A real "No Mall Crawler" zone! Even the Celica seeing more action that the typical rubber duck adorned Wrangler!
A real "No Mall Crawler" zone! Even the Celica seeing more action that the typical rubber duck adorned Wrangler!
Looks like a great trip! Several nice rigs and big props for the Celica!
John Welsh said:
A real "No Mall Crawler" zone! Even the Celica seeing more action that the typical rubber duck adorned Wrangler!
Lof8 - Andy said:
Looks like a great trip! Several nice rigs and big props for the Celica!
There are several hundred miles of unimproved two-track near my hometown, and its amazing how many of them are accessible via a small 2wd vehicle if you've got some knowledge and skill. My Ram50 draws looks from ATV/SxS people all the time...
So, let's get going on the next project. Incidentally, I used the MightyMax trailer last weekend to haul a hundred cones for our rallycross program. So it's nice to get some use out of it (I have other plans for that trailer, but those will come later)
Anyhow, back to the Raider. I've been meanign to build a second swing-out in the back to better accommodate gear and be able to put the water tank in back instead of the roof, plus some other ideas. I had enough square bar left from the other swing-out, so only had to order a few parts to do this (like a second spindle and latch). Otherwise, pretty much just using scrap metal and stuff from the garage.
Btw, it's hard to fit the Raider in the garage, between it getting taller and adding the overhead storage on the garage ceiling. I had to air down the tires to 10psi and take off one roof box, and then it squeezed in. So, time for work.
First, had to chop the extended corners of the other swing-out to "fit" my expected gear arrangement.
Then take apart the bumper corner and do what I did on the other side - weld in some square tube to the frame horns and reinforce some of the area to take the load
Then hole-saw for the pivot/spindle, and weld all that stuff in where I wanted it
And chop-chop some steel (the HF band saw works great, incidentally) and start welding
mocking up stuff. For this plan I doubled the vertical support since it won't have much side-to-side bracing, you'll see why later.
checking clearance on things with the rear wiper. I also need to make a new bracket for the CB antenna and 3rd brake light, that will come later.
Had a hitch reciever that was beefy, so I chopped it to length and welded on a plate (bought) for the tire mount. Studs on the way
And placed it where I wanted it, added a few gussets, etc. Just tacked at this point
Built a couple new fake-Rotopax mount things that look janky but work great for basically free (and you can't see them anyhow, so who cares if they look bad. These will go here
Supported by a bar on the front that doubles as a back-brace for the spare tire
So that's where I am at the moment, but it's coming together nicely. I spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to make things fit well and maximize ease of use, etc. This was about the 5th setup I sketched out and it seems like it will work out well. More to come later
So where was I?
When I left off, had the basic structure assembled, and then I got some wheel studs for the spare mount. Once I had the tire up there, I found that there was more vibration than I like at the topside of things. I know a lot of Jeep guys set up things to use the factory "bumpstop" on the tailgate to minimize this, so figured I'd try to see how that would work using some old BMW engine mounts that conveniently screwed right into the holes on the door for the OEM spare mount. Tacked up a bracket on the swing-out and tested it out:
The result: better, but still not good. So after some brainstorming about how I could "lock down" the upper section - ruled out a latch (hard to access without some kind of creative pull, and also might rattle). Ruled out other bumpers (urethane, for instance), and did a bit of research on magnets. Sent an email to a magnet seller and showed him this thread. He recommended some neodymium magnets with a 60lb pull force, 10 bucks each. So I ordred a couple and was super-surprised that they weren't as big as expected. But man, they have some pulling power.
Long and short of it, I mounted them on my door-mounted bracket (which I had modified to serve a couple new purposes, including a new antenna mount), like so:
Then built a bracket off the back of the swing-out with a flat steel plate that , when closed, would be right up against the magnet. These mags aren't for pulling from distance, but they have big holding power once in contact:
Then tested....and this turned out to be a great idea. Got rid of 90%+ of the vibration and has enough pulling force to hold the swing-out against the reinforced rear door bracket, but still little enough that you can open the swing-out with a little pull when it's not latched. So pretty pleased with myself on that little thought!
