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Sketchy fly/drive out for shitbox purchase spin-off thread?

This Jeep:
irate4x4.com

Token the 2001 TJ

This is the story of a little Jeep named Token and of our adventures together. Seriously though I am creating this thread to document my ownership of a 2001 TJ, so it will be on going or I may just quite posting one day never to be seen or heard from again....who knows. I bought the Jeep not...
irate4x4.com irate4x4.com

August of 2019

So my buddy Brian (rustybottoms88) messages me, "I think I've found 'the' Jeep, but it's in Colorado, you interested in a Roadkill-esque road trip?" After he described the Jeep to me (2.5l, 5 speed, on 35s, 4.88 gears, homebrew 4 link rear, Chrysler 8.25 rear swap, and no sway bars) I'm pretty sure I don't want to drive/ride in the thing 1000+ miles. I leave it at, "let me think about it, I'll get back to you." I then tell Jewels about Brian's crazy idea, and she doesn't hesitate, "I think you should, go." Pretty sure Julie just wanted the house to herself for a few days. Two against one...

I pick Brian up at his house about 2 hours north of me, Wednesday afternoon, we spend the night at my aunt & uncle's place on Beaver Lake, party hard with them, get about 2.5 hours of sleep, after skinny Brian tried to keep up with my 6'8" 320 lb uncle's Bourbon consumption. On the road at 4:00 AM, for a 6:00 AM flight out of XNA. Great way to start a 48 hour road trip. Brian was next to me on the plane, I noticed it had gotten brighter next to me, I look over and Brian is bright white, and reaching for the barf bag. I'm pretty sure we both prayed to every deity we knew for him to keep it in. Of course I had the isle seat, but I let him out as soon as I could. He made a quick trip to the back and regained his composure.

We flew to Montrose, CO with a stop in Chicago on the way, the seller met us at the Montrose airport, the Jeep was mostly as advertised, strategic rattle can rust repair but good enough. I'd told Brian he was buying something and we were driving it home, didn't have to be the Wrangler. Money and title was exchanged, and Brian owned a Wrangler! Lunch in Montrose at a Mexican joint, good tacos, obligatory stop at Harbor Freight for road trip tools and supplies, and we were headed east. Highway 50 between Montrose and Pueblo is gorgeous! Drove up to the peak of Old Monarch Pass, amazing views, realized how out of shape I am, trying to walk up hill in the thin air. Highway 50 follows the Arkansas River through some beautiful canyons and valleys. The Arkansas River sure looks different on that end.

We stopped at a liquor store around Pueblo and picked up several cases of Dry Dock, Apricot Blonde to smuggle back with us. I made Brian listen to "Snowing on Raton" as we made the Raton Pass. We made it to Clayton NM, around 12:30 AM on Friday morning, spent the night at the, not so Super 8. Breakfast in Dalhart, TX, and then met my cousin Robyn and some friends in Amarillo for lunch!

Stopped at an Advanced Auto Parts outside of Amarillo, TX for some A/C refrigerant. The seller might have overstated the Jeep's A/C's abilities, especially on a 99° day in Amarillo.

From Amarillo to Oklahoma City it was business as usual, just a few stops for gas. We hit Oklahoma City just in time for rush hour, that was fun.

About 10 miles east of Oklahoma City the "check gauges" light came on, on the dash. We were concerned, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A few dozen miles later, we decide that the volt gauge was slowly dropping. We turned off all electronics, radio, A/C, etc. and Brian scrambled to look up the closest parts store, thank goodness for smart phones. There's an O'Reilly's a few miles ahead in Bristow, OK. O'Reilly's employee tested the battery it's down to 11.5 volts, more or less confirms our suspicions, the alternator isn't charging. O'Reilly's didn't have an Alternator in stock, and the only other parts store in Bristow was closed. Bristow folks told us there are more parts stores in Supulpa, OK about 20 miles east.

We got back on the road, Brian called 2 more parts stores in Supulpa, and the Autozone has an alternator in stock. We pulled into the Autozone parking lot, and put the Harbor Freight tool kit to work. Swapped the alternator out in about 20 minutes, and were on the road again.

