Project 4Skinner: Unclean, uncut, unkosher and unashamed

[Turboyota]

April 15, 2022

Day trip from apple valley to Big Bear with @Kellyex1450 Believe in Billy and the BROmanian

60~ish dirt miles

Fun rocky sections, scenic mountain roads, and delicious German cuisine.

Beers: Coors heavies all morning, then German brews whilst enjoying bratwurst & sauerkraut

Kelly and I did a hilariously slow drag race on one of the roads perpendicular to 3N16. The race ended up with both of us slamming some pretty good sized bumps going vvvaaaayyy tooo fffaaassssssst. I kersmacked the lower control arm crossmember something terrible into the dirt at the end of the race. It’s said the furrows remain to this day…

The Weber carbureted pickup with 33’s and the fuel injected heavy 4Skinner on 31’s were fucking neck and neck.



No pics of Kelly or me in the rocks, but I had to utilize the four wheel drives… Billy did awesome thru here:


Scope my @marcytech mig em all shirt

 

[Turboyota]

Next notable 4Skinner usage was our May 2023 “Owens River Valley 400”

Adelanto to Hinkley to Black Mountain Wikderness to Desert Lighthouse to Husky Monument to Randsburg to Inyokern Brewing to Olancha to Lone Pine to Reward Mine to Bishop.

@FatJeff ‘s interior storage/sleeping setup. It has rubber mat, 2” foam, and carpet. It’s pretty fucking comfy. Foam covers the top of the bumpstop cans that peekaboo thru the floor.

 

[Turboyota]

December 2023
Indio to Colorado River and back. 250+ dirt miles on the 4Skinner. Only issue was wheel wobble that turned out to be balance weights expertly installed by Americas Tire.



Camping next to the river:


Southwest of Niland on old Palo verde rd

 

[Turboyota]

Late February 2024

Me: “Dude, @FatJeff, your axle is all kinda wonky and fucked to the side. We should see what the fuck is up with it.”

FatJeff: *fat noises*

Put that bitch up on the lift and found this fuckery:



Fucking shifted to port


Leaf Spring pin totally gaped out the goddamn leaf spring perch:


leaf spring pad is fucking rosebudding


Looks like the bumps were getting used and abused also:


Shackles all fucked out


So I tore all that shit off


Daaaayuuuuummmmm….. I should call her…


Getting Whitetrashkyle’s Explorer and the 4Skinner ready for a poker run. I should put up my other lift….


I machined some little sleeves to fill the wallowed out holes in the leaf pads. WTK welded them in


Weld washers for the wallowed out shackles


Tiggered those fucks in


Bumpstop tuneup


Gusset cracked exactly where you’d expect:

 

[Turboyota]

March 1, 2024
Poker Run organized by an engineer at my previous job.

Location: Barstow to Hinkley to Black mountain wilderness to Husky monument to Boron to Adelanto to Cajon Pass—all dirt.
Dirt miles: 160
Tools used: 12mm to tighten bolts that secure fiberglass shell
Beers: couple tallboys after getting fuel & water in Kramer Junction.
Overheated: 3 times (culprit was a broken fan and shitty radiator and radiator cap) I had a couple OEM radiators in my shop, so we got that shit squared away


Met near rainbow basin


Suzuki and Jeep both broke in the first 10 miles. Both the explorer and 4Skinner look like sleepers—because they are. We were an order of magnitude faster than everyone else. WTK’s explorer has 2.5x12” coilovers, Solo cut and turned D35 beams, king 2x2” bumps in the front, and Fox 3.0IBPs and Deavers and GFE shackles in the rear. Tires are 35x10.5 BFG golf cart tires


Inscription canyon


Miner’s cabin cut into the rock


Grass valley wilderness


Husky Monument

@FatJeff securing the Shell after rattlefucked it loose



Trail outta Husky monument had fucking gnarly motocross/quad whoops. I put some fucking hurt on the front end. Shit started fucking squeaking and the tire started rubbing something new… scope all the rock rash on the arms, pivots, and crossmember


Fucking gravel collector over here:


F-22 crash site


Paralleling the 395 heading south


Adelanto racetrack. Overheat #1


Fuck Cajon pass traffic. Bypassed all that bullshit thru the dirt


Dropped off fatjeff and overheated going up the Yucaipa grade again. Fuck!

