Road trip down to Atlanta GA

Well its been a little while since Ive added an update. Thought the trip down to ATL was worth posting so here it is:

So in an effort to completely do a rebuild on my Jeep Cherokee, I began tearing it down, and manage to find a sweet exocage a regional club member was selling. Problem was, the exo cage was in Atlanta a whole 260 miles from my place in Charlotte, NC. At first I not going to pick it up but decided the trip might be a fun way to unwind a bit from all the hardwood flooring my friends and I had installed the previous weekend. Plus it gave me an opportunity to check out the Georgia Aquarium. So Monday morning my friend and I packed the truck, well rather unpacked it of the tools in the back and took the camper top off. We did pack a highlift, spare tire, some basic wrenches, and a sawzall incase we had to cut the cage to fit in the bed. We left right around 5AM and made our way down 85 towards Atlanta. Here's a picture of the yota about a quarter way to ATL at a local Chick-fil-a. Stopped for a bit of breakfast and to top off the tank.

When we arrived in ATL we went to my buddy's place to pick up the exocage, which unfortunately did not get pics of. But it was a huge rollcage basically sticking out the bed of the pickup. Got some pretty funny looks driving down the road. Even had a cop ask me wtf that was. After picking up the cage strapping it down and locking it to the bed of the truck we drove over to the Georgia Aquarium which was pretty much in the heart of Atlanta. Needless to say we were quite skeptical about the toyota clearing the roof of the parking deck once arriving. Didn't exactly plan the whole thing out quite that well haha. Luckily the roof was tall enough, and we cleared it by a few inches. We did mess with the parking attendant a bit though. He asked us what the thing in the back of the bed was, and my buddy told him we were a couple porn producers and that was our bondage cage haha. Of course I explained later what it actually was, but the guy got a good laugh out of it. So here are some pictures of the aquarium, which if you guys haven't been, it is totally worth checking out if you are in the area. They have a huge exhibit with 4 whale sharks in a football stadium sized tank. Pretty marvelous if you ask me. 

After the aquarium we stopped by a part of ATL known as China town and ate lunch there at an asian restaurant. Some of the best food I had on the cheap. Then it was time for us to leave before rush hour hit. And boy did we get out in time. the traffic already started piling up around 3. We saw a few interesting things on the way back so I snapped a couple more pictures and that was that.

Leaving ATL :(

Bigass Chick-fil-a sign












Huge peach water tower we saw.







All in all it was a fun trip except for the 8 hours of driving that I did in a single day. The aquarium was amazing, and the food was good. As for the exocage ill post that in a separate jeep related posting another day. Cheers!

Memorial Day URE Trip (LATE POSTING)

Yea I know its a late post now, but I figured better now than never. So the trip went as planned and I took my little Yota out to URE for the Memorial Day weekend ride. The crew and I woke up bright and Early Saturday morning to do a quick rundown of our checklist. Made sure we packed plenty of food, charcoal, camping gear, firewood, all the paraphernalia needed for a good camping trip, not to mention a rifle and shotgun for the range afterwards. After checking our gear, my buddy in his red Cherokee and I met up with another friend at a BP gas station and convoyed together all the way to the Eldorado Outpost located right beside Uwharrie NF.

There we met up with some more friends who had already camped the night before. All in all we had a total of 4 Cherokees, 2 Xterras, and my lonely little Toyota :(. It was a fun relaxing weekend out there and my sleeping arrangements did not disappoint. I had a cot setup under my truck's canopy with a sleeping bag on top. Probably the best camping setup I ever had to date.

 Now the rest of the pics are just from the wheeling trip taken at various points throughout the weekend.

Uwharrie NF Bound

So I basically just got home from work a couple hours ago. Wasn't suppose to work today, but was called in last minute and decided I needed the extra hours to pay for the bills. So by the time I got home it was fairly dark and I still needed to finish loading the gear up. I wasn't able to take much of a picture of my truck loaded up for Uwharrie, so just a text update this time. I will be sure to take a few pics out at URE though. Got my bags packed, and bringing a couple rifles along with the trip. Plan on stopping by the gun range for a much needed relaxing target shootout. Might also shoot some clays also. For those who don't know its called skeet shooing using a shotgun and shooting clay pigeons. My friends will be meeting at my house and rolling out from here. We will be rolling out at 7AM in the morning tomorrow so wish us safe passage. Lots of pics to come!

Finished a roofrack and ladder

So for the past 3 days I have been working 13 hour shifts at my workplace doing job takeoffs for field jobs. I really haven't had much luck to trying find time to work on the Toyota except at night which by the time I got home was exhausted. But I did manage do finish up a few items on my to-do list. I finished welding up a rear ladder and painted it. I also finished up my roofrack and painted that aswell. Just needing to finalize the light wiring and hook up a couple in the back. For this trip I have a feeling we will be doing a bit of night wheeling so bright lights are absolutely necessary. Thank goodness I have today and tomorrow off for prepping the truck and packing since we will be leaving Sat morning.

Prepping for the first camping trip of the season!

