T-Juan - `98 Toyota T100 4x4, 5-spd

[SaltyMethods]

Another update. Getting ready to start building the bed cage.

Frame pads/reinforcement:


Lower shock mount:


Bent my pipe. Quick and dirty mockup:


Here's my plan for the bed cage. The green spots are tube connectors. I want to put those in, in case I need to take the bed off. 3/4 view:



Top view down on my upper shock mount (bottom):


You guys see anything funky? Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks!

 

[SaltyMethods]

Slow progress but progress nonetheless. Put some heavy 3-days in while juggling, kids' soccer games, practice, work and wifey stuff. Made some pretty good progress though. Got 2 weeks to get this bitch back up and running. Otherwise, I'm sittin shotgun on this year's trip.


Went full commitment on the mount on the side of the frame, all the plates on the frame, bottom shock mount and the notched frame. Burned it all in. The cage is going to be tacked for upcoming round.



Did a lot of notching and grinding. Most of the tubes are decent enough to tack on. The passenger's side double sheer tube has a sizable gap that I'm going to have to fill in.


Don't criticize the fitment too hard. I realized that I had to cut out more of the top plastic bed liner to get it to fit right.


I plan on drilling through the two tubes and welding in a pipe for the upper shock mount.


More mock up for the diagonal support tubes.


As always, any feedback or critique is welcome. Thanks.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Long day and half working on this. All tacked in.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Coming down to the wire (leave for Death Valley on Weds) but more progress... Welded in the cage, put in the leafs, bump stops, limit straps, dropped off the drive shaft to get balanced, got new tires, plugged in all the brake lines, hooked up a couple of little things here and there.
Left to do:
Hang the fiberglass
Bleed the brakes
Hook up the gas tank
Fill shocks and bumps with nitrogen (any idea of psi for both?)
Alignment on Tuesday
Cross my fingers that this thing will actually drive straight
If any of you guys want to meet up, we'll be doing North DV this year. 250+ miles mapped out. Tent camping each night. Starting and stopping point is Lone Pine. Let me know.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Got the truck up and running. Wheels on, bedsides hung, 99.6969% of everything I needed to do to go on my trip. Wrapped up everything around 10PM last night. Jumped in it and took it for a spin. Instantly, brakes are shit; back end is stiff. Brought it in a bit defeated.

Woke up this morning and started doing some research. Maybe a master brake cylinder? Maybe a brake booster? Maybe the master needs a bench bleed?

So, loosened up some of my shackle bolts. I had them tight. Next did a bench bleed of the master cylinder. Brakes are still shit. Dad came up with the fact that the front calipers aren't even activating. Which makes sense because my rear brakes were hot and my fronts weren't. Plus, it felt like

I was only operating on 10-25% braking power.

Drove it to ORW for an alignment and went to Napa to buy a new master cylinder. Waiting for ORW to get the truck back to me so I can quickly jump on it as soon as I can. Dropped it off at 11:00AM and ORW says they won't have it back to me until 5:45PM. RRrrrrrrrr.....

Question for you guys: The rear end feels a little stiff right now. My friend said it will soften up once I get out on the dirt. Any insight on that?

 

[SaltyMethods]

Another Death Valley Trip in the history books. 6th Annual, 6-day tent camping blitz through 250+ dirt miles of fun. This time we did the North Western portion of the park. A part we haven't been to before. It was more scenic this year than the usual mine and man-made equipment than past years. Different but just as cool. Lot less drinking this year but the shit talking was a'plenty.

Left San Diego and drove up to Lone Pine to drop off the tow rigs.


Drove from the Boulder Creek RV Resort to the West side of the 395 into the Alabama Hills. Checked out a few little things here and there but everyone was itchin' to do more driving in the dirt. So we continue on.


Made it to the backside of Japanese internment camp/Manzanar memorial and stopped for a quick smoke and picture.


Got to a cool little spot and setup camp for the night.


Woke up the next morning and headed out. The nights were cold (low 40's) but daytime temps were perfect (high 70s/low 80s). We took off down the pole road that paralleled the 395. Fun pole line road. High speed switch backs and straight aways. No real gnarly bumps and some pretty good water crossings to make it interesting. Made it to Big Pine, filled up ice and gas and headed into the park.


