. I ran over the strap, it was pulled up and over my spindle ball joint, and ripped off my soft brake line. We eventually got it in the shop, and a couple guys promptly removed the tire, found a spare brake line in the TurboYota and got that handled while pizza was ordered, beers were cracked, and the rest of us were trying to figure out the no start issue. I pulled up a wiring diagram and Rouse found that the ECM B fuse was likely the issue. While looking through the diagram, @GahnRacing was testing each fuse, when he heard "BEEopppppp" Turns out it was the ECM B fuse that had popped, so a new fuse was installed and it fired right up!
The look of relief after finding the issue
Shop party!
All back together and ready to go home in the morning. This is the first time it's ever been indoors since I've owned it lol
It was awesome sleeping in a real bed again that night. We all woke up the next morning, ate some breakfast (Thanks Fi!) and then parted ways.
Trans coolers doing their job
Pulled off somewhere along the 395 for a bathroom break... with a view!
Safely back home around 4:30pm. 22.5 hrs of driving, 730 miles round trip, 100+ miles of dirt, and it's pretty much ready to go back in the dirt this weekend. Freaking love this truck and my friends!
My version of this super rad trip.Thursday,
Left Ventura around 0930 with the intention of meeting @Turboyota somewhere near Inyokern to rip as many dirt miles as possible on the way to Mammoth. Due to our incredible planning and advanced intellect, we met up at the Shell Station just past Indian Wells Brewery just 5 minutes apart. Fueled up and headed north, a few miles later we turned off the highway and starting putting down dirt miles. @Turboyota knows the area better than me and has the faster truck so he led. The roads he picked were fast and fun. I was averaging 55-60MPH, about as fast I will go in the dirt. (Yes, I am a cautious driver). I completely spaced out at the end of one trail and pulled out right in front of the huge water truck on a connector road. Completely my fault and dodged a bullet.
Hit the next fast flowy road and continued to rip down a pole line road at 55+ MPH. Mind you I am going as fast as comfortable and @Turboyota checks out immediately, I guess boost, big travel, 37"+ tires and a guy who can drive well means you can go fast in the desert. We regroup at Kearsarge and I do my normal once over. I see something dripping near the passenger side bedside near the cab.....oh no. Further inspection reveals the transmission cooler is leaking pretty bad. There is ATF dripping off the cooler and all over the back of the truck. It was fine the night before when I checked the truck while loading up. The cooler is only a few years old and has maybe 8 trips, 3-4K miles on it. It is the stacked plate style "True Cool" purchased from Kartek.
At this point we needed a NAPA, there was one 20 miles south in tiny Lone Pine or 40 miles north in Bishop. Since Bishop was the right direction and the bigger town, we headed to the highway and headed north. I led and @Turboyota was on firewatch. The now cracked cooler was mounted over the muffler/exhaust. Made it into Bishop with no issue and hit the NAPA. When I asked for a oil/transmission cooler with ½ NPT ports, the parts guy thought for a second and said "Let me see what I have". No looking in the computer, no asking what year the truck was, no 2wd/4wd questions....a real parts guy who knows parts. They didn't have a cooler that would work, but did have the -6an union I needed to bypass the now leaking cooler. We headed to the other end of town to check AutoZone/O'Reilly's, nothing there wither. Bypassed the cooler in the parking lot and headed to Mammoth.
Arrived in Mammoth around 7 and got the grand tour of the @dose compound/shop. Hit a delicious mexican food dinner, hung out and enjoyed the great company and awesome dogs. Yes, they even have awesome dogs.
Friday
We day tripped around Mammoth in the morning. The place is amazing, trails everywhere and so much to see/do. The truck was running great, but the trans was heating up a lot with the cooler bypassed. We hit the local test section of whoops and rode in each others trucks. It was rad to experience the other trucks and just hang out. On most point to point trips, we never do this and are always ready to head to the next spot or need to cover more miles. This was a welcomed change of pace. No one local had anything I could use and @the bodj ordered me one next day Amazon so he could bring it with him the next day. Headed back to @dose compound and pulled the cooler off.
