Day 4
10:10 a.m.: The previous night marked some decent progress on the rear portion of the vehicle. Check out the cool-guy cheese grater, aka fuel-cell mounting surface. Toby labored on it for hours. Even editor Robin Stover's bald-headed uncle showed up to lend a helping hand on Day 4. Note the special care he's taking to avoid a flare-up around what little hair he has left.
10:33 a.m.: UPS arrived with a whole assortment of goodies for the project. Fox Racing Shox came through in a big way with a whole arsenal of high-quality racing shocks. Our crew had to stop and pause for a moment of silence as the brand-new racing shocks were unboxed.
Another product we were really impressed with was the mounting hardware from Totally Stainless. Totally Stainless is one of the only bolt manufacturers in the world that can build stainless-steel bolts with Grade 8 certification ratings. We chose these fasteners because they look good and will never rust. Plain and simple stainless fasteners are the way to go, as long as money is no object.
2:34 p.m.: When the afternoon UPS shipment arrived, the rear portion of the truck was coming along nicely. A new set of 40-inch Mickey Thompson Baja ATZ tires were in place on 18-inch Weld wheels, and the rear suspension setup was finally taking shape. Toby was finishing up the lower link mounts on the rear axle, and Robin's uncle was removing excess sheetmetal from inside the cab where the rear tubing would eventually tie into the interior cage. Other volunteers were hard at work running brake lines to the front axle.
9:44 p.m.: While Toby put the finishing touches on his rear suspension idler arms, the remaining members of the crew worked on the cable shifters from Advance Adapters. Most of Evening 4 was pretty quiet in the shop. We didn't know if it was just the pressure getting to everyone, or a simple lack of sleep. Either way, the project was beginning to take a toll on us.