Speaking of latches, after building new brackets top/bottom I put on a De-Sta-Co pull latch just like the one on the smaller swing-out, except this latch is about twice the size (since it's a heavier swing-out). Basically I did things exactly the same as the other side, but bigger lol
I also built a little "ramp and hole" for the spring-pin on the pivot, to hold the swing=out open when it's open....
Ok, so I'm out of sequence here. My original design you saw in the last post had a single-bar lower crossbar. I thought this might have been causing the flex/vibration, so I added a second bar:
In this pic you can also see I had to cut off the crossbar for the Rotopax, since I needed to now relocate them 2" higher up to clear the lower bar (incidentally, the lower bar didn't help with the vibration so it wasn't a very productive effort overall).
I also bought some knockoff Rotopax mounts off Amazon - they're not as good as the real ones, and are for the thinner 1-gallon cans, but figured for cheap they'd be better than my ghetto-fabbed ones that were functional, but inconvenient and really ugly. Tot get some extra length for the 2-gallon cans I have, I added a small extension
And then forgot to take pics of the actual mounts, whoops. But they look like Rotopax mounts, ya know?
So to mount those I had to drill new holes in that C-channel above. Busted out my drill and a fresh bit. Let me note here that for most of my time working, I wear some light welding gloves with leather gauntlets. I was done welding so took them off. So I'm drilling sideways, and of course have to use both hands with some force to keep the bit seated. As the second hole neared the end, the bit caught and broke. I've broken bits before, of course. But in this case, with my weight pushign forward, when it broke I fell forward and the jagged edge went right into my wrist. I noted the gloves earlier b/c if I still had them on this would be a nonstory. Instead, it slashed open my wrist, blood on the floor. Nobody home at the time, so after a couple minutes of panicked wrapping with paper towels, I basically held the wound together and lashed it shut with like 8 of the stretch fabric band-aids. Jumped in my car covered in steel dust and blood and hit the urgent care a couple miles away. I'll spare you the photo I took of it, but in the end I luckily didn't hit the artery (like 1cm away at most) or and tendons, and it just opened 2-3" gash in my arm that required 8 stitches. So.....wear your PPE, folks....even when it doesn't seem like you need it.
WIth that stiched up, of course I got back to work lol....finished those holes, mounted the rotopax, did a few remaining small welding things, and then pulled the swing-out off and gave it a few coats of paint and a coat or two of bedliner. Greased the bearings and installed everything as finished. Bolted on the water tank. Oh didn't mention that. I wnated to put my shower tank on this thing - you can see the flat mount plate on the last post but it's positioned to just barely clear bot the spare tire, the rear wiper, the antenna mount, and the rear glass. Much measuring and planning for sure. IT's set up so I can use it when closed, and when opened the spigot points toward my shower area (right rear of the truck). All in all, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted things to fit, and luckily....they all fit correctly.
So here's the (mostly) finished product with all the accessories and crap bolted up (though I still need to relocate my high-mount 3rd brake light). All in all, no vibration that I can notice, everything fits as intended, and it seems to work fine and looks ok. Still a few ugly welds here and there because I don't take my time as much as I should, but overall looks and functions pretty good.
Now to clean up the garage disaster area, now that the Raider is back in the driveway
Glad the hit to your wrist wasn't worse.
I too have been bit when I thought I didn't need the PPE anymore, although mine resulted in 6 weeks stuck in a brace. Damn tendon got in the way of the grinder blade...
ouch, yeah. I've certainly gotten some nicks and stuff from angle grinders - lots of gloves with slits in them, that's for sure. They scare the fk out of me, but I end up using them a lot. I'm using my bandsaw more often these days though, seems way less sketchy.
Just to more or less finish up this project - still wanted to reinstall my 3rd brake light (since 80s taillights aren't the best). I had it up high previously, but really couldn't find a good place to put it now, and didn't really want to run wiring to the swing-out, because that's a hassle. So I ended up mounting it on the bottom of the rear door, where it's fully visible by following traffic. plus didn't have to do any new wiring.
