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#socialdistancing

Finished up the rear axle swap and buttoned up all the new Bosch gauges. Took it out for a little rip on the aerotech pipeline....lockrite works goooood Gear ratios match now too Next mission is find some rear lift leafs as the lift at the back is all block and I'm sure there will be some axle wrapage going on.

Oh buddy.... Im pumped!! Shaking like going through withdrawal, can't sleep, chest tight, I'm ready for this!!

Update pics

I can't find any numbers, but the 9" seems to be the hotrodders go-to axle. The 8.8 is C clip. The 9 axle shafts can be removed without opening the diff, is heavier and has a support bearing on the pinion snout to help with deflection. Plus the 9 is a removable 3rd member, so easier to work on and has infinite aftermarket options.

Update, My towtruck is in a shop to have the repairs done and MVI, I believe I left it with the best, I have picked up the parts needed for the MVI, nothing major, mostly little things, it's a smaller shop iv left it with so it's not first in line, but I know they will get to it when they can. Getting pretty excited.

Went for a little self isolation tour, checked out some mild trails, breaking the little truck in. Mini me had fun, we found a real soft thick gooey spot along the way, the truck did well I think for what it is

Daily/ mild trail exploring fuel sipper. It is a Nissan 720 king cab 4x4. Stay tuned for more. It takes a better pic than seeing it in person, but overall solid. Some minor cancer to repair.

Got some new skins on, Did some checking out for mvi, few minor details needed, adjusted torsen bars slightly, installed matching mirror heads on the arms , did some cleaning of the inside.

Iv only ever wheeled long box ext cab full size trucks, hasn't been a trail I haven't fit on yet, or wait.....does self clearancing the body panels between trees mean I don't fit?.... Anyway, your Toyota will be fine, It's really not that long of a vehicle, and a great platform to start, and as you get more familiar with how it responds in certain situations , you can modify or improve its capaby accordinly, don't just throw a bunch of parts at it and expect to follow the built rigs, add each part or stage of the build one step at a time, so you can see what it does for you.

Sneak peak.... IMG_9318.MOV

Hey guys, just got my truck about a year ago to use for work in Toronto. I have since moved back to this amazing province and was hoping to get involved in some back country 4wD to explore some trails and get out into the woods/do some camping that is a little further out then what my two legs cant get me to in such a fun manner! I got a 2013 Tacoma, completely stock minus new tires i got about 5 months ago. Like i said i am super new to this and will be slow to do any upgrades to my truck but am hoping to be a part of this community hopefully this summer when i have time when school is finished. I attached a photo of my truck and am looking forward to meeting some folks this summer for some coffee meets for some advice, possible routes, good friends and maybe even some good starter trails! Cheers! Note, these are my old set of tires, they were very bald got wrangler duratec ones now. told they were good for some easy or beginner 4WD

The coolant system is now complete. The last piece of the puzzle was the inline temperature gauge pickup housing. It came as a 1/8”NPT and was drilled and taped for 3/8”NPT to fit my mechanical gauge. I’m not sure if my temperature gauge in the dash is dead or if it was a sending unit on my old engine. This way I can be sure not to overheat my new engine.

My engine to body harness I made was way too long so I took about 1.5ft of wire out of most runs. I wasn’t sure where the ECU would end up when I made it but it turns out the stock position is the best place. There is still a little cleanup to do but now everything tucks into the kick panel. I’m leaving it spread out for first startup so I can quickly spot/check for problems.

Got the axles swapped out. Luckily the driveshaft looks to be long enough. Just need to fix a brake fitting and reconnect the lines. It looks like I'll need a u joint for the driveshaft too. I removed the extra leaf pack and in I'll leave the anti wrap bars off for now. If I get horrible spring wrap I can install them....just needs the brakets transferring over. Oh and i wasted a ton of time on removing 12 point bolts front the old driveshaft flange...they suck!!!

Started installing my Christmas voucher purchase - replacement of the old crappy mismatched gauges....of course the volt meter is DOA, so re-assembly is on hold until the new one arrives. Need to make a column mount for the GPS speedo. Removed the extra load springs off the truck - hopefully that'll give me back some rear end flex. On the trail Dave said I was lifting a rear tire as the axle was not moving at all. Painted up the 9" axle so it's ready to go. I'm hoping the axle swap will be straight forward an will not require a drive shaft modification. The 8.8 has a flange but the 9 is a yolk....we'll see.

Picked up a 9" with 3.50 gears and lock-rite..was off Guys Bronco. It needs a stud, and i think the 8.8 parking brake cables should work with it....I read 8.8 and 9 inch truck brakes are interchangeable. I'm pretty stocked to get it cleaned up and installed

Awesome, yes manuals off road have pros and cons , I prefer to wheel manual, Nice looking jeep out in the natural habitat

Per the state of emergency being in effect until April 5, deleting the coffee night for April 2. https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20200322001

the base is always a good spot for a photo-op

how do you feel about pin-striping ?

Some photos from the trail

yes it was super soft up on the rocky part and on the trail - you could barely stand on it

Here's the full unedited version of me trying to climb the rocks - the ground was super soft, and I only made it once my rear tires got some traction

I got tired of waiting for my second O2 flange to come in and I’m pretty sure it won’t be coming in any time soon now so I just made one so I could finish up my exhaust. I finished welding up the front half of the exhaust and put it back in the truck. I hooked up the O2 sensors and cleaned up the wiring harness to wrap things up on the exhaust.

Dave and I are heading out to the Range on Saturday March 21. Leaving the old Arby's on Bedford highway (opposite Mighty Auto) at 10am. GAME ON. See @ovrlndr's post below.

Welcome and nice tacoma! Duratracs are a great tire, only complaints I’ve heard is people cutting sidewalls.

