Hypoxic Chronology

I think I have it on there decently well now.
I used pieces of the gasket I cut off to fill some gaps in the front corners.
We'll see how it does.
If there's too much dust intrusion, I think the solution will be to replace all the gasketing on the topper with something thick but soft and highly compressible.

The stock plastic bed side covers on these second gen trucks sit much higher then the front part of the bed. Rather than forming that difference into their fiberglass mold, ARE just lets that front part "float" above the bed. So the installers have to use a huge gasket up front and then put a putty in the corners between the caps and the gasket.

That's all well and good except that the plastic bedside caps snap into the metal bedsides and, with a topper on there, clips break and the caps slide around screwing up all the paint.

Now, with these flat, low profile, metal bedside caps, the topper isn't made to sit down all nice on the front corners so you have small gaps here and there.

I'm going to run it for now and see how well I was able to gasket those gaps. If I find I'm getting water or dust inside, I'll find some better gasketing to put on the topper. I'm thinking some closed cell foam about 3/8" thick that will compress down to 1/8 would be about perfect.

 

A nice fat bead of polyurethane should do the trick. I recommend this stuff, fill gaps up to 1/2".
http://www.sashco.com/products/big-stretch/

 

On the flip side of all this topper fitting ridiculousness, the hatch fits infinitely better than it ever did.
I attribute that 1/2 to the topper sitting lower and 1/2 to the new metal tailgate cap.

Also, the topper sits low enough to cover my paint job. So there's that.

 

Thoughts? I'm running 2 sets now; MS2's and ST Maxx. I expected more difference on dry hwy travel but have been really impressed with the Coopers. On wet and frozen, or ass-puckering maneuvers the MS2 is still king.

 

I don't have anything bad to say about the cooper's..... this bizarre winter hasn't given us any real snow yet so I'm still holding off on final judgement. I did go up in the mountains for thanksgiving and there was a small amount of snow on the road. between that and others' reports, I'm optimistic.

 

Since your up. Are you going to the toy drive Saturday? If not I'll try and head your way sometime next week. Thinking about doing some truck stuff up at old Brett's place if he's available. Weather permitting.

 

Didn't even see this.
I think I have crap going on Saturday.
Might even have to work.

 

It's fine bud. I ended up having to work to. So I'm not making the toy drive.

 

Was flipping through all my photos from the year and found this gem:

 

^ threatening! Did you have to find a safe place after seeing that?

 

I'm long since use to Eric's verbal, as well as implied, abuse.

 

Good point.

 

His kids, his poor actual spawns

 

I know! He makes Sean look like a teddy bear.

 

Finally getting to try these coopers out in some snow.
Can't say I'm disappointed. They seem to do pretty well.

 

Did you or Brett or James do a trip report on the Maze? ibremember the videos but can't find anything. I'm thinking mid April I may try to dosomething similar and if you saw a site you wished you stayed at I'd like to know

 

No one ever put one together. I did a little report in my build you've probably already seen:

Squeaky Penguin's (not much of a) Build Thread

Maze Overlook was awesome. Both 1 and 2 are equally excellent. Doll House 1 was amazing as well. We passed various other campsites and none were as good as either of these.

 

Brett can you give me a basic route yall took and give me any insight on gas?. we are thinking 3 or 4 nights same group I ran Lockhart and elephant with last year and the kokopelli before but a couple of them ride bikes. any thing like Lockhart or lavender that way for them to open up and rip a bit?

 

What kinda bikes are we talking? Maze has a pretty strict rule on not allowing OHVs, not sure where the line is drawn between street legal bikes and dirt bikes, or if they're just talking about SxS.

After gassing up in Hanksville, we went north to the Hahn's Flat turnoff and down that road, down the switchbacks, a quick offshoot to the golden stairs, and then to our first campsite at the Maze Overlook. Next day was going from the overlook to the doll house. Third day was backtracking out of the dollhouse, and then heading down poison springs road, whereas James and I headed south to Hite, as per our original plan.

This might be doable on one tank of gas, but would be very close. We did pour a couple cans in during the trip being we had much more than needed after loading Leo's gas into the other trucks.

Gas available in both Hite and Hanksville.