project floodwater 2012

i had been looking casually for a tundra for a while, but i was not planning on buying this one. it's a grade model and i wanted a little more bells and whistles since this was the first car built in this century that i would own, plus i plan on towing and i'm short so reaching things like sliding rear windows is a climb and stretch and i love shifting even my manual 80 series land cruiser, so column shift wasn't high on my list.

but it was a 2nd gen (sorry 3rd gen owners, but they look like fords and ih8fords) and it had stupid low miles...21,559.

saturday late morning of memorial day weekend, i signed the paperwork. then i promptly came home, installed the brake controller from my old powerchoke (yep, i've had three fords, so i can say i hate them with some knowledge of what i'm talking about). saturday night, i went to a buddys and picked up his trailer. i bought it to be a work rig, so it was time to get to work.

list of upgrades as of july 2022. truck was a grade model with tow package, weathertech mats and rear underseat storage
-led bulbs everywhere except turn signals and headlights
-rigid light bar behind grill
-38gln fuel tank conversion with rci skid plate (removed because of faulty tank- common)
- rci front aluminum skid
-vent visors and bug guard
-tinted front windows to match
-firestone ride rite airbags with daystar cradles
-trd rear sway bar
-swapped to dual visors with light mirro
-originally an odyssey brake controller, upgraded to prodigy
-lo pro tonneau cover
-moved trailer plug into bumper
-durafit seat covers
-275/70r18 coopers on fact alum rims
- rear axle breather mod
-folding rear seat mod
- debadged
-slee steps
-led bed lighting
-back up camera (removed for new radio...hopefully will get it working someday)
-hidden ham radio
- kenwood excelon head unit with adapter to keep steering wheel controls
-cadillac horns
-changed to factory tow mirrors
-demello hidden winch bumper with sb x20 winch
- hooke rear bumper with custom mounts to replace their crappy ones

 

next up was cleaning up what i'm finding is a common tundra issue...fuzzy battery.
five cleanses and an entire box of baking soda got rid of the gunk, then i wire wheeled the hold down and j bolts. didn't get a clean pic tho

it's hot in denver, so i like to leave windows cracked on on my rigs, so vent visors were necessary


i wanted to keep prying eyes out of the bed and have a cleaner look in back, so a tonneau was needed



and i wasn't a fan of the steel wheels, so i went craigslisting and got some of the aluminum rims with some almost bald hancooks

 

thanks

odyssey

 

lighting is one of the best upgrades on any rig, so i went to town with a fortune worth of replacement led bulbs still need to replace a couple and add some here and there but got most of them for now.

 

exterior got some too

 

that almost catches us up, except for how it got it's name. i never planned on it having a name, but often, trucks earn them...i have seven toyotas in the yard and only one now still sits unnamed, and it's the one i've owned the longest. sorry, but this will be long.

i'm the president of the colorado association of 4wd clubs and we were set to have our quarterly delegates meeting last weekend. because we are a statewide group, we move the meetings to different districts and the western district was hosting this meeting at a trailhead in gateway. four of us waited at the turn off of the long road to the trailhead, but no one showed. i wasn't expecting a huge turnout since there were three club events happening the same weekend, one district vp was in texas at the body shop where our raffle rig is getting some loving, one vp had to work, another vp is in the middle of packing and moving out of state and he's married to the parliamentarian, so she wouldn't be there either.
after getting a little bit of board business handled, two of the guys left and the land use manager and i headed the 20 miles up the road to the trail to make sure we hadn't missed anyone. at the top, we talked and walked around a bit before heading back down just as a storm blew over the uncompahdre. within a half a mile, the sky opened up. by the time we started down a winding railroad grade, i was watching rocks rolling off the mountains and yelling for jerry to go faster. no way he could hear me over the hail pounding off the sheet metal though. i made it almost all the way down before one of the falling rocks took out my right front tire. my almost bald hancook now has a two inch ventilation slit in the sidewall. i got away from the falling rocks and by the time jerry realized i was no longer behind him and found me, i had the lug nuts loosened and was jacking the truck up.

it didn't take long to swap out the tire since i still had the four old tires and rims in the bed, but we were both soaked from the unending downpour. we got back on the road and now i was in front. i wanted out of there, so i pushed the truck as fast as i could go while still getting my minimal rubber to turn the corners. at one point, i stopped to wait for jerry to catch up and saw a large portion of the side of the road cracking away and preparing to fall off.

