Run to the Hills! - Jason's Completely Stalled Colorado GTFO Build

He had everything.

Drove it three times I think haha

 

So mawl crawler??

 

The very essence

 

The more I think about it.... at the end it is people's money. Why do we care so much if somebody spends a lot of $$$ building a truck before they go use it?

About the crawl box...4.7 gears are very strong. They ain't gonna break whether you have a rock crawler or go fast truck. But they are really low gears, more than what people realize. and if you engage in double-low, it gets so slow to the point of being borderline useless...even in rock crawling. Definitely something to consider. A crawl box is one of those things that fall under the "better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it" category.

good points.

Nothing wrong if somebody wants to do a killer setup before they gain a lot of experience wheeling. That's why the old timers will always say "build it right, build it once." Trust me, if you have a bad ass rig that exceeds your experience, you will quickly learn how to use it; and it will be safe and reliable. Win-win.

Again...why do we care so much about what people do with their money?

 

I'm not concerned on which ways someone else blows their money, but I wouldn't look to those people on how to build a truck.

No experience and built rig is still no experience. On that note as well, I'm not sure how you could even build a killer rig without going in to it without expiernce or knowing for certain the intended application.

 

More good stuff, fellas! Keep it coming!

I think the theme here is that I need to gain some stick time in my current setup before I worry too much about where to go from here. For what it's worth, I am in complete agreement!

Again, this discussion is somewhat academic at this point. I'm not going to be going beyond the overland MT scheme any time soon; probably not for another couple years at the earliest. The biggest reason for that is precisely what y'all are getting at: I want to enjoy the truck NOW. Shit, I drove the damn thing to Southern Utah and back over Thanksgiving and got in three nights along the way. It was great! But it was also a mess because I wasn't done with the tubbing job and I basically duct taped the hole shut on the passenger side. Had to deal with a bunch of mud and some rust when I got back, but the experiences were well worth the trouble.

The point is that I've always seen this truck as a progression. I knew that I wanted MT IFS to start out, and that I had the funds to do it right. I'm still not even done with THAT yet. So I want to get the major stuff finished up (tubbing and sealing, rear shock relocation, dual battery, etc.) so that I can get it out there as much as I can. Because that's the whole fucking point after all!

In reality, I could easily be perfectly happy running with what I'm proud to say is a well thought out mid-travel overland rig. If it meets my needs and if it gets me where I want to go and back, I'd be perfectly happy staying on that path. If it doesn't, I'll think about it, ask people I respect for their opinions (that's you guys), and go from there.

Thanks again!

 

Great post, Monte!

I've already started thinking about how to beef things up and what sort of things I need to carry for spare parts and the tools to remove/install them.

One of the members I really respect here is @Crom. Nick is very thoughtful and methodical as well as practical in what he does with his build. He's also very aware of the need for reliability and repairability, seeing as though he has his family with him when he goes. (I also have a huge amount of respect for him getting his girls out and adventuring with him). Anyway, it was his build, as well as Brett's (@Squeaky Penguin) that got me thinking about making a capable MT setup as reliable as possible; specifically, things like gusseting spindles, coil buckets, etc.

One of the things I'd like to get started on in parallel with my build this winter is a second set of spindles. I'd really like to get another set and have gussets welded on. Then get them painted up, throw in fresh hub/wheel bearings, LBJ, and UCA slugs with bolts and misalignments. Then swap those onto the truck and do the same with the stock spindles for use as spares.

Just one of the things that I'm trying to stay aware of, knowing that 35s on 1" spacers and 3.5BS can wear stuff out pretty quickly...

 

I guess you and I disagree on this one. But I think you are wrong

Anybody can gain experience regardless.

Personally, I wished I would have done my SAS a LONG time ago. It would have saved me a lot of money in the long run. Instead, I changed/upgraded my IFS suspension like four different times over the years before I did the SAS. It was a lot of money I could have put towards the SAS.

I'll give you a different example. When I started taking guitar lessons, everybody told me start with a POS cheap guitar. My teacher said otherwise, and insisted I should buy a top of the line instrument from day one.

And he was right. It sounded better than the POS student guitars, it was actually easier to play because it was a professional grade instrument (better setup, better woods, better quality craftsmanship on the neck and frets, etc.), and it made the experience much more enjoyable. Other people, mostly out of envy, told me I was stupid for having such an expensive guitar when I did not even know how to play two chords.

Another example, tons of people start working on their rigs without a garage and with piece of crap tools from harbor freight. I say, go get a garage first, fit it with good quality stuff from Snap On, MAC, great assortment of jacks, power tools, etc.; even if you do not k now how to turn a wrench yet LOL. We all know what happens when you start working on your vehicle with crappy tools.

So yea, I come from the perspective that having a good rig/instrument/tool from the get go is the best way to learn and gain experience.

Nothing wrong for a "rookie" to suddenly show up on a trail with a super bad ass rig - LT, SAS, or whatever. Besides...these projects are always evolving. So even with a super built rig, people always end up tweaking stuff along the way.

 

Is this @ponethousand, Monte?

Good points on both sides of this discussion.