So I've been a bit of a bad camp-mate for a while by not hauling my own trash out. Mostly because I'm usually with a friend who has a pickup and is happy to take everyone's trash in an open bed. Because the Raider is small, and trash is smelly inside. So finally got around to getting a trash sack after browsing around the Amazon brands. Yeah, there are some pretty neat track sacks out there, but for my purposes I'm not real interested in paying $100-200 for the real high-quality ones just so I can fill them with trash. So just got one off Amazon for $30 that had good reviews.
it got here today and seems reasonably well-built in terms of material and seams. It has large plastic buckles and adjusters - metal would be better of course, the ones with metal buckles cost a lot more and see above^^. Otherwise, it's your typical Trasheroo-style sack with a pull-cord inner closure and a flap-over buckle closure. This one has some other features - some molle-type stuff on the outside (not that I have anything I want to hang there), a large mesh pocket around the bottom section, a couple large drains, and a nifty little zip-open pocket on the over-flap. I guess a good place to put your empty/new trash bags.
I got the beige one, since I have a lot of beige on this truck. It's definitely bigger than I expected. Maybe all the rigs in the listing online have 35" spare tires or something. But whatever, it's not dragging on the ground or anything lol
(ignore all my awnings and stuff out - today was dry and breezy so a good time to make sure everything is totally dried out after the last trip and its rain/fog)
I stuffed the Porsche's car cover in it just to see how it filled out with a bulky item inside
After thinking about it, I decided the mesh pocket is pretty silly, and will just end up with leaves in it (I park under a big-ass oak tree). I can't think of anything I'd actually put in them, and they're pretty flimsy plastick-y mesh anyhow that doesn't look like it'll hold up all that long. So in the interest of not having things that I have no need for, I just cut them all out. This will also make it easier to clean the canvas itself when I feel like it.
So yeah, that's it for now. Trash sack: acquired.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
Hi Irish, so sorry I never responded. Awesome! I love your trip and the towing you did. I used to own a Celica myself so I am absolutely laughing my ass off that he took it through that deep water! I would have just ridden in someone's back seat rather than chance damaging the Celica! You are doing so great on your build and are plugging along! I love the trip shots and the bumper carrier build, nice job! Looks like a pro company built it!
Unfortunately, my beauty died. Headgasket failure. She's been in the garage for months. I've been trying to decide about buying a rebuilt engine or attempting the headgasket myself. The v6 makes it really tight in there, but I may give it a go just because $200 is cheaper than $3500...
I'm rarely on here but here are my specs since I don't have a build thread:
This is what she started as when I got her, you can't tell, but the paint had tons of branch dig in all over when the previous owner wheeled her and most importantly why I repainted was the Drivers fender was fully rusted through and I had to buy some random red fender to replace it:
Anyway, probably a forum no-no to post my own pics and hi-jack your thread, so maybe Ill get around to posting my own thread one of these days.
I keep enjoying coming back every so often and checking on your progress!
No man, I definitely appreciate it - and always enjoy seeing the things that others are doing on their rigs. Totally fine to post on my thread if you don't have one, a good way to see everything (plus anyone else reading this can get some alternate ideas). Yours has certainly transformed! Funny it looks so tiny with the larger wheels, like one of those Pajero Minis :)
haha yeah Andy is a trooper. That Celica has been offroad more than most Jeeps, trust me. He'll take it on almost any terrain he has clearance for - we just didn't expect the water to be so deep (it's usually much shallower and he could have crossed on his own). Amazingly, it didn't leak a drop - I guess Toyota door seals are better than old 80s Mitsubishi ones hah.
- I think I lowered my crossmember a while back, but now I need to go double-check. I had the same idea regarding drivetrain vibration.
- Gen2 steering box is still in the plans, just neet get off my butt and go find one :)
- As to your issue, yeah....I mean the HGs aren't all that hard on this engine, but doing it IN the vehicle is for sure more work. Luckily I had mine on a stand when I did all that stuff. But I know I've seen plenty of guys do it in the vehicle - guess it depends on how much back pain you can handle lol...
- I'll have to think on the panhard bar. Since my truck isn't lifted much (and even less with all my gear weighing down the back) I haven't noticed that the rear axle is off-center at all so perhaps it's not really needed for me. But now I have to walk outside and look more closely lol...
