Builds 40 Guy Builds a 100 Series (2 Viewers)

[REZARF]

This past winter I nearly died every time I opened the RTT. The rear bumper is slick as glass when wet with snow covered boots! So today I used up some of my 3M step/traction tape and created a few spots of traction… and I bought a stool to get up onto the bumper. Stepping on the Slee swing out, then the bumper, then shuffling over to the tent latch was a royal pain. This should speed things up and make it a bit safer.

There like skate board tape, I have used it on my slider steps for years and they work great and hold up to a beating.

 

[REZARF]

Stepped out of the cruiser to hear a hissing from the front… after looking around I found a hairline crack on the top of the radiator. Glad I found it in my driveway and not on a hot day in Moab.

Gotta replace it. I have heard hit or miss things about the Denso units not being as good as OEM? Im confused why there’d be 2 different models within the same brand.

Any other good recommendations?

 

[REZARF]

Another prep day for cruise Moab…

• Changed the oil
• Fixed my rear shock stone shield
• Replaced driver rear sway bar end link
• Adjusted the parking brake per the factory manual and WOW!
• Rotated the tires
• Found two nails in one tire… it’s holding air but gotta get it fixed Monday.
• Starting to feel like I’m getting there.

 

[SmoothLC]

Stepped out of the cruiser to hear a hissing from the front… after looking around I found a hairline crack on the top of the radiator. Glad I found it in my driveway and not on a hot day in Moab.

Gotta replace it. I have heard hit or miss things about the Denso units not being as good as OEM? Im confused why there’d be 2 different models within the same brand.

Any other good recommendations?

Mine was replaced with a Koyo last year - very solid.

 

[REZARF]

Mine was replaced with a Koyo last year - very solid.

Thanks I have ordered the Denso... time will tell.

 

[REZARF]

Moab is getting closer… knocked out some more PM stuff I’ve been putting off.

Replaced the heater T’s with OEM. I was shocked when they crumbled in my hands without a fight. I used some hose clamps to make sure no junk got away from me…

I thought they were just weeping… they were super close to failing.

These are the big chunks that came out. I blew the rest out with the air hose since I clamped the heater tubes…

Fresh OEM goodness…

 

[REZARF]

A week or so I found the hairline crack along the top of the radiator… it was hard to see it was up under the grill.

This is what the top looked like, but I could hear a slight hiss when I walked around the front, and I knew I was loosing coolant over like 6 months.

When I pulled the radiator I found this horror story waiting to happen! YIKES! Caked in mud, crack on the top in general it was a huge mess and I’m lucky it didn’t let go sooner… I’d bets 40% was blocked up with mud and dirt. I guess I better keep the splash guard on more often. This side of the radiator is between the other radiator and you can’t get to it with the OEM foam seal.

Here’s the crack I could see behind the grill.

 

[REZARF]

Went ahead and bought an OEM unit, new radiator hoses and OEM clamps with some new Toyota red go-go juice.

Toyota goodness… I tried to order a Denso unit from Amazon but it came with almost no packaging and was mangled. So, $150 more and I had an OEM unit in hand.

New hoses and OEM clamps

And the only coolant fluid I run in my engines…

 

[REZARF]

Knocked out my last big mod before Moab and the Kokopelli trail. The Kokopelli trail is 3 days off road and they require an additional 5 gallons of gas on board. I have been wanting to add an additional gas can for a while and found the Adventure Trailer gas can and mount at a local second hand shop… SCORE! It’s been in the shed for almost 2 year! Nothing like a big trip to motivate.

I wanted to make it removable so I bought some roll bar clamps off of eBay and started by laying out where the tubes were going to go.

Simple but effective clamps that are PLENTY strong. $40 or so, quality was so-so but they’re gonna work. Stainless hardware was a nice touch.

There are a lot of angles involved to get it level, and square. He took some interesting rigging to get it to where I could clamp it in place to weld.

Another shot of my “jig” to line everything up. It’s hard working in free space without a third arm. But here you can get the basic idea. I clamped a lot of things to the Slee tire carrier and then used my angle finder and level to try to match everything up as best as I could.

 

[REZARF]

I’ve had all this bent sheet metal that’s a really nice thick gauge that I’ve used for all kinds of stuff around the shop. I knocked the corners of it off and bridged the gap between the two bars to create a flat mounting surface. Easy Peezy.