I think it can kinda be a bit of a chicken/egg type of a deal. But in the end I'd rather be the guy with some basic off-road driving skills and a stock ride than an ignorant dude who bought the best of everything and either doesn't use it to near its potential, or worse, gets overconfident in his driving because of his truck and gets himself or someone else hurt.

It really is personal freedom and choice, though. I see so many mall-rated trucks with the drop-bracket lifts on top of a coilover lifts and the wide wheel thing that just don't appeal to me at all. But it's their paycheck (or credit card) making their vision a reality. Who am I to judge?

As for building something and then not using it, well, I always assume the best. I have no idea what a person's personal life has going on. I do know that life can get busy and messy, and that family can complicate that. So it may very well be the case that some dude can only take his badass rig out twice a year. At least it gets used.

Part of my problem with this is the idea that it boils down to what someone deems is an appropriate amount of 'something': Like nights out, trail difficulty, trip length, whatever. So what is the minimum to be considered 'acceptable'? And who gets to decide? And is everyone ok with that person or group's biases, tastes and preferences dictating that? Just my point of view...

Regardless, I always appreciate informed discussion! Thanks again, guys!

 

Love the guitar example, Osvaldo!

When I got back into playing after YEARS away, I tried getting by with my old POS $250 Ibanez. I could not get a decent tone out of it to save my life, and on top of that, I had to fight the damn thing and its shitty action. I finally ponied up and got myself a PRS SE (not remotely top of the line, but a badass guitar still) and it was worlds different. Should have done that from the start!

 

But I think you are wrong. :

At this point in time, I wish at would have started with a nice MT setup, but when I started, I didn't know that's what I would want.


I do wish I would have skipped the 5100 stage though...



My main point is this though: what makes a killer rig for you does not necessarily make a killer rig for me. How am I to know what setup will best suit my application without ever having done it? If I showed up here or another forum asking which is the 'best' rig for offroading, IFS would be heavily scrutinized to say the least. If so, having been told SAS is the 'best', and blindly wanting the 'best', I would have been dissatisfied with that setup for my philosophy of use. Is an SAS rig better for more challenging terrain: certainly, but is not what I want.

The best guitar is the best guitar, there's no arguing that. The best build Tacoma, however, is extremely subjective. Buying/building one blindly is foolish IMO.

 

Two years ago I bought a brand new Gibson ES 335. SUPER MEGA HUGE difference. Wow man, I found "the one" when it comes to guitars LOL. Playing with a crappy guitar is the worse experience ever.

I don't blame you for not buying a top of the line PRS. That shit is expensive!!!

Glad to know you are a fellow guitar player. I am not a pro by any means but it is a ton of fun to be able to make noise with a guitar haha

 

This is a very good point!

When I finally got to a stable place again after my divorce, I knew that I wanted to get back out and hike, backpack, climb, and camp. I knew that I needed a truck to do so. And after some thinking and investigation, I knew that I wanted a Tacoma. After digging deeper, I knew that a 1st Gen was exactly what I wanted as a platform (duh!). As I continued to gather information and educate myself, I saved up. I knew that I could likely bide my time and get one with relatively low miles. When I found one, I pounced.

At that point, I only had enough saved for the truck itself, so I kept reading up while I saved for upgrades even though I didn't know specifically what route I wanted to go. When it became obvious that I'd be saving for years if I wanted to go straight to SAS or LT, I decided that I'd go for a high performance mid-travel setup biased toward overland travel. I also knew, even then, that I'd likely start to look ahead, but also that I'd need to get some experience with this first iteration of the truck. But most importantly, I knew that I wanted to USE it. I didn't want it sitting in my garage in pieces. (I still ended up with that for a couple months late last summer as work and life and firewall tubbing conspired against me!)

Anyway, my point is that I agree with your approach and that it has basically been my plan from the beginning. Because if I find that MT is perfectly fine, especially with a crawl box, then there are myriad other avenues that can use the money that would have funded a SAS or LT upgrade. If not, I'll wheel it until I have the money to go next level!

 

Yea his truck. He is a great guy. I really liked him. And it wasn't really his fault he didn't get to drive it. He did offroad a lot when he was in Cali. I'm mostly mad he sold it haha

And ftw. I'm with brett on this latest subject 100%.

Hell I've drive lots of 1st gen tacomas and every single one has been basically mid travel. And every single one was completely different driving. Like worlds apart. Much less the difference between lt and mid. Or SAS.

Builds are very subjective. Everything thing you do changes the truck.

 

In all seriousness, I think we actually agree in many points.

I am certainly biased about a SAS because that's what I have haha. Early toyota trucks used to come with solid axles front/rear, so I think that's the way they should all be

 

Thats my dream crawler. 87 4runner with a 22re-t and 3 link the front.

Someday..

 

those are bad ass. would love to have one of those as well

 

Dude!

I've been wanting to ask you for pics of your truck because it doesn't look like you have a build thread. Now I need pics of that ES-335!

 

this is how my truck looked like when I first bought it:



This is what it looks like now


the link to my build thread is in my signature below

Here's my ES 335 next to a Heritage 535. The Heritage line of guitars is built at the old gibson factory in Michigan. Great guitar, but I don't have that one anymore:



It is the typical 335 but by now you must have noticed something unique in it: