Most expensive mistake you have made when building / modifying a rig? (1 Viewer)

[pillguy]

getting married at 21 was my mistake, and not getting divorced soon enough... Well I waited and dated for about 13 yrs and finally got remarried and she is great!
by the way, and she is pretty cool with my truck and man hobbies, at least I have the excuse that I can take my step son and nephews 4wheeling to have some fun...

 

[me_tu05]

buy a high dollar OME suspension for my Tencha and then decide to go SO way ..

Learned this one too, I spent way too much money redoing things because I wasn't happy after doing them the first time. At least I got smart on my 4runner and going straight to a Mercedes OM617, 60/14b combo, 4link rear, RUF, dual cases with 23 splines, and 42's. Not beating around the bush this time.

 

[BAILEIGH INC]

getting married at 21 was my mistake, and not getting divorced soon enough... Well I waited and dated for about 13 yrs and finally got remarried and she is great!
by the way, and she is pretty cool with my truck and man hobbies, at least I have the excuse that I can take my step son and nephews 4wheeling to have some fun...

That's awesome!

 

[TURNMEOVER]

got married

 

[4runner4ever]

Whoops!

basically trading, yes TRADING, my beautiful 96 4runner for a 95 POS Blazer.

well, the trade was a paid in full car note and a Blazer for me, a pristine Toyota for my friend who is still driving it 7 years later but has COMPLETELY trashed it. the POS she gave me crapped out 9 months after the trade and of course i went right out and bought another 4runner. so, within a year I owed the bank way more money than I would have in the first place and got to watch my friend Cindy, or the devil as I like to call her, trash my car. It is hard for me to even think about letting anything Chevrolet touch my LC.

the marriage and family thing worked out for me........course I work 9pm to 4am.....no one knows how much time I spend with our Toyotas! because they're at work and school! suckers!! hahahahahahahahahahahaha

and also, my new '87 60 sits next to a rusty '68 GTO.....he probably knows - and understands. Lucky me!

 

[MutleyFJ62]

Its like tgreene has seen my life, wooohahahaha, i miss the single days.

 

[Radd Cruisers]

I am sure someone here has burned their garage down and or rig to the ground...lol

Real close, too close I must say.

After some welding and grinding I sat down in th office and 10 minutes later I opened the door to see nothing but noxious black smoke as the headliner of a BJ60 lit on fire....

Rob

 

[D'Animal]

Has someone mentioned the Orion?

 

[CruisinFJ60]

buy a high dollar OME suspension for my Tencha and then decide to go SO way ..

that was one of my more costly ones so far as well

 

[Elbert]

not really understanding what I wanted..based on lack of experience and then swapping parts to find out I should have gone "hog-wild" to start with. Better to go crazy at the start and not look back, but the foresight to do that is often only gained with experience that you did not have on the front end.. Big $$ wasted trying to get to the end result.

One issue is trying to find a happy medium between a good trail capable truck (not real serious trails) and something you can still drive on the street.

 

[chicago]

For me...getting into this gawd damned addiction in the first place!
Went on ONE FRIGGIN TRIP and now Im eternally BROKE and completely devoid of any other thoughts than 4 wheeling and cruisers. Try having friends who do NOT wheel...conversation is suddenly NOT easy.
I have to STOP myself from talking about rigs and 4 wheeling as most people develop little X's over their eyes and little birds start flying around their heads.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

For me...getting into this gawd damned addiction in the first place!
Went on ONE FRIGGIN TRIP and now Im eternally BROKE and completely devoid of any other thoughts than 4 wheeling and cruisers. Try having friends who do NOT wheel...conversation is suddenly NOT easy.
I have to STOP myself from talking about rigs and 4 wheeling as most people develop little X's over their eyes and little birds start flying around their heads.

I know the feeling!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

For me...getting into this gawd damned addiction in the first place!
Went on ONE FRIGGIN TRIP and now Im eternally BROKE and completely devoid of any other thoughts than 4 wheeling and cruisers. Try having friends who do NOT wheel...conversation is suddenly NOT easy.
I have to STOP myself from talking about rigs and 4 wheeling as most people develop little X's over their eyes and little birds start flying around their heads.

