Post by Sponge Bob Square Fenders on Jan 18, 2005 15:09:35 GMT -5
...if you are still interested in my story, thanks for sticking with me. Here we go.....
What made the sale of my '79 "baby" a little less traumatic was that we had ordered a new Toy to be waiting for us when we got back to California for vacation - an '86 4Runner SR5. When my off road mags arrived (about 4 months after hitting the newsstand here in the U.S. - and WELL after placing the order with a non-refundable deposit), and I read that Toyota had changed to an IFS suspension for '86, I was livid
! How could they screw with my bulletproof live axle? We tried in vain to cancel the order and get a leftover '85 instead. I even threatened to sell the '86 as soon as we hit the states for a USED '85, if I had to! Silly, silly me. I was suckered into the "IFS is never as tough as live axle" camp.
Still, the lure of a new vehicle had me intoxicated. I flew straight to Oakland from Madrid (do you have any idea how many hours on a plane that is?) to pick it up, and first saw it about 5 stories high in the warehouse. This truck had come from Guam, and there was no "dealer prep" on it at all! The interior was still full of the factory plastic covering, and stickers were on everything - but it was still beautiful. Black with the factory chrome wheels, tan interior (we had ordered grey
), black top, and about 300lbs of undercoating! I had never seen so much gunk caked under a truck, but there NEVER was any problem with rust. It had all the options available at the time, including some real funky automatic hubs (more on that later).
I promptly (well, not really - I took my sweet time) drove it down the coast to where my family was staying, let the wife drive it a few miles around town ("I hate it - too many blind spots" :
, and packed it up for the "break in" trip - me and the Tri-County members trip to Parker to work a checkpoint for the 1986 Parker 400.
I'll never forget crossing the magical 1000 mile break in mark somewhere on I-5 on the way down. I told Bill over the CB that I was going to ring 'er out and promptly left him way behind in his Bronco II. I topped out at 96 MPH, and I can't remember whether that was because of a governor or that was the real top end. The 22RE was impressive, especially with a full load of camping gear.
The modification of the new truck began slowly ("It's still under warranty, blah, blah, blah!"), but I remember rims and tires were first - ARE 15X8 Outlaws with BFG 31X10.50R15 All-Terrains. That really sucked the life out of the engine, so as we all know - one thing leads to another. During one vacation trip to California, I remember spending 2 days in L.A. - one at Clifford getting their latest state-of-the-art alarm system, and another over at TRD having about $3K worth of work done to the axles. The 5.29s brought the power back, and the limited slips helped in the sand.
During a 4 year tour in West Texas (yes, there is Navy there!), we averaged about 4 trips a year back to California for visits with Grandma, etc. (coincidently, most were timed around some kind of off road event - Pismo Sandnationals, Parker 400, etc), and ALWAYS went with a full load which at times resembled overload. One trip, I remember we had bought my mom a new car - '86 Chrysler LeBaron GTS - and were delivering it to her. At the same time, we were going to be in the area for the Sandnationals, so I didn't want to do without my Suzuki QuadSport. So what did I do? I drove the Suzuki over back streets to the local dealer, who had a forklift. I hoofed it back home, cut a 3/4" piece of plywood to fit the NWOR roof rack I had recently bought, and trucked back over to the Suzuki dealer. He "forked" that ATV up and on to the roof rack (almost hitting the side of the truck
!). Lashing it down tight, and we were ready to go... the car on a U-Haul dolly behind, and an ATV on top - not to mention all the luggage, cooler, and one very good travelling 3-year-old in one half of the back seat. I'll never forget the horrible headwinds we hit in the CA high desert - 3rd gear and WOT and 30MPH was the best we could do. I thought the ATV was going to launch right off the top (and land on the car behind!).
Not a single trip was unburdened with something behind. Either our 4X4 (that's 4 foot by 4 foot, not a 4WD) homemade trailer loaded with something heavy, or the ATV on top of the trailer (hanging over the front!), plus presents and luggage strapped to the roof. Never a whimper from that truck. In fact, the only problem I had with it over 11 ½ years was a bad engine kick-up VSV for the A/C. Since it was a Guam truck, the part was outrageously expensive - and we tried the U.S. version without ever fixing the problem.
