Slanders TuRD

[slander]

Mega update dump:

I did end up having to move the charcoal canister, finding a place for this was a huge time suck.

I did add this crossmember, this is one of my old sliders hacked up, I needed the steel and it felt right to include one of my first mods ever on this truck to live on in some form.

Now onto the major fuck up:
I'm ready to burn this fucking truck down. Went out to the garage today to build the bumper and get the exhaust done and button up all the other little shit and hit the road. So I bolt the tires in and notice the driver side tire was crooked, like 4" closer to the frame in the front of the tire, vs the rear. So I measured from the horse collar to the leaf spring hangar and was off by a lot on side to side WTF. So my wife came out and we measured the wheelbase and I was 2.75" off side to side. This is where I made my first mistake, I should have went horse collar to the spring mount and not used the wheelbase. Anyway I dragged it out for the garage and tossed the bed on it.
Pulled it back in the garage and measured and figured I would move the driver side spring and shackle mount 2.75" forward. Cut that shit off and welded it back on as I luckly had an extra spring hangar. Got done, brought my wife out we measured and now the wheelbase is still off by 2". I measured the horse collar distance and it was right around 1" diff, so I moved the driver's side spring 1" forward on the perch holes and called it done. I called a freind , confirmed I wasn't going insane, both agreed that if it driver fine, send it and fix in the future. After that I hacked together the exhaust and a TON of little stuff that sucks up time. My wife wasn't down for brake bleeding so I didn't get to drive it, but once that done it's test drive time. I tried gravity bleeding that they wouldn't.

The wheelbase shifting HAD to be because the tire was slightly turned or something. It just sucks because after so much wheeling and how old the rest of the frame is, I don't trust any of the measurements lol.

I did end up test driving the truck, no issues up to 80mph.

 

[slander]

Got the brake bled today, turns out the bleeder nipple was a ball of rust on both sides and that's why it wouldn't bleed. Took it for a 30mile shakedown drive today, got it up to 80 and no issues. I do have what seems to be a tire out of balance, but it very well could have been like that pre all this. Tonight I got the rear bumper built. All i have left is to do the rocker sliders. Some poly bumps are going on for my wheeling trip next months I wont have time for the air bumps, and I may have to move the spring mounts anyway.

Pics of the bumper, chopped up reminants of my old one:

 

[slander]

Well this beast is ready to wheel. Outside of a few punch list items, like welding on a non crucial fish plate, and some poly bumps for an upcoming trip, she's good to go! I knocked out the sliders today, goddamn that sucked. Not the rain of fire like people warned me, but it was just a tedious, dirty, nasty job.

I chopped out the rockers. I found this under:


That side impact beam ATE cut off wheels, like evrey inch I moved the wheel it took off an inch of wheel. Crazy.

Welding thick steel to sheet metal and rusty body seams with a flux core welder sucks!! My objective was to finish them in one day and mission accomplished. I do have a Barnes cross member bushing kit to mount them to the frame back by the wheel in the future

 

[slander]

I'm winding this project down and prepping to go wheeling and shake it down. So glad I got the shocks out of the bed, by far the dumbest mod I ever did, it frees up so much space and I am pretty sure I have more uptravel now as well. I am also re looking at my spare parts strategy for this year. I used to carry a ton of spares, including a steering box (huge), spare hub assembly (like the entire hub not just lockouts) and a tcase input. I realized I don't really wheel farther than 4hrs from home, and my wife typically doesn't come with, so if I break any of that big shit I can have her run me the parts out to me instead of carrying it around. This would allow me to go from a 50gal action packer, down to a small chest for tools. I also bought some sockets and wrenches specifically for the truck and will be able to reduce from two big ass tool bags down to one. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but I'm really excited as I hated my old bed layout and the fact that nothing was modular and shit barely fit. It was even worse if my tent was wet or if I carried my ez up with me, I looked like I was in the Beverly hillbillys.
How it will be configured now:


How it was:

 

[slander]