Once in the park, we took a dead end trail to a saddle lookout up in the hills/mountains. Pretty rad spot but had to get going before it got dark. Bombed down a long graded road, hitting speeds of 60-80 miles an hour. Ran into some old German codger who looked at our rigs and scoffed, saying, "Hope you have lockers on your trucks...". Fuck you old man!!! I got 4X drive!! (which I will find out that I didn't later on down the trail).

 

[SaltyMethods]

Found new camp and woke up to see this in the morning. Again night time temps were cold, making sleep pretty miserable. We headed out down the trail and came up on our first big obstacle: dry water fall. Most of the vehicles had no problem tackling this but my truck and the full size Silverado was another story. The Silverado went first. Quickly realizing that it was not going to make it on it's own. We got the winch out and started pulling. We finally got it up and out of the way narrowly escaping severe scrape-age and smashing and snapping of rocker panels and front axles. I learned quickly that my truck is a lot wider than it used to be and that my 4XDrive isn't working anymore. After looking at it later, we think that the manual hubs weren't engaging. Oh well... Fix that shit later. Fuck it! Pull my ass up with the winch. Let's get going!!!



(Oh ya, our faggy color for the annual shirt was piss yellow this year. Another guy and girl couple ran up on us and had to wait. I could tell he was a little irritated that we were trying to pull a pig up such a narrow spot, plus we had all matching gay-ass colored shirts on. His girl wanted my nuts, I could tell)
Venturing on, we rolled up on a sunken bathtub. Once we got to the end of the trail, we were treated to some natural hot springs. The first was really "el naturale" over grown and nasty. The next ones were man-made and was sweet!!! We jumped in and to our luck there was a shower with hot water and soap/shampoo. After being there for an hour or two, we voted to keep going instead of staying the night there. Some people were pissed about leaving.

 

[SaltyMethods]

That night we were running low on fuel and looking for a campsite. In our search we found an abandon mine shaft. Fucking scary as shit since it went so deep. We were joking that Blair Witch kid was down there and what-if we saw a little girl run across at the bottom. Fuck that! We bailed. We continued up the road and up and up we went. We gain massive altitude as people started hitting their gas warning lights. Drove past some abandoned shacks and finally found camp. We went on a little night trek to see what we could see. Found another shack on the top of a peak.



Next morning, we walked around camp and found another dope shack with a great view as well as showed some of the other guys the shack we found the previous night. Filled up the rigs with our extra fuel tanks and headed back down to Big Pine to load up on ice, gas and buy blankets or something. It's was fucking cold at night.



Once restocked in Big Pine we headed back in. Drove through some dope meadows. Super pretty up there and the temperature was perfect. Some long straight aways for me to test out my suspension. The rear end is better but I think I need to drop down a valving. My front can't keep up which was expected.



Setup camp and planned on staying there for two nights. First time we ever stayed in one campsite for 2-nights. It was nice. Next day was a slow to start but got up and going. Drove to a peak that overlooked Owen's Valley. On the way back the FJ Cruiser had some kind of weird limp mode problem. Went into it like 4-5 times. After fiddling with it, it finally self-corrected and went made it back to camp. The smoke from the fires was coming back into the valley which made the sun look big in the sky.

 

[SaltyMethods]

The next morning was our last. Woke up and headed back to Lone Pine to get the tow rigs. And... of course I got a flat on the way out. On top of my check engine light coming on and some new grinding noise that only happens in 4th and 5th and slew of new rattling noises. The truck held together by everyone's surprise as well as my own.

On the way home we called to check on one of our friends and he said he was having alternator problems. Once we caught up with him at Ketner Junction, we learned he also was pissing tranny (gender confused) fluid. So we unloaded the Cher-o-kee and put that pig up on one of the trailers and drove home. Once in SD, was treated to one of the craziest lighting and thunder shows I've ever seen. I would have to say, it was a good day.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Been working on painting the front fenders. Turned out alright for a rattle can job.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Plaster City/Superstition/Ocotillo Wells
President's Weekend 2022 was a good one. Weather was perfect, beers were cold and off roading was fun.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Finally got the back fenders painted. Fuck painting. It's not fun.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Some small updates to the T-Juan. I've been wanting to work on stuff without having to do any full commitment tear down and fabrication work. So been working on some creature comfort projects.

