2008 Sequoia Limited Build thread

[LandCruisinMy93]

I forgot to mention I received my brackets for the Morimoto fog lights and the winch control pack. I have to say the WARN Evo 12k is my least favorite winch...I've removed the motor cover a half dozen times already to retrieve hardware from mounting the control pack to the winch and to the bumper and I have to remove it once more to retrieve hardware. Could have put a piece of foam around the gaping opening in the motor housing cover.
I will get a shot of the installed lights when I have a chance.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Well, I am blessed that the installer didn't cut off the factory plugs for the stereo. They did, however, splice into several of the wires on the factory side. And then, during my journey of discovery I found scotchloks...I deplore scotchloks! And the speaker wire from the backup camera is actually dual strand speaker and an RCA they had just cut the end off at the hatch. The wire was ran through the headliner all the way to the A-piller. I can only imagine there are 300 zip ties holding it in place. I could swear with the amount of electrical tape and zip ties that an actual electrician did this.

Part of me wants to remove it completely. The other part says just cut it off as far back as I can and leave it in. Every panel I remove results in a broken Clip or plug cover and the cost is adding up. I just don't understand why they didn't utilize the factory wiring. They could have spliced in at both ends if they were already doing hack work.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I couldn't help myself. I had to remove the crappy backup camera wiring. At least I may have solved some noises. A lot of loose fasteners and missing clips were discovered.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear the factory backup camera wiring made its way from the hatch to the dash which explains the hacktatstic wiring job. Luckily the replacement backup camera I ordered has a nice and tidy wiring harness. The camera end has a small plug, a ground and a trigger wire. The head unit end has an RCA and the camera signal wire. Just 1 thin wire from front to rear.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Alright! The new Phoenix Automotive Android head unit arrived this morning. Fortuitous timing as I had the dash torn apart, the old stereo removed and the new reverse camera wiring ran.

Please don't judge me too harshly for the Deutsche connector. I didn't have a matching set of Sumitomo or metripack plugs. I wanted to splice the backup wiring in a manner that didn't effect the factory side of the harness and was able to be unplugged.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Next I did a rough install to make sure I had everything plugged in that needed plugged in. After which I gutted all superfluous connections from the Phoenix wiring harness.

I then proceeded to remove all of the excess wires that were branched. I then depinned, placed marine shrink tube on the wire and repinned them one at a time.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Then I went through the spliced wiring in the dash. I will say that I approve of the splice method and use it myself on occasion. Not on the vehicle side of a harness. I also use shrink tube and not electrical tape.

So, I removed the tape, removed the spliced in wire, depinned the plug a wire at a time and added marine shrink tube over the bare wire. Then I wrapped it in tape and wrapped back all unused plugs.

And then there is the bullet connector on the backup camera trigger wire. Is what it is. I didn't have a good connector set and wanted it to be detachable.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Got it all buttoned up and a few pictures. Ferda!

A picture of the Scosche M8rix mounted in view where the old tow haul panel was.

And the switch panel. I mentioned in post #18 that I hadn't sorted out what to do with the center diff switch and tow haul button because I was waiting on stuff to arrive. This was that stuff. I wanted to see if the switches would fit the blanks on the Phoenix stereos switch trim panel. I was able to fit them using a flat and a square file and removing a little at a time to fit the individual switches.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I received the bracket for the M8rix I had designed and sent to have made. I of course didn't use it in the way I had designed it, Lol. Instead of the M8rix sitting flat underneath, I screwed it to the bracket.

I just didn't want to make holes in the Sequoia. I also realized that between the front feet pinched between the fuse box and vehicle, combined with the J bolts for the battery tie down, that It wouldn't really need screwed in on the back edge. I did, however, contact cement a strip of fiber reinforced EPDM rubber to the bottom of that flange to prevent vibration noises and damage.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I received my metripack parts to finish out the Scosche M8rix connections, as well as, a side terminal adapter to drop down to allow all positive battery connections.

I also received the replacement control pack cover for the WARN winch. so I replaced that and while it was removed I took the motor cover off that hardware eating POS and retrieved all the hardware ,as well as, placed a piece of high temp expanding foam seal around the opening so I wouldn't lose anymore. I retrieved 2 nuts, 3 split washers and a flat washer from the motor cover.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I finally got around to printing out the full M8rix bezel and lightly sanding and painting it. The very few posts I could find on the interior gray color said it was very close to "Lunar Mist Metallic."