We had a minor hiccup going through the toll both on the east end of the Cherokee Turnpike, we didn't have correct change, or any small bills. We held up traffic long enough at the toll booth, digging around the Jeep for change, that some really nice person (or perhaps really annoyed person) came up to the Jeep and handed us 3 $1 bills. We think the Colorado tags on the Jeep probably helped.

Brian and I made it back to XNA, we parted ways, and made it to our respective homes around 2:00 AM Saturday morning.

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I went to Texas for my T100 years ago, bought our 100 series in Oregon and road tripped to Sac and KoH then home in 2015. And part of the Duece and a half adventure with Plym was me buying his suburban. I am ready to do it again. I need to find a cheapish VW thing or bumpside.
 
Not a fly & drive story but a sketchy freebie.

When I was just out of high school my best friend at the time showed up at my house waving a title in my face. He had a signed title and the keys to a blazer that he wanted to go get. He’s at my house because I have access to trucks and trailers. The story on the blazer is that it runs but the automatic transmission lost all forward gears. It still had reverse supposedly but it was backed against a tree down hill.

So I grabbed my grandfathers 1 ton gin truck because it had a PTO winch on the bed for being a pole truck. Grabbed the 30 foot deck over gooseneck with a 6 foot dove tail thinking it would be easier to drive this score up the more gradual slope. Blazer is 20 + miles out of town in the middle of nowhere off of oilfield roads.

This is 1999, no cell phones, no GPS, no way points we are 18 year old idiots. My friend didn’t even know exactly where the blazer was, neither of us had ever seen it. We had to go find it first based off of a verbal description of somewhere neither of us had ever been before and the previous owner of the blazer was not going with us. That was the deal, if Corey wanted it, we had to go find it and extract it. Took half a day and most of the fuel in Grandpa’s borrowed truck. Had to find a place to leave the trailer and drive around looking for where the tire tracks left the road. After a lot of driving and hiking we finally found it. Now I see why it’s free. It’s a rust bucket pos, mid 70’s blazer when the whole top was removable. It was in a bad spot, even if it had forward gears it was on too steep of a hill to go forward without just digging itself into the hill. When we got it to start, and it did start. It didn’t sound great, definitely not running on all 8 cylinders.

We were able to get the old DRW flatbed worked onto the hill above it. It took a couple 20 foot chains hooked end to end plus most of the wire rope off the 20K# PTO winch to reach it. First attempt to pull it up l, it was just dragging the truck backwards. Had to find 4 pretty good size rocks to chock all 4 wheels. Then we winched it up till all the winch line was back on the drum. Then when we needed to let go of the blazer to get the 40 foot of chain out of the equation, park wouldn’t hold. There was plenty more chain on the truck so had to put another 40 foot of chain on to hold it to the truck to get the first 40 out of the equation. We finally got it up on the flat and towed to the dirt road after hours of jackassing with it.

Leave it there and have to go get the trailer. Get back to the blazer with the trailer. Plan is to back the blazer onto the trailer since it still has reverse. But pretty much as soon as the rear tires are up the ramps the trans is slipping and the engine just revs up not propelling the blazer anymore. A little jackassing with the winch we got it all the way up on the trailer and chained down.

This thing was such a pile of trash it was not worth the effort we put into it. I helped pull the trans (TH350). He paid someone to rebuild it. We put it back in, it didn’t work still because he’d found the cheapest place to have a terrible rebuild done. Pulled it out again, had it re-rebuilt, reinstalled. This dude couldn’t even afford rent. So we did some hack things like save the new ATF from the first trans install in a 5 gallon bucket to put back in it. Then after all that, we hadn’t addressed the running on 7 cylinders issue. It didn’t have any power, smoked a little. Pulled all the plugs and found one oil wet. It needed new plugs but he couldn’t afford them. We washed that one off with gasoline and swapped it with another one. Still only ran on 7 cylinders. Didn’t know what to do so got my grandpa to help us. He loaned us a compression tester. The wet spark plug hole only had like 70#. The rest weren’t great ranging from the low 90#’s to 100 ish. It must’ve had a broken piston ring or two and all the valve guides were shot. Friend ended up selling it because he was never going to be able to afford an engine rebuild. I didn’t get anything out of all that except the experience. I paid for the fuel, ruined clothes, wasted time on a POS that wasn’t even worth the time it took to pull it out of the hole it was stuck in.
 
