Yup, I traded in my beloved Tacoma... Farewell Tacoma, hello 06 Scion tC! Main reason I traded in the truck was because at the end of my current apartment lease this July 31st, I need to be able to afford a place on my own. The truck was just about $500 a month, and this new car is $350. Not only that, but the dealer gave me $17500 for my truck, and I only have $13900 as the pay off on it. The first time in history I've had equity on a vehicle! So, instead of taking that equity and applying it to the new vehicle, I am going to be getting a check cut over to me. Going to use the cash to pay a moving company to move me, and for a company to clean the existing apartment. Another benefit for getting a check cut over to me, I am gonna use part of it to go visit my girlfriend in Buffalo. Gotta meet her parents! >.<

What's one to do on a 3 day weekend? Saturday night I went out with Amber and Loxie and we went and saw Day after Tomorrow. Nice special effects film. I've always liked extreme weather, and if there were ever to be extreme weather, this would be the mother of it all. I really liked this movie, only partially because I think it would be cool if something like that actually happened. Am I sick and twisted to think something like that would be neat?

Yesterday, I worked on my truck. I changed out my front brake pads, inspected the rear, and bled the entire system. The instructions here are good, but there is one part that just seems backward to me. It states to remove the pad retaining clip first, step 1 in the picture. I actually moved that to step 3, and removed the pin retaining clip first, then the two pins, numbers 2, 3 and 4 in the picture respectively. Doing it this way allows that pad retaining clip, number 1 in the picture again, to simply fall out. Start by removing the upper pin first, to do so, push the upper part of the pad retaining clip in, away from the pin. Then slide the pin out. This removes all spring pressure from that clip, and you can easily slide out the bottom pin. Now that clip just falls out, no prying, no flying spring clip. I did all this with just my bare hands, no pliers, etc.

As for today, I am going to go take a shower right after this and then head to my parents house. Gotta help my dad take the canopy off his truck. Damn that thing is heavy... :)

So the other day walking to my truck after work, the sun was setting and illuminating the front skid plate of my truck, and it looked a little wet. I take a closer look and low and behold, its red. So, is it transmission fluid? Maybe coolant? Take a closer look, and here is what I saw:

Yup, its the water pump. Sounds like I'm not the only one who's water pump dies at around 40k miles. I know of several other people on the WATTORA mailing list who also had to get their water pumps replaced around 40k. Thankfully, this is within the 5 year 60k mile powertrain warranty. I go in tomorrow at 8 friggin AM to drop off my truck. Should be done by the end of the day. Anyone doing anything at too-friggen-early o'clock tomorrow? :)

Ok kids, let it be known that it is not a good idea to be wearing a really old and thin cotton T-shirt when welding overhead on your vehicle. I've got two black scorch marks on my left arm where some red hot molten steel decided to embed itself in my skin. Funny thing is that they don't hurt(isn't that characteristic of a 3rd degree burn? since the nerves are burnt too?), heh. Pics to follow later...

Had a productive day today. I replaced the power steering rack boots on my truck. One had a small puncture in it. See my write up here on how to replace them on a 2002 Toyota Tacoma.

I also felt the 3.5 magnitude earthquake today. I was outside sitting on the concrete patio grilling up some steaks. I heard a rumbling and just thought it was the upstairs neighbors dogs again. Then the ground jumped up, and the whole apartment building shook. I actually could hear the shaking sound of the buildings move west since that is the way I was facing. At that point I knew it was an earthquake and went straight to the site linked here in this paragraph. Submitted a report, and then it was announced on the news. Two minutes later, the map on the site was updated with the new earthquake. The whole thing was kinda exciting. Scared the hell outta Amber though! Hehe.

My Demello sliders and bedbar came in today! WEEE! Just got to paint and weld them on now...

Just posted some new pics. Click here to see them. The first pictures is of the stock leaf pack with the stock leaf alignment clamp. The clamp is held on with a ~1/2 in rivet. The clamp is made out of 1/8 in thick steel, with a plastic end cap on it, probably to help prevent squeaks, etc. I installed a Rancho dual stage Add A Leaf kit(Rancho part number 60622), from the recommendation of Rob. In the Rancho catalog, this part is not going to be specified for the Tacoma, but works just fine. The instructions show two methods to install the dual AAL's, with it on top of the factory 3rd leaf, or by having it replace the factory 3rd leaf. I chose to keep the factory third leaf. But to do so you must remove the factory leaf alignment clamp. I did so by using my Dremel. I used a reinforced cut off wheel to cut off one of the legs, as you can see in the second picture. You don't have to cut through it all the way. Just enough to get it to bend, then bend it back and forth till it comes off. Repeat for the other side, and for all 4 clamps. After this is done, you can take apart the leaf packs. Once you have the factory 3rd leaf out, you can see that the factory clamp is pretty much just riveted on with that ~1/2 in rivet. You must now remove the rest of that clamp. After some thinking, I decided to drill through the rivet with a 1/2 in drill bit. If you don't get it exact, you will have to pry it off the rest of the way. The reason I cut where I did with the Dremel is so that I could take my 3lb sledge to it. The way I did it was to take the overload leaf, turn it on its side, then put the end of the factory 3rd leaf on it so that the clamp was up off the ground and the two legs of the factory clamp were facing up. I then used the sledge to knock off the clamp the rest of the way. Pretty simple once I figured out how to do it. Just make sure to get a nice hardened drill bit. I wore out one during the process and had to have a friend go to the hardware store to pick me up another. I could now put the two AAL's into the leaf pack.

The rest of the pics are of the AAL's, CV joint angles after cranking up the SAW's, and some pictures of the truck overall. The suspension is a bit more stiff now, but to my liking. All that is left now is to get some rock sliders, winch, and maybe a rear bumper somewhere down the line...

Finally done with the truck. Lift is on, everything seems to be working fine. I just took a run around the neighborhood up the hill from there where they have those really wide speed bumps. Took them at about 25mph and didn't hear any weird noises. Everything seems to be alright. I'll leave the cleaning of the garage to another day...

Spent the day wrenching on my truck trying to finish things up. I got the rear pretty much done. I got the driver side lifted, flipped down the ebrake cable bracket, and put the new spring pack alignment clamps on both sides. All that is left back there is to fabricate a BPV bracket. Up front, I put on the Revtek differential drop kit, and cranked up the SAW's to match the new rear height. I started to put back on the skid plates, but couldn't get the middle front bolt back on. Damn bolts wouldn't catch in that hole. So I decided to leave it out for now, and started with the rear skid plate, got the front bolts in, then found out you have to elongate the rear holes a bit. Well, I decided to say screw it for the night and come in. I was hungry and tired.

Tomorrow I make the BPV bracket, finish bolting the skid plates back up, and then measure to make sure I got the right length shocks. If I did, then on goes the new rear shocks. If not, I drive down to Central 4WD to exchange them. As it is right now I think the stock Bilsteins that came on my truck are just about fully extended with the truck sitting on the ground. I suspect this because when I get in the back of the bed and jump up and down, on the up stroke, I hear a thud and thats when the travel stops. I should be done tomorrow though! The only way I wouldn't be is if something catastophic happens...

Well I decided to just convert my traditional asp based photoapp page to work in asp.net while I figure out how I want the new one to be.

I haven't driven since Sunday, my truck is still in the garage. I may try and finish up the suspension tonight. However I don't get home until after 7PM now and I don't the people in the apartment above my garage would appreciate me banging and drilling and grinding stuff tonight. Probably just wait till tomorrow. Will be nice to be driving again...