My side mirrors have been buggin' the shit out of me. The mirror vibrates like fuck and it makes everything super blurry. Pretty pointless really. Saw a picture of a LT Toyota for sale and it had some Baja mirrors. Figured that would be a fun project to work on.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Then I picked up some used PRP seats off of Race Dezert. $350 for the pair. Small rip on the piping on one and a small tear in the back pocket of the other one. No biggie to me.

I tore apart my stock seats to retain the slider mechanism. I probably could have saved myself a lot of headache and bought some off of ebay but fuck it. Figured I would go cheap and use what I had. Lots of cutting, grinding, welding and ruined a perfectly good set of stock bucket seats to get these to work.


They're a little tight on the door side but overall they fit pretty well. I definitely feel more connected to the truck. The sliders work well and are necessary for me to get in and out of the driver's side. Getting in and out of the extra cab is a lot harder though. Luckily my kids are still small so not much of an issue yet.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Then I got a wild hair up my butt to start adjusting my rear shocks. Since I've put them in, I've never fucked with them other than dropping the nitrogen pressure. I know now that, that's not the right method. So doing some reading on adjusting the bypass tubes, I figured I would make some adjustments myself. Little did I know that on my Fox bypasses, there's no locking nut on the adjustment screw. I thought the big nut was and I loosened it. Loosened it a little too far and it started puking shock oil all over my driveway. I was able to get the adjustment bolt back in there to stop. $600 in tools, nitrogen tank, regulator, hoses and shock oil, I now have the ability to service my shocks. An unexpected forced shock learning event. Glad I spent the money for the tools opposed to paying someone the same money to do it for me. Learned that from you guys.



What was left of the shock oil.


Back together.


I filled my nitrogen level up to 200psi. Is that correct? What do you guys fill your nitrogen level to?

 

[SaltyMethods]

Been knocking out some annoying little projects, that I've been meaning to do for a while.

Added some more bed cage hooks. I freehanded these with my plasma cuttle. I know... I know... You would have never guessed. "Precision-like" computer aided design. The one is the middle is my favorite.


Then I worked on relocating my battery into the bed of the truck.


Then outfitted the truck in it's proper glory (twin lawnmowers in the back) for 4th of July.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Been working on some more little piddly 1-2 day projects. Bought a bead roller and some aluminum sheet metal so I could fiddle around with making some panels for my bed cage to enclose my back shocks. Hopefully it will keep some of the dust and rocks from flying into my bed as well as keep some of my gear from falling down into the bed holes.


Worked on one test piece before diving into my actual panel. Didn't take long to figure out the right amount of pressure for the dies and just went real slow on the hand cranking while turning the corners.


I plan on doing the remaining triangle areas next.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Finished panelling in the bed cage.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Thanks guys! I wish you guys lived closer because all this stuff sounds simple to you but when it comes to engine stuff or electrical, I'm a little bit of a we-tard.

Kids are about to head back to school in about 1.5 weeks so I took them out for a quick 2-night camping trip this last weekend. No 'roadin... But it was fun to chill and shoot the shit while drinking beers.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Getting the truck ready for another Death Valley trip this year. Worked on angled bed supports, installed a Co2 tank, pressurized water tank and some panelling on the bed supports. Other maintenance stuff: new front brake pads, upper ball joints, new catalytic converter (smog check: tested gross polluter. Mine was wasted. The can was completely empty. F-ing $1,400 for the cat alone).

Bought a pneumatic nut insert gun. Pretty cool tool.


Found this empty Co2 tank on CL for $40. Got it filled for like $50. Bought the gauges, handle and mount for $250. Total $350-$400. Power tanks are like ~$900-$1,200.


Mounted pressurized water tank. I've had this tank for like 2-3 years. Never used it. Anytime I've ever taken it with me on a trip it ends up at the bottom of all my gear, so it becomes a hassle to access. I'm hoping to get some use out of it finally.



Panelling installed.