ShenValleyCruiser's 500K Mile Tiki Cruiser Build Thread and CNC Creations (2 Viewers)

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Very cool! What are the outside dimensions of the drawer box?
 
Each box is 21 inches wide and 10 inches tall and 44 inches deep, they are cut at an angle to come up right against the profile of the 2nd row seats. Drawers inside box are about 20 inches wide, so the inside useable area is about 19" wide by 42" or so.
 
Subscribed. Only because of the liquor, mocha pot, and homemade CNC.
I was only aware of beach camping in NC. Where abouts in SC can you beach camp if you don’t mind?
 
Subscribed. Only because of the liquor, mocha pot, and homemade CNC.
I was only aware of beach camping in NC. Where abouts in SC can you beach camp if you don’t mind?
Hunting Island Beach State Park. Cant drive on the beach but the primitive tent spots are right on the dune. They just dredged and built up the dunes this year, so its a little different than it used to be. PM and ill tell you see the best site numbers if you're ever looking to go there.

Should add I didn't have time last night to change a stabilizer link and bushing because I made a batch for half a gallon of Captain's Grogs for Fall Crawl, one serving breaks down to:
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz Grapefruit juice
1/2 oz maple syrup
3 drops vanilla extract
3 drops almond extract
1/2 oz Falernum
1/2 oz Dry Curacao
3/4 oz Meyers Black Rum
3/4 oz Appleton Signature rum
3/4 oz Plantation 5 yr aged rum
1 ounces seltzer (added at time of serving)

Quite a lot of ingredients so anytime I know I'm making a punch like this for a trip I pre-batch at home (minus the juice/perishable ingredients) in a mason jar x number of servings. I still make some pretty complicated drinks at camp but this I could leave the vanilla, almond, and maple syrup at home.
 
You gotta pre make and mix as many things as you can. Otherwise once you start drinking at camp you end up biting into a fried peanut butter taco you don’t even remember making!
 
Tiki bar was awesome last weekend. Good seeing you man. And thanks for the 14mm! I don't remember if I gave it back🍻

Thanks man, it was fun (trying) following you on the trails. Your rig was killer. Don't worry you did!
 
It was awesome wheeling with ya this weekend. I had a blast we will have to get them back out soon @ShenValley100LC
 
It was awesome wheeling with ya this weekend. I had a blast we will have to get them back out soon @ShenValley100LC
It was fun following my rigs twin through the trails! Y'all will have to let me know if you're ever planning to do some wheeling in down this way
 
The drawers had to be taken out and the truck converter to minivan duty for a week due to my brother visiting and his 5 kids. Then more visitors. Then my doggo had pupperinos (anyone in Va/Md need a hunting lab or a nice pup let me know...) , so not a lot of time in the garage. But finally able to get back at it. Messed around with a custom wood badging, need to clean up the drawing for it but came out alright.
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It was night time and couldn't get a decent pic of it inside or outside the truck so mostly you just see my pinstripes. Gonna try to make a chrome one next, if it works out I'll put one or two walnut ones inside the truck somewhere, and a chrome one in a similar place like theyre doing the heritage LC.
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Upcoming:
I jumped in on the Hurricane Fabrication Tailgate Storage group buy, so hoping to install by Thanksgiving. Came in this last week, carpet matches the drawers pretty good...

Yet another oil change because I just crossed 516,XXX miles, so its about 8,500 miles on this oil. Doing another blackstone labs test seems a little unnecessary given the last couple results but...it makes me feel better that implosion is not imminent. Probably will also do another round of BG products (EPR, BG44K, MOA, and try their ATF conditioner and test ATF at the next oil change interval to see if it makes a difference).

Also on the To-Do list is some rust protection. Planning to get an air needle scaler and wire wheel/scale everything underneath, go over everything I can with POR-15 with their pre-treatment and then paint, and then I got some KROWN oil spray to cover everything after that. Have a bit of surface rust and and scratches underneath that need tending to before it spirals out of control.
 
Here's a dual battery option that might work for you.



View attachment 2492872
It's tight, but it leaves the other side of the engine bay free for other accessories.
Wow, that looks so simple. What's the total number of Ah between the two of those?
 
Made tiki-man shaker holder for The Tiki Crate last night out of walnut and finished with just satin polyurethane. Worked out really nice, part of a couple changes to minimize clanking on the trails, and just for the aesthetics of the crate.
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Got a new shaker from Elevated Craft, double wall vacuum stainless steel, built in measuring cup and strainer, really nice highly recommend it.
Making some old vintage Toyota signs for the garage wall. Well see how this turns out after I rip the vinyl tape off.
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And now I realized I never shared any of the photos from Fall Crawl 2020 on here. @Novaphotog took some really nice ones that make the ol' girl look real good. I was able to pop out the dent in the rear bumper I got that weekend after the rear came down on a rock, still all scratched up, but every time the wife sees it she's that much closer to letting me get a rear bumper. Bent my rear lower control arms too landing on a rock, now theyre special curved high-clearance control arms...or at least thats what I'm calling them now.
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O yeah, and at some point I lost a center cap :meh:
 
I think the yellow top is 55 amp hours. I don’t use the red top for running accessories, it’s for cranking the engine. The black box at the end of the red cables isolates the 2 batteries so the yellow one doesn’t drain the red one. That way I always have a starter battery to get me home. However, that box charges both batteries when the engine is running.
 