JNHEscher said:
Not sure that we have one. If so..... MERGE!!! :flipoff2:

So I was sorta keeping up on that camper truck thread and saw plenty of posts about these trips, so we better tell our stories. I'm not sure future plans count at all, but they're worthy of arguments and trolling because we all know this place :flipoff2:



I've never flown out to buy a vehicle, but totally would. Just happened to have a friend or my dad was down to drive my vehicle back unless I was towing it myself.





First I can think of is flat towing an MK3 Supra behind my 2wd 5spd shitbox Tacoma that I had bought off a neighbor for $400. Rollin' three deep in the Taco and one in the Supra loaded down with parts, I took it from Mexico, MO. to Vandalia, MO. area, so mostly flat. Buddy in the Supra thought it'd be funny to ride the brakes to me it harder for me to pull it. Made it just fine, but the Supra brakes were cooked :lmao:



Second is when I saw somebody mention a Lexus LS400 for sale not too far away when we were living in Colorado. Car was $400, so I snagged my tow bar and coordinated to get it the next day so that I could get me that 1UZ. Hauled it with our 5vz 4wd auto Tacoma from somewhere on the west side of Wolf Creek Pass down to Alamosa. I had the Taco wound out. It definitely struggled, but managed to take it all the way. Just before the summit, I dropped it to 4lo to crawl the last few hundred feet and then pulled over to let it cool off for a few, though it wasn't running hot. Didn't let go over 40mph all the way back down. Didn't this solo in the winter with all kinds of patchy snow on the highway.



Of course, some here have seen the dump truck has pulled the bus. I was far more worried about the Navistar system on the dump truck failing that anything else going awry. Empty bed and it never lost traction :grinpimp:
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When you went down Wolf Creek Pass did you happen to Bash into the side of the feed store at downtown Pagosa Springs? :flipoff2:
 
Has anyone else been hassled by the TSA for flying with cash?
I flew with 20k to buy a car and got hassled for a few hours for having that much cash on me.
 
I bought my 1991 F600 at a local auction.
2 batteries, crack the injectors and turn over until diesel started to spurt out of all 6. Tightened injectors and it would run and die. Found the fuel cutoff solenoid was weak, so wired it open and drove home.
Been a good truck for 7 years now.

That’s as close to a fly and buy as I have personally, but I have done several drive and buy as co-dog for friends. One involved putting a fuel pump in a 2001 Tahoe in a West Yellowstone parking lot in January. That was fun.
 
Went to a party one Saturday night and one of my buddies says that him and his brother and another guy are leaving in the morning for CT to go pick up a squarebody Chevy and drive it home (150 miles), ask if I'm in for the adventure. I'm in.

After a night of partying we get up, load 4 deep in their moms Dodge Ram with a pocket full of cash and the plate off his shitbox BMW. Drive down was uneventful as expected.

Get there and look this thing over, 84 C10 nice 350 sounded good, old sketchy dry rotted tires. Took it around the block, exchange bill of sale for money, screw BMW plate to rear bumper and off we go.

First hiccup was they all forgot their wallets, the chase truck and the C10 are very low on fuel. I had my wallet and a few hundred in spending cash, I whip out my credit card and pay to fill both trucks. Not the end of the world.

We're somewhere on the Mass Pike when the right rear tire on the C10 lets go, we get it off the edge of the road and start working on solutions. Easy, I have AAA! They'll tow 100 miles, which still puts us short, plan to to tow to Peabody to their grandparents house, and deal with it there. Lady on the phone with AAA asks for a plate number and I say yeah let me check, she freaks out and tells me don't get out of the car. I explain we're safely off the road, nope, I need to send the PD out to read the plate number. We panic with our blatant misuse of plates, rip the plate clean off the truck and hide it in the chase truck. Eventually a MADOT truck shows up to read the plate, we relaxed, he didn't give a shit, gave him the BMW plate number. All is good, right?

