Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Great posts! Keep them coming! I was just out at Alabama Hills and didn't see a sunrise like that... Kind of jealous. Oh well, just another reason to go back.

 

OK so I finally had a chance to read this completely with my wife. We are dying to get back to this stuff, and are trying to figure out our first outing with our 5-month old. We're in Norcal, so it won't be here, but we love this area, and will bring him here eventually once we have de-bugged how to camp with our little dude. Yoru tidbits of parent-camping wisdom are golden, we both love them, please keep them coming.

My 2015 is new after selling my 01 Xtra cab to gain space. The 2015 is a $30k infant seat, and I am starting from stock square one again. We have a teardrop we love to use, but I'll be doing a few thing to make it possible to use only the truck for all three of us in some circumstances.

Gratuitous teardrop pic from Utah last year

 

Panamint Valley
October 2015

Be warned, there is very little "truck" here and mostly trip report and photography.

Not very long after our family trip to Alabama Hills but it is time for a short solo camping trip. I haven't been out alone since April. Various life events have been taxing and I really need a couple day decompress.

Pack up on a Tuesday, do the usual daughter bedtime routine and then get an "early" start on the driving. I like photography, daylight is precious, so get most of the driving done in the dark. I'll drive until tired, find a random camp spot, open up the Flip-Pac, go to sleep and wake up a lot closer to my destination.

As to "destination" that is pretty loosely defined. Panamint Valley is west of Death Valley. I'm obsessive about landscape photography and there are a number of spots in the area that I've previously scouted for photos and new spots I need to scout. Where I go on a given day depends on the light and cloud cover and my general mood. This is the kind of thing that will drive a passenger bonkers, hence best left to a solo trip. Will probably stay out two to four nights. I can use a satellite messenger combined with spotty cell coverage to keep my wife informed of my location and changing itinerary - something not practical years back when I needed to stick much more closely to a well defined plan.

There is no one on the roads so the drive is quite pleasant. I used to live in Ridgecrest while my then girlfriend and now wife lived in Pasadena and so a solo drive over the San Gabriels and across the high desert brings back memories. I make Ridgecrest after midnight and don't feel tired yet. Fill up the tank. Eastridge Market near the east side of town turns out to have the slooowwwest gas pumps I've ever encountered. While I watch the thousandths of gallons tick by police cars fly by with sirens blaring. And then firetrucks. Hmmm...

Finally full I head east and quickly find the source of the brew-ha-ha. Park where I will be well out of the way of people needing to do their jobs fast, make a fast lens change and quickly find a decent composition before the excitement is all over.

Not a good night for someone's car in Ridgecrest
​

Continuing on my way for less than an hour I start looking for a spot to camp for the night. The very north part of Searles Valley before the road drops into Panamint Valley looks good on the topo and should shelter from the wind blowing around. Get there and discover as often happens in the desert that what I thought would shelter from wind is actually acting like a funnel. Continue down to the Panamint Valley floor and find a better spot. It is past 2AM now.

Time for glorious sleep in my plush Flip-Pac. This is gonna be good. Attach the arm to open the Flip-Pac, lean into it and hit a dead stop. I don't even need to look, I know what has happened, I've read about it on the Expedition Portal forums. The damn torsion bar is broken. I'll detail what it does and how it gets fixed in a later post, but for now what it means is the Flip-Pac is not opening and isn't ever going to open on this trip.


SIGH...

I take a moment to be thankful this didn't happen when I was out with the family and we would have been really disappointed and to be extra thankful the dang thing didn't break when the Flip-Pac was open. Haven't a clue how I'd get it closed by myself if that happened.

This is not the end of the world. One of the points to the raised floor build was to allow for solo diagonal sleeping in the short bed when the weather is extremely foul or I want to "stealth" sleep where camping is frowned upon but parking is OK. Apparently I'm going to get to validate that theory right now. I'll figure out if it affects my trip in other ways in the morning. Sleep is key at the moment.

I choose to attempt "stealth" mode which means the Yeti and Action Packers stay in the back with me. Yeti in front driver corner of the bed, Action Packers stacked in rear passenger corner. Ridgerest and sleeping bag running diagonally between them. Turns out this works just fine. Drift off to a pretty cozy night's sleep.

