Little update
I ended up buying a set of new Yokohama Geolandar G003 tires because I didn’t want to take any chances. The tire people basically said my tires were safe to drive on for the time being but that I should definitely keep an eye on them. They weren’t sure what was causing the cracks, but they were trying to tell me that gravel would do that sort of damage...
With new tires on, two of my friends, my brother, and I made a quick weekend trip out to Bentonville for some mountain biking and a shakedown run to test all of the newly completed work.
The following is purely about my vapor locking issue:
For the first time ever, my truck vapor locked in Oklahoma on 100% gas after a late afternoon drive to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had driven to Tulsa and back the previous day pretty much non stop so this was weird. After letting the tank vent and cool down for 30 minutes, it started right up and we continued onto Bentonville problem free.
Weekend was awesome and the drive home was uneventful...until I dropped my second friend off at his house. Half a mile down the road the cruiser vapor locked. I let it cool and vent for 30 minutes and all was fine. This was late afternoon on Sunday with plans to leave early Monday for Red River, NM.
I greased the drive shafts, changed the oil, installed the RTT and cb antenna, unpacked and cleaned the stuff from the previous trip and got it ready for the next.
I checked the line going from the fuel pump/tank to the CC and it was free. Everything seemed normal so we set off for NM anyways.
Driving mostly third gear through some of the biggest headwinds I have ever driven in, the cruiser was worked hard and barely managed 7mpg to Amarillo. Filled up with 100% again there and didn’t have any issues with fueling until reaching Clayton, NM. The nozzle kept clicking off early despite only needing a 1/4 tank. An hour or two later and the cruiser stalled out going down a downhill at 2400 RPMs. Waited awhile, then it shut off two miles later. Then waited some more and tried bypassing the CC and check valve, then it died again. Waited more, reset it back to how it was and proceeded to Red River where it died on main street after idling for a few minutes.
We had dinner, then drove up the mountain to our campsite issue free.