Poor life decisions epitomized; Taking Mom's car to the party (1 Viewer)

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Well, it’s gonna be nice to have no exhaust leak. I got some 2” v band sets ordered. I honestly need to order some 2” resonators. I also coulda probably stepped the pipe size up, but who are we kidding here? The name of the game is clearance and no leaks, so sticking with 2”.
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The bellow is a nice little piece! Much better than anticipated. My OEM one is SUPER cracked. Held together by rust and prayer.
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Also, my 29 spline flange showed up today! I reckon I’m gonna have to get to some gettin’ this weekend. Supposed to be rainy, so sounds conducive to not effing off priorities and making this an actual priority.
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32 DAYS UNTIL GSMTR 32!!!!

I really gotta get in gear. This morning’s fog in Central TX has east TN heavy on my mind. This thing ain’t ready for 2500 miles as of right now, nor am I.
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Well the kiddo got his permit yesterday. Watching him transition towards young adulthood from adolescence has definitely been a trip. I was genuinely worried for awhile as all he cared about was video games for quite a few years. Despite being subject to some out of the norm daily vehicles, stuff with wheels just wasn’t on his radar and I’m not gonna push someone into a corner they’re not trying to find. I threw bait here and there, but there was never a solid bite for this hook until recently when the idea of driving became a tangible, looming, reality.
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As he comes closer to being a licensed driver he’s become fascinated with the thought of having something that’s his, and I can’t blame him. It’s so crazy being on the other end of this stick. I remember going shopping as a child, our weekly routine started with hitting the magazine section with my father grabbing probably a Petersen’s 4w&Offroad and myself the latest copy of 5.0 or MM&FF. We’d give a quick thumb through and run each other through our personal highlights before making our way to the dry goods and getting the show over with. I miss hard-copy publications, which reminds me I should be seeing a TT in the mail soon. Anyhow, an uneventful first drive to the shop. One of many, I’m sure. It was nice to have someone to talk the things out in my head as it’s easy to second guess everything you’re doing when it’s new. After a quick run down on what I had learned, we started shimming for backlash and I had Spence torque the carrier caps to 63ft/lb
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I’m calling this good. Is it actually good? Windrock should let us know!
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The v bands I ordered had a ship date change, so I ordered some more and they should be here today. Goal is to fix the exhaust, and then listen for noise so I can have a good comparison for the gear setup before the rears go in. Plus, I feel like I’m starting to get some rear end noise that doesn’t seem to be felt in the t case shifter. Either way, I want quiet and some reference sounds. Hoping to make some good progress this week as I have nothing on my plate work wise. I should probably try to change that, but I also wanna make some progress on my own stuff and I paid my bills a few months out to ease some of the stress and give me room to grow.
 
Kid-raising is harder than ever these days with social media and electronic gadget distractions, on top of those covid lockdowns that still have many kids suffering the effects from a few yrs ago.

Sounds like you've figured out the right path to get him involved. There's no substitute to Learn By Doing, and certainly a lot more fulfilling than sitting down and pushing buttons or swiping! Good job!
 
Kid-raising is harder than ever these days with social media and electronic gadget distractions, on top of those covid lockdowns that still have many kids suffering the effects from a few yrs ago.

Sounds like you've figured out the right path to get him involved. There's no substitute to Learn By Doing, and certainly a lot more fulfilling than sitting down and pushing buttons or swiping! Good job!
Dude, I genuinely thought he was gonna live with his mom eating Dino Nuggets and playing MineCraft/Fortnite until she croaks.
 
I think this is gonna be today’s project. When swapping the 80 series locker switch in I noticed pin 2 was already in my harness. Well I’ll be damned, Toyota! You wanted us to have a 105, who screwed us?!

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That led me on this hunt and it did not disappoint!
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One thing I’ve always disliked is aftermarket toggles and clutter on a dash. I know things gotta be added at some point, but I don’t want a space shuttle. I’d like to keep The Jetson’s on the ol’ tube and outta my cockpit.
 
This build is nuts. Start to finish a great read! I'll be at GSMTR as well. I'll keep an eye out for a green LC with zebra print and shake your hand lol
C’mon with it! Just make sure you got one for each of the boys as well!
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It’s coming along! Forgot to charge my phone last night and conveniently left the only iPhone charger at home, so had to go back for a charger just in time to grab the set of v band flanges that I ordered yesterday. That makes having to leave not so bad. But at least I made this happen before I left.
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Went ahead and robbed Peter to pay Paul by way of some terminals to make my sub harness for the dash lights. Some milspec tefzel 20ga wire and heat shrink was the go-to here. Pictured is the cold side of the rear locker indicator that makes its way to the passenger kick panel. Welp, no locker ECU means I don’t need this circuit to take that ride, so I pulled it out, and got rid of it. Replaced it with two terminals that Toyota was kind enough to load in the connector for me that wasn’t being used. Took a little finagling to get them out, but overall fairly simple if you’ve played with stuff like this before. You can see the wires I ran in the connector ready for reassembly into the housing.
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And the light harness. Grey for the rear, grey/red stripe for front. Bonus pic of a Beefy Good Boi.
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And terminated and run through the dash, awaiting its marriage with switch and lockers.
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@chamyota so sorry to hear that man, it never stops sucking.