In the morning, now rested, I decide the trip should of course continue despite the now permanently closed Flip-Pac. So what to do today? It is pretty windy, this makes for annoying hiking in my book. I'm also just plain exhausted and have been for weeks. So I head over to a location I've been scouting for a few years where getting the photo I want could involve sitting in one place all day and just waiting. And maybe not getting a thing. But today seems like a good day to sit on my ass in a chair just waiting, so I head to Father Crowley Point.

This signed vista turnout off the 190 overlooks a canyon called Rainbow Canyon on the topo maps but another group of people routinely call it Star Wars Canyon. I've got an odd kind of photo planned for this spot and a whole technique planned on how to get it - should the subject of the photo actually show up to the scene. I'll post the final result before discussing more.

Star Wars Canyon​

If I did this right it took you a moment to notice the plane, and then hopefully go "woah". Making the subject not immediately obvious to the eye so the viewer has to find it is called "delay" in composition terms. The problem is if it is too hard to find the viewer just moves on and never notices it.

This particular canyon is on a low level training route and on a given weekday you might see twenty planes fly down it, or none at all. I've known about it for years and spent enough time to see one or two fly through. But to get this photo I needed an experienced pilot to fly very low down in the canyon. If you are interested in photos of the planes themselves there are much better shots to get, but for years I'd been hoping to get a photo that somehow conveyed the sense of these jets flying through the gigantic landscape that is Panamint Valley. Didn't actually expect to get a good final shot this day, figured I'd just scout it and test my technique. But I think this one is a keeper. And the image is very high resolution, for example here is a full resolution crop of the seemingly tiny F-18 from the full picture:

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Anywho, I spent most of the day sitting on a windy ridge line waiting for planes to fly. Fortunately a bunch of them did and I got a photo I liked. As a side note apparently in the past couple of years the internet discovered this spot. In the past usually there were just a couple of cars in the vista parking lot with tourists stopping for a moment. Today there were a dozen or more airplane photographers with gigantic lenses crawling all over the ridge. Nice folks, I sat with three of them for most of the day. They referred to it as "fishing for airplanes" since there is a lot of sitting and waiting until you catch one. Another guy was out there from the UK and he was spending a full two weeks just sitting in this one spot! I guess I found a photographer even more crazy than me.

Two more decent shots from the day, one more of "airplane in landscape" and then a close up to give you an idea of how close these guys get. It is impressive, you actually look *down* at many of the airplanes from the canyon rim.

Entering the Canyon


Fly by
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Getting a bit late for airplanes to come by and now too late to get a twilight shot setup at another location so better just find a place to camp for the night. Drive up to near Lee Flat along Saline Valley Road and stop by the Boxcar Cabin. I actually never sleep in these cabins, Hantavirus is unfortunately a very real problem out here, but they are nice camping spots all the same. Since I am going to be spending more time awake in the long night I take the Yeti and Action Packers out of the back and actually have a nice cozy little room with the Flip Pac closed. Spend a few hours checking out and processing the haul of photos from the day, read, decompress and go to sleep. Decide to skip a morning twilight photo, rest instead.

I didn't take a photo of the cabin on this trip, but trip reports are always better with photos so here is one from a previous visit:

Boxcar Cabin
​

After a leisurely breakfast and general fussing around with the truck - I still don't have final locations for a lot of things - it seems it would be a good idea to have a plan for the day. Sitting on my ass was so nice the previous day I decide maybe a few hours of that would be good. So I continue along Saline Vally Road to scout another location for an airplane shot I'd like to get some day - might as well get airplanes out of the system for a while. This one would be at South Pass, but I suspect much less traffic than back at Star Wars Canyon.

I setup a nice lunch spot with the awning right on the saddle of the pass, get the camera setup in case someone does fly by and have a leisurely sit. More fussing with camping equipment and where it should go. Generally putz around. No planes come by. If I'm going to get that shot I want some day I should plan on sitting for a day or more and be damn sure I'm ready for the apparently much rarer fly through when it does happen. Hmmm... maybe not worth it.

In mid-afternoon it is time to figure out what the twilight photo plan is going to be and the related question of where to camp next. I get cell signal during the afternoon and check in with my wife. She's been having a rough few weeks, lots of travel for her this fall which is hard on both parents when there is a young kid around. Both of us feeling deprived of face to face time with each other.

Take a look at the sky, looks like high cirrus coming which will make a nice back drop for *something* when they turn pink at twilight. Mentally consult my list of desired photos. The clouds aren't going to be in a good place for most things nearby, and for the few that are those shots are morning shots - not evening - subjects will be back lit in the evening. Actually my best bet is probably shooting to the north from a location well south of here. South is on the way home. Check the clock, check sunset time, estimate travel time...