Wrong. AAA driver shows up and throws a fit about the plate thing. Tows the truck to the next exit and dumps us in a mall parking lot. He ran my card and it cost $100, okay great. Now we're in shithole southern mass on a Sunday around noon, wtf are we going to do. Across the street was this little shitty gas station service shop that had some used tires, 2 of them head over in the Ram to see if its something they can do. Nope shop closed on Sunday, just a cashier running the register. They sweet talk the owner on the phone and he coming out to help, they come relay that to us still at the C10. Drive the C10 over on a flat, and the dude looks at the tire size. Argument ensues about 'proper matching tire size' because it had some oddball 295s on the back that we weren't going to find on a Sunday. Owner leaves, says sorry about your bad luck.

Wound up driving to autozone to get a thin wall socket for whatever American Racing wheels it had, and a breaker bar, I gave the cashier $40 to not see me borrow the jack out of the dudes garage, pull the wheel, go up the street to a messican tire shop that put a $40 used tire on the wheel, go back slam this shitbox back together, and hit the road.

Get back into NH and some dumbfuck mashed into the tollbooth on Route 16 and the area is swarming with cops and we're in a C10 with no plate now. I'm riding in the C10, tell my buddy hook it down the exit before the toll, and we skirt that problem. At this point our phones are all dead, the brother in the Ram doesn't hit the exit we did, and cant get ahold of us. We're picking our way through Dover trying to get back to 16 around the toll, when the Ram is coming at us head on in our lane :laughing: the brother in the Ram is losing his shit hard, red face screaming, calling us retarded and shit, never really knew what set him off :laughing: Made it back to the house and we're explaining the days adventure to his parents, they were bullshit with him over forgetting their wallets, pulled out the checkbook and wrote me a check for all that I spent plus extra for bailing their ass out. Always thought that was really cool of them.
 
9/17/01

Hopped in my trusty, sketchy K5 blazer on 35's to go pick up an 86 4Runner in Northern VA. 4 hour drive, 5 with rush hour. Dude said it wouldn't start but would power on, $1500, had 120k on it.

Took a battery, hammer, 120 piece and an electrical kit.

It was banged up on one side, no exhaust past the cat, the right amount of rust, powered on but wouldn't start, as stated. Guy said his mechanic wanted 600 to figure out what was wrong with it and fix it so he was selling it because he didn't have the heart to fix it because of 9/11 blah blah blah.
Rolled it out of the driveway, popped the clutch and it fired right up, handed him a check for $1200 and told him not to cash it until Monday, I was 20 and had to sell some tires or something for $200 to cover the check.

So we bolted the front license plate from the K5 on the back of the runner and hit the road. No radio and nothing but carbon monoxide filling the cab and my buddy driving the somewhat legal K5 as a decoy. We get on the highway and this thing is loud as hell, we're in tight traffic and road construction heading south on I95 just out of DC. My buddy following me was used to driving a Mercury Cougar or some shit and was now in the K5 with vague as hell push pull steering, 25 psi 35's on 10" wide wheels. You kinda sailed it down the road, I was used to it but he wasn't. So finally we're up to speed and I'm ripping along, Runner is vibrating, exhaust screaming but the K5 headlights in the mirror and I look back and see some guy merge into my K5, I have no clue how he didn't see that giant white loud thing next to him but my buddy reacted and swerved right into the jersey wall. I see the headlights go 45 degrees in the mirror but don't want to hit the brakes because we're going 70 and that thing weighed about 6k lbs and had a giant push bar on it, I'd kill both my pride and joy's if we hit. It seemed like about 2 minutes but probably was about 10 seconds. I'd built the truck to flex and it had seen many a rock trail at that point so a 3 ft wall wasn't unimaginable but we were going 70. The front axle was wider than the rear and apparently just enough that the front tire rode the top of the wall and stayed on top of it, dragging the sidewall of the rear which thankfully never climbed and just curb rashed the wheel and wiped the lettering off the tire. He yanked the wheel left and it sat back down with a good bounce, the offending car that hit the door sped off, I tried to keep up but only had about 91 horsepower so he lost me. Pulled over at the next exit, Nick was still white as a ghost and we split a pizza.

Still had 3 hours to go. I hopped back in the Runner and quickly realized that in clean air I had to drive with the windows up or the check engine light would come on, I guess because of the extra drag. The radiator leaked so if I put the window down I got wet on the back of the neck, so we stopped and gobbed some jb weld on it, which held for quite a few years.

IT took 5-6 hours to get home but I pulled in to the old college house to multiple bud lights and rev limiter celebrations of our stupid adventure.

Still have the truck, it lives in the garage while the nice new cars live outside. Gotta keep it rust free.
 
My dad bought an older Bentley off eBay. Flew to Vegas with the intention of driving it home, but the seller was very good at taking pictures that made the car look better than it was. Dad gambled for a day and flew back.
 
In college a friend and I bought a Willy's mb off eBay that was up in MN, we were in the Chicago area, joke low-ball bid, ended up winning. So we had to pick it up. My friend neighbor had an f350 flat bed truck in his backyard half sunk in the mud, that he told us we could use, just had to get it running, but if you get pulled over in telling the cops you stole it. It was a commercial vehicle so it needed an inspection, hadn't had one in 5yrs, nor has it been plated in that time, so being the 20yr old dumbasses we were, that was a deal! So got it dug out of the yard and working, the only part that wasn't was the clutch pedal didn't come up all the way so you had to lift it with your toe. So rented a uhau trailer and departed on the 11hr one way trip. All was well until we pulled off the interstate to go to the dudes house and the clutch was slipping BAD. One of us didn't pull the clutch up after the last fuel stop. So we dropped the trailer off at the nearest uhaul, went and look at the jeep and drove home issue free. So we needed to go back.....

A few months later my friend calls me "hey let's get the Willy's this weekend a dude I worked with is going to let us borrow his trailer and we will us my mom's wj. So we pick the trailer up and it's a 20footer basically built out of conduit and the lights don't work and no plates. We got the trailights (barely) working and departed. Drove up there issue free, loaded up the Willy's and the few spare motors and scrap parts (looked likea tweaker scrapper setup by the time we were done). On the way home we got pulled over by a Wisconsin state trooper. He has us on the side of the road for like an hour with the DOT book out and told us he could either gives us $2,000 in tickets, OR we get the rest of the lights working and get the pile of shit over the boarder into Illinois. So he follows us to a test area and sits there and watches us hacked the rest of the wireing together and follows us to the state line. After that no real issues except the token trailer tire wearing weird and almost blowing out.
 
This wasnt me butt...

I was selling my Toyota build to pay for some medical bills, 22re on propane, back halfed, doublers, 36 iroks blah blah. I was fire sale-ing it for like $4000 if i remember correctly.

At the time i lived in Northern VA. I get a call around 8pm on a friday and a guy was asking all kinds of questions about it. Says "If i leave now, ill be there by about 930-10 oclock". I was like man, im not trying to show you this thing at 10pm in the dark. He says "Oh no, i mean in the morning, i live in Alabama. So if i leave now, ill make it there by then". I was like Oh, uhhhhh, ok, sure.

Of course a freak snow storm rolls through the Shenandoah valley over night.

This guy shows up right around 11am with a chevy 1500 with Alabama plates and a haggerd landscaping trailer. Him and his buddy watched me start it up, they handed me the $4000 and loaded it on the trailer and drove away.

:lmao:
 
In the late 90s when I lived in Sacramento, some friends and I flew to Vegas. At some point we ran into a bartender someone knew that had a decent 88 4runner for sale for $500 or something ridiculous. I don’t recall exactly. I looked it over and it definitely needed some work but looked like it would make it. It was a SR5 3.0 automatic.

I paid him and we drove it around Vegas until it was time for everybody to head home. I filled up the tank, checked the air in the horribly cupped BFGs and hit the road, planning to drive all night. Cruise set on 75, Loveline with Adam Corolla and Dr Dew was on the radio, wing windows open to let in the cool desert night air, it was great.