I'm right there with you man. Good thing my girl likes to help me work on the cruiser!!!

 

[Fast Eddy]

Has someone mentioned the Orion?

 

[I Tried]

For me...getting into this gawd damned addiction in the first place!
Went on ONE FRIGGIN TRIP and now Im eternally BROKE and completely devoid of any other thoughts than 4 wheeling and cruisers. Try having friends who do NOT wheel...conversation is suddenly NOT easy.
I have to STOP myself from talking about rigs and 4 wheeling as most people develop little X's over their eyes and little birds start flying around their heads.

lol I know the feeling, I did not know what a FJ40 was 4 years ago. Now I have 4




And on the garage fire, I did burn mine down.

Worst s*** I have ever gone through in my life.

 

[slacker24-7]

Trying to make parts work when I know i could have saved a ton of money and frustration by doing it right the first time. ie: d44's on broncos and toy axles on a mini as well as a fj40 if i had gone to tons and a strong tcase in the very beginning i would have been SO MUCH better off or when building a rig buy one that is without a drive train if your gonna replace it anyway... ya need to look at what your goals are WAY on down the road and start there..
as said earlier even starting this crap.. i have spent God knows how much on rigs over the last 30 years . probably buy a nice house with the money i have blown, i am now trying to get out of the rock crawling bs and back to basic trail riding/campin/exploring type wheeling etc...

 

[chicago]

I was actually on the ROAD to putting my vortec into my FJ62...I think that would have been a huge and costly mistake for me if I had done it. Im of the opinion that rig is just too big and heavy for the trails that I like to run most. It did them...it did really well in fact, but it was a LOT of work for all the people with me getting me through the tight stuff while trying to keep it relatively straight. I think Ill be really happy with my 40 when its done. Much lighter and smaller and user friendly. Though Ill miss the space and comforts the FJ62 had.
Verdict is still out on doing D60 or above. I had always run the cruiser stuff with longs, locked f/r. Hoping that I WONT need to upgrade, but if I do...I will. I think my weakest point will be the rear axle. Ill try polys first. In the end...the route that I took would still be cheaper than converting, cuz I already had the re geared diffs and lockers and such. Well see though.

 

[4rnr]

Tapped my IFS steering box for hydor assist, and released the balls, and didnt get them back together corectly and snapped the input shaft and destroyed the box ($300 from Marlin for a rebuilt and tapped box)

While modifying my a340h (3.0 auto trans for all you cruiser guys) I had to remove the VB to change the parking pawl to work with the new set up. When I put it all together I forgot to connect the thingy that connects the shifter to the shaft that moves in the VB to engage/disengage the gears. The shaft slid to the front of the oil pan. When I was done I could spin the t-case outputs by hand when the motor was off (good) when the motor was on the trans seized in every gear (bad) I fixed the problem, drove to the badlands and limped back on a blown trans. Cost: I decided to pull the 3.0/a340h/dual inchworms, and drop in a 3.4/a340f/duals, managed to do it for free so not to bad...

 

[chicago]

lol I know the feeling, I did not know what a FJ40 was 4 years ago. Now I have 4




And on the garage fire, I did burn mine down.

Worst s*** I have ever gone through in my life.

HAHAHA....
I didnt know what the hell a LOCKER was let alone an FJ40, 4 years ago. I knew NOTHING of this world. Man did I ever learn and learn FAST!
Were both in about the same boat.

 

[Project FJ80]

My most expensive mistake was when I sent my 80 up to Portal-Tek to get it worked on and have thier axles installed.

What I got back 4 years later was a shell, no slee 6" lift, 17" allied beadlock wheels, 37" krawlers (set of 5), 3" body lift, engine, transmission, transfercase, axles F&R, seats, windshield, nothing but the body, doors and frame.

Set me back 4 years and $30K