What have you done to your 100 Series this week? (80 Viewers)

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Took my Hundy to a shop to have a brake controller wired and installed then had it tow the trailerView attachment 2228724
Looks great!
How about some details on the trailer - looks like good clearance, not too high. How long? How heavy? How high (might it fit in my garage??) How $$$$?
Gil
 
Took the rig over to the secret shop. Family Owned and Operated.

Installed two new drive shafts. Hopefully all the bad vibes will go away! The Cruiser looked odd amongst all the bagged show cars and drift cars!

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Finally back to AWD. Deleted the front driveshaft/locked center diff while u-joints shipped. 2WD wasn't bad, actually really smooth. Got rid of the vibration I'd get at 70+ and the hum/vibration I'd get when coasting at 30+. Pinion seal stopped dripping too, which is nice.
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I had to replace my hood struts again this evening. The last pair I put on were StrongArm but they only lasted 2.5 years. I was hoping for better results.

I decided to save $15 and went with some Chinese made struts with good reviews on Amazon. Hopefully they last longer than 2.5 years. But at $20 for the pair, I won't complain if they only go 2 years.

Old StrongArm on bottom
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What brand do you guys use and what kind of lifespan do you see?

Just before HIH8 I was routing coaxial cable along the drivers windshield and through the cowling/hood for CB communications.

It was cold and I was focused on the task - I was working at the cowl area and not the firewall.

the hood had slowly begun to close itself and my left hand was on the fender to hood gap. By the time I realized the hood was lowering it was too late. I tried to pull up but the hood made the safety latch and I was trapped with my left hand all four fingers being crushed.

it was late, everyone asleep. After about 10 minutes of screaming for help my daughter woke up my wife...

No bones broken, all blood squeezed out of contact areas, and within 10 min all was well with only bruises.

these were 1yr old hood supports from China.

ordered OEM set.

never again.
 
Soon, I’m gonna drive it....really I am.

It was a lot of work but the front end is nearly rebuilt. A new (not rebuilt) Toyota steering rack, new tie rod ends, new control arms, bushings, bolts all of it.

There are several well documented pain points. The rusted in LCA bushings, the coolant when you take off the oil filter housing, the fussy bolts for the oil filter housing.

It all worked eventually but I ended up having a frozen hose return side hose fitting. A new one is on the way.

Approaches used on the pain points:
LCA’s, hole saw 1 1/2” thru as much of the bushing as possible then turned a compression thru bolt 5/8 x 8” and washers till they broke.

Then I used a sawzall to cut a slot in the bushing. I pressed in frozen bearings with the same bolt and some monster sockets a buddy had. One socket setup pushed the rim in 95% of the way then the other one was bigger than the whole diameter and allowed the busing to seat all the way.

The coolant hose is just messy and dumps unless you want to try and compress it thru the inner finder. I didn’t since I was unsure if the age of the hose.

The oil filter housing bolts come out with a stubby wrench and then a swivel on 12” of extensions.

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Gonna be nice after all the new parts are installed. Love those mirrors. Are they good quality?
 
Looks great!
How about some details on the trailer - looks like good clearance, not too high. How long? How heavy? How high (might it fit in my garage??) How $$$$?
Gil
It's an Intech Flyer Pursue wid thr Adventure package.
Flyer Pursue Travel Trailer - inTech RV
 
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Just before HIH8 I was routing coaxial cable along the drivers windshield and through the cowling/hood for CB communications.

It was cold and I was focused on the task - I was working at the cowl area and not the firewall.

the hood had slowly begun to close itself and my left hand was on the fender to hood gap. By the time I realized the hood was lowering it was too late. I tried to pull up but the hood made the safety latch and I was trapped with my left hand all four fingers being crushed.

it was late, everyone asleep. After about 10 minutes of screaming for help my daughter woke up my wife...

No bones broken, all blood squeezed out of contact areas, and within 10 min all was well with only bruises.

these were 1yr old hood supports from China.

ordered OEM set.

never again.
And that's exactly the type of story to motivate me to just get OEM.

Was there no previous indication that the struts were starting to go bad?
 
Yes, the Clearview mirrors are well built. The uppers connect to factory adjustable switches. The lower wide view mirror is really useful and they push closer to the body if needed offroad.
They extend for towing and give you a view down the trailer side.
 
Replaced my radiator, 2007, 200K miles OEM unit. I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on this rat, there's no way a 100 series rad would leak at this little mileage. Top looks new and not browning either.

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From where did you get the OEM radiator? and how much did it cost? Thanks in advance.
 
From where did you get the OEM radiator? and how much did it cost? Thanks in advance.

That is not OEM Radiator, that is Koyo brand radiator. OEM is made by Trad in Japan.
 
That is not OEM Radiator, that is Koyo brand radiator. OEM is made by Trad in Japan.
Ok, thanks for that info. I though Koyo is OEM. How Koyo compares to Amazon special Depos?
 
