AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

Well, both really... Haha it's amazing how much you did in 2018.

But preferably I want to see a trip planning thread if it's an open invite kind of trip! Briefly went through some of yours and Monte's reports again and is making me want to go. Like right now! Lately I feel like any weekend that I'm not working on the truck or doing an off road trip is a waste.

If you just so happen to be planning another Death Valley trip in the beginning of 2019 I'm in!

 

Well we did two back to back this year. The retour and the next one. Traditionally we wait till after the holidays before we start mulling over ideas

 

Yeah, I figured that was the case. I feel like I say this to you every other year, but I'm in of any open invite

 

Well...idk...you've got a turd gen now

Haha

 

Well so does @m3bassman , but I guess he doesn't bring it...

BUT, because I've read your trip threads I know for a fact that a 3rd gen has joined you on a trip. That's gotta count for something, right?

 

Yeah there's no taco bias for coming. Though you'll certainly have to catch some shit for it hahaha but that's it

 

Haha I've heard it some already. But what fun are trips with other enthusiasts without a little jab here and there for your setup.

 

That's certainly a requirement. Ability to sling shit at everyone and catch it from everyone haha

 

As long as one of your 3 1st gens is ready then maybe I’ll see you in 2019

 

I will say I am surprised at how capable it is stock. I love doing road trips in this thing compared to my 1st gen. My back doesn’t hurt an hour in anymore.

But I do agree with you on getting too fast. I’ve bottomed out way too many times, I’m just glad I haven’t bent the frame from what I can tell

 

Put some new bolstered seats in your Taco. I want to sit in a Corbeau Baja XRS to see if I like it. That way, if I don't, you're the one who .

 

Eeking Out Another Inch Under the Bed Rack
September 24, 2018.

Ever since building the bed rack, I've been happy with it. It's done everything I've asked of it and more. The CVT tent @cascadia tents has always been secure, and it's been a great way to carry the Hi-Lift, supply power to the fridge, and keep everything in the bed secure.

It's also been a great height, leaving the tent even with the roof line, and allowing a good amount of space underneath for storage, not the least of which is the custom bed slide I made to hold the ARB fridge.

Until now that is.

You see, I've recently been on a push to better organize the bed of the truck. Things have fit on previous trips - it's not that I've been low on room or anything - but they haven't fit well. By well, I mean three things:

1. I've been taking some stuff that's "nice to have," but a bit excessive - and I want to transition to things that are a bit more functional. My best example here is that we've been using a Weber Q grill and 20lb propane tank for all of our cooking. It's absolutely amazing for grilling, and works well enough for heating pans, but it's big and bulky and doesn't pack well anymore.
2. Things tend to move around a bit in the bed when I'm on rougher trails or take whoops a little too fast. For instance, a bucket of wood kindling might fall over, or the water jerry could end up on it's side.
3. Perhaps most annoying of all is that getting to anything in the bed often requires taking out everything. My fridge has been stored "close to the cab" - easy enough to get out with the bed slide, but it means taking out everything I've packed in after the fridge (shovel, grill, chainsaw, water, bundles of wood, etc.)...just to make a sandwich.

Taken together, these three things mean that it often appears that I'm having a yard sale at the back of my truck at lunch and in camp. And with trips getting more frequent and longer, I wanted to solve all of this.

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The first order of business was changing out things that were just the wrong shape to be taking over bumpy roads in the bed of a Tacoma - namely, the grill and 20lb propane tank. I'd decided to replace them with a more easily pack-able Coleman Propane Stove/Grill, and a couple 1lb bottles of propane.

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Not only would these things be more easily packable, but they'd fit nicely with my next optimization: fewer, bigger containers. By moving from smaller containers to larger ones, I'd help with the remaining two problems - namely, the larger containers could be made to sandwich themselves more solidly in the bed, and - because they were larger, I would be able to reach them without the help of the bed slide - meaning that everything could be arranged so that more commonly used items (e.g. the fridge) could be further back in the bed, making them immediately accessible when stopping for lunch.

I looked long and hard for what these containers would be. I wanted something cheap, durable, and waterproof. It seemed that no matter where I looked, I could pick any two.

It was the story of life.

In the end, I decided that durable and waterproof clearly won out over cheap - since, if I did this right, these would be my last storage purchase. I knew from other guys on the trail that Military Medical Boxes would fit great, came in multiple sizes, and were durable enough for the back of a HMMWV so I ordered three.