New plan. It has been a nice couple of days out solo in my favorite patch of desert, but at home with the wife tonight sounds like something we'd both prefer. Trona Pinnacles is the best chance for a twilight photo tonight and it is more than an hour south - the direction of home. If I want to get that photo better get moving now.

Head down Saline Valley Road at a good clip, back down the 190 into Panamint Valley, see that crazy UK airplane guy's rental car near one of the Star Wars Canyon lookouts along the way, head south down the Valley watching the clock, the clouds and the sun the whole way. And then, "What the eff, you don't see that very often..."

Well actually you *do* see burros around this part of the desert pretty often. But as a photographer seeing a black one, a grey one and a white one all together in raking late afternoon light with some nice clouds around too is not typical at all. Whatever the schedule got to stop for this. Don't want to spook them - pull off slow and not too close, get correct lens on inside truck, get out slowly/quietly, walk to back corner of truck to see if they react skittishly.

ZERRRRRWOOOOSHHHHH....

Bloody hell, where were you three hours ago on South Pass? F-18 makes a low pass right over the truck - they seem to like to do that to stopped vehicles out here. Burros are completely unfazed by this. Apparently not skittish at all - well that's good. Move a little more smartly now to get a potential composition, wait a bit for the burros to hopefully move into a better spot. On that's nice, they are lining up for me!

Panamint Burros
​

Back in the truck and gunning it south to get to Trona Pinnacles in time for a sunset/twilight shot. It has been years since I've been to the Pinnacles and I've never explored to the south of them so I really haven't a clue as to where I'm going to position myself for a decent composition. Usually I scout photo compositions hours or even days before I actually take a shot at twilight (did I mention slightly obsessed). Get to the turn off south of Trona, barrel past some slow pokes on the long dirt road out to the Pinnacles. Fly as fast as is polite and safe through the Pinnacles themselves to get on roads that will position me to the south. Stop multiple times, driving and running around as if deranged. It is actually just after sunset now, twilight cloud lighting will be in a few minutes. Finally having doubled back closer to the Pinnacles on a road I didn't notice before its now or never. Grab camera gear, run for a high point. Yep this will work, or at least is better than anything else I've seen yet and the light is *now* so this is going to be the picture.

Trona Pinnacles
​

Whew! That'll do. And now about two hours to home and a cozy bed and happier wife. And a call to FRP the next morning to ask if their torsion bars typically last only ten openings.

 

Ya...aluminum is expensive. My BudBuilt skids were almost $1700, but it's worth it in gas if you keep the truck as long as I plan to keep mine. I also don't get why you would want to permanently mount a winch way out over the front suspension when you only need it when off road, and might also need to pull from the rear depending on how you get yourself stuck. I like the concept of a winch cradle, bu there are issues with a receiver mount that make it not the best option either. I think Pronghorn has this solved, and in email exchanges with them they have stated that the soon-to-be-released rear bumper will have the same mounting system as the front. As for looks, I have always gone with function over form, but don't think they look too bad. Kind of a cross between an ARB and a some kind of large military truck.

 

I've thought about this too. What are the receiver issues? I've wondered how strong it really can be, and like the idea of no play and being directly bolted to the frame. There is a vendor here who has a reinforced front bumper that has front receiver option. It is pretty stealth.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-on-recovery-bar-for-2005-2015-tacoma.401428/
http://mobtownoffroad.com/product/front-recovery-bar/

I also like this a lot, but the winch is mounted full time.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/installed-us-offroad-winch-mount-and-engo-12k.409663/
https://www.usoffroad.us/2012-2015-tacoma-version-2-0/

 

There are a few front receiver options out there, but they all have inherent weaknesses for recovery applications. First, they are a single mounting point that is designed for straight-line pulling and supporting a bit of tongue weight (less than 500 or 1000 pounds in the case of most light truck hitches). Pulling yourself out straight ahead would probably be fine with a front receiver, but adding significant lateral loads could cause problems. Better hope there's a tree directly in front of you.

Second, receivers don't have tight tolerances. They are designed to accept everyone's mounts, and are kept loose as a result. If you wanted to mount your winch for a day on the trails, a receiver mount would allow for vibration and movement which could be an annoyance at best, and cause stretching/bending/cracking at worst. Clamping systems and shims are a band-aid for this, but are weak solutions. Also, the lack of a tight fit may exacerbate problem number one by providing a fulcrum point and isolating the entire load to a couple of small areas rather that distributing the load within the whole tube.