Today installed in cabin additional power supply from the aux battery.
I'm gonna install different gadgets/mods and needed a separate circuit with relays and fuses to support devices. On board front & rear cameras, EGT/Boost/AFR/Temp/Voltage probes and gauges/different CB and VHF/UHF rig a.s.o.
Came down from the aux batt with a 5x1.25mm isolated cable along the right side, went through the firewall OEM gromet, passed next to ECU and down on the passenger side. Bit excessive as I won't draw that much amps but better be safe. Each cable goes to separate relays.
I don't like drilling/chopping/destroying OEM parts so I built an aluminum bracket to stay on the ridges of the plastic cable/plugs cover. On it I mounted the relays/fuses box with two 6mm screws and done all the connections. Diodes were used for the relays control coils. One live continuous + batt line was passed through a fuse to supply the camera's parking mode power needs. That goes through camera's own batt monitoring/protection module (set it up at 12.2 V to avoid depletion of aux batt).
Pulled a + from the lighter's pole and so the box/relays will be powered when the key is on ACC. Relays are using just few hundred of mA's, so no worries there.

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Installed some rear hatch interior LED's. When camping and working food prep or digging inside drawers out of the back end of the truck at night, the rear cargo light wasn't getting it done. I chose the install spot for two reasons- ease of installation and best light spread/usable light into the cabin and over the tailgate. I initially wanted to put them farther out in the upper hatch like overhead lights but that required a lot more work to ensure no potential for leaks and running the wiring through the rubber boot in the upper hatch.

I found some small low profile LED pods that are IP68/69K rated. 9w/.75 amp(3 x 3w led's about 500lumens) 2.9" x 1.6 x .6" come with a rubber mounting base and stainless hardware. I pulled the trim off the interior upper hatch and found a suitable location to mount the lights.
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Ran the insulated wire together to one end and then tied together and linked it to one switched power wire tapped off of the ACC outlet in the DS rear cargo area. I used quick disconnect terminals incase it needs to come off for some reason. There's a nice ground location just above the outlet to tie the switch into. The switch is a simple moisture resistant rubber capped push button switch.
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I chose RED led's since I read somewhere that bugs can't see red light and won't be attracted (to the light anyway). Light output is better than I expected. It does however remind me of the Hunt for Red October inside a submarine. Red has less useable light, but its brighter than the picture shows.
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One more of the switch location:

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Completed some of the last things on my need-to-do list, unfortunately with some of the issues probably wiped out the budget for the wants/dreams list. Car runs pretty good but the timing job date was a mystery, called the dealerships where it was serviced and could find record with the last 160K miles. I've been hearing some bearings in pulleys on cold starts, turned out to be tensioner bearing and fan bracket. Radiator has been leaking for seventh month from a pin hole in the top left and then the fan was spraying it all over the engine bay made a huge mess. Fan shroud only had the top half and was held on by zip ties. Before:
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Ended up replacing cam seals, crank seals, water pump, timing belt, timing tensioners and pulleys, putting in the missing dust cover, new thermostat water inlet (because I broke the old one), thermostat, thermostat outlet, fan bracket, tensioner, idler pulley, radiator, hoses, fan shroud, and radiator cap. Reconditioning all the cover and hardware too.
used my CNC table as a staging area for parts, and the wife was out of town so cleaned all the parts on the kitchen counters:
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Started Saturday and greatly underestimated how long it would take. I would doing a lot of cleaning of the plastic and the nuts/bolts but there also several very stuck pieces. Including this:
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and it left a little piece in there, in was cemented in there pretty good with some of that seal packing gasket. This obliterated all hope of finishing on time since nobody had the part and it wouldn't come in till Wednesday. Ending up having to borrow someones car for Sunday and Monday and then renting a car Tuesday through Thursday. So between renting a car, buy a new inlet/housing, then ended up getting these tools for $80 on amazon (only one that shipped next day), did take away from some of the thriftyness of this job:
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I wish Autozone or somebody would have a good tool like this to rent but alas. Didnt have anything to make a good homemade one but these made it so easy to get exact torque specs and get the timing right. The new thermostathousing/Water inlet has a new design actually, kinda nicer to work with. @2001LC sent me some of that expensive Toyota coolant gasket seal which was nice. Tons left if anyone wants it.
 
Timing Belt/Water Pump combined with the radiator job took all together probably 12-14 hours over a couple days. I'm slow, was watching the OTRAM videos, rechecking against the FSM, and cleaning but honestly I was decently organized and dont know how I could have done it much faster. Draining the coolant from radiator and engine is slow and time consuming. So I know personally I would say dont plan to finish this in one day. Buttoned it all up and did 2 fill, rinse, and drains with distilled water, and then filled with Zerex, sounds good, looks good, and so far no leaks.
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