So, after paying $16 for a can of touch up paint in said color, I painted the bezel. Just to find out it looks like the old chrome spray paint from the 90s. Not even remotely close. I tried darkening it by spraying some black base coat and a light coat of the Metallic. NOPE!

So, after a light sanding I painted it with a "Stainless steel" color paint and it came out way better but still not a direct match. It sprays out VERY granular, so I had to knock it down a little with some 600 grit. As much as I hate saying "Good enough" it applies here.

Now hopefully I haven't lied to the forum or myself here, I still intend on resin casting the part and have the makings to do so, but at this point I'm going to need to find motivation to do so.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I discovered something interesting while replacing the incandescent bulbs in the marker lights on the ARB bumper with LED bulbs. The Amber "Hockey stick" DRL of the headlights turns white if you replace the Amber DRL of the side marker with an LED bulb. That and the LED bulb makes the ARB marker look more like a selective yellow color. I thought for a minute I had screwed something up with wiring up the M8rix or something, pulled the LED and replaced it with the incandescent and Viola! Normal operation. Strange business.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

I took a bit today and enjoyed some of this BEAUTIFUL weather that just rolled in. It's been raining like it used to when I was a wee whipper snapper....Torrential downpour...Deluge.

Anyway, I went up to visit the dogs grave site and while I was at it I did the pre-tensioning of the winch rope. Just went up a dirt road with a slight incline, hooked up to a sturdy tree, half applied the parking brake, popped it in neutral and reeled her in.

Also, inadvertently got stuck in the Mud, LOL. Drove up to the end of the road and seen where someone had nearly got stuck, figured I'd drive around it and sank pretty decent. Took a minute to get out. Not the time to have iffy 4x4 actuators. I spent the next hour driving around the woods activating, driving, deactivating the 4x4 until it worked well.

Took a couple shots of the land manatee and a shot with the fogs on so the world can marvel at my attempt to plug all orfices of the bumper with something useful.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Drove some forest service road and tested my lights. Then I parked it and watched the aurora for a while. Got a few pictures on the way back, would have taken them in the woods but there were a lot of like minded people stiring up Dust.

The last 3 look the same but you can see the light shifting.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Here are a few from the lights.
Here is just the DRLs

The Morimoto amber fog lights

A shot of the clear dobinsons with the amber morimotos

And a shot of the yellow lenses on the Dobinsons.

Lastly, just the clear Dobinsons

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

And of course a couple of the Aurora because who doesn't like the beauty of nature?

It's tough to choose only 5.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Well, yesterday I received my front donor differential for the Eaton locker and today I received my donor rear differential for the Auburn locker. Tandem offroad sent notification that the rear locker has shipped. So, shortly I will have all but the shims necessary to install front and rear lockers.

I purchased the bearings etc... from my local dealership. The front and rear bearings, seals, oil slingers and 2 crush sleave per setup came out to a few hundred less than I could have bought the kits for. The only difference is the fact that I don't have shims. That doesn't matter much since I have spare diffs and I can order the needed shims after initial setup.

I also purchased new rear rotors as mine are fairly rough. I will do the rear pads and shoes as well when I do the diffs, potentially the control arms or bushings also. While the driveline is out I will put the TRD rear sway bar in.

3x Locked here I come!

Look at these beefy beauties! Hard to believe these chunks came from a soccer mom mobile.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Next on the list of stuff and things and whatnot.

My TOP SECRET project is nearly there. I spent a solid 18 hours working on finishing stuff up followed by dropping the parts at the powder coater that morning. Yeah, I literally started doing the final work on the project at around 11:30am and didn't stop until after 6am the following morning. I went and showered and then dropped the parts off. Hopefully they'll be done by next week.

I decided I wanted side rails like those available for so many other Toyotas. I found a decent deal on some 200 series Summit side rails from ARB. They match the main bar diameter of the Tundra/Sequoia Deluxe Bull Bar, 60.3mm OD.

