And the last video, up we went. We did retrieve our strap after getting to the top.

 

After that was a gate (close it after you're through), then a shelf road and some bumpy stuff that requires attention. There was an interesting large 'waterfall' of rock we had to go down. No worries with a spotter.




And on until you come to a main gravel road, a left turn and head on over to Top of the World.

 

Top of the World trail, rated moderate, I'd call it a hard moderate. Maybe because it was the last trail on a long day of off-road. Lots of careful placement and tallish ledges, I don't recall any really tilted spots. Last mile was the more difficult.
We could see a storm in the distance while we headed up, the end result had perfect timing...my husband has a better pic, this is what I took...


his pic


And this is me not perching


That's all I've got of Top of the World.
A little further down the main road is Cow Skin Camp. We had the place to ourselves and it was awesomely quiet.
Sometimes the awning is for rain, sometimes it is for shade


And down to the Dewey Bridge in the morning.


Top of the World was the one that dented the gas tank and made my gauge wonky.

 

We camped up at Burro Pass that night, the Husband mountain biked a large part of the Whole Enchilada trail and a new trail that runs off it. The kid and I lazily hung out at the Rotary park.


We camped off La Sal loop road that night


And drove a couple of short off-roady stuffs-
Dellenbaugh Tunnel, there is a short hike through the tunnel


to the canyon overlook


And from the tunnel turn-off/tombstone rock


we went on to Rainbow Terrace, which I didn't get pics of.
The scenic part of that is the first almost half, then it's a long drive on gravel road to pavement.
I wouldn't venture out to these trails if it is wet- that special Moab slime-cement death mud is no bueno. Our day was bone-dry.

And one more night in the La Sals before going over Geyser Pass and heading back to Colorado

 

We made it to Yankee Boy Basin, but there was no camping so we drove the 550 up to the road to Clear Lake near Silverson where there's a camp spot we like. Pulled in when another 3rd gen pulled up, we barely beat him to the spot. Nice family, they got the spot across the way.
Later on I'm cooking dinner when this thing thuds about a foot away from me. A grey jay. Very personable little beasties who apparently DON'T know how to land on the ground. Maybe his landing gear was stuck?
They'll also steal your lunch if you let 'em.
This guy explored my truck in the morning.


I know, it's a bird. But they're so personable...


We got gas and headed over to Yankee Boy Basin. Pretty early in the morning, but felt quite crowded to me. We hadn't done it before so wanted to check it out.


Saw another 3rd gen at YB


And went up Governor Basin, not so crowded


Had lunch amidst a group of 3 grey jays


And back down Governor (looking down into Yankee)


Yankee was super-packed by this time, we got the heck outta there!

 

Went over to Mineral Creek, a much less crowded favorite of mine,


and headed up to Poughkeepsie, which we've never done.
Poughkeepsie is fairly rocky and steep. There's a trail to the infamous wall, and a go-round trail. We took the trail to the wall. I can't find the pics, will plant them here when I do.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) we were behind a Jeep club from New Mexico. We watched the 1st woman go up with not too much trouble for what it was.
The 2nd woman's jeep had clearance issues. After watching her not getting past a spot for about 20 minutes we realized it was too late in the afternoon to wait any longer (we still had to find a spot to sleep) and headed over to and up the go-around.
There were still a lot of jeeps waiting their turn.
Forced sensibility.

California pass was next, over to Animas, Then up Cinnamon.


We ended up at a BLM campground close to Lake City. It was surprisingly quiet once 10pm rolled around. Not a fan of campgrounds, but we had good luck when we had to use one this time.
The San Juans were more crowded than usual this year, it seemed.

 

From the Lake City area we headed over to Salida, where we spent the night near where we will be staging one of the trucks to mountain bike the Monarch Crest trail.
MICE! This was the first time ever that we had mice roaming over the tent dome. There were 3 that we know about, knock one off and it or someone like it would come back for more.
When I woke up I got into my truck to get my coffee fixings and surprised a mouse in my truck. It skittered from front to back and I unpacked everything in an effort to get it to leave my truck (and wiring!) alone.


I didn't find any damage other than a food wrapper from the night before, whew!
Then we rode the Monarch Crest trail. Best shape it's been in in a long time.
My 4 year old isn't any more...




It was an excellent ride in excellent weather. Afterward we headed over to Aspen to spend the night at one of the dispersed sites at the bottom of Pearl Pass.

 

After a nice night at the bottom of Pearl Pass we headed up. At about mile 3 from the trailhead is the turnoff for Montezuma Basin.
Listed as difficult, I believe because of the narrow sometimes off-camber shelf roads. Nothing stuck out as hard to do.
We took it.

