Stevo's '95 4BTRunner (1 Viewer)

[StevoJonesFJ60]

Next up was getting it ready for the road, I drove it on the tow dolly but noticed it didn't want to go into 2/3rd gear, even though it felt like the shifter engaged fully. It turns out the transmission I picked up had a bent shift fork. I only paid$400 for it so I wasn't too surprised, but it was off to the junkyard to get a new one. I got a quote for a rebuild, $5000 was a little out of my price range with getting the new house.

Fortunately it fit in the trunk of the Camry. They didn't have a way to take the driveshaft off so I got that too.

Swapping the trans in the middle of the NC summer was no fun.

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

I had to swap the pilot bearing too, since the transmission had a different input shaft. Out came the bread. I took some pictures this time of the process for those who have never used this method before.

Any bread will do:

Stuff as much as you can in the bearing opening.

Then use a dowel or something cylindrical the same size as the opening to compress the bread.

Keep stuffing more bread in and beat on it with a hammer to drive it into the bearing space, it will eventually start pushing the bearing out.

And voila, after 10 mins or so, you now have a removed bearing, and minimal cleanup. I much prefer using bread to grease, which also works, just is much messier.

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

Been busy with distillery clients too. Took a trip to help setup some clients making Soju in Georgia.

Nice little distillery with a 200 Gallon electric still.

Took another trip up to upstate NY to a client who is wrapping up a distillery.
1000 Gallon still, with whiskey and vodka columns under the plastic.

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

I spent most of the summer doing an upfit for a local client. Steam pipe welding, equipment installation and recipe development.

It was a ton of work, but it turned out awesome, he just had his grand opening and they killed it with a huge turnout.

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

Some of the opening,

Glamour shot of the equipment making some booze too!

The last trip was up to Massachusetts. Helped improve the efficiencies at a distillery and got to run this beautiful still.

Was able to improve their proof gallon recovery rate by 25% and had a blast with the distilling team up there.
I also tried some very interesting spirits. This one I didn't expect to be as good as it was.

Now that those trips are done, I have some more time to get the 4BTRunner finished up.
The main issue I am trying to deal with is the electrical. I have an issue where I don't have dash lights, tail lights or brake lights.
I cant seem to figure out what the issue is. All of the fuses and relays seem to be fine. The turn signals work fine too. its just a weird thing.

Automotive wiring has always been my Achilles heel. If anyone has any suggestions I would be more than happy to try them out.

 

[Vossie]

How are your grounding points? In my experience most electrical gremlins reside in bad or intermittent grounds

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

How are your grounding points? In my experience most electrical gremlins reside in bad or intermittent grounds

So this time it was user error, I thought I reconnected all the wires after swapping the body. One power line got missed. Brake lights work now.

Now I just have to figure out where I have a short in my tail light circuit, as it blows the fuse immediately once I turn my headlights on.

 

[Vossie]

So this time it was user error, I thought I reconnected all the wires after swapping the body. One power line got missed. Brake lights work now.

Now I just have to figure out where I have a short in my tail light circuit, as it blows the fuse immediately once I turn my headlights on.

that happened to me for a while, turned out it was a bad bulb

 

[StevoJonesFJ60]

that happened to me for a while, turned out it was a bad bulb

That's what it ended up being for me too! Thanks for the input.

I finally got it all together, all the wiring is done and its ready for some drives around the neighborhood.
Apparently my neighbors aren't too keen on the noise from it though, while taking it for some test spins around the circle one of them called the cops on me I guess I was testing it out a little too thoroughly.

Other than the noise, the truck is running and shifting great, steering does wander a bit more than I would like, so I will probably throw in a steering stabilizer to keep it from tracking all over the place as the speed picks up. It most definitely needs an alignment too.

Any good recommendations for steering stabilizers?