I had to print a jig to help align the rails at the bullbar and a jack and some tape to line everything out. I trimmed off the brackets at the bottom using my trusty Milwaukee corded portaband. Then I lined up the bars to figure out where to drill the holes in the main bar for the attachment hardware. You can't use the 200 series rough measurement. After figuring out the rough alignment I taped the main bar with painters tape, realigned my rails and traced the fitting.

I used the paper templates and drilled a hole in conjunction with the tape marking. I drilled just large enough for the allen bolt to go through. I attached the rail and checked fitment. I then removed the rail "tuned" the front facing hole with a round file and re tested. Then I went through and drilled the front hole for the remaining piece.

With the rails loosely hanged, shimmed out from the fender and leveled to the silder with a floor jack, I made my preliminary cut of about 2.5" from the slider end.
Then I went about using a small remnant piece of birch plywood butted against the inner rail of the Tandem slider to make a tracing of the contour. I measured, plotted points and drew that up in Fusion 360. This along with the rail dimensions allowed me to make a cope in Fusion 360 which I printed and mirrored. I was able to utilize that cope jig to get a rough cope on the rails.

I wanted the rails slightly longer and I knew they would require welding to the sliders. So I devised an adapter to lengthen the front and one to act as a joiner at the rear. I printed and test fit the adapter and decided I was okay with it. I didn't like where the joiner had to go but there wasn't really a better place I could think of. Anyway I sent out the files for quotes; and after having 3 pretty crazy quotes for the small parts I decided to just buy a small metal lathe.

I have some other things I will need a lathe for and I've wanted one for years but just couldn't justify it. However, with the price of the 4 parts plus what I will need made in the future, it made sense.

Here I've made the first adapter, it is only 35mm longer. I also turned down the original attachment piece. I didn't want to make the side walls too thin. Looking back I think I would have liked to extend the main tube, not the front bend. It would have kicked it back just a little farther and made it more anesthetically pleasing. I only had a 12" piece to work with, if I had gone any longer I would have had to buy 5 feet. The local metal supplier had this remnant laying around and sold it for a decent price.

Here I have all the parts made. It started as a 12" section of 2.5" OD .500" wall DOM.

I then made jigs to hold the pieces in my drill press vice, as well as, allowing me to drill the pilots, rotate them and put a pin in the backside. This ensured 180⁰ of separation.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Next I installed the adapter and welded it in. I taped, marked, measured, scribed the joint alignment and cut the bottom off the rails using the portaband.

I followed that up by using a printed squaring jig to scribe and hand file the imperfect cut to a nice flat surface that mated neatly with the joiner. Then I laid the long section flat on a slab of ½" aluminum plate I had laying around from the my Land Cruiser engine swap adapter plate build. I used a machinists square pressed firmly onto the plate and against the rail to scrape a center line onto the rail. I then used a complimentary 3d printed jig to drill the companion holes for the joiner. I didn't really take pictures of everything as is normal for me.

I screwed in the joiner, put the bottom section on, lined my scribed marks up and tack welded it. I then welded it out. Afterwards I used an angle grinder to take the bulk of the weld off. I then sprayed it with dyechem machinist bluing and filed it flat all the way around everywhere there had been a weld.

Lastly, I went about doing the finish coping, below is the rough cope. I finished the cope, evened them up side to side, tacking them on and checking them as I went. When it was where I was satisfied I made a fill piece for the top of the slider to rail to give it a taper upward. That was then welded, ground and filed.

I will get some pictures when I get the rails back from the powder coater and get them welded to the sliders.

These last 2 are out of place but I found them in a different folder on my phone. They show the original mounting and figuring out.

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Took a little time to break down the donor differentials and post up the bearing numbers I had been looking for.

Have to get a couple gallons of diesel to clean the parts to prepare them for lockers

 

[LandCruisinMy93]

Well, one more minor project wrapped up for now. I think I will get some color matched paint from the powdercoater and spray the bottom half of the rails all the way down the sliders. The sliders are a different color black and the paint I used is too glossy.

I'm not proud of the welds but I'm not inclined to redo them. Turns out the slider outer tubes are pretty thin. My welder was set to weld on the 0.100" wall side rail tubing but burned through pretty easily in some parts of the slider tube. That's just sad. I would guess it is likely only 0.125" in the unbent parts. I also noticed a deep gouge in one spot on the slider.