Vegablade

Well looks like plans have changed. Had a friend who owed me some money and since times are tough for him I told him he could just work on my car for me instead of paying me back. I bought all the supplies, engine oil and Filter, Gear oil for Transmission and Rear Diff, Front pads and rear shoes. He is also a coworker with me at the school as the bus mechanic so i trust his work without question. He did engine oil, said it looked good, did transmission said it looked decent coming out and only a couple tiny pieces on the magnet, then he did the pads and shoes. All went well, the issue lies with the rear diff. He pull the plug and.....nothing came out, couple drops of black fluid maybe. He said he also pulled some pretty good sized metal chunks out. Had him fill it with new oil and brought it the 5 miles home last night for the tear down so it wasn't stuck in his garage, dug into it today... This is what i found. With that said, im still going, but just as a passenger/photographer. Don't think the Tacoma would like it much if i tried taking it haha

You should do ok. There is only one spot on timber tamer that i can think of off the top of my head where you may need a little speed and some throttle. But that all depends on the weather too. But like Kevin said, Walker isn't mud bogs and deep pits. Mostly just muddy hard packed trails with tree and rock obstacles. Have you looked through some of our run pics on here or even my facebook? They give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Most of the big hard stuff has bypasses too. Timber Tamer

Yeah a 2" is about minimum. You could do it without but we would probably have to tow you through most obstacles. I ran a 2", 27s and welded diff for quite a while, smashed my doors, rockers, hatch, rear quarters, bumpers and others. Nothing major but definitely wont look the same after a trip or two.

Kevin is right. Unless your Wildcats are way bald you should be fine. I ran a set at like 60% down LowerMainline once and they did fine.

I have Bighorns in 235/75/15 and with my 2" lift I had 27x8.50x14 Bighorns. They are a great all around tire. Good offroad and decent on road with noise and tracking. They are a softer tire so they will definitely wear faster than an all terrain. If you spend more time onroad then off or if its a daily driver you will definitely want to go all terrain. They will have a longer life and will behave better on wet roads or ice. A guy who used to wheel with us ran Grabbers and he was able to keep up with us on all the trails albeit with a little bit more throttle. TireRack has them for $384 http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=General&tireModel=Grabber+AT+2&sidewall=Outlined%20White%20Letters&partnum=785QR4GRAT2OWL&tab=Sizes

Yeah Jeff is right. I had a hard time on one of the short connector trails with a broken diff stub. Weld up and it will make the trip that much more fun. Instead of stuff like this.

Upper Mainline?

I think you mean stump.

This should be quite the run. Hope for lots of people and smoothing running.

Reserved

Reserved

Then we started the 6 inch lift. 6" lift done. 235/75/15 Maxxis Bighorns. Awesome tire the first time so went with them again. Cockpit View. Dirty engine bay. Dropped and extended shifter linkage thanks to Jeff and Rick. Hopefully lots more to come.

Well besides my thread in the offroad section I have yet to do a proper build thread and figured now is the time. As I received it. Needed a fuel pump, headlight assemblies, grill. Removed all emissions equipment. Had actually not been registered since 1997. Had 82,000 miles on it. Also want to thank Jeff (oneeye) and Rick and anyone else who has helped me not only work on my car but who have taught me a whole lot. No good build pictures but this is after receiving the 2" lift and 27x8.5x14 Wildcats and Drilled Wheels. First time out of the shop. Had to replace the gas tank as the whole time it sat it was missing the gas cap. Added 27x8.5x14 Maxxis Bighorn tires on new Drilled Les Schwab steel wheels. Flat black hood. Dug out old Yakima bars. Purchased a Yakima Load Warrior rack with extension for cheap on craigslist. Added yakima light mounts with some old 6" KCs. Also a cheap CB Radio. Added a Weber 32/36 with a Redline Adapter. 6 Lug Conversion.

Now im not an expert, especially on newer rigs but I don't believe 1.5" of lift which have a huge impact on CV life. I am 2" over stock on my axles and they seem to last for a decent amount of time for the conditions. As for a welded diff i ran one for about 8000 miles with my 27" tires and only replaced two, one with a bad boot and one that separated from dropping a tire. I have run the same welded diff with my now 235/75/15 (29") tires for maybe 1500 miles and have broken one diff stub, and im not even sure when it happened. Just make your turns a little wider and be aware of the extra stress on dry pavement. I will say the traction advantage is huge and was easily noticed when the stub was broken and make things a lot easier offroad once fixed.

With some help from Jeff (oneeye) I got my water pump and timing belts replaced. Though with Jeffs hulk type strength he was able to rip an old belt in half by hand. May be off a tooth still but once that is fixed I should be good to go!

I will be down there this week and can see what the plan is.

I may tag along with Jeff if he goes. Should have my water pump, timing belts done by then.

I believe Uberoo means people who make spacer lifts instead of actually buying larger springs and equipment. They work fine for the street but for any real offroad you dont want to be using cheap spacer lifts when there are so many options for high quality spring/shock combos and leaf packs. Unfortunately for us, spacer lifts are our only option. In all honesty though with our weight and the wheeling we do, they are more then capable and I dont know of anyone in our group who has really had any issues with well built kits.

As skishop69 said, I would say get a Digital Media Receiver with USB/3.5/Bluetooth and just sync a phone/tablet or USB drive. Cheap Android tablets are pretty aweful. I wouldn't install anything less then say a Nexus 7 or the like. Possibly buy a mount or build someting that would be easy to pull. Also have to consider power/wiring and if the weather would affect it (which it will). Something like this would work great. My current Stereo has a USB and its all i use. Same thing with my truck, that or sync phone. I do not use CDs anymore. http://www.crutchfield.com/p_105KDX250B/JVC-KD-X250BT.html?tp=5684

Yeah you're going to want to replace that head. Unless someone knows of some magic way to fix it.

1985 GL Wagon 4WD EA-82 With Weber 32/36 5-Speed Dual Range 6" JAW Lift 235/75/15 Maxxis Bighorns on Allied Daytona Wheels 6-Lug Conversion Welded Rear Diff Yakima Load Warrior with Extension 6" Old School KC Daylighters Maxima Alternator CB Radio JVC Stereo Lots of other small stuff

Two roll pins and if you are not 2" over stock then you need to unbolt the strut to drop the trailing arm low enough to pull it. After a few times you get pretty fast, you can do it in less then 10 minutes.

Pretty much our whole group runs welded rear diffs in an array of different tires sizes. Everything from 27x8.50 up to 31x10.50. Its pretty easy to do and It helps a ton offroad but is definitely noticeable on the street. Even in FWD the tires are still locked together and you can feel them drag and bind. It will wear your axles out a little faster but you can just pull one for street use. I daily drove mine with 27" tires and welded diff, only broke one axle and it wore the rear tires faster then the front. Even now with my 235/75/15s i don't bother pulling an axle, but I also don't daily drive it.

Did you even read through the whole thread? Its defnitely 4WD otherwise what would be the point of building an offroad rig like this. The reason it works is because he accounted for the different gear ratios by matching the tires making them spin at pretty much the same speed. This is not the first time Scott has done this.

Just did the swap. Working great. Voltage never drops below 12 unless bogging it way down. I cheated and cut the connector from the Maxima and then just put two male spades on the end which I inserted into the stock Subaru connector. Will clean up the install later. Don't mind the WCSS mud. Oh also bump.