Fafhrd the Wanderer...an (almost) Epic Tale.

This is one of the coolest builds ever! Subscribed for future posts!

 

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Not being able to easily access my truck gun because of how the rear seats function has always bothered me. I don't like having a gun rolling around open in the truck, but when its critter getting season I want to be able to access the protein getter in as fast a manner as possible when the opportunity arrives. Add to that I have no place to store my more archaic weaponry when its raiding season and the situation becomes unbearable. But soon a solution presented itself...

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It's a three gun, padded gun holder made by Classic Accessories and come in camo or black. . Installed and with the doors closed you can't even tell that the case is in there as its darn near impossible to see through the windows with the factory window tint. I can think of all kind of storage uses for it besides carting guns around when it comes time for a road trip. Now I'll be ready for those bunnies, squirrels, geeses and orcs.

Soon after another issue arose. Those of you who don't live in a snow belt state should consider yourselves lucky, you don't have to deal with the consequences of salt and brine covered roads for half the year. Over winter the rear bumper on Fafhrd started to rust under the chrome plating and by that spring it was a mess...

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Ticked me off every time I saw it. I checked into purchasing an "offroad" bumper but the pickens were thin, especially since I wanted to keep the factory hitch. Demello has a tube bumper, but at nearly $1000 shipped here for a couple of bent tubes and some aluminum plates, the price was ridiculous. I checked in with a couple of local fabricators and never heard back, obviously they weren't interested. Which is funny as the three I checked with were all complaining about how slow work was. So I decide just to replace the factory bumper with a stock one. I like Fafhrd's stealth work truck look, I've been bumping around with him for 4 years and the rear bumper has never been a problem and it was an economical solution. I dislike chrome so this time around a found a painted steel bumper. I painted it to match the Tundra's hue, coated the backside in bed liner, an swapped the plastics over. Turned out well...I like it...

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Than my work schedule kicked back up to full speed just in time for the truck to roll over the 100,000 mile mark...

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And with that came the time to change out the timing belt. As I was back in full swing making folk's log homes pretty again I just ran it down to the local dealership and had them change it out. Mileage was at the 104,000 miles. I inspected the old belt, once done, and I got to say it appeared to be in darn good shape, but better to be safe than sorry. While they were at it I had them throw on a new serpentine belt and since the water pump was showing signs of weeping I had that R&Red too. Good to go for another 100,000 miles. And since I don't have a picture of the process here's one approxiamating the crack Toyota technicians working on my truck...

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After five years of running about the backwoods the shocks had had enough and were ready to be retired.

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With 106,000 miles on old Fafhrd new shocks were way over due for replacement. The rears were the factory originals and the front Biltsien 5100s had over 85,000 miles on 'em. They should have been changed about 5000 miles earlier at least, but it is what it was or something like that. With the new Bistiens mounted on the back I noticed an immediate rising of the rear as I think the factory shocks were limiting the lift of the Deaver spring pack. I'd say the arse end of the truck came up a good 1/2". The first set of Bilstiens up front were all but shot I would say that I got a good 80,000 miles out of them. The bottom bolts were a huge pain in the arse but a can of JB Blaster later and some redneck force amplification won the day. The backs, were a royal pain. I would like to meet the Toyota engineer who came up with the top mounting system of the rear shocks so I could chump-slap him to the back of the head. I could not break the top nut loose and the way the top mounts are engineered accessing them with some heat or a cut-off wheel is about impossible without lifting the bed. But a nut splitter works wonders.

Good to go for another four years.

 

This build is excellent! I gotta say, your old Ram was a great looking truck, it sucks to see how bad the salt is on trucks.

 

Thanks....I'm pretty much caught up in this thread as to where the truck sits right now. Its pretty much done though I do want to do the whole suite of Skid Row skid plates as my factory front skid is rusting out.

My wife and I were just talking about how just living in the snowbelt has cost us so much of our funds over the years. Rust and driving on constant bad roads is not good for the wallet.

 

Sick angle, awesome truck.

 

Question for you or anyone when you can...

Actually disregard that.

 

Wow, real nice man! Never owned anything that's rusted out. No salt in Fort Worth. Man I love the tent. I might have to look into one

 

Omg I would love to have a tent like that...but after I seen the price...

 

awesome build great looking truck

 

A great read and fun build to suit your adventures. You should probably write a book, you definitely have the skills to capture an audience. Thanks for sharing!

 

Nice Truck. Might I know the part number of your rack? I can find the ACCESS original roll-up cover, but there's no rack made for Tundra.

 

Absolutely awesome build! The four door 1st gens are a good lookin rig.

 

Love this setup! Sounds like you are getting the most out of your 1st gen. Would love to have a camping setup like that!

 

Updates?

 

great story and build

 

Great looking truck!! Definitely putting that thing to use!

Loving the narrative!

 

Great build. Looking forward to adding a double cab first gen to my stable eventually.

 

I'm curious as to what this 'stable' looks like. Got any pics?

 

Man I love your build! Every time I read your posts I just couldn’t help but hear Tommy Boshers from Detroit muscle on PowerNation.
Y’all keep it between the ditches.

 

The Weekend Toy. 1995 Tacoma, Solid Axle, ARB airlockers, 5.29s, winch, sliders...


The new 2018 TRD Offroad (next to my friend's silver Trail)


And I daily the wife's 2014 CRV, since I gave her the T4R. That is not picture worthy though.

I also have a lot of stuff on youtube if you want to see the rigs in action.

Youtube Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtpXoac2JJdE8omY4Nt_ENQ?view_as=subscriber

Couple videos.
https://youtu.be/2cMTkqje98o
https://youtu.be/OJacmCWIoKM