Yeah I actually didn't need the panhard bar, but I figured if I upgraded to the locker rear end from an SR that it would also fit just fine. It was more of a prettification item than it was functional since as you can see mine has been an around town pavement princess with the occasional jaunt to the campsite. I haven't done anything like fording any rivers like yourself or anything needing a winch. I have both the bumpers off because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I do like a minimalistic look for around town daily driver.
I do have a parts car that is nearly 100%, it needs a new 4cyl engine though. It would be great to turn that one into a beefy crawler. It's just sitting on the side of my house waiting for the day I do something with it. Main ride comes first though...
Oh and check out this park job next to a Gwagon for reference!
In this picture, my rear door was actually in line with their rear door. So you can see it was only 1.75-2 feet or so farther forward on a 4 door for the cabin space even though our rides are only 92.5 wheelbase. I don't think enough people realize that classic Bronco wheelbase is 92 inches and wrangler TJ wheelbase is 93.4 and Land Rover Defender is 93". The place where we suffer is Track Width :) 
I still love the fact that the Raider is actually shorter than JUST THE CAB of my buddy's Gladiator lol..
(though the photo is wide-angle, so it's a bit exaggerated here)
Wow! That's hilarious that it's just our cab area with backseat and "trunk" storage all combined is less than their cab area. I never noticed the gladiator had that little back section so their seat could go back a little more almosst like half of a halfcab pickup section
CarGuy81 said:Wow! That's hilarious that it's just our cab area with backseat and "trunk" storage all combined is less than their cab area. I never noticed the gladiator had that little back section so their seat could go back a little more almosst like half of a halfcab pickup section
That particular one is pretty heavily built too. I think he's triple-locked, lots of gear, huge winch. He's usually the guy we count on to get us out of trouble lol - it's very capable and its driver is super-experienced as well.
So one thing I've noticed on our last few night (and fog) trips is that my aux lighting up front kind of sucks. It's just some old Hella Ralleye 3000s (halogen) and a cheapy ebay lightbar. Frankly, my nice e-code headlights are probably the best of the bunch. On the last trip I was behind one of the other guys at night who was running some lighting that seemed to have really good depth and spread. After checking it out, it's actually a mid-cheap Chinese brand "Auxlight." Since I don't have the scratch for the real high-end stuff figured I'd give it a go to do a couple replacements.
I do love these Hellas - they came off my competition rally car and are long-range pencil beams, so not really what I need when going 10mph in the woods at night anyhow. I got them for high-speed rally stuff. I'm actually a bit torn about taking them off because I think they really fit the vintage look of this truck, but it's time to move on.
My neighbor is about to get his (recently passed) father's old 80s or early 90s pickup and wants to do some upgrades to it, so I'll probably give them to him since they may look cool on that, depending on what year it is/if it has round headlights.
I also plan to replace the lightbar on the roof - it's pretty so-so and is mostly just close-range spread-out light with no depth. I also hate how it looks. These big lightbars look find on modern trucks, but a bit silly on the old ones, perhaps.
So about $250 later from Amazon, I have three packages from Auxbeam. Upon initial receipt, I've gotta say that this brand has upped its game vs. the usual Amazon cheap LED stuff. The packaging is great quality, and has a full plastic wrap over it. The packing is excellent too. I'll get to the lights themselves in a sec, but one thing I was most impressed with is the harness. Each set comes with a pre-made harness, fully shrink/plastic-wrapped with decently beefy wires inside (not that super-thin gauge stuff that comes embedded in rubber with most Amazon LED lights). Each light has its own good-quality waterproof plug connector (literally identical to the ones on my $$ Diode Dynamics bar on the rally car, IIRC). The rest of the harness is pre-made as well, with in inline fuse and a relay with a shrink-wrapped base and a beefy ground with a ring. At the end is a click-on-click-off button with an adhesive backing. It seems to work fine, but I prefer the old-school metal toggle switches so I won't use it. I'll take a pic of it all later, but overall I'm pretty impressed by the high quality.
