Welcome to Botches Off -Road. It is just me and
Mark for a good ol' rap. A good ol' rap. I know,
I just made a shit ton of noise. I'm really sorry.
It's one of them days, dude. Oh yeah. It's been
a long day. I'm sick and tired of driving the
Malibu. Yeah. Oh, we should probably tell them
why I'm driving the Malibu. True. We should.
This is the wrap that might roll into an hour.
We'll see. Yeah. It's been a doozy of a fucking
weekend. I don't know, listeners, if you keep
up with our Instagram, but we've kind of been
keeping some updates going. Yeah. Yeah. So let's
start it out. It is Friday morning. I have a
mass training for all of Michigan, Turkey. So
I drive out to Grand Rapids in my 4Runner. Early
as shit in the morning. Everything's great. Great
drive, by the way. I called Gavin to keep myself
awake because I knew Mark was at work. Yep. We
had a good talk about... Probably politics. I
don't know. And so I get there. And the only
reason I ever go to these trainings is because
sometimes there's good food. And sometimes there's
good information, I guess. But anyways, so we
started out. The gals from MSU give us a little
bit of updates on what they're learning about
turkeys. And, you know, that was fine and all.
Then we get our food, which was turkey. Like
I work for Michigan. Anyways, it was turkey.
And I took a bite of this. And when I tell you
I needed a drink instantly because I was about
to throw up. I'm not kidding. It was the driest
bird I've ever eaten in my life. Yeah, that's
bad. Meat provided by us to a company that makes
food to cater the event, right? They fucked up
the turkey. At a turkey conference. Like, come
on. So then there's what looks like gravy on
the table in a gravy boat. So me and I work with
all Spanish only speaking people pretty much.
Me and all them kind of like mutter to each other
and start handing the gravy around to add to
our turkey. And I take a bite. It was not gravy.
It was salad dressing. We all coated our turkey
and potatoes in salad dressing, but that made
it edible. It wasn't dry anymore. So yeah, that
was that pretty much. And then dinner lunch was
over and I had shavings coming at three. So I
got back in the forerunner, drove back to grant,
parked the truck. Everything's fine at this point.
Still no bumper. Bumper hadn't arrived yet. And
3 o 'clock comes around and there's no shavings.
3 .30 comes around and a semi shows up and delivers
my bumper. So I get the bumper painted. Well,
first I did a self -etching primer. Then I painted
it. Get the bumper painted. Let it dry. Get the
bumper installed. It's now 8 -ish, 738. Still
no shavings. Somewhere in there, Mark and Alan
showed up. I don't remember where. Yeah. Somewhere
in there. Still no shavings. No, 7 -something,
because I think we stopped and got pizza. Yeah.
So then I just clocked out. My boss called me,
told me they weren't coming that day. So I clocked
out. Shavings were originally supposed to come
on Thursday. They didn't come Thursday. Then
didn't come Friday. Then showed up Saturday at
like, they're supposed to come at seven. They
showed up at like nine 30. God. So anyways, so
Friday, then as Mark's looking at my bumper that
I just installed, he goes, Hey, your truck's
leaking coolant. And I'm like, Uh, no. Hell yeah,
it's just a puddle of water. Yeah, I'm like,
I'm just parked over a puddle. No, it was coolant.
So I figured that it looked like it was coming
from my thermostat. Okay. Thermostats aren't
that expensive. I go buy one. We do the job.
And then it kept happening. And then it got worse,
and it just started pouring everything out. Yeah.
Yeah. It's still at this point. I had not decided
what it was yet. I just knew it was leaking.
So then we pull Mark's truck in and start tearing
it down to fix the knock sensors. I thought we
did. We did the thermostat. Truck came in. Truck
came in the shop Friday night. We're on Friday.
You said Saturday. No. Oh, I did mention shavings
came Saturday. But anyways, we're still on Friday.
For any listeners that got confused on the timeline,
we're on Friday. So Mark starts tearing his truck
down. Mind you, at this point, we think that
mine is fixed because we put the thermostat in.
So Mark starts tearing his down, and I walk outside
and notice a larger puddle under my truck. And
I look and I go, fuck, we didn't seal that thermostat
all the way. We'll worry about it tomorrow. So
then get back in, tear down more of Mark's truck,
which was a pain. And then we hit a point where
all of a sudden we needed specialty tools that
we didn't have. And by that, I mean locking star
bits and just hex bolts that could reach. Because
I had an Allen wrench set, but none of them reached
what we needed. No, not with the... We needed,
like, a socket. So, we called it a night. Went
up to the house. At what, like, midnight? Yeah,
we were quite surprised we weren't out super
late that night. Might have been 10 .30 even.
I think it was 10 .30, honestly. Mark was pissed,
so he just went up to the house. Didn't even
want to fucking do anything. Whatever. Fine.
I get it. It was a bad day. I made a reel in
there somewhere, and Mark had the joke that everyone
now knows of just pop, or I don't need to pop
that off. Yeah. It kind of went crazy on our
Instagram. So then Saturday comes around. We
get up. I put my shavings in the barn, come up
to the house, wake the guys up. Fuckers got to
sleep in. And then... We go to Harbor Freight,
spend a bunch of money we don't have. Oh, I should
have brought my little toolbox. I got a mini
toolbox finally. And then we came back, proceeded
to tear the rest of Mark's truck apart. We ran
into an issue. Oh, we broke the VVT sensor on
the right driver's side was broken. Yeah, partially
broken. It wasn't fully broken yet. Yeah, we
got the truck back together Saturday night. Started
it up running like ass. Yeah. Because of the
VVT sensor. So then we took it back apart. The
next day, Mark went and got a VVT sensor, put
it in, put the truck back together. It ran like
ass. Cylinder 1, 3, 5 misfire. Originally, it
was 1 and 5, not 3. Originally, it was 1 and
5. How do we make it get so much worse? I don't
even know. Granted, 5 has a brand new coil. Coil.