 

And back down to go to Gunnison via Pearl Pass. Also listed as difficult, this one is a little more trying coming up from Aspen then the other direction. Lots of rocks. Some off-camber narrow shelf stuff, some of that being wet. My used-up tires didn't like one of those wet slippy spots, but I did get up it without too much hoodoos. The 99 had a better time with it.
I didn't get any pics of the beginning shelf area, this was as we headed up from there


See the '99? As we near the pass


The other side of the pass is where my rear sway bar popped out on the broken end. We stopped at a camp spot and I was able to remove the bracket and put it back in where it stayed for the rest of the trip.


Mac Daddy pizza at Pie Zan's in Gunnison, then back to Old Monarch Pass to camp




In the morning we did an easy mountain bike on Methodist Mountain, hung out in Salida for a bit, then over to
Mushroom Gulch to camp


Where we had more mousie issues, this time my battery post covers and one got into the 99 and had itself some walnuts, luckily only the walnuts, no chews in the rest of the food.



Next day we went to Colorado Cyclist in Colorado Springs to replace my 21 year old Sidi bike shoes, but the storefront was closed, so we went to Wilson Lake in KS to sleep, and home the next day.
Good thing, because apparently now Colorado is on fire? Hope that all gets controlled quickly and safely!
The end until next year, time to repair or replace the damaged and used-up stuff.

 

Air Filter: was white when we started and at a year old it got replaced.


There was mousie poos on the winch line so it got pulled, inspected, washed, and respooled. No chews. Whews!
While I had hose in hand I washed the fine dust out of the condenser and radiator.

The tires will need to be addressed. Two of them are down to the wear bars anyway with nearly 50,000 miles on them, and the sidewalls are sliced and diced all over. The worst spot kept getting kissed with more rippage.
Why I roll BFGs....maybe other tires can take this sort of abuse and hold up (I'm still driving on it), but I don't know which ones. Currently planning on replacing with more BFG a/t KO2s- even though they're a bear when it comes to balancing- in the next several months.


Stereo Receiver suddenly went into protect mode halfway through Missouri at the beginning of the trip and is still in protect mode after unplugging the speakers, reset...isn't. Disconnecting the receiver from the truck, waiting and reconnecting isn't resetting it either. Read someone's post about their bad battery causing the protect mode. Will further investigate, but am not overly hopeful.

Sway bar broke. Was able to salvage the links, am going to get a boneyard swaybar.


Gas tank is bented and dented. Will also look for gas tank at boneyard. The only way it really affects the truck is the wonky gas gauge, I think it has something to do with the baffle in the tank, will have to drop the tank for answers.
Gotta pull the tank to make room for an upcoming project anyway.


House battery ( Oct 2011) not quite up to voltage snuff. It can't run the OBA or winch without load by itself, has to be connected to the start battery.
Will try charging it and testing again.
Start battery (Jun 2015) still seems good. Will also test the alternator. Currently (hah!) thinking bad house battery.

Clutch not fully disengaging, making it hard to shift into any gear when running, especially first and reverse. Shifts fine when truck is shut off.
Pulled inspection plate, found this thin bit of metal (not the ink pen) at the bottom of the bell housing- please holler if any of you know what it is:

Marlin is currently out of clutches for the 3.4

 

Junkyard run today. Found a sway bar on a 2wd 97 4Runner. It's a match for mine, except for the break and mine being bent a few degrees on the left end. Not sure where that happened, the trouble showed itself before we did the harder stuff, maybe the climb out of McInnis, or?
Anyway. 2wd bar matches 4wd bar, can interchange
.
The junker truck had very little rust on the underside, unfortunately it looks like it slid sideways into something short enough to clear the frame and rear lower control arm and hard enough to push half the left side of the gas tank and skid all the way over into the right side of same.
No other 4Runners where we looked this go around, but mine's not leaking so I have plenty of time for patience.

Kyle at Marlin says clutch kits should be back in stock in about 10 days. I'll call that good news.

 

Annnd that's why the 99's gear shift lever was leaning over a couple of inches in lower gears when I got on the throttle:



Old motor mount and all, but it's a nice clean fresh tear, just over-torqued it, presumably in 1st/LO. Luckily they have a sort of 'hat' between them and the top/engine mount - when completely failed like this it leans over and one of those ears sticking out on the sides snugs into that and stops the motor from going over any farther. Nice failure mode!!!

Modest PITA to replace it - tucked in tight by the filter/oil cooler/alternator/upper control arm/frame/hoses/wires/etc, but not terrible. I didn't feel like dropping the skids to jack the motor up from below - so I just used ratchet straps over the passenger side fender (plenty of padding) to lean the motor over that way - which worked as well as it needed to.