For 5 minutes. Then it kicked out of overdrive and ran at about 4,000 rpm. I pulled over checked the trans dipstick, looked for leaks, it wasn’t overheating, everything looked fine. I got back in and it shifted into overdrive, I set the cruise on 75 and once again, I’m running almost 4,000 rpm.

Then I noticed that the temperature gauge was reading low and remembered that the AW4 in those things had to be above 180* to go into overdrive. So I set the cruise a little lower, somewhere between 3500 and 4k and drove home with it screaming. It got surprisingly good fuel economy and didn’t blow up. A new thermostat fixed it.
 
Second one:

I am a Texas boy, and don't have a true understanding of RUST.
I had a friend in Boston who had a 2004 F150 he was getting rid of due to rust. He was getting rid of it for something like $500.

I opened my mouth ...SHIT, for 500... I'll take it.

And I did.

Flew out to Boston. Took an Uber to his house and picked it up.

I made it to Baytown Texas, just outside of Alligator wrastling place when it gave out.
(think it was the fuel pump). Called a buddy with a trailer to gome grab me off the road.
I pulled the bed off and the truck folded in half.
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I have another one, not a new to us vehicle, but a 600 mile round trip road trip in a Ford Ranger that got scrapped after the trip.

My buddy was building a 95 F250 and wanted a set of military 37s for it, there was a guy in Littleton Maine with tons of them. Which if you didn't know, the directions to Littleton are follow I95N til you get to the "Welcome to Canada" sign, get off at that exit, and drive 1/2 hour north along the border.

We set out in his 95 2.3 5 speed Ranger, grabbed 2 spare tires, a gas can full of extra fuel, and snacks. Now this Ranger had an electrical gremlin, the door dinger would not shut off, the solution? Pull the fuse. What fuse? The entire fuckin dash fuse. So we're cruising along, foot to the floor doing 75 mph, and it starts to rain. From the passenger seat I grab the steering wheel, he holds his foot down, opens the door, and is trying to fish the fuse back into the fuse panel thats on the end of the dash at 75. Got it put together somehow, slam the door, keep truckin with wipers now.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

Out of nowhere, the door dinger stops :smokin: Party on. Another hour later the transmission is making awful noises, and we need gas, pull off in some town, pull up to the pump, and before I can tell my buddy to not open his door, the door is open.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

Well fuck. Top off the gas, check the trans fluid, oh its LOW low. Walk across the street to a carquest, couple quarts of ATF and a funnel, we dribble some in somehow, good enough.

You get to a certain point on I95 where the areas dont have names. Now entering T1R6, T2R1, ect. We're cresting hills hoping to see an exit or civilization soon, as we needed gas. Nope, no such luck. We finally come to a town, get off that exit, stop at the gas station/hair salon/restaurant/transmission repair and go in to pay before we pump and they looked at us funny, backwoods towns up there hadn't gone prepay yet at that point :laughing:

Finally get to Littleton, tire guy also had a mountain of hubcaps in his yard, cool little place.

Ride back was largely the same, added trans fluid again, then got closer to home and said fuck it, if it blows it blows. 12 hours later we made it home. The week after the radiator blew to shit on his way to work, we thrashed that 2wd ranger through the woods til it seized the motor. :laughing: Should have never taken that on that trip
JR4X said:
I have never seen anything like that, and that’s new ish. If we see something with rusted fenders here, it wasn’t from here.
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My buddys 2016 F350 has a ton of rot in the bed and tailgate. New doesn't mean shit.
 
flew to Middle Minnesota for a Honda Element. Skipped a flight to Charlotte as it was cheaper than direct. Called the airline (don't know why) to tell them I would be on the next leg as I had to "get home". Our initial flight left late and somehow the airline thought I meant that I was late because the plane left late. So they refunded my flight costs. Uber to the dealership which was in an odd sketchy spot. Longest Uber I've take at about an hour and a half drive. Dealer had some minor issue with the car that he just finished fixing, got it all signed and transferred. Stopped at the nearest oRileys and drove it home over the weekend visiting some friends along the way.