I did a shakedown run to Adventure Offroad Park in TN over the weekend. 5hr highway trip there and back, and some really hard trails. Truck handled everything I threw at it with little drama outside of a few driver induced issues. I ripped the rear bumper off, I backed into a rock on the first day and broke it, then almost flopped going down hill and tore it off with another rig sucking my ass end down. I knew it was built like shit and expected it to happen. The gas tank lift is awesome, I should have done it a long time ago!! The rocker sliders worked great, but tied into the flipping down hill issue, there isn't a place to hook straps if I get stupid. My lspv started leaking on the drive home, I was going to run tail of the dragon but I figure that would be a bad idea with leaking brakes. Over all super happy, I was making obstacles and bonus lines that rigs on tons and 42s that rode a trailer there didn't, and I drove it home. I still have to inspect everything but the only carnage for me is some more body damage and the rear bumper. Tons of Pics and video coming soon.

 

[thezentree]

How does AOP compare to Windrock? I’m sure it’s not as big because Windrock is just enormous, but is it worth driving past Windrock to get to AOP?

 

[slander]

How does AOP compare to Windrock? I’m sure it’s not as big because Windrock is just enormous, but is it worth driving past Windrock to get to AOP?

AOP is not the same obviously. If you like doing easy, kind of overlandy type stuff windrock is the place for you. AOP has a ton of trails packed into a tight spot and more focused on moderate to harder wheeling. If you don't like the harder end of crawling then AOP would get boring for you. There is another park just up the road from AOP called coalmont which opens next weekend. I went to an event on those trails back in 2010 and the place is huge and badass, so a good weekend would be to hit AOP one day then head up to coalmont for the next, it's like a 30-40min drive. They actually hit up coalmont on last year's UA.

 

[slander]

Video from the trip

 

[slander]

Haven't really.done much to the truck, just been driving it. Went wheeling last weekend on an easyish overlander type trail in Virginia and fucked up my driveshaft. I could not go over 20moh with it on the way back to the campsite. Figures I wheel evrey non buggy trail at Adventure Offroad Park with no issues, and I have problems.on an easy overland trail sliding off a line and onto the shaft LOL!! Swapped in my spare and that vibrated slightly less bad. So I have been chasing drive line vibes all week, I got them just about eliminated after finding 1 bad u joint on my spare shaft, swapped in a new center bearing, then my toy-1310 conversion joint (fucking barf) at the tcase end lost a grease zerk. I fixed that and half way back from a 2hr interstate drive picking my wife up from the airport in this it started vibeing again. I really need to get new shafts built for this thing and not have to worry about them again. I'm either keeping the Toyota joints or going 1350s, I'll have to see what the shop says. I just need to find time to drive the 2hr trip to the drive line shop to get them done.

Also the truck needs to get it's annual state mandated safety inspection, the shady as fuck tweaker repair shop I took it to last year closed, so I don't know where to take it now. It checks all the boxes to pass, it's just creaky and looks like a beat up rust bucket lol.

 

[slander]

Got some new driveshafts made for this thing still stuck with that stupid conversion joint, oh well. Been wheeling it and driving it around. Starting to put my game plan together to fix the steering, get hydro assist on the truck and link the front end this winter. In the mean time I'm going to have 3 back to back hard wheeling trips to close out the summer and fall wheeling season, can't wait!!

 

[slander]

Haven't updated this in a bit. Well new front driveshaft is dented all to fuck and getting replaced with a square one this week in preparation for a wheeling trip at the end of the month. I finally got my airbumps installed, fixed my driver rear leaf that I welded in the wrong spot on accident when I rebuilt the frame and built a better rear bumper.

I tore my rear bumper off at good evening ranch wheeling in August.

So it was replaced with a tube bumper:

I also fixed the dumbest mod I ever did to this truck, which is cut holes in the floor to fit 12" shocks which I didn't have to do. Kept it classy with a mud flap from loves.

Rear wheel studs upgraded from tiny Asian stud, to big black bolts.

Air bumps installed in the rear finally!!



Should be ready to wheel in a few weeks!! After this trip it goes back under the knife for an exo cage and unfucking my front end. Unfucking means push the front end forward where I should have built it, install a Toyota box and re do my shock and air bump mounting so I can gain some up travel so it doesn't ride like total shit. I was going to link it, but the frame sections i didn't replace have only a few seasons left in them at best, so I'll probably cut them out and replace, or do a whole frame swap, then link it.