General vehicle thread

[Irving]

High five!

Speaking of, the low gears got installed, the clutch is in, everything is back together enough for a test drive up and down my street. Only up and down the street because it's currently straight piped until I finish building the rest of the new exhaust. Well, if you count a California (and now Colorado) legal CARB certified CAT as straight piped.

The clutch pedal feels super light compared to before, but the engagement is right away now, instead of the last inch of travel. I still need to cut and reposition my shifter since the body lift.

The 3:1 gears feel nice though. Can't wait to get out onto a shake down trail or two before Moab. Trying to get at least the sliders built before that trip in May.

[Irving]

So I've got most of the exhaust done.

Back story: My neighbor just did another motor swap and has the Toyota 3.4 in his truck. Mine is a 3.5, so they are pretty similar in size and power. He had to get all new exhaust to make it fit and went with 2.5" because he plans on finding the Toyota super charger at some point. He got a magnaflow cat and muffler, then offered me the rest of his 2.5" pipe. I ordered a Magnaflow cat and muffler as well. We're both in the camp of not needing, or wanting a loud exhaust. His sounds factory, and he feels it's too quiet. So we were both anticipating what mine will sound like. I got a much smaller muffler and I think it's a bit too loud. To be fair, it's a little tough to tell driving around with no shift boots where I can see the ground, so it sounds louder than I would like. It doesn't help that I haven't continued the exhaust out the back either. Neither of us was able to fit the V-band correctly so it doesn't leak. He welded his closed, but I'm going to try fitting it a few more times first.

Here are the photos of the difference in muffler size.



The factory muffler is significantly larger in every dimension, and the new Magnaflow is a straight through design as well. I'm happy with having at least three more inches of ground clearance though. You can see that the one time we took it out last year on a Middle Saint Vrain that I smashed it on a rock. It was already rusted through, but after I crushed it, it just added one more exhaust leak.


Welds aren't great, and I ended up just using regular carbon steel filler, but it was a fun first time experience. It was a bit of a challenge to get the bends to line up, but I'm glad for the experience.

[Irving]

Oh yeah, as I was working in the garage, I was getting an increasingly worse headache. I was wondering to myself why I had a headache and remembered that when I was trying to fit the muffler up, it slipped off the pipe and the full weight of it fell right onto the bridge of my nose. Weird thing to forget about a few minutes later!

[brutal]

Forget getting hit in the brain bucket weird? LOL.

[hurley842002]

Oh yeah, as I was working in the garage, I was getting an increasingly worse headache. I was wondering to myself why I had a headache and remembered that when I was trying to fit the muffler up, it slipped off the pipe and the full weight of it fell right onto the bridge of my nose. Weird thing to forget about a few minutes later!

I was thinking it may have been the Cayman Jack margarita you were drinking. Always enjoy watching your progress, it's nostalgic for me, as I miss tinkering on projects. I have a few things I need to do to the Xterra, with the most immediate project being tie rods, I have the parts to replace all of them, but still looking for the motivation, I suppose wearing out my new tires could be adequate motivation, yet here we are.

My brother has a 1980 Toyota 4x4 pickup he's willing to sell to me for a good price, that would make for some excellent thread fodder, but I'd have to get it from Pueblo West to Tucson, knowing me I would attempt to drive it all the way (I've been known to make road trips in questionable vehicles). The pickup runs just fine, but it could use some love elsewhere. I suppose I could just bring my tools and cross my fingers, it's a basic enough vehicle that I doubt there is anything on the truck I couldn't repair.

[Irving]

I got into trouble for drinking that margarita.
I'm sure we could find a buyer for that pickup that's closer than New Mexico to save you the drive.

What needs doing on the tierods?

[Irving]

Update: The V-band doesn't leak, I just didn't have it lined up when I clamped it down. I think V-bands are known for leaking, so I want surprised, but I'm pretty happy that I did it correctly.

[rondog]

A friend of ours put some of that Blue Def stuff in her Silverado, but accidently put it in the fuel tank instead of wherever it's supposed to go.

Bad juju. Very bad juju. $15K worth of bad juju.

[hurley842002]

I got into trouble for drinking that margarita.
I'm sure we could find a buyer for that pickup that's closer than New Mexico to save you the drive.

What needs doing on the tierods?

Ha! I'm sure we could, considering he'll sell it to me for $2k, runs fine, and has good tires, just all cosmetic. Was perusing some online sights, and these pickups are being listed for upwards of $40k in pristine, just insane! Obviously his is a far cry from that, but I think he would prefer to keep it in the family as opposed to selling for a higher price.

Inner passenger is shot, but I just got both inners and outers to do a full replacement at once.

[ChickNorris]

If you know anyone with a 28-31 roadster body, I'd really be interested in chatting.

Thanks

I know of a 29 roadster glass body & doors for around 2k but it's in Washington state. Lmk & I'll forward the info to you. Pm'd you also.