Me and my Rig!

Hi, my name is Benjamin Piper, but i go by Ben or Piper. I'm 19 years old and am going to school in order to become a mechanical engineer. I am a pretty outgoing guy once you get to know me and I am told that I can be brutally honest at times. I am a military boy so I have moved around a lot and actually am planning on going into the marines after college. Some of the things that I enjoy doing are working out, offroading, wrestling, MMA, playing guitar, camping, and other outdoor activities, racquetball, and most any sport. I'm a competitive person no matter what I do, but enjoy challenges and learning from mistakes. As far as wheeling experience goes, I have been doing it since before I even got my truck. I used to go out all of the time with my friend and learned the ropes through that. After I got my truck, my life consisted of wheeling on weekends and fixing my rig on weekdays. I have the most experience in either mud or trail riding, but I enjoy trail riding a lot more. I tend to stay away from mud now. Some of the bigger events that I have done are a trip with the J-Ville Jeepers to Uwharrie National Park. I have competed in the Jump and Run Mud Bog in Havelock, NC, and many local off road events in Jacksonville, NC.

Now for my truck. It is a 1986 Toyota 4runner, that I bought at the end of my junior year in high school. I got a great deal on it for 800 bucks and it had about 186,000 miles on it. There is a stock picture of it above, and a present day picture below. Some of my first modifications were a 3" body lift from Performance Accessories. Then I got some 32x11.5 Pro-Comp Mud terrain tires for it on 15x8 American Racing wheels that I grinded and painted myself. Lots of maintenance has been done to it throughout my time as owner. Then I did a two inch suspension lift on it with new leaf springs in the rear, and BJ spacers and Downey T-Bars in the front. Then some 33x12.5 TSL Super Swappers were put on it for a little bit until I sold them because my fuel economy went way down. The carpet has been pulled up and bed liner was put down on the inside. The interior was painted black. Next up came an Aussie locker in the rear which I broke and now it is an open differential for now. I made a custom hand throttle which is a bikes brake lever attached to my shifter and I can use that for my throttle. The biggest project that was done was my solid axle swap. This replaced the entire front suspension for a Dana 44 axle and leaf spring suspension. I am not all satisfied with how this was done so I am going to have to fix that. There are many other little things that I have done but I can not think of all of them. This project is pretty much never ending and have put in around 5,000 dollars right now on the truck. Small price to pay considering how many great memories that I have gotten from it.