As to the lights. So in place of the Hellas I wanted some smaller yellow projector-style LED lights - mostly for all the foggy/rainy nights we always seem to have in the Appalachians where white floods and regular headlights suck. So I got these two-lens 4" ones. The housings have a lot more "heft" than other small floods I've used over the years for various things. I took one of the covers off and the rubber seal seems to be good quality and likely won't leak, but I'll put some silicone around it anyhow just to be sure (again, I dont' think it needs it though). They have a pressure-equalizing/vent valve and overall seem to be good quality. And of course I didn't take any closeup pics (oops, will do later) so here they are installed:
Yeah, they don't quite fit with the look of this truck, but whatever. They'll blend in better once they're dirty lol. I actually didn't use most of the harness they came with, just the pigtail with the nice plugs, since I already have the wirng for the Hellas that are plenty beefy to handle the lower power needs of the LEDs.
The color is a bit more "modern yellow" than I'd hoped for (more like the more "golden" vintage yellow color), but that's modern tech.
Need to figure out what the ideal aim is. As it is, set them up just below the low beams .
So once it got dark, headed a few streets over to one with no streetlights to give them a test. I know it's hard to tell in photos, but they have some pretty excellent reach and enough spread for decent edges (though not full flood). All in all, pretty pleased with these for the $70 or so I paid for them
--
So that's part 1. Part two will be up on the roof. Here's a sneak preview, though not sure exactly how I'm going to set it all up just yet. These lights are even beefier and should do well.
Other minor thing. Recently I noticed my washer fluid was always low. I didn't see any obvious leak (it's an aftermarket reservoir that I've had on there for a couple years), but upon taking it off it had split down the back and was leaking. So that's annoying. Now, the Raider used to have a much larger tank for the headlight washers (not sure why it's so much bigger than the windshield washers, that's strange). I had taken it off since I don't need headlight washers, but figured I could repurpose it for the windshield. After chekcing it out for leaks, tested the beefy OEM washer motor and it worked fine, though it leaked a bit and I had to take it apart and re-seal it. Then extended the wiring from the firewall to it. Only issue was that the headlight washer uses some pretty big tubing (like 3x the size of the windshield washers) for some reason. I didn't have any adaptors handy so I basically dug into my "box of hoses" and found one in-between that fit inside the big hose and then the washer hose fit inside of that. So basically a double step-down hose. I used some waterproof sealant to make sure they stay together and put it back in. So now I have a functional windshield washer again, that isn't leaking, and has about twice the capacity of what I had before. So, little free things are always fun.
So one thing I've noticed on our last few night (and fog) trips is that my aux lighting up front kind of sucks. It's just some old Hella Ralleye 3000s (halogen) and a cheapy ebay lightbar. Frankly, my nice e-code headlights are probably the best of the bunch. On the last trip I was behind one of the other guys at night who was running some lighting that seemed to have really good depth and spread. After checking it out, it's actually a mid-cheap Chinese brand "Auxlight." Since I don't have the scratch for the real high-end stuff figured I'd give it a go to do a couple replacements.
I do love these Hellas - they came off my competition rally car and are long-range pencil beams, so not really what I need when going 10mph in the woods at night anyhow. I got them for high-speed rally stuff. I'm actually a bit torn about taking them off because I think they really fit the vintage look of this truck, but it's time to move on.
My neighbor is about to get his (recently passed) father's old 80s or early 90s pickup and wants to do some upgrades to it, so I'll probably give them to him since they may look cool on that, depending on what year it is/if it has round headlights.
I also plan to replace the lightbar on the roof - it's pretty so-so and is mostly just close-range spread-out light with no depth. I also hate how it looks. These big lightbars look find on modern trucks, but a bit silly on the old ones, perhaps.
So about $250 later from Amazon, I have three packages from Auxbeam. Upon initial receipt, I've gotta say that this brand has upped its game vs. the usual Amazon cheap LED stuff. The packaging is great quality, and has a full plastic wrap over it. The packing is excellent too. I'll get to the lights themselves in a sec, but one thing I was most impressed with is the harness. Each set comes with a pre-made harness, fully shrink/plastic-wrapped with decently beefy wires inside (not that super-thin gauge stuff that comes embedded in rubber with most Amazon LED lights). Each light has its own good-quality waterproof plug connector (literally identical to the ones on my $$ Diode Dynamics bar on the rally car, IIRC). The rest of the harness is pre-made as well, with in inline fuse and a relay with a shrink-wrapped base and a beefy ground with a ring. At the end is a click-on-click-off button with an adhesive backing. It seems to work fine, but I prefer the old-school metal toggle switches so I won't use it. I'll take a pic of it all later, but overall I'm pretty impressed by the high quality.