Hidden winch mounts are also available from a few vendors, but they require permanently mounting the heavy winch over the front suspension - which hurts performance and fuel economy. They are cool for sure, but I don't want to carry the weight when I don't need it, and I want it safe and clean in the in the bed of my truck with the rest of the recovery gear when I do. Ever see someone get stuck in a mud hole nose-first? A drowned winch isn't much help.

 

Right, those thoughts have come to mind. I'd never mount it for a day of wheeling just to have it out there (it would ride in the bed), but then once you are stuck, it might be in a scenario that makes it extremely difficult to mount the winch cradle.

My rear hitch exhibits this slack receiver tube behavior with just my small trailer, and I find it annoying. And if I have a 6k hitch, add a loaded truck in mud or whatever at whatever odd angles, and this becomes an even greater concern.

Of course, most of the stuff I do is pretty tame, and I avoid dicey situations to begin with. If I had to enter a dicey situation (say a boggy crossing on an otherwise good trail on a big, long loop in the middle of nowhere, and solo), I could prepare by stopping to pull it out before starting the crossing.

In fact, this is probably the most I've had a chance to really think about it since August. LOL.

 

Awesome photos and reports. Looking forward to more.

 

Agree. I try to avoid most of it too. When we were younger my friends and I would just make sure to have a come-a-long with us, and we never needed more than that. Of course it's easy to do manual extraction when you're a teenager, and a winch would be much nicer to use, but it's a weight-vs.-benefit issue in this thread - not to mention cost. My current plan is to get the Pronghorn bumpers (if I even do bumpers) for the weight compared to stock, the many light mounting options, the superior recovery points, the ability to add and remove the front hoop at will, and the looks - I'm the weirdo who thinks they look good. Not sure I would event bother with the Pronghorn cradle and a winch.

 

my current stuff involves max trax, a surplus E-tool (might upgrade to some sort of fiberglass-handled spade), a snatch strap, and a receiver shackle at the rear, some extra bits of wood for under the stock jack, and a tire plug kit. So yeah, pretty cautious.

 

@PaulK and @scocar - Great discussion, reminds me I need to add a category of posts specifically for things *not* going into the build. Staying light often means leaving something completely behind but there should be a rationale for why it is left behind.

Oh boy, if feels like a real build thread now - people having their own conversations about their builds.

 

Yup...well done. Nice to see something other than the same old approach.

 

I'm very impressed with your photography and detailed write ups. So great! I see your using an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II. I think this year I'll finally make a purchase for a mirrorless camera.

I have some photos of jets from various locations, but none as detailed as yours. Love that larger sensor.

Too bad about the flip-pac torsion bar thing. Good plan you had a backup.

 

Hey look what a fine gent named @Crom sent me:

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The rest of the parts will be a few more weeks coming, but hopefully and early February install is in the works for a full suspension upgrade. Details on all that's ordered to follow in another post when I've got time in a few days. Still got more posts to make of already complete mods and trip reports to get caught up to the present!

 

Jelous. It would be very interesting if you could weigh each major component that you remove and compare them to their replacements. Could all this stuff be hidden pounds or a great diet plan?

 

Great idea! I've got a digital hanging scale in the truck for weighing stuff already. I've been assuming most of the suspension deltas won't add up to much but would be interesting to check. Guessing the All Pro Expo leafs will probably be the biggest delta. I'll gather weights on the stuff as it comes in and then can weigh everything that came off after the install.

 

So much awesome in one place! Keep updating us on what works great and what doesn't.

 

IMO has potential to be one of the better ones out there. I get tingles from the massively thoughtful posts, the photography, the purposeful building and selection of mods.

It's what I would expect @scocar to do with his thread before he fucked it all up.

 

Agreed ... loving this thread.

 

Flip-Pac Torsion Bar Repair
November 2015

In late October when I went to open the Flip-Pac on a camping trip I discovered the torsion bar was broken. I have no idea exactly when it broke, Flip-Pac was closed last when we left the Alabama Hills and two weeks later when I tried to open it I discovered it was broken.

