Thanks, yeah, the interiors are a lot alike.

I got a chance to do a little work on the Camry this past weekend.

Plasti-Dip on the front grill and rear emblems
Painted some of the rusted brackets in the engine bay
Painted the polished aluminum intake - looks a little less ricey
Cleaned some of the engine bay

The car is starting to look a little less like the plain-jane crap-brown car it really is

Got a little work done on the Camry. I got pulled over while on a conference call as the officer thought I was texting. I decided to get a bluetooth headunit - I liked the Pioneer FH-X700BT and picked it up from Crutchfield for just shy of $150 with the install kit and everything. It was cheaper elsewhere, but I have always had really good luck with Crutchfield and this time wasn't any different.

I had the deck installed in 1 hour and then took some time wrapping a few of the interior pieces in the leftover 3M Di-Noc Carbon-Fiber-Look wrap I used on the gas door. It turned out pretty well and I love that the deck works with my iPhone 5 (iOS7) and can stream Bluetooth music. I had no issues with the connection given the newest iOS like I have heard is an issue with some head units.

The display is a little bright when it's dark outside but I have since changed to a red display and it is much better.

Here's the finished product:




The best part about this deck is that when the Camry finally dies, it'll slip right into the Pathfinder

Nice work, Bobby!

Nice Job
and the Camry isn't going to die...

I'm beginning to think you're right. 212k on it right now and still can't seem to kill it.

I haven't had a lot of time to work on the rigs recently as Emily and I had our second son, Brady, in January. We're also working on becoming X- X- VTers now as we're looking at moving back to VT this spring to be closer to family (babysitters ).

House hunting in the Winter is a major PITA, especially being about 200 miles away from where you're looking to live. We may just crash at one of our parents' places for a month or two while we look more seriously.

I will be working from home most of the time and out of our office in MA for 1wk/month when not traveling. Hopefully with living closer to the 4Runner I'll be more inclined to NOT neglect it.

Anyway, hope to have an update soon!

Wow! Lots of changes for you and the family, Bobby!

Refresh my memory, please - what part of VT?

We're looking between Middlebury and Burlington.

Our families are in Orwell/Whiting and we have a lot of friends/family in Burlington.



****Update 02/May/2014****

Finally got around to installing the locking hubs on the 4runner. I'm not a big fan of how far they stick out, but I will probably end up running some wheel spacers anyway to keep the 35's from rubbing the chassis. Still got the 245/75-16 snows on it. I will be swapping them over to my moms trailblazer and mounting up the 35's once I fix my tire changer.



Also decided that the 38's were a little overkill. Gave them to a kid in town for his mud truck project. I keep going back and forth about whether or not I want to put this thing back on the road or not.

I finally got around to removing the rotted bumper ends - there wasn't much left to them or the inner bumper supports there.




I removed most of the cancerous rust but I am going to need to make it a little cleaner soon

So between moving and life, I haven't had a lot of time to work on the rig. This bulild is moving slower than the speed of smell, but I actually made a little bit if progress. Emily and I have decided to build rather than buy so it'll be my time consumer over the next couple years.

I got my tire changer out of storage and built a nice platform for it so that I could change the bald summer tires on my Camry's 2nd set of wheels. It also gave me the chance to mount up a couple of the 35's for the 4Runner.

Installed:
Two Nitto TerraGrappler 315/75-16's on stock wheels from a 2003 Tacoma.
Rear 4" ProComp lift springs

I still need to get around to doing the panhard bracket and rear shocks as well as the LPSV arm which controls the rear braking (oddity on these 4Runners, but will mess with the ABS if left in it's current state). I've got all the parts/pieces I just need to find the time to do it.

I figured rather than wait until I have time to do it all at once, I'll just plan it out so that I can do 1-2hr jobs which will get me to where I want to be.

Cool. Is this the same body style as Ernie's?

No, it's the newer version (2nd gen). Unfortunately, this one can't go topless.

Making more progress - Emily took the boys to visit her brothers for the night so I got to get a little more work done. 3 of the 35's are on (4th was cut) and starting in on the Body Lift. The way that the Toyota body bolts are done, it requires pretty much disassembling the entire thing. Like I did with the Xterra, I'm going to take my time and clean/paint and replace hardware as I go.

It's funny that indecisive people annoy me but I can't seem to keep this build going in one direction - mild or wild? legal or trailer queen? With the installation of the BL, I am thinking that it'll be mostly a pavement pounder with some mild trail riding (max Blue level, probably). The thing's going to be TALL - a bit like Andy's white X was. Hopefully I'll get it out in the woods more than once/year. We'll see~ I'm sure I'll change my mind again soon, lol.

How big's the body lift, Bobby?

Well, in typical fashion, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for the BL.

I was originally thinking 1" or so, but I have decided that I'm going to go with a 3" Body Lift and a 2" drivetrain lift. It'll allow for me to get the 'flat belly' though it will slightly raise my COG.

I've started pulling together the parts for the drivetrain lift, but, essentially what it will do is to lift up the engine, transmission, and transfer case. It is done by lifting the engine at the motor mounts as well as installing a custom cross-member & skid plate for the transfer case to lift it as well. I will probably need to get a custom rear driveshaft and possibly extend the front one as well - we'll have to see if I get bad enough vibrations.

I got a bit more work done on the 4Runner. Over the past month I have used an hour or two here and there to get the Body Lift in. Still needs to be buttoned back up, but I've got the hard part done. I think I am going to run new brake and fuel lines front to back - they're looking pretty bad and I don't really trust them with my life.



I have also made a final decision that I will be getting it road-legal with the goal of driving it out to King of the Hammers in February. I'll be setting this up as a camping/mild wheeling rig for now with the idea of trying to keep the weight to a manageable level so that it isn't terribly painful to DD from time-to-time. I'm budgeting just shy of $2k in gas for the trip out to Cali assuming 15mpg so any additional savings I can wring out of it will be money in my pocket.

Luckily, I was able to get all of the body bolts out - I could definitely tell that this thing wasn't in the Northeast for it's entire life as I didn't break a single one. Disassembling the bodywork, I only snapped off two bolts which hold brackets to the firewall which I thought was a pretty good accomplishment.

The A/C condenser was so corroded that it fell apart so I am going to be removing the A/C system - Eventually I may convert the A/C pump for OBA, but for now, my Powertank will do. It'll also save some weight and clean up the engine bay a bit more.

More to come soon!