Here you can see the general idea.

After measuring about a jet billion times I burned it all in. My welding is out of practice! I’ve gotten lazy and only been welding in optimum positions. It was good to hang it out there and burn it in.

And then the most miraculous thing happened, I looked in my drawer and actually had every single piece of hardware I needed to bolt it up. I thought it was a Christmas miracle when everything that I had not only was the perfect size I wanted it was also all in stainless steel and nylock nuts. It was awesome.

The finished product. I can remove it in under 5 minutes… I’m stoked how it came out it’s rock solid.

Time to finish my fog light upgrade and pack.

 

[bgolf247]

Drew, it was great to hang with you and the kid during Kokapelli and at CM. Waiting for at least a few updates to this thread soon...

 

[REZARF]

Hey REZARF! How was Cruise Mob 2022!? You ask…

…yeah, about this good.

 

[civil offroad]

Hey REZARF! How was Cruise Mob 2022!? You ask…

View attachment 2998312

…yeah, about this good.

looks like another day in Cruiser Life!

 

[REZARF]

One of my biggest gripes about the 100 that I own is the poor lighting up front. We have DARK roads up here in Montana and the amount of wild-life on the road is enough to make you slow down at night. I needed more light. I had one of my IPF fog lights crack from a stone and instead of replacing an old and expensive incandescent light bulb I decided to upgrade to an LED fog.

Lots of awesome choices out there but in the end I went with a Diode Dynamics fog light. I watched a lot of videos and considered Rigid Industries and Baja Design... both are amazing lights, but at roughly half the price the Diode Dynamics really fit my budget. So I jumped. Getting them retro fitted into my Sahara Bar was another story.

Here is the general idea, I decided to replace the Fog light outright and I am going to add a "ditch" light where the turn signals mount up...

And here is what the backside looks like...

 

[REZARF]

The light output is amazing… I made them so I could adjust/aim them up and down. I held off on the ditch lights as I tan out of time. Honestly the light output of the DD fogs might be enough for me.

 

[REZARF]

Cruise Moab 2022 was a blast. I took my son for his 13th birthday and we had a great time. We ran the Kokopelli trail and had a blast.

The Kokopelli trail down below…

Camp night 2 next to the Colorado River

Nice stack of Cruisers…

Dinosaur track, put my son over the moon!

 

[REZARF]

We ran Dome Plateau, awesome trail!

Then we ran Top Of the World… we busted a rear u-joint on one of the shelf steps on the way up after the first two big obstacles. I carry a spare front and rear u joint so we popped a new one in and we got the rest of the trail. A huge thanks to Josh for staying behind and helping me make the fix a quick one!

I’m so glad we finished the trail. One of the very best views in all of the Moab area.

 

[REZARF]

The next day we drove Poison Spider Mesa, Where Eagles Dare and part of Golden Spike. We ran everything and had a blast, I decided to drive the technical section again on PSM on the way out as I was scheduled to lead that trail on Saturday and that’s when I broke good.

I used too much skinny pedal and with a heavy laden 100 series, I went from spinning a tire to broken parts QUICK. I broke both my front passenger CV axle and my rear drive shaft at the same time. Gotta’ love slick rock traction.

I was fortunate to have two great friends with me on the trail and we managed to get the 100 off the rocks after about an hour of winching and strapping. We left the 100 on the trail and went and gathered up some parts to get it off the trail.

12 hours later we limped into cruise Moab camp on a borrowed drive shaft.

It was fun while it lasted…

Where eagles date was wildly steep.

Slick rock is amazing if you’ve never played on it, you have to plan a trip to go.

 

[REZARF]

Big shout out to Brian who helped me get down that night in his amazing 200 series and for trusting me to spot him when I was getting delirious. Brian you’re a trooper man!

Here we are pulling 1 of 9 driveshafts for the week.

 

[96redformula]

Big shout out to Brian who helped me get down that night in his amazing 200 series and for trusting me to spot him when I was getting delirious. Brian you’re a trooper man!

Here we are pulling 1 of 9 driveshafts for the week.
View attachment 3011594

9 Cruisers lost driveshafts !?!?!?!