Each trip was the same...unload at "Grandmas" and head for Pismo. It drove my wife crazy that I would go out and jump the dunes in the same vehicle we were relying on to get us back to Texas! I never had any worries, though. Only once did I almost roll it on the side of Eliminator Hill, and never had an accident or breakage. In fact, I was usually the one who had to play "mule" for the other club members who were either stuck or broke somewhere back in the dunes. I remember having to tow out Bill's 20' camping trailer from Maidenform Flats to the beach because his Bronco II couldn't pull it and his "J" vehicle was broke dick on the trailer being pulled out by Gary and his monster Wagoneer. I had to make a "balls out" run at one dune and thought I would tear the bumper off the back, for sure! Again....silly, silly me for ever doubting the capabilities of a Toy 4X4.
I can't say enough for the wheel and tire combination - never popped a bead even though some runs were made at as little as 2PSI!
Modifications on the "black beauty" came slow, but ended up pretty extensive. NWOR add-a-leaf to the rear to level the tail-down natural nature of the 1st generation 4Runners (and because of the loads we carried); NWOR roof rack and tri-Y header; K&N filter; the aforementioned axle mods; Smittybuilt double tube bumpers front and rear; the wheels and tires; Rancho RS5000s all around - doubled in the rear using a Toy P/U axle truss and welding a bolt for the top mount; 4 KC 7" lights on a light bar on the roof rack, and two more on the front bumper; Hella fog lamps below the bumper; Rancho steering stabilizer; Warn manual hubs; window tinting and other little stuff.
Four wheeling in Texas, when we weren't running to California, was a lot different than I was used to. I got hooked up with the Dallas-Fort Worth 4 Wheel Drive Club, and got my first taste of mud. DF4WDC did a lot of mud and obstacle course runs, which I just couldn't bring myself to put the 4Runner through. So what to do? Find another Toyota 4X4 to run in the "tough" stuff, of course!
The 4Runner had done some slow trail riding and sand drags/hill climbs, but none of the brush-busting stuff these Texans loved. The one event that was all 4Runner was the Amarillo Sand Drags. They (Amarillo) almost didn't let me run with the other Toys because I was fuel injected, and afterward the other Toys in the club wished I hadn't. I would always take the top off (why should I have 300 pounds disadvantage?), and until the last year the carburated pickups couldn't touch me. Eventually, their mods and paddle tires caught up with my extra power, and then it became a matter of who caught the best light.
(thanks for sticking with me so far in the story, standby for Part III)
What made the sale of my '79 "baby" a little less traumatic was that we had ordered a new Toy to be waiting for us when we got back to California for vacation - an '86 4Runner SR5. When my off road mags arrived (about 4 months after hitting the newsstand here in the U.S. - and WELL after placing the order with a non-refundable deposit), and I read that Toyota had changed to an IFS suspension for '86, I was livid
! How could they screw with my bulletproof live axle? We tried in vain to cancel the order and get a leftover '85 instead. I even threatened to sell the '86 as soon as we hit the states for a USED '85, if I had to! Silly, silly me. I was suckered into the "IFS is never as tough as live axle" camp.Still, the lure of a new vehicle had me intoxicated. I flew straight to Oakland from Madrid (do you have any idea how many hours on a plane that is?) to pick it up, and first saw it about 5 stories high in the warehouse. This truck had come from Guam, and there was no "dealer prep" on it at all! The interior was still full of the factory plastic covering, and stickers were on everything - but it was still beautiful. Black with the factory chrome wheels, tan interior (we had ordered grey
), black top, and about 300lbs of undercoating! I had never seen so much gunk caked under a truck, but there NEVER was any problem with rust. It had all the options available at the time, including some real funky automatic hubs (more on that later).I promptly (well, not really - I took my sweet time) drove it down the coast to where my family was staying, let the wife drive it a few miles around town ("I hate it - too many blind spots" :
, and packed it up for the "break in" trip - me and the Tri-County members trip to Parker to work a checkpoint for the 1986 Parker 400.I'll never forget crossing the magical 1000 mile break in mark somewhere on I-5 on the way down. I told Bill over the CB that I was going to ring 'er out and promptly left him way behind in his Bronco II. I topped out at 96 MPH, and I can't remember whether that was because of a governor or that was the real top end. The 22RE was impressive, especially with a full load of camping gear.
The modification of the new truck began slowly ("It's still under warranty, blah, blah, blah!"), but I remember rims and tires were first - ARE 15X8 Outlaws with BFG 31X10.50R15 All-Terrains. That really sucked the life out of the engine, so as we all know - one thing leads to another. During one vacation trip to California, I remember spending 2 days in L.A. - one at Clifford getting their latest state-of-the-art alarm system, and another over at TRD having about $3K worth of work done to the axles. The 5.29s brought the power back, and the limited slips helped in the sand.
