The Truck, by OsidePunker

I just like having new racks in my life

 

Well, yeah...!

 

UPDATE:

The Truck is almost ready for baja with @n2deep ! Over the weekend @papasmurf and I successfully swapped my steering rack and we learned a lot. Dropping the diff is the right way to do it. We did the entire job in about 5 hrs. You can install the rack as one unit. Job goes like this:

lock steering wheel
remove two breather lines from diff
disconnect actuator cable
unbolt ball joint cradles from spindles
remove inner CV from diff
unbolt and drop diff using a jack (two man job)
disconnect inner tie rods from rack
disconnect steering shaft at the rack
disconnect two hydraulic fittings at the rack (input and output)
disconnect two hose brackets from the rack
unbolt two mounting bolts for the rack
remove rack
remove bushings from new rack by using a chisel under the lip of the metal sleeve
install new poly bushings from Energy suspension
install new rack and replace diff
spin each tire and draw a line on the tread
measure the distance on the front face of the tire (track width) and compare to the distance on the rear face of the tires
set toe to 1/16th narrower on the front track width as compared to the rear
get a professional alignment
spend the $3k you saved by doing it yourself on some fun truck mods





So as for setting the toe, I can thank @dirtydeeds for this one. A tape measure is all you really need. Its hard to get it exact though, you need to make sure the tape is stretched tight and your lines are thin and straight. But basically you spin the tire and draw a line on the tread. This is your reference point. You don't need it to be centered or anything. Then measure the distance between the lines on both tires at the front (track width), and then measure the distance between the lines on the rear of the tires. Ideally you want the front track width to be 1/8" narrower than the width on the rear of the tires so that you have a little bit of toe-in. Bruce and I set to 1/16th toe in because we didn't know it should be 1/8th but we ended up with 1/4th toe in according to the alignment shop. At least we were close! I'm gonna look into DIY alignment tool and start doing my own alignments.

While we were under The Truck we found several issues that needed to be addressed. Apparently I need to go a little easier on The Truck because I am tearing apart the frame haha We found a couple cracks on the diff mounts on the frame and the transmission cross member was crack almost all the way through on both sides. the damn drive train was about to fall out! Bruce glued them together but the lesson here to make sure you're putting your eyes on your truck all the time.

One of my bypasses was leaking at the shaft seal. DMZ rebuilt it on a days notice for half the price of what @Spolar paid haha



I wish I had bought my shock tools sooner, I would have saved a little money. But I'll get set up next month.

Since I had to get wheels with less offset I decided to embrace the fat truck movement haha Bora 2" wide spacers with custom 9/16 lugs for the rear:



Here's how it sits now:





And here's the last parking lot pic I will post of The Truck for a long time (hopefully LOL) I'm about to get this pig DIRTY:

 

The stance looks great Alex, I definitely like the wider look ! I'm trying to figure out why you had to remove the inner CV from the diff? When @TRON and I did mine to swap the bushings, we just lowered the diff as much as possible, keeping the CV intact and I was able to remove the rack that way. But great job none the less, I know the task suck really bad.....

https://www.tundras.com/threads/2014-white-sr5-supercharged.36773/#post-1097013

 

Its easy to remove the CVs, just pop them out. I'm not sure how far you can lower the diff on my truck with the CV still attached as the axle will hit the inner part of the LCA. But either way we just wanted the diff totally out of the way so we had room to work. It was a good thing we did that or we would have missed the cracks in the diff mounts.

 

Forgot you had to patch up a few things, good catch!!!!

 

Well la-te-da

 

that ass though

 

500 miles through Baja. We basically did the SGU Baja 500. Probably 90% dirt.

You need to have your gear straight. You can’t fck around and take shortcuts. You need tools, you need spare parts, and you need to know how to use them.