And flew into AR to buy my truck off PBB, bit of a monster truck on 40's and no running boards with my dad. Bought it sight unseen and drove it back home over a weekend.

Abut the end of my fly in a drive it home adventures.
 
I learned a long time ago that driving cheap vehicles home will lead to more headaches than its worth. I got to help-out with Josh's Hilux on Deathwish. Great dude with alot of road miles in that truck.

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Mid 2018, my buddy's 7.3 SD blows the Reverse out of the 4R100 backing up a camper. He's driving it for a while to save up for a 6 speed swap and I, jokingly, send him a 6 speed trans for $1200 in AR. Turned out that my buddy was serious and messaged them, and They had the rest of the truck that was rust free and missing a motor. I think they wanted $1000 for the whole truck with rust free bed. I get the call that we are taking my POS 12 valve, trailer with balding car tires, and a dream of a 7.3CCSB 6 speed truck on an 1800 mile trip.

I start getting everything ready to leave Friday after work to drive the 14.5h trip out there, and the single battery in the 12v has left the chat. I steal a truck to go grab a battery from Advanced. Loaded up, we hit the interstate at 7pm Friday. We drive nonstop til Lunchtime Saturday, grab a bite to eat at a Mexican restaurant and finish the last hour to the guys shop. Turned out to be super cool dudes and loaded it up with his crawler for us.

We finish chatting and hit the road again around 2pm. We drive nonstop until we hit Menphis and stopped in at a awesome BBQ place with a live band and ate way too much. Buddy is a truck driver who did 16 hours on Friday and I'm hitting my driving limits as well so we stop somewhere in the middle of Tenn at the closest Motel 6 that is open.

I'll never forget what transpired in that motel lobby. I park the truck just enough to let it run, without rolling off from lack of parking brake, in this deserted parking lot and step inside to a decently large lobby. Its an open floor plan that is 2 stories tall. In front of the main door is a large column, and in front of the column is a wing back chair with a 70ish year old man with glazed eyes staring back at me. I start to look around and there is a couple checking in ahead of me, but there are no other cars in the parking lot, out front, other than my truck. I'm tired as hell and just want a room, so I stay in line. Out of nowhere, a baby in the back starts crying bloody murder and immediately stops, as a man walks out of the back with a large kitchen knife. To hell with getting murdered. I'm going somewhere else, hop in the truck with a new sense of life and drive to the next Super 8 Hotel 30 minutes down the road.

Wake up the next moring and drive all the way to SW VA ,with 4 hours to go, when a car tire finally blows. We bail out on the side of the interstate and NASCAR swap the new tire on only to find out that dad had blown a tire and replaced it with a large tire that rubs the frame. Then after that realization, start putting old tire back on when a State Trooper stops behind us with the biggest stick up his arse. Tells us to move from the highway or we are getting towed. Sure, no problem. Drive it on the rim to an autoparts store and buy all of the washers they had. 5 washers per stud and we hit the road for home.

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I've got a couple more about the towing to KOH and others. I might do a spinoff post.
 
MuntCuffin said:
Heading out in a few to look at a fairly rare shitbox to add to the stable. If I come home with it, ill start a thread.


Never thought I'd even consider a damn Subaru.
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Same here. Gave up on Subarus for several years until the one I have now popped up for the right price in Colorado Springs. Is what it is :laughing:
 
Four hours of hell for a POS. What a trip. Drove across WA state to go pick up a 4runner. 86, SAS, 35" boggers, detroit rear, lunchbox front, missing front driveshaft, body was rough, rattle can red over the dents. Whatever, hopped in my 92 corolla with my two buddies and away we went to get it. $2500, not a bad deal right?

