It was another excellent trip on the Rubicon with Disabled Sports this year. The Samurai made it to Buck Island Lake and back without a hitch. Going up Old Sluice there was a guy waiting for us to pass who yelled out, “hope you brought axles!” I just said to myself, “I don’t need no extra axles, I’m in a Samurai!”

There were a lot of people on the Rubicon this year. A few times we had to wait for traffic to clear before continuing on. It seems a bit harder this year. The rocks seemed bigger. But the Samurai just weaved through them like only a Samurai can.

I was trying to take it easy because I have the front welded up. I didn’t want to bust a birfield while on the trip. It was very hard to steer that way, but it did OK. I was thinking that it was going to be worse.

Oh, and the tube doors were great!

Next year I’ll have my Wicked Zuk to take on the trip.

I couldn’t just go to the Rubicon in my Samurai the way it was. I needed something more than I had last year. So last night I whipped up some real cheap tube doors. I’m talking way cheap.

All my hard work to get my buggy going in time for the Rubicon trip is for not. Ends up that the steering ram has a bad seal and needs to be rebuilt. It’s hard to wheel if you can’t steer.

I had hoped it was just air in the system, but no matter what I do I can’t get it to turn right. Yesterday I noticed fluid around the left side of the ram. It’s leaking out of the seal.

I’m going to have to pull the ram off, take it apart, buy new seals, replace them, then put it all back together, bleed it, and then it will be ready to go.

So I’m going to end up taking the old trusty Samurai back to The Rubicon this year. All well. Maybe when I get back I can get some seat time in the buggy.

On a positive note, the brakes are finally working better. Still need to bleed them one more time. I also need a new MC cap because the one I have leaks like a sieve.

So a few weeks back I found a leak in the hydro hose going from the pump to the orbital. The hose is one of the cheapest hoses around. No surprise that it would get a leak. I should have taken care of it sooner, but I’ve been busy with other things on the buggy.

Well, I took it off the other day to take it in and get a new one. A few people told me to take it to Cashman Equipment Co. because they would have everything I needed. So I verified that they were open on Saturday and sent Jane into town to pick it up for me.

She finds out that they only sell CAT stuff, so that was a total bust. I tell her to head over to Napa and try them. They could almost do it, but they didn’t have the small end that goes into the pump. Cashman had the small end but not the large end. So she tries asks if she could buy the hose and small end at Cashman and take it to Napa and get the large end put on. Well, neither one would do that. Something about licensing and liability. LAME! So I could have had the hose if I had a way to crimp on the connectors. All the specialty shops are closed on weekends, so no wheeling for me.

I have everything else ready to go, pending other problems. This weekend was suppose to be the shake down test to make sure everything was good to go. It also give me one more weekend to fix any problems. Looks like I might get the hose this week and hopefully I can get it installed and all the fluid replaced before the weekend. Then next weekend I’ll do my shake down on Sat giving myself Sun to fix any problems.

I’m cutting it way too close for the Rubicon trip at the end of the month.

All I need now is a way to get the buggy to the Rubicon.

Well, my brakes still suck, but they are getting better. I have a leak in my hydro steer hose from the pump to the orbital valve. I’m still looking for some different 17″ rims so I’m not rubbing on everything. My exhaust is still too hot and I need to buy some heat wrap for it.

Looks like I’m going to be dropping another $300 on it soon. Arg!

I figured out how to shift my buggy’s rear t-case. It’s the 2lo conversion where you have 2 wheel drive low. The trick is moving the shifter between the two shift rails and moving both of them at the same time. Tricky, tricky, tricky.

So all I really need now is some new rims and I’m set. I just need like an inch to inch and a half more clearance and everything will be good.

I also need to finish bleeding my brakes. They are sorta working right now, but I have to pump them up. I also need to redo the brake peddle mounting bracket. It’s a bit weak and bends easy. I just need some more gusting. I should weld the things in there, but I don’t want to burn down my buggy yet. It’s right in there by some wires, hydro-fluid, brake-fluid, and the firewall has foam on it. This buggy needs a lot of work…

This weekend I’m going to put on the bump stops, bleed the brakes, fix the peddle mounting bracket, and take it out wheeling again.