Overall a great day trip.

We got tired of waiting for everyone for what always seemed like an eternity, so we bailed on the poker run. Whitetrashkyle was slightly bummed because he had a pretty good hand.

Fuck you, WTK.

 

[Turboyota]

After the fantastic poker run day trip, i pressure washed the front end and threw @FatJeff ’s 4Skinner up on the lift to survey the damages I inflicted upon it.

I always look at the bottom of the suspension components and the front of the axle housings on people’s trucks. If they don’t look like this, I can tell you drive like a bitch:

(31” tires definitely don’t help)


Goddamnit.


Holy fuck! Definitely grazed something….


Huh. Definitely fuckered.


Noooooooo biiiiiiiiiiig deeeeeaaaallllll. 25 tons says it’s fixable


Boom bitches!


Did some CAD


That covers the rock rash nicely


Excellent fitment


Started working it into shape. Weld, PEEN into place, weld, repeat.


Perfect. That turned out nice!

 

[turbomonty]

i built my lower A arm out of 2" .250" wall.......

 

[Turboyota]

i built my lower A arm out of 2" .250" wall.......

Did you add beefy gussets???

 

[turbomonty]

shit idk
i dont think so?

 

[96f-u250]

Lol. PEEN! is coming along nicely.

 

[Turboyota]

shit idk
i dont think so?

I was making a loose reference to phallic-shaped stiffeners

 

[turbomonty]

i mean, i can make some....

 

[Turboyota]

April 2024

After custom gusset application to the lower control arm, I went about fixing the bent-to-fuck lower a-arm tabs. I wailed on those fuckers mercilessly with a 20lb sledge and 24” pipe wrench with a 4’ extension. I quickly came to the realization that I wasn’t moving that metal without a shitload of heat combined with the aforementioned violence, so I chopped out the problem areas, allowed the material to be more easily persuaded back into position, and welded filler plates back in.

 

[turbomonty]

nice work

 

[96f-u250]

Lol. All these AI engineers are worse than actual auto engineers.

 

[Motiracer38]

Dang that thing is hammered underneath. Get the sawzall out, that needs 37s baldy!

 

[Turboyota]

Dang that thing is hammered underneath. Get the sawzall out, that needs 37s baldy!

In time. 69% of the problem is my ZFG driving. 31% is the, well, 31” ’s…

 

[Turboyota]

April 2024

After I fixed the suspension pivots, I laid some 1.5x0.095” 4130 tubes from the lower forward a-arm pivots up to the forward frame section. It’ll eventually get a super sick skidplate so all the bros will think it’s a cool prerunner.




I inspected all the suspension pivots while the 4Skinner was on the lift and systemic cracking plagued the entire area.
Ground out the cracks and metal glued those bitches up.


Added 1.0x0.120” wall hot rolled tubes between the fwd and aft pivots. Yeah yeah yeah, I used poor people welded seam tube. It’s the only 1” tube I had that wasn’t 0.049” wall 4130. Added tabs to the aft pivots that’ll accept removable compression strut braces at a later date. (I couldn’t make them with the truck on the lift, so I said fuck that noise)



^^^check out that crack

Landed the 1” HR poverty tube on the corners to hopefully mitigate further cracking that plagued that area.

 

[SaltyMethods]

I need to do all this kind of reinforcement on the T-Juan. I have no doubt that she’s got cracks galore. She’s feelin tired and loose lately.

 

[Turboyota]

I need to do all this kind of reinforcement on the T-Juan. I have no doubt that she’s got cracks galore. She’s feelin tired and loose lately.

Yeah dude. 1000’s of dirt miles take a fucking toll on the ‘ol undercarriage