We show up and its as expected. Front driveline issue is a bit beyond just a missing driveline, whole end yoke and pinion gear are missing:laughing: Whatever, the rest is as advertised. 22RE starts up, smokes a little, but runs. Guy says it burns a bit of oil and gives us some to take with us on the trip home, should have clued us in:homer: Jew him down to like $2200 on it and he tosses in a little 50cc mini bike with no title, perfect. Well the rear window wont roll down on the 4runner as per typical so the mini bike gets shoved into the back seat of my 92 corrolla. One buddy rides with me in "Balls Deep" (had a sticker on the back hatch that said it) and my other buddy drives my car home with the bike. First turn we take and my buddy is wet. The moonroof is siliconed in and not well, all the water on the roof just landed in his lap:lmao:

We're climbing Snoqualmie pass and I have to get in the far right lane and put the flashers on. 4runner is gutless and puking smoke like a diesel. We're being passed by semis. Whatever, we push on until we get to the summit and stop. We top off the oil and my buddy in the car comes in behind us "guys I dont feel too good". Fucking bike REEKS of gasoline and is basically suffocating him in the car:lmao: SOL dude, you gotta drive it home haha. So on we push...

I get just East of Cle-Elum climbing the small grade to Swauk Prairie and then it happens. That 22RE started knocking like a son of a bitch, fuck, it burned all the oil out already? I put the clutch in and the sound goes away, yup rod knock, engine dies. Well I'm on top of the prairie and have about a mile to go till the pull off to park it so I dump the clutch and compressions start it at 50mph. Engine is just singing by this point. We get it down to the pull off, park it and its done. Fucker drank all the oil.

I call my buddy who has a flatbed and he comes and rescues us from an hour away. We use the starter and 4low to walk the 4runner up on the trailer. Fuck it right, at this point the engines coming out so whats a starter? We get it on, strap it down, pile in his F250 and head back to town. My other buddy is still delirious and driving my corolla with the mini bike in it behind us:lmao: Friend who saved us brought us beer which was nice. Had a few road sodas on the way home. Got it back, parked the trailer, emptied the bike out of the car and all went home.

Ended up pulling the engine and rebuilding the 22RE. #3 rings were gone and it starved itself of oil. New crank, .040 bore, pistons, RV Cam, yada yada. Bought a shit load of Marlin and Trail Gear parts to fix the cobbled SAS job and steering and ended up selling it with all the parts before I ever worked on it. Some dude from Tri-cities bought it, hope he rode it hard!

Photos off my potato phone
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MuntCuffin said:
Heading out in a few to look at a fairly rare shitbox to add to the stable. If I come home with it, ill start a thread.


Never thought I'd even consider a damn Subaru.
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turbo Brighton Wagon?

Other than JDM shit that trickled in nothing is "rare" unless you get all the way back to the 80s
 
Have the opposite story sort of rather than drive one home I drove one away. I had one of those life changing fuck you ball kicker events. I decided I had nothing to stick around the area for so it was time for soul searching and adventure. Was driving a shitty dodge 2500 at the time which could barely make it to work across town. Saw a $600 Chevy s10 2wd for sale with 2.2 and 5 speed with an old man style camper shell. I bought it and the next day after registering it I loaded some tools, a tent and my dog up and took off after topping off power steering. I’d had this shitbox for less than 24 hours and I had zero idea where I was headed or if I even wanted to come back but my rent was paid in advance and I was now unemployed as well as single so why not. Maybe I’d start a new life somewhere else so I just started driving. I ended up not coming back for 3 months while driving around to every corner of this country. Made it a point to explore the back roads and dirt roads especially out west. Saw friends I hadn’t seen in years. Had a few hiccups with the truck. Changed a water pump and radiator in a truck stop in Arizona (hit a huge bird), changed out a brake pad that crumbled in a hotel parking lot in Nebraska, oil change in a Walmart parking lot in Colorado but other than that the truck went anywhere I decided to go with zero issue. It was an amazing mental reset and I had a blast and I’ll never forget those 90 or so days of freedom with my dog and the shitbox and wild anxiety driven decision to just go that made it happen.
 
1Sinner said:
This thread is bullshit without pics.
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If my laptop wouldn't be blue screened I'd have more. At the time I wasn't comfy with sketchy shit on FB but I have these 2 pics:
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And some more normal "me hauling stuff" pics to reference the GN I had. It was a full 12" I-beam frame hence the huge empty weight of 5,600lbs. IMO way too heavy framed to be a 14k but I got a deal on it.

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And the strike of luck NOS 465/205 I picked up to repair it:

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