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1981 Pickup Build - Old Yeller

Still waiting on parts, cleaned up the IFS axle and got the leaf perches and some armor welded on. Also painted it silver like all the cool kids are doing now a days

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Some real fun stuff happened, snapped a rear shaft and twisted the other pretty bad. Broken shaft ate into the 3rd member a bit, now im waiting on new parts. Instead of replacing the rear shafts I decided to go the easy way and just swap out the entire rear axle with a IFS Rear axle from a 1995 V6 4Runner. :smokin:

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Going to build up this V6 third and then keep the 4cyl one as a spare

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i beat the snot out of my ifs rear for 4 years and never had a issue with axle and shafts, ring and pinion different story. also get a track bar, that helped a shit ton.. also made a skid for the drive shaft to help from hitting that
 
No Tech, just pics

Figured I should post my Thanksgiving pics from JV

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Took a quick nap on Chocolate Thunder because I always think I know better than spotters :homer:

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Got up righted and made it out after one more quick flop

Tack Hammer, bike got a flat out towards aftershock so we just threw it in back

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Tour guide Grronk, for the cost of an 18 pack you can follow me around the desert and watch me pound beers while yelling shit over the radio

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Not sure if I ever commented on the other site or not.

I fucking love this truck. It's exactly what I think a Yota should be - not too huge or heavy, and somewhat simple. Once you get the axle beefed up it should hopefully stop breaking shit. :flipoff2:
 
Not sure if I ever commented on the other site or not.

I fucking love this truck. It's exactly what I think a Yota should be - not too huge or heavy, and somewhat simple. Once you get the axle beefed up it should hopefully stop breaking shit. :flipoff2:

Completely agree, this thing is sick. I love everything about it
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone, this truck has come a long way since I started it, glad to see that people like it as much as I!

Also,

That biker has some balls letting you carry his bike out of there after watching you flop it twice:flipoff2:

He didnt have much of a choice, It was either throw it in the back, or push it all the way back to the house! Besides, It would have stayed in the back for another little flop, unless we went fully over :flipoff2:
 
Had some left over bent tubing from the roll cage, decided it would fit perfectly on the truck as a front bumper since the stock one bends more than the knees of a two dollar hooker.

Stock Bumper delete
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Said tubing cleaned up
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Tacked in place, its straight, the driver side headlight is just saggy from the flops
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Front cage tie in
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Fenders notched
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Apparently I forgot to take pictures of the bars coming upwards, so here is a pic later that day when I popped a tire that you can see them in
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Here is a video of the front end all done and painted, even put on some fancy blinkers that I had
 
Gave myself a late Christmas present right before I was supposed to head down to Johnson Valley for New Years, guess I'll just go the weekend after when there is less kooks :homer:

Broke the front spartan locker which then ate into the gears

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Going to throw in a spool and see how I like it with the hydro assist, after reading a bunch of threads on the other place it seem like there are two camps, one of people who run front spools and like them, and one of people who don't like them up front cause they cant turn sharp enough in the mall parking lot :flipoff2:
 
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Going to throw in a spool and see how I like it with the hydro assist, after reading a bunch of threads on the other place it seem like there are two camps, one of people who run front spools and like them, and one of people who don't like them up front cause they cant turn sharp enough in the mall parking lot :flipoff2:

haha nice! Keep us updated.

Would save a few bucks to lincoln-lock the front on my gf's yota instead of spartan/detroit/arb
 
Johnson Valley trip was a success. So far the spool up front is kick ass, drives better in the sand as well. Ran a bunch of trails and drank a bunch of road doggies :beer:

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Some retard strapped their truck down on their trailer and managed to flatten a hard brake line at the same time... :homer:

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Figured I would try my hand at making my own, not to hard to be okay at it, but definitely far from perfect

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Also remembered I never included the pics of the suck down winch I put in the rear of the truck, you can see it in the pic above. Here is a pic of the winches cross-member

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The last two times I've flopped the truck have been from the rear end unloading on a descent and kicking me over. Used it this last trip and it saved my ass, so it works and I like it :flipoff2:
 
I don't think I've ever seen a suck down winch on a leafsprung vehicle before. I can see it helping though. Nice job on the brake lines.
 
I don't think I've ever seen a suck down winch on a leafsprung vehicle before. I can see it helping though. Nice job on the brake lines.