Welp, the Boy smacked some s*** i explicitly said “Hey don’t smack that” about. Proceeded on turning right towards it and smacking it while I stood three feet away. The look on his face was about spot on to Navin R. Johnson’s when he realized the oil cans at the filling station weren’t defective. It’ll cost me three grand to appease a third party, but the lesson for him was invaluable. The character he showed in the moment absolutely made me proud and I made sure to let him know this isn’t a big deal as nobody was hurt and things can be replaced. The only way it can be a big deal is if we don’t learn from it. We had a yarn about what he feels his strengths and weaknesses are behind the wheel and decided we’ll work on strengthening those skills individually in a targeted manner. I know it shook his confidence but tomorrow he’s got that forty minute drive ahead of him the same as today, and the day before. Besides, we still have a long way to go until GSMTR ready and Toyota Boot Camp is about to be in full swing to make that happen.
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Moving on, I got him to rack the truck. PigPig taking every opp to swoop in for some love per usual. I had been hearing a click correlating to braking and knew it wasn’t the rears as I had just went through those when sorting the loose e brake. My dead ass was thinking it was the driver side, but after riding shot gun we went after the front right caliper.
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Essentially it just needed to be cleaned of debris with a wire brush then thoroughly lubed. Seems to be sticking slightly on an edge of the inside pad and slapping against the rotor when brakes were applied. Retracting the pistons led me to believe there was no issues there as the process was linear in motion so we cleaned up everything and went back together as these pads are good for the trip. Cleaned up the slide pins on the bronze wire wheel and lubed ‘em, ready to go.
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And back together. At least if we don’t get to make it to GSMTR I can blame it on his work, yeah?
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When I said I wanted my exhaust tucked, I’m talking Lt Einhorn spec tucked. So I started with where I wanted to end.
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Needs more tacking and grinding but the dogs and kid were bored and frankly so was I lol. 4” pipe through the body as a sleeve so I can run my 3” through it and put the side of the bumper. Just don’t want the exhaust drone or exhaust fumes coming through my rust holes, and don’t want it to get smashed like the old one did right off the bat. FWIW I only caught the sound deadening on fire twice.
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😂 full frog in effect!

A little upset that I didn’t catch the front yoke not being in the order, but it’s coming. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about fixing my exhaust manifold leak (and lack of exhaust left, in general) in the most unreasonable way possible for probably three days now. Last night I ordered a bunch of tubing, a y pipe, and a bellow. But I woke up thinking about this particular diet again. Anyone got a cheap or free LC100 oil pan and pickup in central texas (or like, a 3ish hour one way from central TX)? Also looking for a cheap or free blownt-up 4spd auto from a 100 series as I want the input/output shafts. I’ll have the Vitz available next week/end to make some moves if so.
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I’ve had this thing slated for my Soarer for a while now but all I care about lately is the Cruiser. Tuned ecu with no emissions, and trans tuned out. I have an old ‘built’ a340 from being a Cressida nerd and a stand-alone controller. If I had the hard parts to Frankenstein this stuff I’d probably make it happen. My truck is past emissions testing in Texas, I’m wanting the cheap ponies.
Little late to the party here but... I must say this has crossed my mind more than once, a ls430 I had showed me what great engines these are. Albeit this m273 TT engine I have laying around gives me ideas for a G wagon t cased and 7 speed auto 100, if only 2ur's were affordable.
 
Looks like you know what you are doing! Any concerns with not having enough insulation between the floor and the exhaust? Also, the rear AC unit is housed in the right rear quarter panel, any chance if heat soaking into the condenser?
 
Looks like you know what you are doing! Any concerns with not having enough insulation between the floor and the exhaust? Also, the rear AC unit is housed in the right rear quarter panel, any chance if heat soaking into the condenser?
that thing is a trusty rusty, I bet the lines are already capped off up in the engine bay.
 
Looks like you know what you are doing! Any concerns with not having enough insulation between the floor and the exhaust? Also, the rear AC unit is housed in the right rear quarter panel, any chance if heat soaking into the condenser?
Wasn't factory rear a/c, and I'm literally looking at deleting the rear heater right now. I think I'm gonna do the 14mm test on the heater tees; smack em with a 14mm box end and if they burst, delete the rear heater since we're TX folks.