Our van died, so I had brought out the ol' car for a few days, then bought a new vehicle for Tracey, specs on the replacement for the van are 2008 Xterra 4x4 with 4.0Lv6. yes , that is how much snow is still Currently in my yard as of this post. And a pic of the ol' car

Somewhere close to 400,000 kms on da van, there more issues and underlying issues that added to the final decision to let it RIP, nope , sold the sas Xterra a couple years ago. Did a ton of work to it, dialed it in, was crazy awesome crawling, but severely underpowered and I was going to break it, I have a heavy foot, and sometimes push too far, I drove it pretty easy knowing it wasn't a Big Block Dodge 1 ton on 40's. The new Xterra is Mrs. Powerram vehicle, so it will probably never be in 4wd. Had one minor issue with the new Xterra, had a ABS sensor wire bad and the 4x4 won't work because of that, fixed the wire and all is good. And she is happy, happy wife, happy life. Now the work on my Capri will commence Muwahahah!

Damn bad luck. Hopefully the new X will be good for you.

Quick note here, where restaurants are closing their seating areas including Tim Hortons the coffee nights will be postponed until further notice. We will be working on ways to gather and meet though :)

absolutely loving your build...coming along nicely

Sure, sure. Turbo upgrade in the future?

We just had the SAR-Burban on Miller Road. Icy spots, and bare gravel in others. We would have come rescued yah!

21st

The battery hold down and the wiring looks factory!

I wanted to clean up some of my electrical and leave room for future accessories. I picked up a Bluesea aux fuse panel that has 6 constant circuits and 6 switched circuits capable of 100amp. I used 4gauge wire, proper fine strand copper wire, to hook up the panel on the opposite side of the engine bay. I set up 3 circuit breakers next to the battery, 1 for the alternator to the battery to eliminate the unfused run across the engine bay and back, 1 for the factory fuse box supply eliminating a fusible wire and 1 for the aux panel. All 3 are dust and water proof cooper bussmann units with manual reset. I tied into power and ground with new “military” style battery terminals and they are the nicest I’ve ever used. They have a bolt to connect all the cables and have a proper taper so they fit awesome. They also came with quality boots.

I had to tear the dash apart to swap out my heater core, a long overdue task, and run a wire to my combo meeting for the tach. Going from a coil and distributor to my current setup I also had to solder a 10k ohm resister in the tach to adjust the signal. I will still have to fine tune it with the pot on the back once I have it running. I even got my heater zone controls working on the dash control. Fellow Toyota owners will know how rare this is haha.

That is awesome! My RAM was similar. They didn't have the exact option combination I wanted and this truck has some stuff that I didn't think I wanted at the time, but I like the options that are on it now and I got a hell of a deal because of end of season lot clear out.

I put them back in the calendar. I put Fall River ending May 31 (we can change that) and I'll put in Woodside when we start going there.

Did some work on the Scout on the weekend. Cut the 'Show Bar' (as International called it) some more so that the back seat will fold properly. Haven't re-checked function yet. Painted half of the Grille Guard for the Scout. Have to flip it to paint the other half. Had hoped to do it today, but that didn't work out. And received some gaskets from 'Super Scout Specialists', in the mail. Simple. Now the side marker light lenses and housings are all fixed up properly and ready for re-installation. Had the headlights re-aimed on the Ranger. The Levelling Kit Installation Instructions did not mention re-aiming the headlights. (Shake head...) They were pointing skyward! They are good now! Also had the first maintenance performed on the Ranger. Good to keep on truckin'! Waiting impatiently for the BackRack, red tow hooks, hmm..

Maybe pop the back cover and check what's in there too

The rear should be 3.55 for the 8.8, but the front being out of the older trucks should be 3.50, which is ok , it keeps the truck tracking properly, but guessing the ttb will be inbetween 3.50 and 3.55 somewhere. Thats if your ratios are correct, but possible that you have an odd ratio somewhere if you never checked what was in there to start with

Coffee this week is Thursday 7pm at the Burnside Tim Hortons - 15 Akerley Blvd, Dartmouth, NS B3B 1J6 Rolling schedule; .Burnside Tim Hortons - 15 Akerley Blvd, Dartmouth, NS B3B 1J6 .Bayers Lake Tim Hortons - 5 Lakelands Blvd, Halifax, NS B3K 5L2 .Bedford Common Tim Hortons - 36 Verdi Dr, Bedford, NS B4A 0C2 .Fall River Tim Hortons, Highway #2 Fall River (winter) / the car show at the Woodside ferry terminal, 9 Atlantic St, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2M6 (summer) .Middle Sackville Tim Hortons - 1624 Sackville Dr, Middle Sackville, NS B4E 3A8

Nice Rig !!

I got everything buttoned up tonight, and the old girl made it out of the garage. Will test on it in the daylight.

Just got a call from the Ford dealership.... My Ranger leveling kit is in...... Now to make an appointment for installation ...................

The battery also needed to move to the drivers side as the intake is on the passenger side for the engine. I wanted to upgrade my battery since my old one was dumping acid on the inner fender. I went with a group 24 eliminator AGM and built a battery tray to fit. To put it where I wanted it without inferring with the coolant reservoir and headlight I modified the inner fender some more. I gave the inner fenders a coat or two of tremclad for good measure.

The charcoal canister/evap system for the new engine is quite a bit bigger than what came out. It also sits on the opposite side of the engine bay, not that there was any more room on the passenger side for it. To make it fit right without interfering with the hood I built a recess into the fender well. I also had to move my fuel return and vapor line on the firewall as they were dangerously close to the exhaust crossover. While bending the lines the vapor line broke with minimal force. I found the line blocked by debris. This explains why my tank built pressure/vacuum when the gas cap was tight! I put a union in and ran the vapor line to the driver side to hook up to the evap box.