I think this day has already been way too long. Didn't tear the buggy apart yet, but I may stay late again. Chris found out one of the problems with the TIG not working and also knocked out a sweet orbital mount for Al's buggy. Ted is hammering away at the 4runner wiring.

Most of my day has been spent talking to customers, tracking down parts that have been ordered, and running other errands. Now I'm butting heads with the landlord about his building rennovations screwing with my monday through friday operations. Sucks being the boss sometime.

On a lighter note, Ruff Stuff Specialties is coming out with a trailing arm kit for a rear desert style 4-link suspension in a few weeks. I plan to be one of the first to install it. Properly set up, the travel should be around 28 inches! My F150 will be so plush.

As it sits with Bombshell Racing, we decided to nix the New Mexico 150 mile race and do the MORE 500 in Lucerne, California. This race will be the weekend of May 30th and a night race to boot. I will be driving part of the race for a couple 70 mile laps with Ted and Chris both sharing co-driver duties. After this race, Dave Pearson (fabricator/racer/builder of our class 5) will take the car back to his shop for some tweaks... a new Mendeola transmission and race prepping for the Vegas to Reno 1000 mile race in August!

April 8th...

Today we continue working on a 3.4L swap in Cory's 4runner. The swap has not been as easy as some of the yotatech write ups would suggest. But Ted knocked out the new exhaust crossover pipe and had the motor stabbed late last night. We are adapting the wiring harness and computer out of a 97 4wd T100 with an automatic to work with the factory 3.0/automatic set up.

Beyond the new exhaust pipe, the stock oil pan off the 3.0 was swapped on to the 3.4L, as well as a dip stick tube. The cover over the steering shaft rag joint will be removed and a shorter belt will be used to keep the alternator from hitting the steering shaft. Also, the AC fittings are slightly different. We may swap the v-belt clutch off the old 3 liter motor with the serpentine clutch off the 3.4 compressor. This seems like the easiest solution. Hopefully, there won't be any more gotchas. ORS use to build a wiring harness kit, making the swap pretty much a bolt on. Unfortunately, they went under. Good news is Ted is a wiring whiz.

With Al's buggy, we anticipate having the 4 link brackets in today or tomorrow. Hell, they were ordered on the 26th! We have all the heims, tubing, and hydro steer parts. We're just waiting on the tabs so we can link out the front suspension. Chris is lead on that project. After the suspension and steering are done, it's getting some tube work and a remount of the rear coilovers.

On my end, I'm working on a few little things... tuning a webber 34 on a YJ, working on a friend's car, and replacing worn suspension components on the race car. Before we went out this weekend to the test track, I spotted a crack in a lower suspension mounting bracket, which we immediately welded up. After beating the hell out of it for almost 100 miles, some play developed in the unibearing on that same corner. After talking with Dave Bonner, a Class 5 unlimited guru it seems that the poly suspension bushings in the lower swing arms are most likely bad, causing the bearing failure and most likely the crack in the suspension bracket. So That's what I'll be working with.

Krawltex and Blogging?

Hey guys and girls!

We have a ton of loyal customers and friends that already frequent our website, mostly keeping up with us on the forum and checking out the photo gallery. For those new to our site, we hope blogging will keep people up to date with what's new and let everyone know a little bit more about what we do here. Krawltex will begin blogging about daily shop operations, the desert race team, ongoing and upcoming projects, new products with reviews, and anything else Krawltex related. So stop by often and see what's going on.

Thanks for your continuing support!

Cameron Chin
owner