Yakima Mighty Mounts 23H

After purchasing the Universal Mighty Mounts and placing the bike rack on top, the rear strap kept hitting the garage door every time the rear tire came up on the lip at the end of the garage. I decided to buy the 23H Mighty Mounts and they came in today. Man, these took so much longer than mounting the skid plate! I had issues with the rear mount where the bolt was going into the recessed bolt hole but it was not tight enough. So I decided to flip it over and not use the recessed hole for the bolt. It worked much better. Then I put the Yakima lock over it but it would not fit since the plastic was sticking out too far. The solution for this was taking out my rotary tool and using the rear plug in the FJ to power it. I shaved off a few mm from the mount and everything finally fit. That was my first use of the plug in the FJ!

After finally installing them, the rack sits about 1 or so inches lower than the Universal Mighty Mounts and it doesn't hit the garage door. Wohooo!

Skid Plate Mounting

Well, after being impatient waiting for either Carmax to get their bolt order in for the skid plate or the guy who sold it to me to send the spacers/bolts, I decided to manufacture my own. I went to Home Depot and purchased some bolts that weren't long enough along with some galvanized nipples which I cut to 2 1/4 inches as a spacer that fit perfectly around the bolt. So after trying Lowes and calling Carmax, they didn't have any M8 125 thread bolts that were longer than 70mm. Then I tried Papa Auto Parts and they only had 100mm so I bought these. They were much longer than needed. I think the 90mm bolts would have done the trick. Along with the spacer I put on two washers, one touching the factory skid plate on the top part of the spacer and one touching the bottom part of the "bling" accessory skid plate. I also added some lock washers next to the bolt heads.



I didn't follow the Toyota instructions once again. I put the brackets on the front but immediately afterwards bolted two bolts in the front to hold the plate. Then I put the long bolts/spacers/washers on the back and everything was set. Only took about 15 or so minutes. Then placing the rest of the bolts on and torquing them took another 20 minutes. This was the easiest install yet.



Here's the final product:

Tire Cover "install"

The tire cover came in as well. I bought this from one of the guys at fjcruiserforums. Looked brand spankin' new without the new price! Larry stopped by to take a look at the intake and helped me put on the tire cover. Man that was hard to do. No wonder people just take it off and leave it off. :) It took a couple of tries and hard pushing to get that hard part to go over the treads of the tire but finally it went on.

TRD intake install

The intake came in today! Looks pretty nice and well made. I noticed that there were some plastic shavings inside the intake tube so I took a rag and cleaned all that out. Don't want to have melted plastic in the throttle body!

Prior to installation.

Took off the cover and then disconnected the hose in the front and the vacuum hose in the back. Took off some screws and disconnected the MAF (mass air flow) sensor. Also loosened the clamp to the throttle body. There are also two plastic clips that need to be taken off. For those just squeeze underneath and pull. After that it was just a matter of taking out that big intake.

Close up of the MAF sensor. Careful with this sensor because it has some sort of fragile thermistor which is protected by plastic but you can still break it from the sides.

Rubber bushing/screw that replaced the regular screw. This levels the box for the intake.

The box finally installed. The hardest part was to get the rubber seal (see first picture) around the hole in the wheel well. It kept falling off. After a frustrating 30-40 minutes, I decided to use a bonding agent - super glue! Worked like a charm. You have to take the two rubber bushings with the metal insert off the old intake and use them for the two holes in the top. You must take off the metal insert first, squish the rubber bushings in the holes and then insert the metal cylinders. Then it was jiggling it until all three screws fit. There is an adapter that is screwed into the right side for the filter and intake tube. NOTE: DO NOT FOLLOW THE TOYOTA INSTRUCTIONS. Put the adapter on PRIOR to installing the box. The screw towards the bottom was hard to get at since the A/C pipe was in the way.

