What have you done to your rig today?

[RDub]

Finally got the ham radio installed in my 60. Went with the Yaesu FT-2980R 2m rig. I decided not to drill holes in any sheet metal so I mounted it similar to an installation I saw on MUD.

What took the longest was figuring out an antenna mount that wouldn’t require drilling holes. Went with passenger fender mount, and built a custom bracket that uses two existing holes in the fender well. I settled on 18ga 304 stainless material as a decent compromise between stiffness and hood/fender gap clearance. Hard to make it stiff enough so I had to add a second piece. The three screws were cutoff after they went in and peened over, like rivets. I used a small piece of 3M VHB tape to try to stick it down to the horizontal lip on the fender well. Probably a lot of overthinking going on here. I need to come up with a slicker way of managing the coax.

Not much of a gap between the hood and fender which made it a challenge. Seems pretty stiff now, but added a piece of thin rubber as a protector. I used a Diamond NMO mount with skinny coax, which Diamond assured me will handle the 80W the radio can put out on high power.

The fender mount is not optimal but it’s fairly clean and has worked well so far. Time will tell. Overall I’m happy with how it turned out.

 

[maxpowerzz]

Charged my battery, does that count 😁

 

[fjc man]

Flipping that headlight bezel would count☺️

 

[maxpowerzz]

Flipping that headlight bezel would count☺️

Ha! I've purposely left it, it's been like that for over a decade. It feels more balanced with the weightier thickness on the bottom, though I know it's sacrilege. This was Kurt's first cruiser he built in high school with his dad, I'll have to ask how he had the bezel and if he ever got a ticket from the bezel police 😂

 

[rover67]

That’s awesome

 

[Fisher67]

Getting ready for cruise Moab. figured out mounts for Rotopax 4.5 gallon tank and Kaymar mount for shovel and hi lift Jack.

 

[RayRay27]

Getting ready to do my first oil change on the Tundra before heading out to Moab next week. Picked up some oil filters at Stevinson yesterday from Derek. He said I'm the first person he knows of to buy oil filters for the new Tundra. Derek was confused by the part number because he's never seen it before. For those of you that don't know, Toyota went back to the metal oil filters for the new Tundra instead of using just the pleated filter element.

Six filters for 40 bucks. Can't beat it.

 

[LC200TX]

Did a little shake down in preparation for Cruise MOAB. Truck is good and ready to go!

Looking forward to meeting new to me Cruiser Heads 🤙

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Did a little shake down in preparation for Cruise MOAB. Truck is good and ready to go!

Looking forward to meeting new to me Cruiser Heads 🤙

View attachment 114083

I know that rock!

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Halfway through my LCA swap I found this gem from the last alignment shop. The ugga duggad it so bad that it will no longer come out the cam sleeve, it's been expanded. I mean I partly understand as it's a pain in the ass get basically anything except a box or a crescent on this thing because the steering rack is in the way but holy smokes I think he managed to just barely get a wobble socket on there and set her to the moon with the air impact. I'm going to see if I can't hammer it out and if not then I'll just have to cut it with the cam sleeve that's frozen to the bushing anyway. I don't think I've had a single job on this truck that didn't have some kind of snag.....

Also I now miss working on my truck in winter. I'm working up such a stupid amount of sweat today and it doesn't help that I've had an upset stomach since having a breakfast burrito this morning provided by my company for the monthly company meeting....

 

[J Kimmel]

Deleted all my vacuum stuff which seems to have fixed my hanging/high idle. Tied up all the wires and tucked them away.

Bolt check etc and added more oil to my rear shocks.

 

[Rzeppa]

I don't think I've had a single job on this truck that didn't have some kind of snag.....

Ha! Welcome to the club!

 

[Lastresort576]

I’ve had to use my recovery gear more on stuff around the house than I have had to get unstuck with it. 😂

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Well LCAs are now replaced and I have poly bushings. This job was the worst yet on time estimate too. I think I guessed 3 hours and it ended up being I think 9 or 10 hours. Back is absolutely killing me right now. My bonehead almost killed my battery too because I left the key in for quite a while to keep the steering from locking up on me while I was disconnecting the rag joint so that I could move the rack out of the way. Had to use my jump box to get her out of the garage. Seriously annoying that you have to take the whole rack out in order to take the rear cam bolts out but I understand where they want the tie rods to move as closely as possible to the lower suspension so that it doesn't toe in and out too much as the suspension flexes. Kind of wish I had been ready to do this job when I was doing the rack but that job took a long time too so it's probably better that I broke the jobs up. Def recommend the Milwaukee carbide blades too, they held up really well cutting the cam bolt sleeves out of my passenger arm. Was going to get the diablo blades but a Milwaukee rep was on the aisle and recommended I try their new blades out instead as they are supposed to last twice as long. Just made sure to stop fairly frequently and cool them down with some lube, at least on the far front and far back side of the arm as I had to cut through both the bushings sleeve and and the cam bolt sleeve which was quite a bit of hardened steel. Inner ones were easier as I had enough room to slip the blade outside the bushing itself and it cut those like butter. Ended up taking a paint pen to the self refurbed cam bolts and matched the paint marks from the last alignment so I was able to set the cams about where they were before (with some changes I'm sure due to stiffer poly bushings vs what I'm now pretty sure were clapped out rubber bushings). Either way the alignment was definitely good enough to go down the highway so should have no problem making it to the alignment shop tomorrow. Hoping I can get some really good caster numbers without rubbing and hopefully there's still enough room for me to fit 33s on when my current 31.5s are done for. If not I might be investing is some high caster UCAs next. That's the only component now not replaced on my front end.

 

[fyffer]

Well, it’s been more than today or yesterday. But built a sleeping platform with couple drawers and cabinets to include a fridge slide. Time will tell of outcome and CM should tell.

 

[mosdefjeff]

Installed the Huracan Fab tailgate storage I've been wanting for years. Simple install overall. Noisy and messy, but it'll be nice to have another nook to throw crap.

 

[fyffer]

Installed the Huracan Fab tailgate storage I've been wanting for years. Simple install overall. Noisy and messy, but it'll be nice to have another nook to throw crap.

Hope you used nylocks or blue locktite to nuts, just speaking from experience.

 

[CMoore]

Finished up with the new dizzy/wire install and moving my heater hose. Huge shoutout to @RicardoJM for the help!

 

[HoneyBadger]

It’s been a busy couple weeks.
New carriers bearing.
New rear u-joint.
Oil change.
New Sony stereo, with Bluetooth.
Took out the old Cobra CB and put in a new Midland GMRS/FRS radio.
Touched up a bunch of paint.
New windshield wipers.
And a new windshield.
But the windshield was a multi day problem.
Turns out I had some fairly bad rust hiding behind the windshield due to a crappy install job from the guys who did it back in 2012 in Texas.
I had to take out the old cracked windshield and buzz off a bunch of rust, plug a couple small holes, prime, and paint. Not fun.
But the new one is in and looking good.

 

[mosdefjeff]

Hope you used nylocks or blue locktite to nuts, just speaking from experience.

Their kit comes with locking nuts, but I'll keep an eye on that. Thanks!