Man, I'm genuinely worried about making it, but we're making progress. The exhaust was the worst idea, ever. Like, it wasn't, but it was, at least for the time I had to spend. Just got done tossing some resonators on it. I'm waiting on a rear wheel bearing and the tool to pull it since the one I had been using for other Toyotas wasn't it for this job. And I'm about to set pre-load on the rear pinion and get that back together since I got the early 27 spline 100 series oil slinger opened up to 1.31".

At the end of the day I'm hoping we all knew I'd wait for the last week to pretty much touch this thing.

If you see me at GSMTR, it was a miracle. I think this is where the Catholic side of my father would randomly buy one of those Jesus candles and not say s*** about it like it was a normal trip to the grocery store. In fact, it's quite possible that mid 90s GSMTR prep was candle:30, because this is damn sure candle:30.

50% of the collector studs bolt and 100% of the 9 nuts I welded on didn't do s***. Ironically the first time I've been to a gym in my life was yesterday and I did shoulders. And the drilling of these guys was shoulder day, round two. I take comfort in the fact this flange looks like the squirrel fr 'Ice Age'
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Getting this pre-load set with a crush sleeve is gonna suck. I don't have the right shims to get what I want outta the solid pinion spacers and I weigh like 141 right now drinking a beer, so it's gonna be some work.

Oil slinger on the lathe. Only a 2.3 hour round trip. If you have a 100 series chances are you're gonna need a 32 spline oil slinger from a 200 series with your 4.88s. There's two left in the country in Toyota's system, and this was discovered Saturday. I daily the 100 so this has been a huge McOof.
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FWIW I'm still shooting for camping along the Tellico Wednesday night next week, even though I'm doubting I'll make it outta the state.
 
This is what failure no1 looks like. I didn't bother taking pics of failures 2 and 3.
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Remember folks, I'm not a welder, I'm an idiot WITH a welder. No matter, she's glued like Abuela to her novellas. This pic is real time. And I'm 99% I stuffed the ARB short term meaning I'm gonna be swapping the ring gear back to the LX470 LSD carrier after popping it open and shimming the ever-living-s*** outta it. A mistake I will never make again and a tool I discussed having made. There's a chance it still is okay, but I scratched the seal surface and that's a huge McNoooooooo
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But hey, here's where we at. Stock master P shim was .050, I'm at .043 and happy. I remember coming home one day in 6th grade just before my birthday, probably a few days after my father's. We had hit a lick in Bethlehem and came up on 5.29s, a lock-rite, and a Detroit for the rear of the Hilux. By hitting a lick I mean I backed my dad's truck right into a tree and he filed insurance, beat it out, and bought himself the birthday present he deserved. Anyhow, I walk around the house to find the pickup in reverse on Jack stands running in 4 hi. My father, casually sitting on a 5 gallon bucket taking in the scene with a Marlboro hanging out of the corner of the smirk affixed to his face, sees me and comes and hugs me. I'm kinda taken back, not that a good hug wasn't normal, but the fact that the situation didn't seem to call for it. "You gotta keep your head in the game and pay more attention, but this is the best **** up you'll ever make. This is gonna be a game changer." He killed it, let it cool as he swapped the Boggers on and we were off to go test it out. That led to wheeling til around 10pm on a school night and a super excited conversation about how we were 11 months out from GSMTR 1998 and the fact that welded diffs and clutch dumping a previously rolled 55 with a Bondo roof was a thing of the past.
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24 years, man. It goes by in the blink of an eye when you're not watching. As much as I'm excited about writing my own story, I still deeply miss Tellico and everything that came with it. But at the end of the day, I have to understand that things change, or rather evolve, and here we are rolling into GSMTR 32. I genuinely hate how time is our enemy. If you knew Spanky catch me for the safety meeting in his honor. That man is someone I'll always be thankful for and I'll never forgive myself for not getting my s*** together fast enough to see him again.
 
Knock-knock? No, rodent. Ended up doing the 12mm test on the heater tees instead of 14mm test and they're still there. I'm gonna be honest and say I don't wanna pull this intake, purely because I won't feel right not doing a starter or all the injector o-rings while I'm there. I just don't wanna spend anymore money.
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Anyone wanna take a guess on if this is gonna work or not?
 
Lol, my net service S U C K S at the shop. Guess the picture didn't load. Gonna find the connector that runs to the knock sensor, then I'll repin that with my own wiring and a new OEM connector since I have a bunch of new wiring supplies
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Also thinking about using the Celsior intake tube. Probably sound cooler or something.
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