As to the lights. So in place of the Hellas I wanted some smaller yellow projector-style LED lights - mostly for all the foggy/rainy nights we always seem to have in the Appalachians where white floods and regular headlights suck. So I got these two-lens 4" ones. The housings have a lot more "heft" than other small floods I've used over the years for various things. I took one of the covers off and the rubber seal seems to be good quality and likely won't leak, but I'll put some silicone around it anyhow just to be sure (again, I dont' think it needs it though). They have a pressure-equalizing/vent valve and overall seem to be good quality. And of course I didn't take any closeup pics (oops, will do later) so here they are installed:
Yeah, they don't quite fit with the look of this truck, but whatever. They'll blend in better once they're dirty lol. I actually didn't use most of the harness they came with, just the pigtail with the nice plugs, since I already have the wirng for the Hellas that are plenty beefy to handle the lower power needs of the LEDs.
The color is a bit more "modern yellow" than I'd hoped for (more like the more "golden" vintage yellow color), but that's modern tech.
Need to figure out what the ideal aim is. As it is, set them up just below the low beams .
So once it got dark, headed a few streets over to one with no streetlights to give them a test. I know it's hard to tell in photos, but they have some pretty excellent reach and enough spread for decent edges (though not full flood). All in all, pretty pleased with these for the $70 or so I paid for them
--
So that's part 1. Part two will be up on the roof. Here's a sneak preview, though not sure exactly how I'm going to set it all up just yet. These lights are even beefier and should do well.
Other minor thing. Recently I noticed my washer fluid was always low. I didn't see any obvious leak (it's an aftermarket reservoir that I've had on there for a couple years), but upon taking it off it had split down the back and was leaking. So that's annoying. Now, the Raider used to have a much larger tank for the headlight washers (not sure why it's so much bigger than the windshield washers, that's strange). I had taken it off since I don't need headlight washers, but figured I could repurpose it for the windshield. After chekcing it out for leaks, tested the beefy OEM washer motor and it worked fine, though it leaked a bit and I had to take it apart and re-seal it. Then extended the wiring from the firewall to it. Only issue was that the headlight washer uses some pretty big tubing (like 3x the size of the windshield washers) for some reason. I didn't have any adaptors handy so I basically dug into my "box of hoses" and found one in-between that fit inside the big hose and then the washer hose fit inside of that. So basically a double step-down hose. I used some waterproof sealant to make sure they stay together and put it back in. So now I have a functional windshield washer again, that isn't leaking, and has about twice the capacity of what I had before. So, little free things are always fun.
Quick detour from the Raider. Took my wife on Saturday to pick up some 7' bookshelves that we ordered last month, so took the Sequoia (since it can fit 7' inside). So about 2 blocks from the store the giant red triangle comes on and proclaims "coolant overheat" or something and I look down and the temp gauge is pegged. So I basically coast it to the parking lot and there's coolant pouring everywhere, splattered around all over the engine bay and undercarriage.
I can't tell where the leak is, but from the amount I assumed it must be a cut hose, based on the volume. Annoying since I put new hoses and a new Koyo radiator on it not too long ago. No tools so can't get the skidplate off, and finally write it off to "do this at home." So i call AAA for a flatbed and we load up the bookshelves. Flatbed gets there and I turned on the truck real quick to drive it up the ramp after it had been cooling for an hour...more coolant spitting out.
Got back to my house and as I'm pulling it off (again, 30 secs of engine on so won't hurt anything), more fluid spitting. The tow driver (who had been telling me about his Stage 3 STi the whole drive back) immediately says "yo, sounds like your water pump is shot." Which actually makes sense, upon thinking about it. It hadn't been weeping that I noticed, but I had been hearing a marbles-bearing noise for a good while, which I couldn't locate. Pulled the skid plate off and dumped a gallon of water into the radiator, have my wife turn the truck on while I stand over the engine (with goggles on), and it's immediately clear the water is spraying/flowing out of the water pump bearing/seal area behind the pulley. So, located. New parts on order so hopefully can replace it later this week when I have time. Kind of happy it happened now, since I have to tow the racecar next weekend out to W.Va., which would have been a much worse breakdown situation.
