Hello everyone - happy to be joining this forum.
I'm a retired Marine (in a second profession) and consider myself an outdoors-man and family man.
I'm on my second TLC, second 4Runner, 3rd K5 and 1st GX (1 week!). They are all essentially stock except for the K5 which is an '85-90 Frankenstein with a crate GM 350 and a 1+3 Speed Manual transmission, 33s, lift kit, soft top and pretty much all new or rebuilt. It is a hoss but nothing off road compared to the Toyotas.
I actually do most of my more aggressive off-roading here on the Western edge of the Smokey Mountain national park on ATVs and Side-by-Sides, but have a small farm and use all of our vehicles off road to some degree.
My TLC had a rocky start. I bought it out of a well-rated shop with new cams and timing kit at 170k miles. It had a slight tick that quickly devolved into a click then a clunk. A top end rebuild failed to fix it and I ended up having the motor stripped down to the block and redone from scratch. The truck is rust free, has an OK paint job, an interior with a lot of dried/ cracked leather and windows that are very slow and sometimes stop when going back up. It drives like a champ. I just put new Michelin Defenders on it and have an extra set of wheels for some off road tires that I plan to do with a modest lift kit. I have a wind whistle at 30-40 mph coming in around the right passenger compartment that we can't diagnose - I even bought a stethoscope and cut holes in ear muffs to listen more carefully to no avail! At first we named it chitty-chitty bang bang but now it is "the whistler".
I look forward to your stories, advice, and will hopefully be able to help some of you out from time to time.
I'm a retired Marine (in a second profession) and consider myself an outdoors-man and family man.
I'm on my second TLC, second 4Runner, 3rd K5 and 1st GX (1 week!). They are all essentially stock except for the K5 which is an '85-90 Frankenstein with a crate GM 350 and a 1+3 Speed Manual transmission, 33s, lift kit, soft top and pretty much all new or rebuilt. It is a hoss but nothing off road compared to the Toyotas.
I actually do most of my more aggressive off-roading here on the Western edge of the Smokey Mountain national park on ATVs and Side-by-Sides, but have a small farm and use all of our vehicles off road to some degree.
My TLC had a rocky start. I bought it out of a well-rated shop with new cams and timing kit at 170k miles. It had a slight tick that quickly devolved into a click then a clunk. A top end rebuild failed to fix it and I ended up having the motor stripped down to the block and redone from scratch. The truck is rust free, has an OK paint job, an interior with a lot of dried/ cracked leather and windows that are very slow and sometimes stop when going back up. It drives like a champ. I just put new Michelin Defenders on it and have an extra set of wheels for some off road tires that I plan to do with a modest lift kit. I have a wind whistle at 30-40 mph coming in around the right passenger compartment that we can't diagnose - I even bought a stethoscope and cut holes in ear muffs to listen more carefully to no avail! At first we named it chitty-chitty bang bang but now it is "the whistler".
I look forward to your stories, advice, and will hopefully be able to help some of you out from time to time.
!