On day 2 I started The Truck in the morning and it idled funny and threw a check engine light 4wd was flashing. I connected the techstream and found an active code for speed sensor front left (along with the other codes for VSC which is related to the first time I pulled the steering rack). Well we traced the speed sensor and couldn’t find any problems with the connectors or wire. I forgot to check the other codes because I was concentrating on the speed sensor issue. We did a Zero Point reset and the speed sensor code cleared. Check engine light was still on so I connected OBD reader and found a code for engine bank 1 and 2 rich. I cleared the codes and all the dash light returned to normal. My best guess is that the air filter was dirty from the dust (I put a brand new one in prior to the trip) and combined with the super high humidity it didn’t allow enough air flow when I started in the morning. Anyways, it ran find for the rest of the trip, no more engine codes.

So my new BORA wheel spacers didn’t have the studs pressed in well enough and the wheels weren’t holding the torques. I was checking them frequently and they would always need 1/8th turn or so. Well, because I was fcking around with check engine lights I forgot to check them in the morning on day 2 and two hours into the run Craig noticed my wheel was wobbling. The damn lugs worked loose, one fell off, and it was about a half inch loose off the hub (spacers). The wheel and lugs were fcked, all the holes were ovaled out and the lug seating surfaces were trashed. I replaced the wheel and I had exactly 5 spare lugs so I was good to go. But it could have been much worse. If I sheared the studs, I had 5 spare studs. Then we started thinking about what if I damaged the rotor. So now we are going to look into ways to cap the brake line and remove the caliper.

I got stuck in 4wd on day 3. Light was flashing fast and couldn’t disengage 4wd. We played with it for 10 min doing different things and it disengaged on its own. I left it in 2wd for the rest of the trip because we were on our way home.

Baja is extremely remote. We had challenges, but we were prepared and we overcame them. Make sure your truck is running well and make sure you have the right gear, spars, and tools…

Here’s a few things I learned from the trip:

It’s ok to speed haha We kept following the speed limits because we didn’t know any better but all the locals were passing us at almost double the limit. We even got passed by a fcking bus

Border crossing at Tecate is the easiest. Coming in on a Thursday took 1 minute and no lines. Dude asked what we were up to, peeked into our trucks, and said have a good day. Going home on a Sunday took just over two hours in line, 2 minutes talking to the border patrol guy. US asked more questions, but didn’t tear apart our trucks. There was only 1 officer at the gate. Seems very unsecure but what do I know haha

Its not easy to know where to camp. Camping along the beaches is pretty easy and straight forward, but the interior is all private land. There are places, but you have to research in advance.

Finding places to eat is also a challenge. Not every town has restaurants. But we were 3 for 3 at the places we did find. All the food was dope and the places were super clean. Eat where the locals eat.

This trip was just to get our feet wet and become comfortable with Mexico. We rolled through one federales checkpoint in the middle of nowhere. The dudes didn’t speak English and they were young and by themselves. They told us to keep going once they realized we couldn’t speak Spanish haha

Next Baja rip will a full week in October…

https://youtu.be/P_nz9rBF0Bw
https://youtu.be/WA4uvl4cydM
https://youtu.be/mjEFcyeVuts
https://youtu.be/WJcqWnlibgc
https://youtu.be/24Aeo42XdiI
https://youtu.be/efTbusprXwI
https://youtu.be/rpSzeJEchmc

 

Now I know the proper use for that tin foil I carry, clever idea.

 

nice pictures. good thing those Federales didn't shake you for some $$

 

Yeah with the military check points, don’t try to speak any Spanish. If they get the vibe that you can speak Spanish, they will hassle you. Play dumb and just let them look at what they want. Other than that, they are usually cool dudes out there just doing their jobs. They like stickers and Gatorade too haha. They will search your truck but never you. If you have something you don’t want them to find, put it in your pocket.

Speed limits are just suggestions it seems like, but I always just go with the flow. Don’t want to be the fastest. Cops will nip you if they want to though. Seems like that usually happens in towns though.

Did you guys get Mexican insurance?

Sounds like a sweet trip though.

 

Yep we got the insurance. We only saw one town with a cop. Except Tecate of course, that place was crawling with police. The military guys didn't even open our doors. I had a bag full of stickers and coozies and stuff but I didn't get a chance to offer it. By the end of the trip we were driving pretty fast, but not with the flow. For example, the speed limit could be 60kph, but dudes were flying doing double that. And they pass on blind turns and shit, its pretty crazy

 

Ouch.

