I was supposed to go skiing with the family but they didn’t real feel it today so I went out to do something productive and got distracted by big ol gnarly scratches from my old ward adventure. I broke out the orbital and went to town. Turns out its still got some decent looking paint under there. I don’t love this color but when its clean and in the right light it’s pretty great.
I also took off the roof rack to remove some port installed nonsense and found some rusty holes. yay...
Capped them with stainless machine screws for now. I’ll probably plug them, clean up the area and re-paint the squares. It wont look pretty but no one sees the roof anyway.
It looks so weird without the rack. Like it just went to the boot camp barber or something.
Next on the cosmetic list is to take the front bumper off and beat it back into shape on a wooden buck and then respray it. I have the factory color sitting in my garage I just need to reshape it first.
Non-cosmetic issues include:
fixing the power seat track on the passenger side (plastic gear is stipped, I have the replacement gear)
rebuilding the starter (its time, parts all ready to go)
rebrushing the alternator (likewise)
replacing the oil pump seal...again. (stupid design, but relatively easy to solve)
front and rear wheel bearing service (just checking, they should be fine)
new front axle inner seals (seals are fine but the axle shafts have grooves in them from 300k miles against seals in the same spot and birf grease is worming its way into the diff pumpkin. Need to overdrive them to a new spot, so might as well put in new ones)
I think there is a panel separation in my roof panel. The rattle only happens on rough roads but its LOUD and annoying. I thought it was the port installed luggage dealy I took off. Nope. Nerts. Pretty sure I can solve it with liquid nails but i have to take off the headliner which is a pain. Pretty sure the separation happened because of the rack that was never a Toyota factory part. Bonus: I’ll be able to run auxiliary power under there while I’m at it.
new electrical sub panel and possible second battery. Probably just the single battery but new sub panel definitely on the list. (parts are mostly in, I just have to map out the wiring and sort out a few details.)
more lights (duh, gotta have more lights)
I’d also like to weld up the rack a little more to stiffen it up and add mounts for my gas cans and traction mats. We’ll see if I can get it all done by May.