Yeah I was debating on if I would actually see any benefit from it before I did it or if it would be a waste of time. I did a bunch of reading up on it over on the old place and saw that Cary from GotPropane ran a suck down on his rig when he had leafs and said it helped, and that was all the confirmation I needed to try it for myself
 
Yeah I was debating on if I would actually see any benefit from it before I did it or if it would be a waste of time. I did a bunch of reading up on it over on the old place and saw that Cary from GotPropane ran a suck down on his rig when he had leafs and said it helped, and that was all the confirmation I needed to try it for myself

I'll be curious to see how it works for you.


I haven't flopped my 85 yet but with 63s in the rear and no weight back there i do worry about it when dropping big ledges

The obvious answer would be to add a spare tire and spare propane tank first :homer:
 
I'll be curious to see how it works for you.


I'll keep the thread updated with how it works the more I use it. Just from one trip to JV, and fooling around in the rocks in the riverbed behind the house with it I like it. I did a few big ledges with and without it and it made a significant difference on the ones I used it on, enough so that a buddy that is building his 2nd crawler is going to do a suck down winch now after going out with me this trip lol (that is if he ever hurrys up and gets it started! You know who you are:stirthepot:)

Plus the whole setup cost me ~$200 so I figure it was worth it :grinpimp:
 
I've seen front suck-down winches for climbing, but not in the rear for descents. Cool idea. I hate going down steep shit so I absolutely understand the appeal.
 
I've seen front suck-down winches for climbing, but not in the rear for descents. Cool idea. I hate going down steep shit so I absolutely understand the appeal.

I think the standard method for going down big ledges for rigs or buggies built up accordingly is to disengage the rear drive and drag only the rear brakes, that way if the rear does unload and try to come up you can just goose the throttle and bring it back down. That is all them fancy guys that have cutting brakes and t-cases that allow front digs. I am going to look into adding cutting brakes (or at least a hand brake for just the rear axle as I'm spooled) to mine once I get done with the rear 4-link. I think it'll be handy with the manual transmission over trying to use a hand throttle.
 
I think the standard method for going down big ledges for rigs or buggies built up accordingly is to disengage the rear drive and drag only the rear brakes, that way if the rear does unload and try to come up you can just goose the throttle and bring it back down. That is all them fancy guys that have cutting brakes and t-cases that allow front digs. I am going to look into adding cutting brakes (or at least a hand brake for just the rear axle as I'm spooled) to mine once I get done with the rear 4-link. I think it'll be handy with the manual transmission over trying to use a hand throttle.

I'm with you there. As cool as it would be to swap in a D300+crawl box or an Atlas, sticking with Yota cases makes sense most of the time.
 
I'm with you there. As cool as it would be to swap in a D300+crawl box or an Atlas, sticking with Yota cases makes sense most of the time.

I do have the bellhousing and parts to put an AW4 behind my 22RE, so eventually that is my plan. For now though a rear hand brake will be nice to have with the manual transmission. And once I do the AW4 and whatever t-case it'll still be nice for doing front digs.
 
A little late, but I guess I should post some pics I got from KOH. Better late than never right? :flipoff2:


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Waiting for traffic to clear up on Turkey
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Somewhere on the commute from the house to the lake bed
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Slowly getting the day started
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Chocolate Thunder was wild again this year. Never made it over to Back Door, but I am a big fan of not hiking to take a piss every other beer :rolleyes:
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Carnage
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Grenaded a bearing in the transfer case going up a trail we call VB, sent my gear off alignment and it ate itself. Luckily it didnt eat into the case that much, smoothed the bearing seat with a bit of sand paper and popped a new one in and shes back in working order.
 
Have to watch out for those chinese transfer case bearings. Will get you every time.
 
Have to watch out for those chinese transfer case bearings. Will get you every time.

It was the bearing in the Advance Adapters doubler plate that went out, I replaced it with a factory transfer case bearing, so hopefully its Japanese and its mo better :shaking:
 
Here's a fun little update, been busy moving into my new place, comes with a 25'x40' shop so no more single car garage work for me. Which also means I cant use it as an excuse for any ghetto fab work :flipoff2:

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I also managed to finish off the trucks windshield with a tree branch over the weekend, final destination style for extra points :homer:

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Was riding solo when it happened, only missed my pretty face by a few feet
 
I also managed to finish off the trucks windshield with a tree branch over the weekend, final destination style for extra points :homer:

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Was the truck sporting a sombrero during some spirited driving? :laughing:

Either way glad it was just a windshield
 
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