--
Ok, now back to the Raider. LIghting Project #2 - the roof. Never much liked either the performance or the look of the giant 40" LED bar up there. And also the mounting screws long agon stripped and were basically expoxied to stay in, so I was just waiting it to fall off while wheeling someday lol. So pulled that thing off to replace with four of the round-ish lights I showed at the end of the last post. Now, how to mount them. The bar was mounted to two diagonal tabs off the front crossbar of the rack, so why not re-use those (they're pretty beefy, welded on). So I got out a long piece of angle iron and welded some end caps/mounting tabls on each end
(and don't ask me why there's so much random crap on my workbench....)
So this setup will allow me to bolt on the bar at each end with a pair of big M10 torx-head bolts, with enough grip force to hold it in place well but also able to loosen to adjust/rotate the car to raise/lower all the flood lights at once rather than individually. So after measuring for position, I drilled and mounted the light mount brackets (and smaller holes for zipties to secure wiring).
These lights each have their own pigtail with a weatherproof sealed plug. But they come with paired harnesses, and I want them all on one circuit, so did some cutting and splicing to make one pair of plugs (each for two lights), set up to be the right length so I don't have to coil wires and can hide them well, and then used part of the main harness through my roof wiring gland and spliced into the pre-existing wiring/relay/switch I had for the roof bar. ALl this wiring actually took longer than fabbing the mount, of course. One reason I used angle was so I could hide all the wires underneath, so they'd be minimally visible from the front or sides. "Clean" (ish)
So here it is mounted up
I haven't tested them at night yet, but they look pretty bright in broad daylight compared to the old lightbar.
Nice. To answer your question: I took it out tonight in to the woodland roads not far from my house to find some darkness. So here's a series of three: First is my E-code H6 regular lowbeams (which are actually quite good). 2nd is lows with the yellow. 3rd is lows with the roof lights. So they look pretty good to me, and have a lot better depth/range than the bar did, for certain.
So pretty happy with all of that. My light bar setup is causing a faint resonance (thanks, roof with hardly any factory insulation), so I may spend a bit of time trying to tone that down, either with some kind of aerodynamics fix, or just by putting some dynamat or something inside the headliner. It's not terrible, but I can definitely notice it.
In other news, dove into fixing the Sequoia. Long story short, the water pump was TOTALLY shot. In fact, I'm amazed it was actually turning at all, the bearing is so destroyed. It's an OEM Toyota pump, but the bolts have some gray RTV on them, so looks like it's been replaced at least once. Other than that, everything else looked fine, and the idler pulley and tensioner pulleys felt fine. I replaced the tensioner anyhow, since my belt kit came with one. (Side story: it actually came with TWO....someone put the wrong parts box in the kit box, since there was supposed to be an idler pulley in there. So that was lame, but the idler in the truck feels perfect anyhow).
No after pics, but I filled and bled the system and looks like everything is fine - temps stayed in the normal range after 20 minutes of "spirited" driving. I'll also say that maybe the water pump has been going out for a LONG time. I've always thought this 5.7 sounded a bit "coarse" compared to the old 4.7, but now with the new pump on there it's a LOT quieter than it's ever been since I've owned it, so I guess it was water pump bearing noise I've been hearing for as long as I can recall. Go figure. With these engines that have a crank-driven fan this huge, it's hard to locate/diagnose engine noises, generally.
A rare driveway-sharing by the trucks...
Great to have it blow before the long tow!
yeah, reminds me of the time my old sequoia blew a brake hardline when I was going to get gas the evening before a long-distance tow (so I was able to fix it in time, not be stranded).
