ROTM
My name is Steve, I'm from Atlanta and ride with the Georgia Cruisers 4x4 Club. I am currently stationed in Jacksonville, Florida with the Navy though so I don't get by the meetings very often anymore. As you will see, Florida has not been kind to my Toyota's body work, but I love her anyway!
My adventures started many years ago when I got my first Yota - an 88 xtra cab 4x4 on 32's. LOVED that truck! As I started to wheel it though, I began realizing that IFS wasn't very conducive to "real" wheeling. Truthfully, it wasn't even all that great in the mud either; which is what I mostly did when I was younger (I'm sure I'm not the only one who started out that way). I rear ended someone on my way to school one morning and ended up picking up an 87 just like my 88 only with auto instead of manual.... BIG mistake! But hey, gotta learn somehow, right?! Anyway, got rid of that after a while, and was without a 4x4 for a few years. I finally picked up a 79 LWB 4x4 as a project and weekend warrior. That one was wheeled for a few years then went into project mode to become a dedicated trailer queen (which is the mode it is still in now unfortunately).
My 83.5 Xtra Cab 4x4 that I currently drive was picked up rather unexpectedly. I went to work at a local arcade/go cart track and immediately noticed a beautiful red Toyota 4x4 in the parking lot. Of course I stopped to check it out and loved it even more after seeing it up close. It had about 6" of lift on it clearing some 35" BFG AT's. Solid axle of course, which was one major thing I was looking for at this point after having two IFS trucks prior to this. Had very stout, custom front and rear bumpers, both with receivers. Had a BudBuilt flat belly crossmember, AllPro driveline brake, remote diff breathers, tires were majorly siped, electric fan, custom bucket seats, nice stereo syetem, etc. Suprisingly, when I tried to find who it belonged to, my coworkers didn't know.(???) Then, I wouldn't see it again for a while. After seeing it 3 or 4 times, I made it a point to find out who it belonged to and we finally met and started talking about our trucks (his mostly). When he finally got time to spare, I finally got to check out the rest of it that I hadn't already seen. When he popped the hood, the truck got even prettier - K&N sitting atop a Weber carb sitting atop an Offenhouser intake all on a freshly rebuilt 22R. On the other side was an aftermarket exhaust header and the battery had Warn quick disconnects for a receiver-mounted 8274. The inside had a full Eclipse system and high-end Cobra CB. I wanted this truck in a bad way but he had put a good deal of money into it recently with the recent motor plus upgrading all the driveline joints to Spicers, so he wasn't planning on selling it.
Anyway, for a while I just enjoyed staring at it any time he was at work (part timer). Later on he decided he wanted to build a Jeep project so he put it up for sale, initially asking $7,000 or so. It was a little high for the age of the truck but I understood what parting with something like that felt like so I talked it up and tried to help him find a buyer. In the mean time, and as he slowly dropped his price, I aquired an 89 Jeep Commanche for next to nothing. Fast forward a few more months and my buddy was having trouble getting the 22R to pass emissions and I was losing interest in fixing up the Commanche. Turns out he was more of a Jeep guy all along and we already both knew I was dying to have his Yota. He was about to get deployed for 6 months and wanted a fun project to work on when he came home rather than maintenance issues to deal with... So he offered me a trade. Title for title, keys for keys. Yup, straight trade, one for one; I couldn't believe it! I got the truck I always wanted and for basically nothing out of pocket.
Since then it has undergone many small changes; As is per the norm with most streetable 4x4's and weekend warriors. Here is a list of things I've added or modded:
--Removed front 6" springs with stock shackles and put in Rancho 4" springs with 6" Downey shackles.
--Removed rear Pro-Comp springs with stock shackles and, after many "trial-and-errors", ended up building my own spring pack out of 3 different other sets; Along with those I added some ConFer 6" HD shackles and tossed in a 3/4 ellptical leaf for the shackle mount. I later redrilled the main leaves and pushed my rear axle back about 2" to gain driveshaft slip/travel... Which basically caused/warranted my next mod.
--After breaking 1 U-joint and then, immediately after repairing that, breaking the yoke, I decided I'd try to build my own driveshaft out of parts I had lying around. The short version of this story is that I cut ends off of 2 shafts of different diameters, slid them together, then welded it up at the overlap point. Got exactly the length I wanted and with zero money out of pocket. Got a few thousand miles on it and some sand dune wheeling and it's still holding strong. I'll admit it does have some vibration, but it's worth it for a "custom" built shaft for no money.
--Along with the fully custom rear suspension goes my fully custom U-bolts. I won't go into detail here, I'll just try to take some pictures of them and see what kinds of crazy comments and questions I get back.
As questions arise I'll explain their functionality further if needs be.
--Also out back are disk brakes with Tacoma full-floating rotors and 1.5" spacers at each wheel. (LSPV removed)
--To go along with the disks, I swapped a master cyliner out of a Japanese 4runner that was substantially bigger than my stock one. Then, to push the new master, I added a dual-diaphragm vaccuum booster from a T100. Brake pedal feels like stock but stops way better and smoother.
--I added rock sliders from 4xInnovations and tucked then up tight to the body with a slight upward tilt.
--Also from 4xInnovations, I installed one of their new "solid" tranny mounts... One of my favorite mods to date! If you've got a mini truck, check that and their "solid" motor mounts. Worth every penny in my opinion.
--Probably the addition that I'm most proud of is my custom winch mount. I had seen this done by a guy in New Zealand or somewhere many years ago on the web so I can't claim it as an original idea. There's surely others who have done this but I've never seen it anywhere but me and the web years ago. My Warn M8000 is mounted between the frame rails and just behind the rear bumper. It is tucked up under the bed completely out of sight. The line comes under the bumper, across 1 of 2 rollers I added on as a fairlead, then turns and runs forward near the drivers frame rail. It follows a clear path all the way forward to the front bumper where it comes out through a "ghetto" but very functional roller fairlead. This obviously allows for pulling from front or rear but with a hard mounted winch as opposed to a portable one. I added a second battery in the bed to help with winching and lighting and mounted the control box with it so it's inside the bed, under my camper shell, and protected from weather and tampering.
I'm currently still running on the original set of 35" BFG AT's that came with the truck. That siping must really help a lot with the treadwear because the truck was driven on them from Alaska to Georgia, then locally as a DD for over a year by the previous owner, then locally with minor wheeling for a year by me, then back and forth to Florida a few times once I joined the Navy, and since then it's been wheeled hard a few times including Tellico and been my DD in Jacksonville - And they still have about 25% of their tread left! Granted they now have some chunking and slicing here and there, but are still holding up (2 have tubes now).
The body has taken a turn for the worse here in the last few years; Mostly since it's been in Florida. It had some rust starting in the normal places before I brought it down to Jacksonville but that has expanded exponentially since then. I'll try to post pics somewhat in order so you can see just how bad the rust progression has been. Although I really haven't done much of anything to try to stop the spread so it's partially my fault too. I don't really feel like spending much time or money on trying to fix the rust or even on trying to stop it much cause I'm just going to go out and wheel it again and continue to get major dents and dings anyway.
Enough with the story, pics to follow very soon!
Still running strong to this day!
cruiser88
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