I also bent the tailpipe hanger back into shape - getting the tailpipe away from the frame back there (got whomped on a ledge somewhere). I still need to take that transfer case skid off and thump it back into shape - the transfer case is resting on it, it's bent upward at both ends. But... it's hot and sunny out there now. I'll do that later.

 

It is hot and sunny out there!
96 4Runner 316,048, where it's gonna stay for a couple of weeks.
Today I pulled the batteries and put first the redtop, and now the yellowtop on the charger. The redtop charged, the yellowtop immediately went to desulphation, so that's gonna be a wait to see what's what.

I also pulled the gas tank. It is as I suspected, the float is catching on the baffle inside, the baffle having been pushed out of shape by the tank dent. Good aim, I guess.
Dent is at topish of pic, float affected by bowed-in baffle on left side of pic.


It also dented the fuel pump seat, but that looks to be an easy bend.


The tank wasn't that big a deal- but I wanted room for my next project in the middle of all the other fixits.


And that's where we're at for now.

 

96 4Runner 316,048 miles

House battery won't keep a full charge, bought new battery.
Have been pulling off things, started on the bell housing, but didn't get far before life got in the way.

 

96 4Runner 316,048 miles

I don't know how, but it got me home:


Looks like the disk rotated and precariously wedged itself.


Awaiting Marlin Crawler to get their clutch kits back in stock.

 

And another thing.....
96 4Runner 316,048 miles

The imput shaft is hosed. It wasn't making noise, either.
Thoughts, suggestions, ideas appreciated. This may be out of my range....
I do know a transmission shop with good people to replace the shaft, what other actions...used trans....sleeve it.....something else?


It's still cheaper than buying new, right?
(not that I would let go of this thing)

 

I'm amazed that clutch disc drove home like that (probably at least 5- 600 miles?). Not sure when it 'failed' - but the two layers (?) of thin metal are cracked all the way around, and by rights it should have just been useless freewheeling. But somehow it just happened to sort of wedged together after turning ~60 - 90 degrees. And while it was certainly not releasing cleanly after that (dragging) it made it all the way home. Plus a few trips around town. With the center completely broken free of the friction part, just sort of... jammed together.

 

Searching repair sleeve for manual trans input shaft came up with some results. I'll have to do some more research and find out what size I'd need and if it would work for this.
Anybody have to do this and had success with it?

 

96 4Runner 316,048 miles

A non-update.
Batteries Plus ordered a yellow top Optima for me, called me when it finally came in to tell me Johnson Controls (Optima's current maker) sent them a battery dated 12/19. He asked permission to send it back and demand a fresher one. I was happy to agree. Very pleased with this particular store's customer service- and the salesperson within.
Waiting for a battery.

Marlin is still out of the v6 clutch kit.
Waiting for a clutch

After talking to my favorite -can always find it when I can't and has lots of experience in the world of keeping Toyotas going- mightymouse about the sleeve which is not available for the R150F trans and he said he wouldn't trust if it was. That left replacement of either the input shaft or the trans itself. The input shaft is no small task as best I could find out...and expensive on its own. Mr. Mouse was able to find what I need so transmission it is.
I've said no hurry because of the Marlin thing so he's going to get it to me by the time the clutch shows.

Gas tank. Just sitting on the ground looking cute and waiting for me to decide. Maybe attempt to pound it out with a block of wood and the big friendly. Certainly sparks are something I would not want to happen! I haven't really looked to see how bad the crease is.
Chances are I'm going to end up hurting it again. Maybe once I recover from all the other expenses- and before I head to the bigger-to-me rocks again it'll be time to invest in a tank skid- or look into other options.

Got furloughed so have plenty of time to devote to getting stuff done waiting for things.

 

96 4Runner 316,048 miles

No matter how many times you hit refresh on the Marlin site a clutch kit does not magically appear!

Went to the junkyard last weekend and scored a hood for the 96 that's in better shape than the green one that I couldn't pass up,
and this guy which we could also not pass up:


First time in all our junkyard roaming that we found one with locker motor...and the 2nd locker 3rd member in general. They're usually history in a hurry.

Today I redid my grille, went back to white lettering:




So I still have to sand and paint a hood...


And if you ever need to get the hood insert out of one of these this the pic below is what you're dealing with.
There are 4 10mm nuts. I had to hold one of the studs they screw onto with a small vise grip so I could remove it. The studs are only about a half-inch into the weird styrofoam-y plastic. BE GENTLE.
The little screw in the front center is up in a small hole in the hood. I actually have the plastic clip upside-down, but yeah, don't forget to unscrew that guy.