The way the hinging and opening works is that at the front of the Flip-Pac the hinge is constructed with a torsion bar. Torsion bars are just a steel rod that twists, some vehicle suspensions even use them in place of springs. In the case of the Flip-Pac a torsion bar the width of the Flip-Pac acts as a giant hinge pin. On one side it is splined to mesh with the hinge bracket attached to the shell and it rotates freely through the hinge bracket attached to the lid. On the other end just the opposite. The "neutral" or untwisted position of the torsion bar would be with the lid pointed straight up midway between fully open and fully closed.

The point of the torsion bar is to make it easy (or really possible at all) for a single person to open the Flip-Pac lid using a relatively short handle that fits over the torsion bar splines on the drivers side of the Flip-Pac. Since the torsion bar is untwisted when the lid is pointed straight up it applies a greater and greater resisting force as the lid rotates down either to open in one direction or close in the other. So when open or closed the torsion bar is twisted 90 degrees in one direction or the other. In fact when you release the clamps at the back of the shell to open the lid it actually pops up about a foot on its own. Similarly when you open it the "support" arms on the front actually don't support anything. You have to physically pull the lid down some more and the arms fitted over the hood clips are actually holding the lid *down* and not up! With the torsion bar broken the lid is simply too heavy to budge even a little bit with the handle.

Many Flip-Pacs are around that have been opened hundreds of times over more than a decade and the torsion bar is just fine. Some however, like mine, have them break quite quickly. Mine had been open maybe ten or twelve times before breaking. A few unlucky souls have had one break, be replaced and then the replacement broke not too long after. Ugh! Near as I can tell this is an infant mortality problem with some sort of latent defect in the torsion bar. The torsion bar appears to be sensibly manufactured - it is heat treated and shot peened - and most of them have long service lives. This problem seems to have gotten worse in the past few years based on reports on the Expedition Portal forums. I believe they may have changed manufacturers or had some other sourcing problem a few years ago which resulted in very long lead times for Flip-Pacs and many customers cancelling their orders. There is even a thread on ExPo with people trying to find their own source for better torsion bars.

Outside of warranty replacement bars are over $500 and it is quite a production to install yourself since you need to support the lid straight up while doing the replacement. FRP (the Flip-Pac manufacturer) is notorious for poor communication and prioritizing building new Flip-Pacs over providing limited stock replacement parts to existing owners. This understandably pisses a lot of people off.

I knew all this going into the Flip-Pac purchase but was willing to accept the risk and the idea I may have to hound FRP to get customer service when needed. My original order and install went very smoothly but I was not excited about potential issues dealing with them again.

I called FRP and they understood the problem immediately - they should given it seems to happen rather often. They said their current stock of torsion bars was all allocated to scheduled builds but they would have a new batch in one to two weeks and allocate one to me. I could come by since I was local and they would do the swap. Since I was within one year of purchase all covered under warranty.

As usual I really didn't get any proactive updates from them and had to call every few days for status. This was prime camping season and I wanted to get back out there! Torsion bars took an extra week for manufacture and then I had to do a trip for work but finally they were ready and I scheduled an install for Wednesday morning right before Thanksgiving.

I drove over that morning and arrived maybe 10 minutes before my appointment. The staff there were surprised to see me. "You're here for what? Today?" I made it clear I had an appointment and had driven across town so the install needed to be done. They were apologetic and after five minutes or so another staff member arrived who knew all about my issue and apologized she hadn't informed the rest of the staff.

Install took a bit less than an hour. The shop manager came out to ask about what happened and I described. It was clear they had no good idea why this happens, he indicated the failed bar would be sent back to their vendor for failure analysis. I can only assume they've done that plenty of times already...

While doing the install they noticed one of the clamps in the rear had a small part sheered off of it which they fixed on their own initiative. As I almost drove out I remembered I wanted to ask about another issue. The hood clips on the front were already showing what looked like rust. I was certain that wasn't correct, they are stainless. The shop manager came out and said he had never seen that happen before (and indeed I've never seen anyone post about it). They said in another 15 or 20 minutes they could swap those out too which they did.

And so by lunch I was headed back across town to Pasadena hoping to be ahead of and perhaps the opposite direction of the start of the Thanksgiving get-away traffic crush. FRP was again a bit uncommunicative and disorganized but when dealing with them in person at their shop they took care of me and my problem and were friendly and helpful. So still a happy Flip-Pac customer.

So how long will the new torsion bar last I wonder?

(3YR UPDATE: The replacement is still fine but FRP has gone out of business in the interim. Fortunately Sway-a-way now makes a much better replacement torsion bar. I have two of them in my garage just in case!)