The intake installed on both sides. I had to take the threaded post from the old intake. This is the post where the cover is screwed into. DO NOT tighten all the clamps yet. You have to put the cover on and center the post before you tighten everything. After that take the cover off and tighten them all. I also had to put the vacuum fitting which was very hard. NOTE: Do not use too much teflon tape or the fitting will not go all the way down.

You then use the longer tube with the kit to install the vacuum line to the fitting (left of intake tube). The MAF sensor is then installed with a gasket, nylon spacers, and longer screws. Once that's done plug in the sensor. The huge air filter fits in nicely. Just clamp it to the adapter.

Once the filter is in, then put the metal TRD cover on top of the box and use the six hex screws. The cover actually has a rubber seal that is the same size as the top of the cover. I guess this seals it off nicely from elements and water. The last piece was putting on the plastic engine cover. Not too bad of an install but there were some sections of the install that were extremely frustrating. I would have thought that the Toyota engineers would have done a better job. Most of the instructions were incorrect in terms of bolt sizing as well.

After all that, I had to take it out for a spin. At first startup it sounded like there was a hissing type noise but it was just the computer trying to figure the new intake. It didn't happen the second time I started it. This intake sounded louder and deeper and really nice under hard acceleration! Now I don't even miss the RSX. :)

Skid Plate

Well, I received the skid plate today with the sliders but one downside - NO HARDWARE! So I can't install it until the guy I bought it from comes back from vacation and sends me the bolts and bushings. In the meantime I decided to do a little work on the skid plate since it was a little beat up.

Here are the pics of what it looked like originally:







I used a brillo pad to take the dirt and the loose paint off and used a sander to take out most of the deep gashes. The back side was actually just full of dirt mostly so I used the brillo pad to clean it off quite a bit. This is what it looked like afterwards:

The toyota genuine label that was painted over actually showed after I cleaned it with the brillo pad! Amazing. It looks pretty good underneath. I vacuumed all the loose dirt off and used a wet towel to wipe it down.

I gave it a nice coat of rubberized coating to match the Demello sliders. I bought this stuff called Plasti Dip at Home Depot since Larry had used this before on a bicycle part and I liked how it looked. It comes in a handy spray can or regular paint can. I bought the spray but you have to be very careful because the fumes are horrible and it should be done in a well ventilated area. I used the garage but I held my breath most of the time and went inside the house between coats.



A couple of coats of Plasti Dip later and it's starting to look pretty decent. Still very wet.

Four coats later and all dry. Besides the the dent in the front no noticable scratches or deep grooves. I might give it a couple more coats. If you look at it closely you will be able to tell though. Matches up pretty well with the rock sliders. I decided to spray the other side since it looked so good.

Here's the final product. Now I only need the hardware to install this thing!





Notice I blocked out the Toyota genuine part sticker from being sprayed. :) Not too shabby for $75 shipped and $16 for the cans of Plasti Dip considering a new plate would be over $300!

Demello Sliders Install

Well, I received the sliders today along with the skid plate. Here's the install of the sliders:

Slider which of course was for the wrong side! I had to switch this one to the right. :)

First I tried to use the stands to move the slider into position but they left some nice scratches on the bottom. So I decided to hold the slider in place in the center by just holding these 45 lb metal monstrosities and then placing the stands on both sides of the sliders. It worked great and I was able to put in a couple of bolts to hold them on either side. Of course I ran into a problem - the brake line was in the way.

So I took the bracket holding the brake line off and installed the slider. I also cleaned out the holes with a bristle brush to get the grime and dust out of the screw holes. Since I already had the nerf bars installed those holes that were used were a breeze to screw in. I did most of it with my hand!

This is how the brake line looks after the install. It does touch the slider plate but hopefully that will not be a problem.

Tightened all bolts to 22 ft-lbs and left Slider installed!

More pics of the brake line routing. I bent the rear bracket holding the brake line up a little so it gave the brake line a little more clearance to go over the triangle section.

Right side DONE! I think it took me less than 2 hours to do by myself. They look nice and very usable as a step!

Full side shot of sliders. Not even noticeable and they look like they go with the bottom of the doors.