There are wreckless people and there are old people, but there are no...

 

Yeah I remember the first time I was there, got passed on a 2 lane by a semi going around a blind corner at night. They are nuts.

Glad there were no run ins with the cops! Haven’t had problems myself but I’ve heard some stories.

Did you guys stay on the west side mostly?

 

I think they're just stories. I'm sure sht goes down, but it goes down in the US too. Yeah we were on the west side, couple hours south of Ensenada. We barely scratched the surface. Baja is huge!

 

That’s true, a lot are stories I’m sure. I know some people who have had issues, but usually just involves some money so not a huge deal.

It would be fun to take the download for the 500 or sf250 and cruise the course.

 

We did portions of the 500. BIG sharp whoops! Loose and torn up too. But sooo much fun!

 

Yeah the whoops are definitely bigger in Baja. San Felipe has some of the gnarliest I’ve ever been though for sure!

 

This weekend we brought my friends 01 tahoe with a 6 inch lift and 35's out to an offroading event and we signed up for some intermediate trails. the guys hosting had a different idea of intermediate... it was basically a jeep trail and we were by far the largest rig at the event. We snapped 3 cv shafts, 2 ball joints, a tie rod and a wheel bearing all on the drivers side. we basically sold the local auto zone out of Chevy front end parts. we learned a lot about our rig over the weekend and about the trails in the area. we also became very good at replacing cv's. We spent half of Saturday replacing everything we broke and realized there's an issue in the front end that will keep destroying everything we put in it. we also know now to bring spare parts so we aren't making last minute trips to auto zone before the trail group leaves. last but not least it was an awesome trip and we need to SAS the tahoe

 

Hahaha that's awesome! Do it!

 

here's the tahoe

 

One more

https://youtu.be/P_nz9rBF0Bw

 

Somehow the video links got all messed up in the Baja post, but I fixed them. There should be 7 videos

 

Alex looks like a great time thanks for sharing.

 

Lets go Greg! I'm waiting for you to bring that beast of a truck out here!

 

Yup me too! Lol

 

So here's a little update. The Truck has been on blocks for the last few weeks. I was wondering why my radiator fan was making contact with the fan shroud. Turns out my engine was shifted:

https://youtu.be/m0voIsgBm1A

So I bought some new oem engine mounts but @papasmurf and I couldn't get them installed. They wouldn't line up because my frame is twisted inboard a little. Probably happened a long time ago when I was mid travel and I took a huge hit with @dragos28 After that I couldn't get it aligned and I had to install long travel with upper heims. Anyways, the solution is to install these:



Custom engine mount from Steel Nutz, local shop in Temecula. The bolt has a slotted holes so I can fit them even with the frame tweaked. I'll pick those up tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have to replace a front wheel bearing as I was getting noise while turning. The hub and bearing are pressed together so I removed them and I'll have Progear press in the new bearing.



Remember my bank 1 and bank 2 rich engine code?? Well I've been having problems fueling, nozzle keeps clicking off. I always top it off because I can get 3 gallons more in there. But turns out I may have flooded the vapor canister. One of the things that can happen is that it throws liquid fuel into the engine intake. That may have been the cause of my rich condition. So I have to install a new vapor canister.

Oh and my new Bud Built steel reinforced skids have arrived. I'm very excited about those. I'll post some pictures next week. I'll have a set of 1/4" aluminum for sale for cheap if anybody is interested.

I have a bunch of other little thing to do also. Plus I'm getting tooled up for my own shock rebuilds and revalves. New work bench and new tool setup:



I'm reorganizing the tools I carry on the trail. Cutting some fat and making the package smaller. These are just the tools I need for fasteners, bolts nuts screws etc. I have hammers and pliers and other stuff in different bags. I'll give the Atlas xl tool roll a shot and see how well it works. But its been back ordered for weeks. so we'll see.

 

shop ! yes !

 

Pretty cool!!