So we went and got two more brand new coils.
So now 1 through 5 have brand new coils on them.
Yep. It didn't help. It really didn't do a damn
thing. Not at all. And then we proceeded like,
oh, let's check spark plugs. Even though I just
put new spark plugs back in November. Yep. One
and five was loose? Now we're into Sunday, by
the way. Yes. One and five was loose, right?
Three was completely tight? No. One was loose.
Five wasn't super tight, but wasn't loose. Gotcha.
Three was tight. Yep. So... And they were both
burnt. One and five was burnt. So, we... kind
of gave up, limped it up to the house and parked
it Sunday at 8 o 'clock at night, and then bled
the brakes on the black truck so that Mark and
Alan at least had something to drive. Mind you,
my truck is still broken, so I'm stuck driving
my friend's Malibu. Yeah. This is not a problem
if it was a normal Malibu. This is the world's
shittiest Malibu you've ever seen. The exhaust
leaks. I'm sure it leaks at the head. Like, I
don't even think the fucking, it's bad. Yeah.
Exhaust leaks, interior's absolutely fucking
roached. Every single light is on on the dash
except the battery light. Also, a fun thing I
learned today, because I've only driven this
thing early in the morning, take my wife to work
and the kid to school. Well, today, coming home,
I turned on a McClellan, and it has automatic
headlights. Well, it got bright enough out that
the headlights shut off. Turns out, to run the
radio, you have to have the headlights on. The
fuck? What do you do? Add a fuse to the light
headlight switch or something? Remember how I
mentioned that the radio doesn't dim when the
headlights are on, and it drives me nuts? Yeah.
Turns out that his main power is coming off the
illumination wire. The fuck? So I thought the
alternator went bad and I was about to have a
really bad day. But how could I tell? Every light
is on. But the battery light never came on. Anyways.
Yeah. So car is a heap. I mean, it's like it's
a 2014. So like it's a newer new ish car. But
like, dude, this thing's been ran through the
fucking ground. Oh, yeah. So that's what I'm
driving currently. I ordered all of my timing
parts and water pump and tools. Dude, Mark's
truck's still not fixed, by the way. No, not
at all. The whole fiasco. There's like zero video
on how to tear down to take care of these knock
sensors. Zero. It was so annoying trying to do
it. The only good one was for the 4 -cylinder.
That was it. Anything instruction -wise was on
the 4 -cylinder, not the V6. I think the only
V6 there was was for the 3rd gen, which is a
totally different engine type. There's no...
coolant pipe running through the valley of the
engine unlike mine here's my recommendation to
all people thinking about buying a tacoma get
a first gen or get a four cylinder that's where
i'm at with it this thing is ridiculous but hey
at least i was correct my knock sensor issue
was a chewed wire It was. The wire was completely
ripped. And the knock sensor is fixed. Both of
them. Yep. And we re -ran the wire because it
was a pain in the butt to take apart and the
old one is still tankly hanging in the engine
bay. And then next we will finish extracting
what's left of the VVT sensor currently stuck
in that hole. Yep, in the pattern side. Yeah,
yeah. Oh, I didn't even say that. We're pretty
sure that the reason it's running like shit is
that the passenger VVT sensor is also having
problems. Dude, I... Toyota, I love you. The
fuck? You had the 3 .4, which is an amazing,
easy -to -work -on engine. I think, um, I have
to do timing and we'll see how that goes. But
yeah, an amazing, fairly easy to work on engine
with everything readily available, nothing crazy
to work on. And then you redesign it and come
out with the four, four liter. And that thing
is a bear. Is it reliable? Sure. I mean, there's
four, four liters with, you know, eight, 900
,000 miles, whatever. That thing's a bear to
work on, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it was
a process. The reason why I put off for two years,
because I was like, I really don't want to tear
down that far right now. But it became a bigger
basket than I was expecting it to be. Me too.
And I'm scared that next weekend's going to be
the same way. Oh, yeah. Even if we don't get
back to the Tacoma, like... the forerunner is
going to be a bear next weekend, but it has to
happen. Cause I can't keep driving that fucking
Malibu. Um, but yeah, it's who are we having
some lag? I got like no video feed of you right
now. Oh, what the heck? Yeah. I like say something
and then you takes you like 10 seconds to respond.
No. Let me run a speed smart. Yeah, today is
not our day for recording. Gavin backed out.
Oh, yeah. My speed test is great. But Gavin backed
out. Mark took like a half hour to decide to
get on. I'm sorry. Yeah. This guy. These guys.
It's kind of hard getting three people together
to record a podcast. I will admit it. But we
don't do too bad. What doesn't help me is that
I get home almost at 6 every time when we do
a recording. It's annoying, but it's what happens.
So it's usually me trying to eat real quick.
Because I don't want to eat after we're done
recording half the time. So then I'm trying to
eat and still set up. And today didn't help because
I'm actually in my room. Because Justin's home
for a little bit. Ah, gotcha. We still struggle
through for you listeners. Don't worry. All right,
well, let's get off the wrap here, Mark, and
let's move on over and record an hour -ish. Hour
-ish. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, somewhere in there.
Hour -ish. Let's see how we get. I don't know
where we're going to go with this next one. Later.