Cleaned the cooler off and pressurized it with a bicycle pump. Found a tiny pinhole near the inlet port. Cleaned it extra good and patched it up with epoxy/fiberglass strands. Did I mention how awesome it was to have a full shop to work on my trash?! Blasted the 5 min epoxy with a heat gun to speed up the curing process and reinstalled it on the truck. Fired it up, no leaks! Back in business. Headed out for a after lunch adventure to an awesome lake near the ski report.
Headed back to the compound near dark for a BBQ and fire pit. Enjoyed the prefect weather, great food and dogs.
Saturday,
The group starting arriving around 9 for the planned 10 departure time. @dose had a 100+ miles route planned for the day. @GahnRacing was my co-dawg for the day because his F150 is still being built, with the air filter in the cab. We left around 1030 and headed into the mountains. The route was epic, scenery was amazing and I even got to lead some... including missing the first turn and mixing the group all up on a bunch of random trails that criss crossed. We rallied back together and pushed on. The epoxy job was holding strong and the stoke was high. At around mile 80 a few dudes headed back into town to head home or back to responsibilities. The remaining group headed to Lake Crowley to check out the "Columns". Ripping around on the beach next to the lake was rad.
Finished up there and headed back to the compound via dirt. @the bodj had his issue and I stopped to help. I towed him about ¾ of the way back before the old leaf sprung Toyota got a little warm towing his V8 linked truck. Swapped off towing duties and we all made it back a short time later. We rallied and got @the bodj all fixed up and enjoyed pizza and beer in the shop. An absolutely awesome day.
Sunday,
Packed up, ate another home cooked breakfast, I can't thank Dusty and Fi more for their hospitality, said my goodbyes and headed south with @the bodj. His truck was running great and they stopped in Bishop, I continued south. Cruised the whole way home, 350+ miles without incident. The cooler started leaking again about halfway home, but the repair did it's job.
Overall an absolutely awesome trip with awesome people.
Turboyota
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- Apr 1, 2022
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- 726
Fuckit. My turn!
Vehicles:
Turboyota dirt stats:
Dirt miles day 1: 160
Dirt miles day 2: 50
Dirt miles day 3: 108
Dirt miles day 4: 100
Total: 418
I picked up @FatJeff in Redlands at 9:30AM, Jeff barely squeezed his manly physique into the belts, and we headed up the 15fwy. Topped fuel in ghettofuckAdelanto, and immediately hit the power line road on the west side of HWY395. We passed fucking everyone on the 395, and averaged 69+MPH from Adelanto all the way to Randsburg. After Randsburg, we hit EP21 and headed North towards Inyokern. Crossed the 14, took dirt power line rd all the way to the Inyokern Shell
Brad and I left from 150 miles apart, and thru an exemplary display of manliness, we timed it perfectly and met at the Inyokern Shell station within 4 minutes of each other. Fuckin’-A.
Hi @FatJeff ! Looking, well, fat….
Hi @SByota
We jumped back into the dirt at Fossil Falls and took the power line road North to Haiwee reservoir. The area around Owen’s Lake is a clusterfuck of new highway construction, so we highwayed thru Olancha and hit dirt again South of Lone Pine.
@SByota and I averaged 55-60mph on dirt and made it to Kearsarge in great time. We jumped out to take a leak, and SByota noticed his tranny cooler was taking a leak as well. I had a broad assortment of -AN fittings that were not the right size to bypass the afflicted cooler, so we put our fire extinguishers within easy reach, and decided to take pavement to the Bishop NAPA in search of a replacement cooler or hardware to bypass it.
Editor’s note: chicken or the egg:
Not sure if the trans cooler was mounted atop the exhaust or the exhaust was routed beneath the tranny cooler… @SByota ???hahaha!!!