Imagine my luck, couldn't have planned it better. My wife has a friends she does playdates with from uppity Crozet/Charlottesville, who's husband just got an 80's series and wants to do some trails and camping. So suddenly its not a redneck hillbilly thing to want to go off-roading in the 100-series. And now we've tricked the wives into thinking we need to compete with each-other to have a more built truck. Truly blessed. Suddenly things she thought had no use have a sudden urgency. The peer pressure was so strong it got my wife to camp despite being 40 degrees.

Went up on a local trail I've done a bunch, they had never been, so oddly enough we had a 100-series leading two 80's (their brother-in-law had one too). It was a great time, took it pretty easy since we all had our kids with us. Though I chose the wrong line on a water hole and ended up with water over the hood and water coming in the floor board but we didn't get stuck with was nice. For my wife's sake I avoided as much of the truck swallowing water holes as I could but she was actually the one that thought sticking to the side of this crossing would be the best. Again I screw myself and take no pictures of the entire thing, no pics of obstacles, no videos, nothing of the camp with the great views, for shame. Made a Jet Pilot and Mai Tai's for everyone with my new ice crush bag and mallet.
Jet Pilot
- 1/2 oz Lime Juice
- 1/2 oz Grapefruit Juice
- 1/2 oz Cinnamon Syrup
- 1/2 oz Falernum
- 1 oz black blended rum
- 3/4 oz blended aged rum
- 3/4 oz black blended overproof rum
1 dash Herbstura (mixture of absinthe and agnostura bitters)
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Our packing and camp set-up/tear-down is getting pretty good. With a ground tent and 3 kids I can have tent, bedding, chairs, and kitchen set up in a pretty leisurely 30 minutes. Probably no good for the YouTube sponsored overlanders but the rest of us living in the real world it felt pretty good and not taxing at all. I got all the camp gear stuff in plano box that I put into the drawers, the sleep stuff is in a seperate plano box that goes on the roof next to the tent and all of it has two shelf units in the garage where it goes in between trips. It's made for quicker less stressful packing and less stuff forgotten. Packing blankets for all of us to stay warm is a major space hog. I got my boys (4yo and 3yo) Kelty camp blankets which pack down super nice but then we bring these gargantuan fleece blankets that take up a ton of room. So need to swap those out for more effective wool blankets. The 1yo slept in a snow suit which has worked pretty good, the feet and hands can be covered/uncovered for sleeping vs walking around.

Oil change and now a second round of cleaning is now badly needed, followed by rust proofing the under carriage, installing the tailgate storage system, and finishing the silverware caddy, dividers, and cutting boards for drawers.
 
Nice going dude!
Now I need to find some friends like that. My wife is beginning to ask when can we stop taking the beat-up old Lexus for road trips!
 
Used a suction syringe to send an oil sample to Black Stone Labs, about 8,000 miles for this interval...but I still haven't gotten to actually changing it. Phantom annoying high pitch metallic noise sprang up suddenly last week, narrowed it down to AC compressor pulley bearing was bad. Of course NSK Japanese bearing takes a week to ship so I found a lesser quality bearing at AutoZone to get me by until the NSK comes in....this is not a job to do twice...what a PIA. Should be a 30 min job and takes 2 hrs because the snap ring is so hard to get to and see. Then of course I lose the shim (washer) for the clutch assembly, so going to have source one of those and replace but... the noise is gone. Which is just one of the best feelings in the world knowing you tracked down the noise exactly and its 100% gone.

Of course then the very next day there's a new awful sound from somewhere around the drivers side tire-ish area. It tracks with the rolling speed of the vehicle and not engine, so initially I thought wheel bearings chattering (maybe snap ring fell off), this was not helped by horror stories from Mud....and I did have an axle slip out on a road trip once so...But I jacked up and looked and the snap ring is still on and there's no play (other than my upper ball joint now). Haven't taken the wheel off yet but I peeked at the front pads and they're pretty low and I'm still cleaning mud and gunk from some water crossings a week ago, so my money is on the front pads being low and having crap in there. Tagging @ClassyJalopy since I was talking to him about it.

So here's the question. If I gotta do the front pads, I probably want to go ahead and have the rotors turned, and I'm due for bearing repack (its been 35K since I put the new bearings in), but I want to replace the cone washers, lock nuts, claw washers, etc... But If I order today its gonna take a bit for them to get here and my wife needs the car...So, thought is put the new pads in and don't touch anything else (I have new pads sitting in my garage already) and just verify that that was in fact the noise. Don't drive it a ton. Then, when new hardware and upper ball joint comes in, do it all together. Take off hub, bring rotor to get turned, replace rubber seals on the caliper, bleed brakes, pack the wheel bearings, and then put it back together and grease the spindle bearing with my Slee tool...I guess only downfall would be the mating of the pad and rotor which a lot people dont even bother turning their rotors anyway so I dont know that I'm worried about that.
 

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