During a 4 year tour in West Texas (yes, there is Navy there!), we averaged about 4 trips a year back to California for visits with Grandma, etc. (coincidently, most were timed around some kind of off road event - Pismo Sandnationals, Parker 400, etc), and ALWAYS went with a full load which at times resembled overload. One trip, I remember we had bought my mom a new car - '86 Chrysler LeBaron GTS - and were delivering it to her. At the same time, we were going to be in the area for the Sandnationals, so I didn't want to do without my Suzuki QuadSport. So what did I do? I drove the Suzuki over back streets to the local dealer, who had a forklift. I hoofed it back home, cut a 3/4" piece of plywood to fit the NWOR roof rack I had recently bought, and trucked back over to the Suzuki dealer. He "forked" that ATV up and on to the roof rack (almost hitting the side of the truck
!). Lashing it down tight, and we were ready to go... the car on a U-Haul dolly behind, and an ATV on top - not to mention all the luggage, cooler, and one very good travelling 3-year-old in one half of the back seat. I'll never forget the horrible headwinds we hit in the CA high desert - 3rd gear and WOT and 30MPH was the best we could do. I thought the ATV was going to launch right off the top (and land on the car behind!).Not a single trip was unburdened with something behind. Either our 4X4 (that's 4 foot by 4 foot, not a 4WD) homemade trailer loaded with something heavy, or the ATV on top of the trailer (hanging over the front!), plus presents and luggage strapped to the roof. Never a whimper from that truck. In fact, the only problem I had with it over 11 ½ years was a bad engine kick-up VSV for the A/C. Since it was a Guam truck, the part was outrageously expensive - and we tried the U.S. version without ever fixing the problem.
Each trip was the same...unload at "Grandmas" and head for Pismo. It drove my wife crazy that I would go out and jump the dunes in the same vehicle we were relying on to get us back to Texas! I never had any worries, though. Only once did I almost roll it on the side of Eliminator Hill, and never had an accident or breakage. In fact, I was usually the one who had to play "mule" for the other club members who were either stuck or broke somewhere back in the dunes. I remember having to tow out Bill's 20' camping trailer from Maidenform Flats to the beach because his Bronco II couldn't pull it and his "J" vehicle was broke dick on the trailer being pulled out by Gary and his monster Wagoneer. I had to make a "balls out" run at one dune and thought I would tear the bumper off the back, for sure! Again....silly, silly me for ever doubting the capabilities of a Toy 4X4.
I can't say enough for the wheel and tire combination - never popped a bead even though some runs were made at as little as 2PSI!Modifications on the "black beauty" came slow, but ended up pretty extensive. NWOR add-a-leaf to the rear to level the tail-down natural nature of the 1st generation 4Runners (and because of the loads we carried); NWOR roof rack and tri-Y header; K&N filter; the aforementioned axle mods; Smittybuilt double tube bumpers front and rear; the wheels and tires; Rancho RS5000s all around - doubled in the rear using a Toy P/U axle truss and welding a bolt for the top mount; 4 KC 7" lights on a light bar on the roof rack, and two more on the front bumper; Hella fog lamps below the bumper; Rancho steering stabilizer; Warn manual hubs; window tinting and other little stuff.
Four wheeling in Texas, when we weren't running to California, was a lot different than I was used to. I got hooked up with the Dallas-Fort Worth 4 Wheel Drive Club, and got my first taste of mud. DF4WDC did a lot of mud and obstacle course runs, which I just couldn't bring myself to put the 4Runner through. So what to do? Find another Toyota 4X4 to run in the "tough" stuff, of course!
The 4Runner had done some slow trail riding and sand drags/hill climbs, but none of the brush-busting stuff these Texans loved. The one event that was all 4Runner was the Amarillo Sand Drags. They (Amarillo) almost didn't let me run with the other Toys because I was fuel injected, and afterward the other Toys in the club wished I hadn't. I would always take the top off (why should I have 300 pounds disadvantage?), and until the last year the carburated pickups couldn't touch me. Eventually, their mods and paddle tires caught up with my extra power, and then it became a matter of who caught the best light.
(thanks for sticking with me so far in the story, standby for Part III)