So Summer break for me officially started about 2 weeks ago and I have been slowly prepping my Toyota Pickup for its first camping/wheeling trip at Uwharrie National Forest. The trip was originally planned with me taking my Jeep in mind, but plans changed, and the Toyota will be doing camping/wheeling duty this go round. Since this trip was a bit of a last minute type deal I have been scrambling to get some work done on her for the trip. The trip is planned for Memorial day weekend so the 25th and 26th. I wanted to finish up wiring up some new offroad lights and build a roofrack before the trip. I recently purchased a Hobart Handler MIG welder so building parts will be a bit easier and the welds look soo much nicer now. I also picked up a bunch of metal yesterday to start on building the rear bumper for a tire carrier and jerry can swingout, but unfortunately it will not be done before the trip. Now that I am on Summer break Expect more updates!

Current State of the little Pickup

So I bought my little Toyota Pickup a little over a year ago. Boy how it seems that I bought the truck just yesterday. The little truck has gone quite a long ways since the day I purchased it. Shortly after purchase I got the truck tinted. I also bought an addicted offroad front bumper and leveled out the suspension a bit. I then later on bought a soft top for her and traded my jeep's rear bumper for a set of 32s and some cash to boot for other upgrades. As she currently sits, I have an addicted offroad front bumper on it, Blitzpro LED light bars, OME lift kit with Marlin Crawler front shackles to level it out, Can-back soft top, herculined inside bed, 32inch dynapro MTs, Alpine Headunit with Kicker 10inch subwoofer, and rockford Fostgate Speakers. I also installed an alarm system with Keyless entry and Remote start on her aswell. I am in the works of purchasing some metal and designing a new rear bumper on CAD to hold a tire and jerry can. More updates to come!

The story of my Little Toyota Pickup

So here is a little overview of my current project and expedition rig, the 1984 Toyota Pickup. A little over a year ago I found myself once again shopping for a good vehicle that I could drive on a daily basis without it crapping out on me. I at the time owned my 1990 Jeep Cherokee which got horrible gas mileage and was nolonger what I considered a dependable daily driver and my only other vehicle a 1985 Firebird was nowhere near the stages of being streetable. So one of them had to go in favor of a more fuel efficient vehicle that I could drive on the 40 minute commute to school and 40 minute commute back. It was a hard decision letting one of my beloved vehicles go, but it came down to which one I had more money into and which one was well actually drivable, so the poor Firebird was put up on Craigslist and then sold the following week to a gentleman in Kannapolis. Now comes the real story, while browsing Craigslist trying to find a vehicle that met my criteria I had little to no luck finding something within my price range. Because of the cash for clunkers program good used cars were harder to find and the ones that were good, the owners wanted entirely way too much for something that had 300 thousand miles on. One such vehicle did catch my eye though, a 1984 Toyota Pickup in next to immaculate condition. The owner had restored the vehicle using all quality parts and this was reflected in the price tag at the top of the page of $9000. It had brand new everything, transmission had been rebuilt, engine was bored out and rebuilt using LCE parts, axles were regeared, the bed replaced with a brand new one, body panels were replaced, and the entire truck and chassis was repainted and reconditioned. The entire suspension and drive-train had been gone through and replaced. I looked the ad over several times and thought about calling the number but knew I couldn't afford anything close to $9000, my budget was a solid $4500 a whole half of what the guy was asking. So I promptly closed the browser and forgot about the truck. A week later on my way to campus still driving my loud gurgling Jeep I stopped by a friend's house to pick up a textbook he was lending me I saw the Toyota Pickup from the ad. It was sitting on the side of the man's house peering though a car cover. Seeing the owner outside washing his other truck, I decided to talk to him about the truck. To be completely honest I had no intentions of ever buying the truck that day, just wanted to know more about it that was all. Anyhow I talked to the owner who was a very friendly older gentleman telling him I had some interest in the truck but could not afford the truck outright on my own. Talking to him you could tell he was passionate about his trucks, I guess he too could tell I had a burning passion for Toyota trucks, and promptly asked if I wanted to take the truck for a test spin. I declined saying I couldn't afford the truck, nor knew how to drive stick. He insisted that I atleast allow him to give me a drive in it so I did. Upon getting back to the house he asked how much I was looking at spending on a truck to which I said $4500 explaining that it was all I had being a college student and after selling my Firebird. He looked me dead in the eye and said if I wanted he would sell me the truck for $4500 that day, but I had to promise to take care of it. So that is the story of how I acquired the truck.


Originally my truck started life out rolling off the assembly line in Japan and then imported to the United States where it was sold at a dealership in Raleigh North Carolina. It was a pretty basic SR5 model 4WD Toyota Pickup with bucket seats. It came with manual crank windows, a full glass in the rear, manual hubs and a limited slip rearend.

Mods the day of purchase:
-2.5inch old man emu lift with HD rear springs
-LCE Header
-LCE Cam
-Rebuilt Engine bored .20 over
-Medium duty Clutch kit
-Axles regeared to 4.88
-Extended Drive-shafts to compensate for the lift.
-Fiberglass Bed from Canada

The following are pics on the day of purchase, yes the tires were tiny but that wasn't a huge deal.