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Overdue thanks! I think that's a very likely possibility. Well...sorta. Things have been slow-moving, and my fault really...overworking at my regular job, working on a downright horrible Land Cruiser project, and a few other projects eventually just burned me out a bit. So, I took a vacation! Spent a few weeks driving around the country with my family, caught a few baseball games, visited family, and just put some miles on the new Telluride. Notably, I did spend one of those weeks on the road at my company's headquarters working...not that I really wanted to, but it saved me the trouble of having to fly back out there later and it was actually on the way home. Plus, the expense report paid for all my gas on the trip. It was a good way to clear my head. @TowndawgR50 and I haven't stopped chatting about things, and feeling a little refreshed now, we're ready to move forward again. After the first prototype sets were made a few months, we learned a few things and it's just been a matter of adjusting things to get the product we want. So we've tweaked the designs a little, purchased some more equipment, and are working on a few more tooling items before cutting the raw parts. The near term goal is to produce a small batch of kits and finally get them on the PNW Piners' trucks. Steering joints ordered already. The biggest change from the first kit is that we've decided to drill all bolt holes. The plasma cutter can cut small circles and can do it reasonably well, but it can't do it consistently well. So we're needing jigs to ensure we can mark all holes quickly and consistently, and while it'll be extra work drilling, we think it'll produce a cleaner product. It also gives us opportunities to use press in studs, which will simplify installation in a few places. I've got an expansion kit for the plasma table arriving this week. While it doesn't give us any massive cutting widths, it's a beneficial upgrade that I'm pretty stoked about nonetheless. No immediate need for it, but the need to do skids keeps surfacing, and there's a good possibility we may see if bumpers are viable.

Yep, seems it was the blower. I replaced with a cheapo $32 unit from Amazon, and while a bit noisy, it certainly pushes a lot more air, and seems to be starting reliably. Finally able to put the dash back together after two weeks. Call this one closed.

up in stokes this past weekend Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gotta say I like either of the stock R50 tail lights or the QX4 tail lights better than the 2fast2furious Altezza aftermarket stuff.

Had a junkyard day and was able to snag a handful of parts: color matched side mirrors (mine are black), no rush to install these I guess OEM low-pro side steps tons of fasteners/fuses/relays other misc trim pieces/spares Welded on some angle iron to support a jerry can holder in the back, and installed the OEM low-profile side steps. The side steps were definitely a functionality "upgrade"; I found myself accessing the roof basket a lot and standing in the door sills and on the tires grew old, fast. These low profile ones are a great alternative- I don't currently have the ability to get some nice rock sliders. With the new jerry can I had to relocate my license plate. Decided to go all in and install riv-nuts. If it looks crooked it's because I need to adjust the spacers behind the plate. Due to the angles of the hatch, spacers were used to push it out level-ish. I wired in the LED light to the stock bulb locations. Bonus- found these little rubber strut covers and popped those on.

went out to play in the woods a little last evening Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got a new bolt in, picked one up from napa and put it in myself since apparently shops wont fo ig around Anchorage. Got it aligned and it still pulls driver which pisses me off at 130$ to align one single &^%*ing tire. Didnt have a choice though so what can you do. Back in canada now dreaming about getting my dana 44 under this truck finally and throwing another grand at all the special crap to do alignments on my own. Tired of shops that screw me over and dont even do @!*% correctly or like last time where I have to tell them how to do their job.