Tacoed Tundra project

So would you say you're a professional lumberjack or a lumberjack enthusiast?

 

Lumbersexual...but that all depends upon the length of my beard and if i’m wearing a red flannel...

https://vimeo.com/194858521

https://vimeo.com/146317983


In all seriousness, i’m just an average man with above average capabilities, resources, and skill level to process wood and make it disappear fairly quickly. Whether the trees are standing or already been fallen. It is quite physical to do. Ain’t nothin more honest that digging a hole or splitting firewood.

 

My buddy from high school moved to Oregon from Texas and became a lumberjack and a fireman. Seems y'all have some kind of magic trees or something out there haha

 

That's quite a lifestyle change from texas to oregon lumberjack. I do live out in a rural area where i do have to watch out for logging trucks. My parents also have quite a few acres of timber, so i forgot about that as well.

 

He plays in a blue grass band too. He was in a punk band in Texas haha

 

Well, those videos started my day with laughing my ass off.... hahaha thx for sharing those!

 

I always liked the 260s for size to power/capability - Yellow strap is definitely the way to go haha, no safety chain. We use those stihl light bars at work some, they seem to be just as good as the standard ones. I just ordered some parts to rebuild an old 201 I've got laying around today. Been looking at buying a big saw to try some milling too, but hard to stomach the prices of new ones.

 

I’m really liking my 261 so far. From an aesthetic standpoint, i like the looks of the 260 better. The 261 looks a bike to modern to me....BUT, since it has more power than a 260, i can totally live with its looks. I’d like to get a top handle saw (like a 201), but i don’t think i would utilize its potential very often. My local Stihl dealer usually give me a deal on new saws, but with the current price of a big Stihl 880 (for milling), it might just cost less to keep buying crappy 2x4s from homo depo.

Did you see this thread yet? https://www.tundras.com/threads/chainsaws.12024/page-4#post-3559207

 

I think i’ve finally pulled out the last of my wood from the property i’ve been at. I have about 20 cords splits and stacked at my house. And guess what?...my back is still 100% fine! My left bicep is still a bit sore, but it should heal up fine in a month or so.

In the pic, the rear bumper is completely sitting on the ground. Though it doesn’t look like it, but the hill is quite steep driving back out of the gully. The truck and trailer was loaded down with wet fir and oak. It must have been some sight for others to watch the truck driving down the highway at 50mph triple towing with that log splitter hanging off the back.

 

You went 50 with it fully over loaded like that?
That would be nucking futs.
Nice pics.

 

Yeah 880s are crazy expensive. And the chances you really need one are slim enough that it's usually worth it to just take more time with the 660 I've found. Every once in awhile we get a 60"+ flush cut though, and then you wish you had one. Thanks for linking that thread, I'll check it out!

Triple tow with the loaded down rig is awesome, by the way.

 

It’s all fun and games triple towing...until a tire blows off the rim

 

Ohh shit!
You just throw it up in the trailer?

 

There was no “just throwing it up in the trailer”. Supposedly the shipping weight of the splitter is 525lbs. I did wrassle the front end of the splitter hitch up into the trailer, then tried lifting the whole back portion of it. The only place to lift was the rear portion of the I beam tray. And since it’s already located about waist high, i could only get the I beam about chest high. I would have had to lift the whole shooting match over the top of my head in order to get the tires high enough in the air to get it onto the tailgate. I was fairly close to a friend’s house, so two of them came over and the three of us humped it up into the bed.

 

Thanks to @shifty` for the recommendations on using United Tires https://www.utires.com/ when shopping for used tires. Last summer i had a very large sidewall puncture on one of my General Grabber APT tires. I was driving through the forest (no roads, no trail, just breaking my own trail) while going after firewood when a random branch stabbed the passenger front tire. I’ve been searching around for the past year for a matching 4th tire. Finally a used matching tire popped up at United Tire so i bought it for $112 shipped!

So while everyone else is going up in size, i’m hoping to wear out my 265/75-16 BFG AT’s (D load) and switch back to my previous 215/85/16 (E load). I should pick up some MPGs and definitely i will pick up some better acceleration and towing capability with my current 4.10 gears.

There was a break in the rain today so i mounted up the tire onto Patrick. There’s very little wear on the tire, so i feel like i got a great deal.

 

Damn that's a skinny tire

 

yeah, overall the 215/85-16 is a much more svelte of a tire. About 1.25” shorter and 2” more narrow than my current 265/75-16 (as well as both a 245 and 265/70-16). But it is still about 3/4” taller than the 245/70-16, and 1/4” shorter than a 265/70-16. A skinny 30.4” tall tire will still get me to most places i want to go, yet at the same time it will allow all my steering components to last longer, and my brakes to be stronger.

 

I figured i’d update my thread here. I have been working on my truck on and off. Nothing major, just little upgrades here and there.