NAPA had a -6JIC union, but no usable coolers, as was the situation at BRO’Reiley and Vatozone. Lots of barbed fittings coolers of various flavors, but nothing adaptable to B-Rad’s -6AN braided line setup. Brads Tacoma marked its territory in the Vatozone parking lot, and we motored the rest of the way to mammoth lakes.
^^^JennaAntenna still workin’ it even after her amputation a couple years ago
Thursday Recap: spent the morning with my girls, picked up @FatJeff at 930AM, did 160 dirt miles, visited 3 fine auto parts establishments, drank 16 LaCroixs, and arrived in mammoth at 530PM. Pretty fucking decent.
Coming up the grade from Bishop to Mammoth:
Safely arrived at Dusty’s at 530PM
We enjoyed Mammoth’s finest Mexican food and then a nice bonfire at Dusty’s.
Patrik arrived late Thursday. I was already asleep—I’m not waiting up for that queer.
Friday morning we enjoyed a glorious breakfast feast graciously prepared by Fianna. Fresh eggs courtesy of Rouse farms.
Friday festivities To be continued…
Vehicles:
- @dose ‘s Linked & Total Chaos Tacoma
- @SByota ‘s Deavered & Total Chaos Tacoma
- Taylor’s Deaver & Total Chaos Tacoma
- @the bodj ‘s LS swapped, linked & beamed Sonoma
- James’ Class 11, the 4-wheel vehicle without KINGS, bro.
- Randy’s Deaver & Total Chaos Tacoma
- @GahnRacing ‘s dirty cooter (dirt scooter)
- @Turboyota ‘s linked two wheel drive eighty five
Turboyota dirt stats:
Dirt miles day 1: 160
Dirt miles day 2: 50
Dirt miles day 3: 108
Dirt miles day 4: 100
Total: 418
I picked up @FatJeff in Redlands at 9:30AM, Jeff barely squeezed his manly physique into the belts, and we headed up the 15fwy. Topped fuel in ghettofuckAdelanto, and immediately hit the power line road on the west side of HWY395. We passed fucking everyone on the 395, and averaged 69+MPH from Adelanto all the way to Randsburg. After Randsburg, we hit EP21 and headed North towards Inyokern. Crossed the 14, took dirt power line rd all the way to the Inyokern Shell
Brad and I left from 150 miles apart, and thru an exemplary display of manliness, we timed it perfectly and met at the Inyokern Shell station within 4 minutes of each other. Fuckin’-A.
Hi @FatJeff ! Looking, well, fat….
Hi @SByota
We jumped back into the dirt at Fossil Falls and took the power line road North to Haiwee reservoir. The area around Owen’s Lake is a clusterfuck of new highway construction, so we highwayed thru Olancha and hit dirt again South of Lone Pine.
@SByota and I averaged 55-60mph on dirt and made it to Kearsarge in great time. We jumped out to take a leak, and SByota noticed his tranny cooler was taking a leak as well. I had a broad assortment of -AN fittings that were not the right size to bypass the afflicted cooler, so we put our fire extinguishers within easy reach, and decided to take pavement to the Bishop NAPA in search of a replacement cooler or hardware to bypass it.
Editor’s note: chicken or the egg:
Not sure if the trans cooler was mounted atop the exhaust or the exhaust was routed beneath the tranny cooler… @SByota ???hahaha!!!
NAPA had a -6JIC union, but no usable coolers, as was the situation at BRO’Reiley and Vatozone. Lots of barbed fittings coolers of various flavors, but nothing adaptable to B-Rad’s -6AN braided line setup. Brads Tacoma marked its territory in the Vatozone parking lot, and we motored the rest of the way to mammoth lakes.
^^^JennaAntenna still workin’ it even after her amputation a couple years ago
Thursday Recap: spent the morning with my girls, picked up @FatJeff at 930AM, did 160 dirt miles, visited 3 fine auto parts establishments, drank 16 LaCroixs, and arrived in mammoth at 530PM. Pretty fucking decent.