(OK, I actually initially ordered two, but eventually went with three. And by "ordered," I mean that Monte @Blackdawg was kind enough to pick them up for me.)

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My plan was to use them for

1. My OSK (Oh Shit Kit) where I'd store the spare parts, tools, etc. that I may need on the trail if something were to go really wrong.
2. Kitchen supplies - like the camp stove, propane tank, plates, silverware, etc.
3. Dry food that would survive bouncing around in the back of the truck and exposure to the temperature swings back there. things like bread, chips, cereal, etc.

Contents determined, I set about arranging the bed with the new gear. The OSK could slide all the way in - the idea being that I'd rarely use it. The other two boxes would go next to the fridge, which would now be further forward and more easily accessible.

Win. Win. Win.

It did mean that the fridge would need to move to the left as far as possible on the bed slide, and that was an easy change - I simply unscrewed it's drawer slide and moved it over.

There was only one problem. The fridge could no longer slide under the bed rack, since the bolts holding the CVT tent to the rack protruded down past the bottom of the rack a little too far for the fridge to slide under.

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And that meant it was time for some tent-to-bed-rack attachment modification. I wanted a solution that would be as strong or stronger than the current clamps (which have worked well for me), but that also resulted in the bottom of the bolts holding the tent to the rack being about an inch higher than they currently were.

The solution I came up with was to add mounting tabs to the bed rack itself. I'd make these out of 1"x1.5" angle, and utilize the same mounting rails on the tent to thread a much shorter bolt down through the angle, and into a lock nut - all tucked up into the depth of the bed rack itself; nothing protruding below the 1-inch square tubing.

I got started by removing the tent from the bed rack and locating where the tabs would be installed. Using an angle grinder, I cleared the paint off of these areas to ready them for welding.

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Now, the stock attachment for a CVT (or any other brand) tent was to use eight inserts in the aluminum channel to create four attachment points - two inserts for each point, to account for different size rails. I decided that rather than rely on just four attachment points, I'd spread the forces out over eight points, spread evenly down the rails - essentially one at each cross-rail of my rack.

That meant I needed eight tabs, so I fabbed those up next. Simple enough - just cutting them to length and then using the bench grinder to round over the various edges.

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Tabs in hand, I welded them to the rack, ground down the welds on the top (so the tent rails would sit flat), and primed and painted everything. Once that all dried, I came back with the appropriate size drill bit (7mm for CVT-sized mounting bolts) and drilled a hole in each tab to receive the respective bolt.

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Now on the home stretch, I replaced the tent with the help of @mrs.turbodb and secured it with some 20mm M6 bolts and corresponding lock nuts. At 20mm long (just under an inch), these bolts were plenty long to engage the tabs and nuts but plenty short to stay above the bottom of the rail.

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And with that, the bed rack modification was complete and everything seems to fit like a glove. I've got a trip coming up, so time will be the true judge as to whether this whole situation works better than what I had going on before.

I for one, obviously, hope it does!





PS. I sell the bed racks. Hit me up if you want one. If you've got a second or third gen, I'll do those too for the same price - if you're in the Seattle area and I can measure your truck.

 

I kinda wonder if a Corbeau or Sparco seat could save the ergonomics of the Taco. My legs are just too long I think though for the shallow angle to the peddle box and the tiny cab. I have big feet so if I have a boot on I can't rest my ankle because I'll push both the gas and brakes and resting my heel with shoes doesn't leave me much room to push the gas. I don't think I'll miss the hip and leg pain. But I'm curious to hear if a nice seat fixes anything for y'all.

 

My corbeau's provide good ergonomics, Im 6'1 and was getting hip and knee pain from my stock seats. But they have some down sides to them, access to the rear of the cab is an issue as the brackets dont allow them to slide very far forward

If you have broad shoulders or are over 6'0 the back of the seats dig in to your lats. The seat is a little small for me. But my leg and hip pain are gone. They are beautiful seats.

 

You're welcome.

Also you only know one guy that uses them

Now two!

 

Let's just say you had two trucks, so I counted you twice. Or, maybe I was just counting you and your ego.

 

LOL

 

Exploring the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bears Ears and more! (Oct 2018)
September 29, 2018.

We'd returned from The Re-Tour a mere three weeks before our departure date, but that didn't mean there were only a few short days to plan for our next epic adventure. In fact, quite the contrary - we'd been planning our trip south to Arizona and Utah for nearly a year - knowing that there was way more ground than we could cover in the two weeks we had allocated for the excursion.