One thing that has always bugged me was that the center two ciggy accessory plugs never worked. I’ve been wanting to install a USB charger in place of one of the ciggy plugs, so i finally broke out the multimeter so that i could get to the bottom of it…

Turned out that both plugs are on separate fuses and the fuses are located under the hood…AND both fuses were missing! I have no idea why a previous owner did that. So it was a simple fix that i’ve been wanting to sort out for the past year.

I swapped out of of the ciggy plugs for a Blue Sea charger. I’ve used them in the past and i’m impressed with their quality.

The chickens came out to help me. Let me tell you just how helpful they are…

 

More pics

 

I also modified my headache rack by adding in a screen and extra bars. I’m currently trying to decide what color to have it powdercoated, white or black.


This is what the rack looked like before i modified it. Note the busted out glass.




Wow, i didn’t notice how amazing the sky looked until i posted up this pic!



Sharp eyes will notice all of the welded on tie down loops are off of a Tundra.

 

I also picked up a different lumber rack last weekend. It’s a Rack-It brand, and i really like their racks. This means i’ll have to sell the other lumber rack that i bought last year.

I do plan to weld in a screen to protect the rear window, but i’ll probably wait until next summer to do that? It just depends upon how much more dry weather we have here in oregon.

 

Hahaha the chicken help got me laughing. Our girls are so curious too, but mainly follow me around because I spoil them rotten.
I've taken out two rear windows in my work truck with ladders and materials
Nice new rack. Wish they had small loops every 16-18in though, something you can hook a bungee cord or ratchet strap on.

 

I made my bed 1/4” shorter yesterday…

Reinforcing the bulkhead on my bed has been priority one for the past year, but kept getting pushed to the bottom of my list of things to do. What i really wanted was to get a sheet of 3/16” 6061 aluminum, then get it sheared to size and then formed (bent on a brake) to come up and fold up and over the top of the bed rail. I couldn’t find any machine shop to do the work (all the local shops that i know of closed up shop in the past 5 yeast).

Plan B was implemented. My buddy had a remnant sheet of 1/4” 6061 aluminum. I strong armed him into giving it up to me. He kept telling me he knows a guy who can shear the aluminum to the size i wanted. After months of my buddy telling me that and not following through, i gave up on them and used my tablesaw and skill saw to cut the sheet. I double upped on the safety gear…ear muffs over the top of ear plugs, and face shield over the top of safety glasses. I used WD-40 as my lubricant. I used a shop vac to clean up 95% of all the aluminum bits. The chickens ate the last 5%. Hopefully they survive. Instead of laying eggs, they might lay some pop cans.

I had 3 friends come over and help me lift the bed off the truck and onto sawhorses. It took a loooong time to drill all the 5/16” holes through the bed and the aluminum. I’ll also be using flat head screws, so that meant i had to countersink all the holes as well. I might have overdone it a little bit with the amount of bolts, but at least i will know the panels will be more likely to be tight to the sheetmetal bed.

The upper bed rail is going to be reinforced with .120” wall 1”x2” stainless rectangle tube. Then another 1/4”x2” aluminum strip will sandwich the sheetmetal bed rail. All the smaller 1/4” aluminum plate pieces will be used as backer supports on the outside of the bed’s sheetmetal bulkhead.

I placed my order today with McMaster for all of the stainless hardwood. It should show up later in the week. The only downside is that it will all be covered 200% by the plastic drop in bed liner…and hopefully the bedliner will still fit with the additional 1/4” aluminum installed. Hopefully i’ll be able to update this thread before the weekend with the final product.

Of course once again the chickens wanted to help…

 

This is to reinforce the bed for your lumberjacking?

 

Impressive hahaha, she ain't going nowhere! When your slaming logs like you do that will be great.
I suspect mental shortcomings with the aluminum poisoning... but it may be hard to tell!
Great to see the work tank again

 

Yup, this is to protect the bed from all of the firewood rounds. The toyota bulkhead is super weak. I was super careful to go really easy when i was stacking rounds in the bed, and it was still pretty darn deformed.

 

LOL…that’s 100% true about chickens

 

When I got my truck the back rail was nearly touching the cab. I was surprised how easily I corrected/bent it back... like a soup can

 

Yeah the PO of my 03 hauled motorcycles with it, and the tailgate and front of the bed were both caved in. The tailgate caving actually caused the handle to work all wonky. Once I hammered the tailgate panel flat, the handle was totally normal again.

Side note, the three of us are chicken people haha

 

There is a support structure panel that is spot welded to the backside of the front bulkhead. Since my bulkhead was bent in enough, it also bent in the support panel. I used a spot weld cutter to remove it. From there i spent about 30 minutes with a hammer and dolly trying to straighten out the bulkhead a bit. You can see the 1x2” .120” wall stainless rectangular tube that slips up under the lip of the railing. It provides a ton of structure in that area. I’m leaving out the support panel that i removed. In its place, 1/4” aluminum backer supports will be added.