Coming up the grade from Bishop to Mammoth:
Safely arrived at Dusty’s at 530PM
We enjoyed Mammoth’s finest Mexican food and then a nice bonfire at Dusty’s.
Patrik arrived late Thursday. I was already asleep—I’m not waiting up for that queer.
Friday morning we enjoyed a glorious breakfast feast graciously prepared by Fianna. Fresh eggs courtesy of Rouse farms.
Friday festivities To be continued…
Turboyota
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2022
- Messages
- 726
Friday Friday gotta get down on Friday! Sing it, fucker!
Next, we visited Dusty’s local shock tuning spot. After talking about it for 4 years, we finally rode in each other’s trucks thru the whoops. It was fucking awesome.
Dusty’s snowball Tacoma is the fucking perfect mix of linked awesomeness, all-encompassing off-road capability, utility, and daily comfort.
Brad’s rusty red Tacoma is the epitome of prelander simplicity.
1. Purchase ugly Tacoma chock full of bitchin parts, but is unattractive to enlightened, discerning, internet savvy buyers who want a good-looking prerunner that will be the talk of the New Balance/Tommy Bahama-clad cars and coffee patrons. Instadoctrine 69:420 clearly dictates that flashy paint and 4.5” shocks are what’s needed to have fun whilst mega-hucking a high dollar prerunner for the interwebz. I fucking digress… the point is you don’t need any of that fancy bullshit to laugh your ass off with your friends hundreds of miles from home in a beautiful environment.
After the whooptivities, we visited a badass obsidian hillside and I hiked my fat ass all the way to the top to gather shiny volcanic treasures to adorn my daughter’s fairy garden. Patrik got a bee sting on his neck. See how I tenderly brush his flowing locks aside so I can take a picture? I truly care for you, @GahnRacing
We headed back to Dusty’s for lunch, then jumped back in the trucks and headed to a scenic lake.
Next, we visited Dusty’s local shock tuning spot. After talking about it for 4 years, we finally rode in each other’s trucks thru the whoops. It was fucking awesome.
Dusty’s snowball Tacoma is the fucking perfect mix of linked awesomeness, all-encompassing off-road capability, utility, and daily comfort.
Brad’s rusty red Tacoma is the epitome of prelander simplicity.
1. Purchase ugly Tacoma chock full of bitchin parts, but is unattractive to enlightened, discerning, internet savvy buyers who want a good-looking prerunner that will be the talk of the New Balance/Tommy Bahama-clad cars and coffee patrons. Instadoctrine 69:420 clearly dictates that flashy paint and 4.5” shocks are what’s needed to have fun whilst mega-hucking a high dollar prerunner for the interwebz. I fucking digress… the point is you don’t need any of that fancy bullshit to laugh your ass off with your friends hundreds of miles from home in a beautiful environment.
- Cage said ugly prerunner so you don’t die when you run out of talent
- Add seats and safety harnesses
- Tie cage into the cab to form an unitized structure and keep the cab from self destructing
- Add easily-accessible dedicated storage for tools, ice chests, spares, and camping paraphernalia
- Enjoy the fuck outta the simple, reliable, and all-around capable truck with your interweb friends.
After the whooptivities, we visited a badass obsidian hillside and I hiked my fat ass all the way to the top to gather shiny volcanic treasures to adorn my daughter’s fairy garden. Patrik got a bee sting on his neck. See how I tenderly brush his flowing locks aside so I can take a picture? I truly care for you, @GahnRacing
We headed back to Dusty’s for lunch, then jumped back in the trucks and headed to a scenic lake.
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UCD BAJA
Active member
Looks like a great trip, I love that area. I went to Mule days in Bishop for 20 years and spent every free minute I had between mule events exploring that area and fishing. Something cool about bombing through whoops and sand then pulling over for a cold one and to catch trout out of a tiny lake or stream.