Just a couple small updates. First, the new upper light bar was causing some resonance in the roof. I dealt with this when I first built the rack and had to modify it, and in this case I'm sure it was from the horizontal mount bar having a gap between it and the rack fairing and/or the roof. So as a test, found an old fairing I used on this truck back in the day, and slotted it around the light mounts and bolted it to the crossbar (with some old hose as a bumper on the roof middle). Long story short, it works great, got rid of all the resonance and may have actually reduced the wind noise from BEFORE the lights, though it's hard to say for sure. In any case, another free mod that pays dividends...
Also saw this. This old Jeep is at the local McDonald's at like 8am every morning. An elderly guy drives it and lives somewhere near me, but no idea where. Sad to see it on a flatbed, hope it's nothing too bad.
Er, what else. Oh, it seems the magnet on the swing-out is working, but on hard bumps it still kind of pulls off and then bangs back, so I added a second one to double the force. Seems to hold better. We'll see once I actually get it offroad and not just hitting local manhole covers and stuff on our very excellent roads here....
This is mildly O/T, but my fuel pump on the e30 failed at the last rallycross of the season and I couldn't push it up the driveway from my trailer (foot injury). So used the Raider, which I've used to push it up before. Except that was before I put the new springs/torsion bars on and now it's a couple inches higher....to high to catch the bumper. It was too late before I noticed.....
The Sequoia was out getting dirty too at the rallycross, as was my Mighty Max trailier, hauling cones and gear since our club van wasn't available.
And a rallycar shot from last weekend, just because it's cooler than most of my 4x4 shots
Great update on the lighting. Thanks for taking the time to write it for us.
I understand your lamenting of taking off the Hellas because they are so period correct, even if they are the wrong beam pattern for the application. With that said and after seeing how small the new yellows really are, might I suggest...return the Hellas to their middle position and remount the yellows outward of the rubber bumper uprights. Generally, mount the yellows under the headlamp washer nozzles.
With the yellows outward, the yellows would illuminate more "curb" and add more to the outward reach of the headlamps. The pencil Hellas could then illuminate remaining space in the middle.
Yeah, that was the original plan, but in the near future I plan on making a crossbar to protect the grille, so not sure how everything would fit together and didn't want to drill any new holes in the bumper at this point until I have it all figured out. We'll see, the big Hellas may go back on, but in truth I never ever use them so they are purely cosmetic. Maybe they'll look cool on the Porsche :)
Little project today as I was also ordering some stuff for a slightly bigger project. You may recall that at the far rear driver's side corner I originally just had a strange "basket" thing. I originally made it to hold muddy boots, or other stuff, but in truth it wasn't very useful, didn't fit things very well, and just became a "junk box" of sorts. This thing:
So let's get rid of that. Chop chop of the wire-shelf sides, and built a frame out of angle iron, including a crossbar.
I wanted to clearance for the fire extinguisher, a shelf, and a standard gallon oil jug. Here's my "set clearance" technique:
Then found an old piece of stainless steel sheet (didnt' need stainless, but didn't have any mild steel) and made a professional-grade template for the shelf
SHELF. This is welded in, but remember, I can take this entire shelf unit thing out as one piece if I need to for some reason, so it's just part of that
After that, needed to figure out a door. I found a couple 12" piano hinges from an old project, and a big-ass aluminum street sign that's been sitting in my garage for years. Since I can't weld aluminum here, I had to do it the "old" way with rivets. After some cutting and shaping, and placing some rubber weatherstrip to get rid of any rattling, here it is installed, with extinguisher, first-aid kit, jug of oil, and (just for testing) my electric air pump (I usually carry a much bigger Viair on trail, so won't have the Dewalt one there...)
On the outside I put the mounts for my axe, way more convenient place for it than the other strange places I had it previously.
So all in all, that came out pretty damn good for a 4-hour project, and cost me exactly nothing in materials. I do need to figure out a latch setup for it - something that's quick-open (not a screw-in knob) since the emergency gear is in there. Though I should probably move the extinguisher someplace other than the back, since now to get to it I have to open both swing-outs, the rear door, and this compartment. Which seems like a lot if something's on fire, eh?
Next project will be my single biggest expenditure for this built (outside of tires), I think. Kind of a XMas present to myself, of sorts. It may require some customization as well, TBD. That will be in a week or two.
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