There And Back Again: A Pig Runners Odyssey (1 Viewer)

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RUSH55

SILVER Star
Joined
Oct 18, 2002
Threads
119
Messages
8,508
Location
Cottonwood, Az.
This thread has been a long time coming. I was scheduled with Tucker for POTM thread back in '08, I think. Was gonna try again in 2011, and that fell way short.
The time is now. This will mostly be a thread about the rig, where it's been, and what's been done. Not a lot of wow factor - I chose to do what mods I could afford, do myself, and would be beneficial to how it would be used.
One thing I've realized about being a pig owner, is that owning a pig is an exercise in tolerance - meaning, how many non-working or non-functioning items or sub-par performance can you tolerate before it drives you crazy enough to do something about it.
The flip side to this, as many of you already know, is the 55's ability to negotiate bitter terrain, and carry all of your camping gear for a week. Plus they are vintage old iron that most people don't even know what they're looking at - "Is it a Scout? A Land Rover?" I'm definitely all about originality and non-conformity, so the Pig and I have always been a great pair. So now, on with the tale...

My Dad picked up this Land Cruiser thing when I was a senior in HS (1995-1996), from a guy he always refers to as, "some skin-head in Cottonwood", to use as a "huntin' rig" for $1500.
Shortly after his purchase, he did an in-frame rebuild on the 2F, had the back seat reupholstered, and a few other odds and ends. Once it was road worthy, he took it on a couple local hunts, and then let it pretty much just sit there. He's not one to do any modification that deviates from the OEM, and so was not interested in really doing anything with it other than drive it, and tend to a thing or two that needed fixed.
The very first time I drove it, I took some buddies out to some nearby stomping grounds just to wheel around. At some point, I drug the muffler over a dirt pile and pulled it away from the pipe, quickly filling the cab with exhaust, and putting an end to our fun.
The next couple of drives were just as use as a backup vehicle to get to work with. Shortly afterwards, I took the pig on a couple extended wheeling trips and got hooked. Soon I was doing small mods and replacements that Pops approved of, and doing more trips.
In 2002, I bought it outright from my Dad for $2500.
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Nice pig I know the love hate relationship too well.


Sent from my iPad
 
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One day, sometime in 1998 or 1999, a friend and I were driving around North Phoenix when I saw, to my bewildered eyes, a couple of built 55's, sporting lifts and big tires, roof racks, bumpers, winches.... Needless to say I was blown away!
I went back by a few weeks later and stopped to talk to the guy. He let me take some pics of his rig, and was very friendly and knowledgeable. So knowledgeable in fact, that he owned a company called 4Plus, designing and building bumpers and other hardware. Being so impressed, I decided I wanted to build my rig like his. I stared at those pics for years!
 
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How built have you made it into your build? I am still working to get it more road worthy before I delve too deep into the overall look. Is your original pic how it sits now?


Sent from my iPad
 
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I started with cutting out the rockers (even though they were pretty solid) and built sliders. Then I cut about 3" - 4" off the bottom of the rear sheet metal and built the rear slider bumper. Somewhere in the middle of all this I had the stock springs re-arched.
Wasn't happy with that, so bought the Safari Springs from MAF, which set it up higher, but still not what I wanted. That would have to wait awhile.
 
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By the end of 2000, it was rolling around on 33's. Funny story there.
The 31's my Dad put on were some Kelly Safari Mud Terrains, which had a great tread pattern. We were wheeling around Thumb Butte near Prescott, when something tore a hole in an inside sidewall. After weeks of calling around, it was found that Kelly was no longer producing the MT, and so, decided to go to 33's.
Shortly after this point, the Armstrong steering needed to go. Because of its quick and cheap availability, I went with a Scout Saginaw setup. Not sure if I have any pics of that, will have to look.
This hill pictured, is where I popped my first birfield joint. Funny story.
The power steering was a godsend, probably the second best modification done to the rig.
After the steering, my biggest complaint of the stock pig setup is the anemic gearing. 28:1 gearing just sucks for any sort of crawling at all. I set about remedying that in late '04 with an SM420/3spd case conversion.
 
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This is up at Broken Arrow in Sedona, which for some reason has a reputation as a tough wheeling trail. I shattered that myth one day wheeling most of the trail in 2wd.
 
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One of my favorite pics. My wife knew, when entering a relationship with me, that the Cruiser was my first love! This was up near Stoneman Lake in 04ish I think.
 
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Now this here was the first AZ Pigrun, in 2003. The second one from the left belonged to Clay Davis (RHINO on Mud). This was the first time meeting him after talking on the computer thru Birfield.com. We've had many wheeling adventures thru the years. I'll post pics from them later.
The third from left is John Bricker, also a Birfield alumni. His pig is fawking huge, and had a near-tip every time we hooked up at a get-together.
The grey pig on the far right belonged to a fellow Cottonwood resident named Jeff Logan. He went out on a few outings with us then disappeared. No idea what ever happened to him.
 
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This thread has been a long time coming. I was scheduled with Tucker for POTM thread back in '08, I think. Was gonna try again in 2011, and that fell way short.
The time is now. This will mostly be a thread about the rig, where it's been, and what's been done. Not a lot of wow factor - I chose to do what mods I could afford, do myself, and would be beneficial to how it would be used.
One thing I've realized about being a pig owner, is that owning a pig is an exercise in tolerance - meaning, how many non-working or non-functioning items or sub-par performance can you tolerate before it drives you crazy enough to do something about it.
The flip side to this, as many of you already know, is the 55's ability to negotiate bitter terrain, and carry all of your camping gear for a week. Plus they are vintage old iron that most people don't even know what they're looking at - "Is it a Scout? A Land Rover?" I'm definitely all about originality and non-conformity, so the Pig and I have always been a great pair. So now, on with the tale...

My Dad picked up this Land Cruiser thing when I was a senior in HS (1995-1996), from a guy he always refers to as, "some skin-head in Cottonwood", to use as a "huntin' rig" for $1500.
Shortly after his purchase, he did an in-frame rebuild on the 2F, had the back seat reupholstered, and a few other odds and ends. Once it was road worthy, he took it on a couple local hunts, and then let it pretty much just sit there. He's not one to do any modification that deviates from the OEM, and so was not interested in really doing anything with it other than drive it, and tend to a thing or two that needed fixed.
The very first time I drove it, I took some buddies out to some nearby stomping grounds just to wheel around. At some point, I drug the muffler over a dirt pile and pulled it away from the pipe, quickly filling the cab with exhaust, and putting an end to our fun.
The next couple of drives were just as use as a backup vehicle to get to work with. Shortly afterwards, I took the pig on a couple extended wheeling trips and got hooked. Soon I was doing small mods and replacements that Pops approved of, and doing more trips.
In 2002, I bought it outright from my Dad for $2500. View attachment 1193186

I love that picture!
The other pictures are great too, keep them coming.
Can't wait to read more about the evolution of your Pig!
What is it about skinheads and Pigs?!?
 
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In early 04 I hooked up with my pal RHINO for a shindig he and his friends do every year called "Man Weekend" where they choose some remote area to go wheeling and shooting and drinking and other such ruffian behavior. The place in 04 was Martinez Cabin in Martinez Canyon. This is a great wheeling and camping spot - had a lot of fun. The Cruiser was still sporting Armstrong steering, stock drivetrain, on 33" Mud Kings.
 
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