Our plan was simple, if long. Start in St. George, Utah, and work our way east - first along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then through Glen Canyon National Monument (Lake Powell), and then through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to Bears Ears National Monument and Natural Bridges National Monuments. Then, finally, we'd work our way back north through Capitol Reef National Park, having seen the plethora of sights and plenty of dirt roads along the way. It was, to be sure, the most ambitious trip (for me) to date!

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Over the summer, invites were extended and permits were obtained. We'd have six trucks making the run, the max we were allowed in the National Parks. But as is often the case, as the departure date neared, not everyone was able to make it - so it was that on the last Saturday in September, Monte @Blackdawg left from his home in Montana, and Mike @Digiratus and I left from Washington to meet up the next day in St. George.

It was - to say the least - an early morning, when I headed out at 4:15am - 12 hours or so of driving to meet up with Mike, and then another 6 hours to our rendezvous with Monte.

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As I cruised south, the miles unfolded in front of me, slowly. You see, I'm the slowest driver of our group - moseying along at 62 mph - taking in the sights, and hypermiling. For me, it's enjoyable. This morning, I enjoyed an amazing sunrise about the time I crossed from Washington into Oregon.

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And then, not long after - I hit a major milestone for the truck. One I thought I'd hit returning from The Re-Tour, but which I was just a couple hundred miles shy of when it was all said and done - 100,000 miles! Clearly, after some 19 years of ownership, the truck is just getting broken in.

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I continued south and east, stopping only for fuel and food until early afternoon when Mike and I finally realized that we could communication not only via ham radio, but also via some new-fangled SMS technology, which had distances much greater than our radio transmissions! We found each other around Boise, Idaho and were from that point on, a caravan of two - our speed increased or decreased depending on which truck you were riding in - to a middle-of-the-road speed around 67 mph.

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Our destination for the evening was just south of Wells, Nevada, and we made reasonable time getting there - again, our stops only for fuel and food. And so it was that shortly after sunset, we found ourselves looking for a place to camp on BLM land, where we'd enjoy a propane camp fire and wonder how late Monte would be to our noon rendezvous in St. George the next day.

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In the end, we figured that if we showed up around 1:00 pm, we'd probably only have to wait an hour - so we set our alarms and hit the sack, eager for the adventure that lay ahead.

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September 30, 2018.

We awoke the next morning just a few minutes before sunrise. It was beautiful and clear, and we'd slept well - protected from the wind by the surrounding trees. And, as we got to putting away our tents, sunrise played across the sky.

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It was only as we were pulling out of camp - the sun hitting the mountain range to our west - that we realized we had a "problem." Monte had found a spot to camp the night before that was closer to St. George than we were, and he was already on the road - now a good couple hours ahead of us.

Hmm. We booked it out of camp, a trail of dust in our wake.

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As we headed south and a bit east, we stopped only once for fuel - opting to skip breakfast in favor of having Monte find us a tasty-looking Mexican eatery for lunch. After all, it was clear he was going to have a bit of time on his hands.

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In the end, it turned out that Monte was early - a first in my experience, though he insists that he's be "on time" twice before - and we were half an hour late (or, an hour and a half late, if you considered that we were technically now in Mountain Time). Happy to have met up - and for the beginning of our adventure - we promptly sat down in a booth in a Mexican restaurant and ate a leisurely lunch.

Eventually, it was time to head out - picking up fuel, firewood, and a few last supplies on our way out-of-town and out-of-Utah - St. George being right on the Arizona border.

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That border also turned out to be the end of pavement, and we were more than happy to air down and hit the dirt, even as clouds started to gather in the sky. This was Arizona after-all, and it was still September - how could the weather be anything but fine?

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Tire pressure's lowered, we hit the trail. There were a few hours of dirt ahead of us to our first Grand Canyon National Park destination - Whitmore Overlook - where we'd camp for the night, but that didn't stop us a few miles in from pulling over and taking the first of what would be thousands and thousands of photos.

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It was also here that the first raindrops feel on us and our trucks. "F*ck you rain!" Monte joked as we climbed back behind the wheels of our first gen Toyota Tacoma's and sped off along the trail, sure that what we'd felt was just a fluke.

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We probably shouldn't have been quite so sure with what was behind and ahead of us - but it didn't matter, we were out in our element, sights to see; excitement (more than we knew) ahead.