Oh, and the Rubicon trip for next week was canceled, so I have four weeks to get my buggy running good for Disabled Sports Rubicon Trip. I hope I can get this buggy working good enough for it.

I took the buggy up the hill yesterday!

Saturday I had a few problems. No brakes, locked up brakes, master cylinder was bad, brake peddle mounting bracket bends easy, no high speed gears, hydro steering goes out, gas going to the rear of the tank starving the engine, rear shocks rubbing on tires, bad ball joints in front axle, and then I blew a fuse.

Sunday was better. Still no brakes, figured out high speed but I have to pull the stick out to switch the shift rails, still need to fill the gas tank so I can drive up a hill, need wheels with more backspace, and a bunch of other small stuff.

The parts I need to buy now are:
new rims with more backspace
twin stick for Samurai t-case

I’m getting super close now. Johnny and I plumed in the brake lines and got them all set. But then we ran into a problem with the master cylinder. The way it was mounted and the brake peddle assembly was all hosed up. I had to tear it all apart and build new mounting plates for it. I have the MC remounted and now I’m working on a new brake peddle.

I should have taken photos of how it was. It was totally whack. Now it’s looking good. I hope that it will actually work now.

I’m almost done. Just a few small issues. I still need to plumb my rear brakes, and now I have to cut off my steering ram and move it down a bit. I think this weekend I’m going to have it finished!

The buggy is on it’s feet! I welded all the trusses and link tabs, hooked up the links and drive shafts and drove it out of the garage. It still needs brakes, steering, and a bunch of other small things, but it’s running and it’s almost there!

Well, I was going to take my junk to Dr. Smash, but I’m running out of money. I can’t spend another $500 for welding, so I’m going to just do it myself.

So yesterday I started welding on the trusses. I haven’t welded in awhile, and from what I read if you stop for awhile you have to re-learn again or something. Personally, I think my welds look just fine.

So I have the rear truss mostly welded on and the tabs are going on tonight. I’ll get photos later.

I received all the parts for my axles yesterday. This weekend I’m going to mock up everything and see how it fits. Then Tuesday I’ll haul the axles and parts over to Dr. Smash so he can weld it all up.

The trusses are going to need some work. The rear is too narrow, so it will need to be bent out a half inch on each side. Should be no problem. The front will need to be cut to fit. One side will need to be cut off and redone so it will fit over the offset diff housing. I’m sure it will be easy for Dr. Smash to do.

I also have the drive shaft flanges for the pinion inputs on the axles. This will make it easy to mount my drive shafts to my axles. I have the rear on and it’s going to work just fine. The front will be a different story. The rig has a Samurai drive shaft on the front. So I’m going to have to make it fit the front flange by drilling new holes. They are like a 16th of an inch smaller than the Toyota. I think I’ll put my extended yoke on the front also. Give it that extra bit.

Anyway, I’m totally excited about it. I’m hoping I’ll be wheeling very soon.

Now I just need to figure out brakes, brake lines, hydro steering mount, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Well, I haven’t been keeping up with my online journal. Mostly because I’ve been really busy with programming. But I have some news…

Last week I bought a buggy from a friend in Reno. It’s really cool. I picked it up for $4,500. I purchased it mostly because of what it has already on it. It would cost me more to buy the stuff separate to build my crawler.

What I got was a working buggy for this summer and parts for building my other buggy this winter. It has full hydro steering, air system for ARB and tires, all the links and rod ends for a four link suspension, a good CB radio, fuel injected Suzuki engine with dual t-cases, fuel cell, two winches, removable steering wheel, real nice seats with harnesses, and other things that will work great with my buggy.

The only catch was that it had no axles, wheels, or tires. So I’m in the process of putting my D44/D60 under it. I should have it wheeling very soon.

Today I received my D44/D60 to Toyota flanges for my drive shafts. This will make it very easy to bold up to the current setup and even my Toyota T-Case in my other buggy. I should receive my trusses and link tabs for my axles by Thursday and I’ll have them all tacked up this weekend.

If I can get in to see Dr. Smash next week, I’ll be wheeling it by the 16th. Whooohooo!

