April 2013

As promised in the last issue, we were able to get the new Redline Land Cruisers sliders installed on the TRD. I was cautiously curious to see how the sturdy OEM sliders have handled 93,000 miles and some pretty good off road abuse. So one afternoon I whipped out the jack stands and tackled the removal/install.

In reality this article should be more about removing old sliders than installing new ones. Not that removal should be terribly difficult, and in fact it wasn’t – for 15 out of the 16 bolts. With 8 bolts in 4 pairs per side of the truck, getting the old sliders off isn’t hard, but it does take some time. Luckily Toyota was thinking outside the box when they designed the sliders, the top bolt holes are notched so the hard-to-get-to bolts simply need to be loosened to remove the slider.

When the original snorkel was released for the FJ Cruiser, I realized that someday we may want to install that as an option, but I really never liked that design. Something about that giant plastic sticking to the side of the truck, plus drilling a large hole in the fender just never worked for me. Over the years I’ve seen several DIY options that seemed promising, but I was holding out for something a little different.

As we reported in the last issue, the River Raider Snorkel aims to provide another option for your deep water fording needs. This snorkel has three primary differences from other options I’ve seen. First, it’s made of steel so it just feels more ‘solid. It also doesn’t require drilling a fender, but you do have to drill the cowl, which is probably more difficult. Lastly, this snorkel looks more like military style options, which I personally love but others may not.

As part of our Extreme Makeover FJC project, and with about 45,000mi on our last set of tires, we decided it was time for an upgrade.  If you remember last time we were trying to select tires (in 2009/2010), we had a hard time deciding which to go with. Luckily this time there wasn’t much discussion, since the tire we’ve dreamed about had finally been released.

When the Nitto Trail Grappler first came out sizes were very limited, specifically the 16” size. We had to run with the stock-size 285/70/16 tires the first time around. Those 32” tires worked well, but didn’t look ‘quite right’ on the TRD, especially after we installed Bushwacker fender flares. When we contacted Discount Tire Direct for a new set of meats, we were excited to see that the coveted 285/75/16 Nitto Trail Grapplers were available and in stock! We ordered 5 tires for the FJC and two more (with outstanding Level 8 Tracker wheels) for our new Manley ORV trailer (See page 8) since we wanted everything to match.

I have had the Warrior Products FJC front bumper installed for a little over a year now with no issues at all. The bumper has held up really well: zero rattles, zero problems with the powder coat, and of course it looks great.

About two weeks ago I added the Warrior Products Filler Plate to my bumper in order to protect the vulnerable area between the bumper and skid plates.