Cruzer's Re-Build for the Rubicon

yeah, I am very familiar with the BDS setup... the mainline is easy to find as well as the return, the left and right lines are easy to sort out they are the two hard lines attached to the rack. I guess in theory you could pull from those two and use a proportioning valve to send fluid to a ram. I can check the rack I have in my barn of spare parts. BTW if you ever need any BDS parts let me know I still have my full kit sitting in the barn too. The only issue I see is making sure the rack and pump could support the ram, I don't see why not, you would also need to have a larger resi, which if you check my thread I did that a while back as well as adding a cooler which IMO is a requirement for anyone running 35's or larger. the added stress turns into an increased effort by the pump and rack increasing heat. The heat is what I think blows out the seals in the rack. We can talk bout this more if you like. Shoot me a PM. I'm always up for problem-solving. I would like to disassemble a blown rack to take a look at the internals to see how to do it. If you still have the old rack let me know.

 

I had to give my damaged rack back to Napa auto parts to get my core deposit back but I do have an OEM spare that I picked up from the junkyard a few weeks back. I know the 2 hard lines you're talking about - that makes it much easier to tap into. BDS parts? I'll take take both crossmembers and knuckles if you still have them. I've already bent my crossmembers before so having spares would be nice and will probably need to gusset the shit out of the knuckles. I'll let you know when I'm heading down south again we can trade.

With the info you've provided I can now start inquiring with PSC and similar manufacturers to see what my options are.

 

glad I can help and yeah sounds good, shoot me a PM and we can exchange #'s

 

Damage was not too bad given that the truck rolled onto its driver side.

Left and right shackles bent. I bought these cheap 2" lift shackles off of eBay because the ProForm Fab shackles I ordered were back ordered. If they were more rigid then I'd probably have worse issues.




Because the shackles gave way, the whole rear axle shifted passenger side:




The bumper took it like a champ. Little body damage on the bed side, rack, and rifle case.





Got a new tail light on Amazon.

 

Park that passenger side out and no one will notice.

 

Well, I've got some fiberglass panels when you're done denting your metal stuff. Glad it wasn't worse.

 

I ordered RCV axles back on 5/5. Found out it's another 5-6 weeks outso I had to postpone the Rubicon run cuz at the rate I'm going I'd need to bring a shit load of spare CV axles. Wheeling hard this summer is pretty much sidelined .... overlanding it is

 

You went from


To


Darn lead times!

 

Glad you figured this one out. I was going back to dig through my pictures but normally you have to pry that stub out, much like you had to pound out the remaining splined portion. This does seem like a weak spot in the design, especially after you get beefier CV's.

For your apparent level of mechanical aptitude regearing should be no problem! Way to get up the kahunas to crack the clam open after seeing a shop waste your time. Honestly I'd rather regear the front than the 10.5. Here's my write up on it although hopefully you never need it: https://frugalfill.com/diy-2nd-and-3rd-generation-toyota-tundra-differential-regear/

 

Nice write up! I’m already on 5.29s but since you’ve brought it up I’m currently annoyed by the rear diff whining when I hit 65-70mph. Never noticed it until I got quieter tires. Thinking of cracking open the rear diff and poking around.

 

I wouldn't advise chasing it down. For my 5.29s I opened the rear back up a handful of times, replaced bearings twice, ran at high and low spec for backlash. Perfect patterns. Still whines, nitro says it's normal. Just let er eat.

 

That's what I've been reading - ok you've convinced me not to I can't wait to get meatier tires to drown out the whine.

 

Drive faster?!

 

The GF complains when I do. Next week will be the first time she will ride in my truck since I went 39s, which she hasn't noticed yet, but she will notice the whining and start asking questions. I'll be like "What? What noise? I can't hear you cuz of all this whining!"

 

Haha! You could suggest she change the battery in her hearing aid…

 

Sounds like you need speakers.

 

There's this knob on the dash labeled "Volume", put on the favorite tunes and turn liberally in the clockwise direction, problem solved. Just sayin'

 

There you are! Haven’t heard from you in a while. 2 Live Crew that shit lol!!

 

Lol the ole lady complains about that too. You know we’re that far apart in age lol.

 

I know I’ve been Mia lol my bad I would say let’s go wheel but it looks like a semi hit your truck lol

 

This may be an odd thing I noticed.

I had my diffs sent to ken/zuk , its cryo and rem'd , during break in I used toyota fluid, no noise except tiny bit during decel, but since I bought that giant boxe of nitro fluid I decided to put them in after break in, no noise in decel but now I get the whine on higher speed.

Then I saw this post and makes me wonder if it's fluid related.

 

I’ve got the heavier Lucas 85/140 gear oil in mine, made no difference. I used to have some sort of synthetic in there that the shop put in.

 

I talked to Ken about this too. I think the rem polish and cryo may have made more of a difference (plus Ken's top notch setup quality!) but we agreed the heavy Nitro oil may be TOO heavy. I'm going use up mine over warmer months and run the lighter synthetic the rest of the time. I noticed no difference in whine between the weights though.

I didn't notice a difference either. Gears will be gears.

 

May be I should change the exhaust to louder, the x-pipe quiet it down a lot.

 

What a week! Picked up BDS parts from Bruce. Then I sold my old bumpers and just now I finally sold the Yokohama X-MTs to a fellow Tundra owner

 

I've been getting quite lazy sitting around waiting for my damn RCV axles to be made and shipped that I decided to fix my hood bulge. I installed an LED bar inside the bulge and by doing so made the hood bulge very flimsy. That black faux grill insert actually made it rigid. When I drove to Moab back in March it was really windy, so windy that my hood bulge popped out of its mounts and was flapping around like crazy so I had to duct tape it. Turns out the 2 of the mounts where bolts are screwed at the corners broke off and only the center bolt was holding it down.

Ordered a new bulge. Bought a 1"x3' aluminum bar at Lowes and slid it underneath the gap of the plastic mounts - fit perfectly in there:


I then drilled 6 holes on the hood that were big enough so that zip ties could easily slide through:


I then slid long zip ties under the aluminum bar and positioned them to line up with the holes:


I then routed the zip ties through the holes and pulled them tight:





In hindsight I should've left a little piece of these end mounts (which I cut off because they were hitting the LED bar) so that I could slide a zip tie underneath and then secure onto the ends of the LED bar - oh well, next time, which I hope there is no next time.


The hood bulge is more stiff now so hopefully it'll be able to handle highway speeds and strong headwinds. I'll find out when I drive to Vegas on Friday

 

RCV axles are supposedly 2 weeks out now. Geez that's going to be 14 weeks + 1 week to ship

Time to get back into truck building mode.
- I ordered the 12" rack from Vicotry4x4 - hopefully I can get that before the San Gorgonio trip.
- Ordered a 120ah second battery with a Redarc BCDC1225D charger and a Renogy 100w solar panel
- Ordered a cheapy fridge from Amazon to keep my brewskies cold AF!

 

Cheap fridge keeping something so important cold. If there is one place to never skimp! Everything else can be hobbled together, but warn beer..................

 

Lol my tree can only grow just a little bit of money at a time. We’ll see how long this fridge lasts. If it can survive the Sedona trip I’ll be happy. Now you got me thinking. Maybe I’ll bring my RTIC cooler to Sedona just in case. Not sure how long I’ll survive in the woods with warm beer.