What a weekend. So Jane graduated from college on Friday and Randy, Tim, Michelle, and Craig drove over to hang out for the weekend. It was a blast.

One of the things I wanted to do was fix my Samurai. The plan was to pull the broken front diff out and swap the good rear diff with the locker in it to the front. Then weld up the locker in the broken diff and make it fully locked.

Well, after getting the rear in the front all bolted up and finished then welding the broken one up and putting it in the axle housing I run into a problem. The axle shafts won’t go into the splines. After messing with it for 15 minutes I grab another diff and checked the splines. The front axle has smaller splines than the front axle.

Great, I just ruined that diff and all the work I did has to be redone.

So now I’m going to pull both diffs. I’m going to take them completely apart. I’m going to swap the good locker into the front diff and get that installed. Then I’m going to toss the broken diff in the garbage and put the original spider gears back in. Then I’m going to weld them all up and make it fully locked. Toss that back into the rear axle and call it done.

This is going to be another two days of work. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it for awhile.

But I did however come up with a new plan. I’m going to finish my new buggy, then fix up the Samurai and sell it for whatever I can get. I’m just tired of messing with it.

Nothing new happening. I’ve been working my tail off and the weather has been bad. So same ol same ol.

Next weekend I need to clean my garage and do some water line installs for the garden. Just some simple spring stuff. I’m hoping to get a full watering system setup this year. One that won’t have to be redone every year. Something in the ground.

I have a quote from Dr. Smash on doing my four link. I figure that all the stuff I need to have done will cost me about $1000 in labor. I’m still tossing around the idea of having him do it or doing it myself. I’m still not sure. I need to start buying all the stuff for next month. I really want to be rolling in June.

Anyway, that’s about all there is to report.

Not a good week so far. My Mac died this morning. My TV dies the other day.

This morning I went into my office to start work and smelled something not right. Smoke. The kind that comes from electronics. The kind you don’t want to smell. Anyway, I searched around and could not find where the smell came from. So I went to my Mac to start working and the computer just turned off.

I messed with it for a few hours, but it’s apparent that the power supply is bad in it. It will run for about 10 minutes then die. I was able to copy off all of my work, but none of my movies or things like that. I do have backups of a lot of my movies, so I’m not too worried about it. My work was the most important. If it comes down to it, I do have backups on DVD and CDROM that I can restore. But that’s a pain.

So now my Mac is off to the Apple store to get repaired.

Oh, what about my TV you ask… The projector bulb went out the other day, so no TV until I have an extra $150-200 to buy a new one. ARG!

Well, at least I get to play with Ubuntu Linux now and see how the new stuff is working. Installing software in Linux is so easy compared to other operating systems. Just apt-get install packagename and your off to the ball game. I have Rails and Subversion all setup now and ready to go. Now I just have to get used to VIM again.

I’ve been moving a bit on the Buggy lately. It’s been warm outside, so I’ve been in the garage working on stuff. I have the hood and front clip mocked up right now. I’m also working on the front axle. I need to get it back together to mock it in for the four link setup.

I’m going to start buying parts from Ruff Stuff for my four link. It’s going to be around $1500 for all the parts. Wow.

I also mentioned awhile back that I busted my Samurai axle. I fixed it and then had problems with my locker. Well, I tore it down last weekend and tried to figure it out. I could not find anything wrong with it so I put it back together. I didn’t finish, but I’m hoping that it just works after I put it back in.

I’ve been super buys with work, and not much else, so news is kinda slow right now.

You might have noticed that my home page has changed. Instead of redirecting you to my blog, I have a menu. I did this for a few different reasons.

1) I wanted to use phill.kenoyer.com as my OpenID.
2) I wanted to change things up a bit.

Mainly, the OpenID is the reason, but change is a good thing. Plus I got to flex my CSS3 muscles on my new home page. You probably can’t see all the CSS3 goodness because most likely your not using a browser that can support it. MSIE doesn’t even support rounded corners. Mozilla doesn’t support the box shadow. Only WebKit (The next version of Safari) supports all of it.

I hear that the next version of Safari will be available for Windows. hmmmm