Jerry caught up and started around a bend and said "oh $(&" . there was a raging river across the road. being polite, i let jerry go first. i crossed in his same path and all was well. i yelled that i was glad it was uneventful. jerry yelled back that we weren't done...the flood channel was the road. i looked ahead and saw nothing but water. and we were still six miles from the bottom.

i've been in storms and i've been in flash flood conditions, but you get through a couple of rivers crossing the road and go on your way (hopefully). i've never had to drive down a floodwater runoff. for jerry, i was easy..he was in a well built and nimble jeep on 35" mud tires. i was in a 19' long whale that sits inches off the ground, is not set up for four wheeling but instead for towing the 4wds, and had racing slicks for tires. i tried to stay in his tracks when i could and when i couldn't i watched for the flat water. occassionally, i would drop off something hard and wince a little. at one point, i could've sworn i had wiped out the rear right corner when i slid sideways into a bank, but the soaked earth just gave way, leaving some minor rash in the paint. the truck never hiccuped (although the sand coated brakes were screaming like a goat much of the way).

i got some video, but my phone died a few minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U24LVFq93-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXlQwGi6v9A

jerry and i made it out ok and while i don't expect to do this again, i'm sure it may happen, so it was time for the next mod...

 

almost forgot i did throw some junkyard cadillac horns on there cause i am embarrassed by toyota horns after 1965

future plans are
new tires (a lot sooner than expected) DONE
replace the rubber trim on the rear bumper that now has all the lock tabs busted off courtesy of my excursion DONE
fix a couple of broken things (cowl tray and rh taillight) DONE
air bag suspension DONE
bug guard DONE
hidden winch mount ON ORDER
10k winch WAITING FOR BUMPER
more leds inside DONE
led light bar behind the grill DONE
better brakes
seat covers since i tend to get mud everywhere even when i'm not driving through floodwaters DONE
transfer flow tank WENT OE, PULLED IT WHEN THE ANTI ROLL VALVE STUCK...NEED TO FIX AND GET PUT BACK IN
electric steps WENT WITH SLEE SLIDERS INSTEAD

 

nice shot of jeff. not me driving a jeep. i'm a die hard toyota person for 3 decades.
a few of the toys throughout the years


and what my driveway usually looks like

 

suppose i should include my namesake...the nuclearlemon

 

Welcome and congrats. Some very nice vehicles.

 

went out and did the folding seat mod. that did a few things for me. besides making it easier to access when i add ham radio and rear seat covers, it allowed me to get rid of the kiddie seat tags that stick up and remove the seat headrests. nice smooth view out the back window now. headrests will stay down in the uss unless needed, then with folding seats, they easily get put back in again.

 

two things i noticed. they're not important to me, but just seems odd. the passenger seat has a pocket on back, but drivers does not. and there are slots for three headrests in back, but only two headrests. normal? or is it because mine is a grade model?

 

bug guard (chip protector) went on yesterday. gotta save money for a bit for tires now

 

couple more leds put in and step one of the sabm. need to do the filter, but outta $

led vs. incandescent


and both plugs looked burnt ish.

 

Very nice. Lookin good! And I think the burnt plugs thing is pretty common? At least for me it was. Had it happen on my 07 and 14. Just waiting for it to happen on my new one. Luckily if you go get a new plug at autozone, they're cheap and lifetime warranty.

 

got some freebie mods done today.
i'm going to keep the 5.7 badges because they're easy to clean around but the individual letters all had to go and the paracord wasn't the color i would have chosen for looks, but if i need it it's probably and emergency, so i've always kept neon orange around.

 

while at our colorado springs store for inventory, i saw these quake led lights and decided they'd be good for the tundra. went out tonight to figure out how i'm going to mount them up. last pic is just one of the lights. debating whether to wire them separately, or in with the high beams

 

Mine is a grade and I had three head rests in the back. They're in the shed now for the reasons you mentioned, but there are three.

 

What kind of interior leds do you go with ? They look white they ones I have give off the blueish hue. Hate it !!
Would love to find real white leds
Nice rig btw !

 

whatever superbriteleds.com said to use in the 6000k range

 

got some new shoes. cooper atps in a 275/70r18

 

also picked up a set of clean double visors with lighted vanity mirror and got them swapped in. was concerned at first because i felt a pocket in the ceiling where the spring and shaft go and i didn't feel any wiring, but a little digging in the headliner and i found the wires to plug it all in

 

doing what it was intended to do

 

another mod finally done
also got my afe hi flow air filter, but no pics of the install

 

got the visor lights changed out to led. also found one of my cheap grill lights wasn't sealed, so i had moisture in it. baked it at 200 degrees and got the old lens out, then used butyl to reseal it and put a light layer clear craft sealant around the edge.

 

weird to see you in something relatively new. used to your 40 and 55 stories from RS.