Build Flooded 1981 Toyota Pickup Revival & Sprung Under FJ80 Axle / Dolphin RV Dually Axle Swap Build Bonanza on 4Ds

[aztoyman]

Isn't the Quigley van equipped to build/fix shafts? The spare does look better there. More stable and secure too.

You know how it works with emergency parts and tools. Carry it and you'll NEVER use it. Need it and you won't have it. Do you carry fluids?

 

[Lucille]

Isn't the Quigley van equipped to build/fix shafts? The spare does look better there. More stable and secure too.

You know how it works with emergency parts and tools. Carry it and you'll NEVER use it. Need it and you won't have it. Do you carry fluids?

Not sure on the quigly van. I dont think they have a full kit in there. It doesnt take up much room. I will bring some fluids as well. gear oil, engine oil, PS fluid, etc.

 

[aztoyman]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting you don't take a spare shaft. I was also thinking Milestar wouldn't want to look bad if someone ruined one of their tires and wondered if they would have tires on hand in sizes you guys are running.

I'm excited for you. Can hardly wait to watch it. Don't stress too much and have fun!

 

[Lucille]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting you don't take a spare shaft. I was also thinking Milestar wouldn't want to look bad if someone ruined one of their tires and wondered if they would have tires on hand in sizes you guys are running.

I'm excited for you. Can hardly wait to watch it. Don't stress too much and have fun!

Thats why they require a full size spare. Hopefully we dont pop two of them. I plan on testing them out for sure. Real low pressures and hope for the best. I duct taped the inner bead to help to keep them from burping.

 

[thebrassnuckles]

Thats why they require a full size spare. Hopefully we dont pop two of them. I plan on testing them out for sure. Real low pressures and hope for the best. I duct taped the inner bead to help to keep them from burping.

Supposedly their new tires are way better than the first gens. We did Rubicon last month and my buddy ended up with 3 catastrophic sidewall tears on 2 of his milestars. The gluetread repair wasnt holding that well on the first 2 tire repairs. The third rear was 180 degs from the first. He ended up stealing a spare off one of the other rigs to keep rolling.

I had 12 first gen patagonias on a 4800 ultra 4 car I bought, after a year I sold it with 4 good tires and one with a sidewall patch the rest were trashed. Not a fan of patagonias at all. Maybe the took some of that money they got from their influencers lying to everyone for years and put it into product design.

 

[Lucille]

Supposedly their new tires are way better than the first gens. We did Rubicon last month and my buddy ended up with 3 catastrophic sidewall tears on 2 of his milestars. The gluetread repair wasnt holding that well on the first 2 tire repairs. The third rear was 180 degs from the first. He ended up stealing a spare off one of the other rigs to keep rolling.

I had 12 first gen patagonias on a 4800 ultra 4 car I bought, after a year I sold it with 4 good tires and one with a sidewall patch the rest were trashed. Not a fan of patagonias at all. Maybe the took some of that money they got from their influencers lying to everyone for years and put it into product design.

Just got back from the trip and can give a review of the 38" MT02 that they gave me to use. First set of milestars but ive been around them in the 42" flavor. mine were stickies as well. Fist off they ride great on the road. No issues there. I ran them 7psi when offroad and they did fine in the dry stuff. We crawled some granite type rocks, some loose hill climb stuff, and some lava rock up in the PNW for a week. In the dry stuff they did just fine. Really no issues with them. It did rain one night and the guys that werent finished with the trail had to do so on wet rocks. This is where they didnt do so well in my opinion. Lots of slipping and sliding. These were new tires though so keep that in mind. No feathering or break in. I hate the sidewall design from a looks perspective and wish they were a little more square of a profile, but i cant complain how they worked for me this week. Now will i buy a set of 42s for my 4ws buggy? Probably not, but damn its hard to beat the price of them. Like i could almost get 4 sets of them for one set of 42" reds. Its tempting. Good thing is that they really seem to care about how the tires perform and will take notes from the guys using them. So hopefully they only get better.