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The roads were well graded, and it wasn't long before we came upon a cluster of dilapidated buildings, foundations, and corrals. Not knowing exactly what these were, we mistakenly identified them as the old Mt. Trumbell Schoolhouse at the time - something we'd correct in the next 15 minutes of driving.

Naturally, we got out to explore. Hesitantly, in the case of the leaning building.

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Keen to get to camp before dark, we pushed on, and it wasn't long before we came upon what was clearly the actual Mt. Trumbell School. This building was much better preserved, and there was no way we were just going to blow by it.

The original Mt. Trumbull Schoolhouse was built by homesteaders who began settling this remote area of the Arizona Strip around 1916, farming the surrounding land and eventually replacing the original schoolhouse with the "existing" building in 1922. It was then used for some 44 years for schooling, a church, a dance hall, and a town meeting place. People came from miles around to attend dances and listen to music played by local musicians as their main source of entertainment. In 1990, restoration efforts began and within four years, the schoolhouse had been restored to near original condition, opening it's doors as a museum to the public. Then, in July 2000, arsonists burned the historic Mt. Trumbull schoolhouse to the ground. The building standing today is a replica, built through a partnership between residents, the BLM, and the public - completed in 2001; a symbol of the area's pioneer spirit.

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Inside and outside the schoolhouse were interesting artifacts of days gone by. A large model of the surrounding land showed the plethora of homesteads that sprawled out over the landscape. And outside, and old truck and signpost - pointing travelers in the right direction.

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Beyond the Mt. Trumbell school, we started our descent toward the western-most section of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. There was nothing immediate or overly notable about this descent - it really just felt like driving through tundra-y mountains - so deceptive of what was to come!

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We had a great time, maintaining high(er) speeds for much of the way, slowing only as we'd decide that there was an amazing photo to capture - or four horses on the road!

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Eventually we made it to the edge of the Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument, rain - hopefully just passing - clearly ahead of us and in our future. Desert landscape and cactus all around.

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As we descended into the edge of the canyon, we couldn't help but make more frequent stops. This was after all, our first glimpse or what was to come. No idea that it would be tame and perhaps even a bit ho-hum in hindsight, we were constantly stopping to soak it all in. The orange of the rock walls a stark contrast to the dark clouds above and the clean trucks.

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And then, our first glimpse of the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. The river that had carved the canyon itself.

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We pushed on, making our way to Whitmore Overlook. Right on the edge of a steep cliff, the canyon walls dropping hundreds of feet down, only to rise back up just a few hundred feet to the south, we were excited to say the least.

As is tradition, Monte and I pulled our trucks into location as close to the edge of the wall face as we could - the perfect camp site. And, as is tradition, Mike kept his distance.

The light was amazing. At this point the sun was casting long rays of orange light below the clouds, setting the canyon walls on fire. It was quite the introduction to this special place, and one that would stay with us throughout the entire trip - this being one of our favorite locations even as we were re-amazed day after day.

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Fighting our desire to continuously re-take the same photos over and over, we eventually got camp setup - then rewarding ourselves with another round of "different, obviously, with tent's deployed" photos.

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And then, sunset happened. It just sort of snuck up on us - the light on the canyon walls gone; us sure that the light show was over for the evening. We couldn't have been more wrong - and more happy at the same time. Blues and oranges, pinks and purples, and brilliant yellows played overhead.

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It was all we could do to try and capture it all, and I'm sure that we're not doing it justice. It really was a special evening, and an amazing introduction to the Grand Canyon.

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At some point, as the light started to dim, we gathered our chairs around the fire ring and settled in for the evening. Despite the clouds and earlier rain, it was hot and muggy - enough so that we skipped the camp fire altogether. And, we skipped dinner as well, all of us still full from our enormous Mexican food lunch.

But we didn't skip dessert. Monte had brought some amazing cookies his mom had made - full of M&M's, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee, oatmeal, and enough other goodies negate the need for any actual "dough" - these things were warm, gooey, and delicious.

We chatted late into the night, everyone too excited for what lay ahead to climb into the tents - but as 1:00am rolled around, we eventually called it, knowing there was a long trip and many evenings ahead.

Hopefully, all of them as amazingly beautiful and pleasant as this one. I mean, one can always hope, right?

 

Sheesh already?

Fun times.

 

Looking forward to pics from the bottom of the canyon...