 

[aztoyman]

Looking forward to seeing the UA videos. Have any idea when they will show them? Can you say how well you did?

 

[Lucille]

Looking forward to seeing the UA videos. Have any idea when they will show them? Can you say how well you did?

they have a lot of editing to do. so im thinking at least a month before the first one comes out.

I can talk and post up about it without issue. We started in Coos Bay Oregon on Day 1. Went to Browns Camp in oregon on day 2. Day 4/5 were in Liberty Washington. Day 7 was back in oregon at Rim Butte.

Ill post up more pics and videos soon, but the truck did pretty good. It made the entire trip and 1300 miles or so of street driving. Day 1 was in the sand dunes and my thermostat decided to stick closed and i blew the head gasket. So not off to a very good start, but after talking with Dirthead Dave, he mentioned to try some Blue Devil HG in a can, and it fixed the issue enough for me to finish the week. It actually drives like normal.

I also had to replace a reman starter, a v-band clamp broke on the exhaust, rear wheel seal leaking some, new Aisin e-locker actuator failed day 2 (locked it in with a screwdriver), new PSC TC pump took a dump, but none of these things kept me out of the event for very long. Had a blast. Would recommend it to anyone.

 

[aztoyman]

Man, that's a bunch of unexpected $hit from day 1! Sounds like the Blue Devil saved the trip so glad that worked. I'm glad you got to stay in it and had fun. A great life memory for sure.

 

[CreeperSleeper]

I can talk and post up about it without issue. We started in Coos Bay Oregon on Day 1. Went to Browns Camp in oregon on day 2. Day 4/5 were in Liberty Washington. Day 7 was back in oregon at Rim Butte.

You were in my neck of the woods! My club and I will be hosting an event in Browns Camp next weekend.

 

[Lucille]

UA 2025 recap. First off, it was such an awesome time. The people we met were awesome. the PNW in Oregon and and Washington has some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. It was a 32ish hour drive to the trailer drop in Bend, OR. We dropped the truck, then had its first real test of driving ~4hrs to the opening location of UA in Coos Bay, OR. Truck did great and got pretty decent mileage loaded down.

Day 0: Check in and tech inspection. Passed without issue and got to hang out with everyone before we hit the road.

Loaded down with s***. So much s***, but everything had its place and it all fit in the back. The full size spare took up so much room, but we made it work.

Day 1: Coos Bay, Oregon. Coos Bay is right on the coast of oregon and offers some of the best sand dune riding in the country. We dont have anything close in TX so bombing up and down the dunes was so much fun. 3" or so and leaf springs wasnt the best, but not too bad. I was hitting limiter all day long until the thermostat stuck and blew the head gasket. It was a bummer as i didnt get to see the other dunes in the afternoon of Day 1, but we limped it to the hotel for that night and got to work. At the recommendation of Dirthead Dave Chappelle, i tried a can of Blue Devil head gasket in a can. I followed the instructions to a T and to my surprise it "fixed" it enough to finish the week without any additional overheating. I did buy a head gasket just in case i needed to pull the head.

I got to put my feet in the cold Pacific Ocean.

Drag raced dave in the slowest drag race of all time. I spun hard off the line but pulled around him in the big end. This in no way contributed to my HG issue.

New video · Sunday, Sep 7 ​

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Day 2: Road day down Hwy 101 for some beautiful scenery to our first wheeling spot. Truck was running nice and cool but had a huge misfire at 2700ish Rpms. I ended up pulling the plugs and found all of them to be wasted. Like 0.25" gaps with the straps and electrodes blown off. Luckily i brought spare plug and it instantly fixed the issue.

Checked out the Tilamook air museum. A WW2 blimp hanger. Super cool history.

We then stopped at the Tillamook cheese plant and did a tour. Had some super fresh ice cream so all was good in the hood.

We then made the way up to Browns Camp and hit the Crushers trail. This is where i found a few more issues with the truck. First, the e-locker actuator s*** the bed and wouldnt switch it into 4wd. Brand new Aisin unit. Dead. So I pulled it and engaged 4wd with a large screwdriver. We had locking hubs so i just left it engaged for the rest of the week. Once i got it in 4wd, i noticed my second problem. I could barely steer. The PSC pump (also new) took a s*** and would whine like a banshee when trying to steer under a load. On the road, it was perfectly fine. To help with this, my co-driver would get out and unlock the passenger hub and we 3-wheeled it until we hit some hard stuff. This helped with the turning but the problem would get worse throughout the week.

Once we got to eh crushers trail, the truck did great. Put it in low/low and just putted my way through all the obstacles. The tires actually did pretty good the entire trip. Super happy with them. I did find out i needed more trimming up front, but it self-clearanced.

Day 2 continued.

Mom's Spaghetti putting in work. Dave brought two rigs this year. Sam and Keith drove this one. Dave was in MazGrande.

We camped at Browns Camp for the night. Slept in a cot under a tarp because i didnt trial fit both cots in the tent i bought. Im a dumbass, but it ended up working out well.

Day 3: Road day again to Astoria Oregon. We stopped at the Columbia Rover Maritime Museum. Super cool history of the maritime industry in the area. Road trip days werent just on the road. We usually stopped at some place cool for an hour.

Back on the road, or so i thought. Once it was time to leave the museum, my starter died. It would shoot out the bendix but not engage. A quick trip to Napa and i picked up a new one (luckily) and changed it out in the parking lot. We were back on our way but an hour or so behind the group. Dave stayed back with me and we eventually caught back up with them later on in the day.

Going over this bridge, i noticed something didnt sound right. The exhaust was super loud and the floor was getting hot. Pulled over and found a broken v-band clamp. Also new. You can see a theme here. I broke so much new s***, it was laughable at this point. Knowing i wouldnt be able to find a 3" V-Band anywhere, i cut up a toyota wire hose clamp and tied the exhaust back together for the rest of the week. Had a slight leak at the v-band, but so much better.

The group took a Ferry ride to end the day before making it to the hotel that night.

 

[Lucille]

Day 4: Walker Valley ORV. The next day was a wheeling day for some light wheeling at the Walker Valley ORV. Tight twisty trails in washington. My s***ty steering didnt help, but the truck made it through without issue. Even found some more rocks.

Staging area where we unloaded some of our gear before wheeling.

Flex for minutes. Going to have to work on getting some more downtravel out of the rear. Maybe longer shackles and removing some of the spring clamps.

We finished day 4 at our camping spot for two days in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.

To be continued on Day 5...

 

[Lucille]

Day 5 was spent entirely in the National forest. Not super hard wheeling but there were some steep hill climbs and deep valleys around the trails that made you keep focus.

My truck mirror was vandalized the day before. I got my revenge.

IH Parts of America brough two awesome scouts on the trip.

Day 6: We did a ~25 mile trail in the morning through the park and finished with a road day, but not before ending up at 6500ft elevation for some of the best views of the trip.

The Yakima River.

Day 7 up next....

 

[Lucille]

Last and final day of UA 2025. Day 7: Rim Butte back in Oregon. We were guided this day with a fellow irate member and a member of the Sketchy Oregon boys Tydes. Graham showed around the trails up there. This was one of my favorite days of UA. Super technical crawling over some lava rocks with insane traction.

In the parking lot next to James 4-door tacoma. James was a UA participant in 2021 and was our trail leader for Browns Camp on Day 2. He wheeled with the group the final day as well.

Ended up getting a rock tuck between the tire and shock and bend the shaft. Drove it that way for a couple hundred miles. Skyjacker was awesome enough to send me a replacement.

And thats it. The "awards" ceremony closed out the evening Day 7. Had a great dinner and free beer and received the "Truck ended up better than it began" award as i replaced the most parts with new parts. lol. Really a great bucket list event that i would tell anyone to sign up and join. Even with all of the issues we had, the truck did pretty damn good in my opinion. It finished the week and drove onto the trailer. We didnt miss any of the fun along the way and met some new friends for life. The weather was perfect and i miss it already.

I doubt they will ever see this thread, but id like to thank the sponsors for putting all of this together. Skyjacker was the presenting sponsor and they gave me a set of shocks front and rear and a set of add-a-leafs for the rear. The truck rode amazing really. I was impressed.

Milestar was the tire sponsor this year and gifted us with a free set of 5 tires. I aired them down to 6psi on the trails and they stuck to everything and by the end really feathered out nicely for stickies. On the road they were smooth and ran true without any balancing and at 83 mph max speed. I would definitely buy a set in the future. Their price is really hard to beat.

Quigly 4x4 gave me a rear driveshaft. After a few hits and scrapes in the rocks, it was still true at the end of it all. Tiger and Renee are two awesome people and they drove that green van through everything. Oh and they drove it to oregon and back from PA. No trailering.

Come-up went gave me a sweet deal on one of their Max comp 8k winches. This sucker is fast. Think 8274 fast and got me out of some stuck situations without issue. They really are nice winches if youre in the market.

Offroad design and IH parts America were also sponsors. While i didnt use any of their parts on my rig, the Watsons and Jeff/Zaid generously provides some awesome gear for others. Many were using the ORD magnum boxes and did great all week. Stephen brough out the white single cab longbed chevy with their new 3-link front kit. After a week of testing it proved to be a great design and worked well.

Also want to thank my co-driver for putting up with me for two weeks and getting out 68x to lock/unlock my hubs. Chris is a great friend and we had a blast.

Some overall numbers from the trip. About 4500 miles of tow rig driving to and from Oregon to Texas. Only had one trailer tire explode and no other issues. My 2014 Ram with 213k miles did great and got 14.2 mpg for the trip. We ended up putting around 1400 miles on the flood truck for the week of UA. Thats a lot of miles for trucks that werent initially designed for it and loaded down with gear. My truck ended up weighing right at 5000lbs and was the lightest.

 

[Lucille]

Bonus wheeling. We stopped in Moab for the first night on our return trip and figured when in rome, do some more wheeling. We hit Hells Revenge in the morning and knocked off another bucket list trail.

Hells Gate

Escalator

Finished off the morning with a burger and shake at Milts. IYKYK

Some good feathering after Moab.

Oh and some sad news. i crushed Dirt Squirrel 1.0. It was time. No more suffering in the pasture. RIP old girl. Thanks for the memories.

Oh and videos on the Unreal Adventure youtube page will be coming out starting Nov. 1.

Unreal Adventure​

Welcome to Unreal Adventure, an evolution of a well-known off-road endurance event that's been going on for 25 years! If off-roading, hardcore rockcrawling, camping, and hanging out with your buddies as you spend a week traveling anywhere from 1,000-1,400 miles and hitting some of the hardest...

www.youtube.com

 

[gnob]

so rad. cool you made the week without many issues.
the drive up the oregon coast to Tillamook and Astoria is gorgeous. imo the north coast is much prettier than so ore coast area.
that air museum and blimp hanger are just massive.

 

[Lucille]

so rad. cool you made the week without many issues.
the drive up the oregon coast to Tillamook and Astoria is gorgeous. imo the north coast is much prettier than so ore coast area.
that air museum and blimp hanger are just massive.

Such a beautiful part of the country. Its crazy how much different eastern OR looks vs the coast.

 

[gnob]

Such a beautiful part of the country. Its crazy how much different eastern OR looks vs the coast.

yep. and there is wheeling/exploring for days in the Christmas valley/owyhee areas as well. i wish id spent way more time out there as it turns out

 

[aztoyman]

Glad you made it and had fun. Thanks for posting.

 

[Mudder]

@Lucille do you have my concerns with the Tube style turbo manifold cracking with off roading and being exposed to more water and mud than normal?