Burt, The Old Man With friends Daryl and Donna

Drive time:
Wheeling time?​

Time to make the pilgrimage back to Gunnison. I made the trip up without anything exciting happening which it always good. I averaged 22mpg over the 230 miles drive which for mountain driving it's rather good. On this direction CoWj normally averages around 15-16 on the drive. I start at 4800' and end at 7700' including to passes of 10,000'+ and 285 which is a rather steep and hilly road for the first 120ish miles of the drive leaving Denver. Unfortunately while the mpg was pretty good, I may have gotten a bit too used to driving a Geared V8 Jeep with tons of power, coming to the little 2.7 was a hell of a change in the ability to hold speed and especially pass people either at 70 or up any sort of a hill. Monarch is also pretty brutal.

I need to get the tires rebalanced as Discount really messed it up last time and its got a pretty bad shake when they get out of phase.

So I continued my tradition of going wheeling in Burt upon returning to making it to Gunnison. So out to Hartman's I went, of course I kept away from the difficult trails and just messed around on some light rocks and easy obstacles. Talk about flex!!!

Well not really. But still fun.

Flexing like a Hippo.

I really hope I didn't get a nail in a tire cause everyone seems to be hiring pallets right now.

 

Road Trip Time:
Out for the um... Summer?​

So it's time again to move out, leave Gunnison for the summer and return to the front range for work. After being down for the previous weekend, it was 75 and sunny I was in a summer mood, I got out mountain biking on Tuesday and it was 65° and sunny, with very small showers. So after a warm but cloudy, but then Thursday came around, move out day. I awoke to 3" on snow on the vehicles and an inch on the grass. However Monarch was another story, I checked CoTrip, and there was not only 4" on the road but also a semi truck off the road.
Luckily by the time I left it had gotten much better, while still a very wet road and blowing snow. But no ice or snow.


Kenosha pass on the other hand well that's were I hit snow.

And I remembered that the General Grabber are okay in snow but not great. Even in 4wd and with a lot of weight in the back.
Bonus. Tacoma Tetris:

 

Not much has been going on with Burt lately, I drove the Jeep to expo, finally have decided on selling it and moving on, currently I'm torn between the 2nd gen Tacoma access cab, 2nd gen frontier King cab pro4x, or a 1st Gen tundra V8 access cab.
Each have benefits over the others, Tacoma being the one I have the most experience working on, frontier being the best value, and tundra having a V8 which I also have experience with the drivetrain.
Burt is staying for sure, I have zero desire to sell him.

More is coming to Burt soon, lower ball joints, an attempt at fixing the rust spots, on board air, and the blinker mod to be able to fit a couple pods in the factory blinker location.

 

Here's a photo to prove he's not dead.

 

I think that arb would look better other places, like 8 feet to the left

 

Maybe at some point but unless I find a used one cheap it's not a priority for Burt right now.

 

No More Worries:
Well one less​

Burt Finally got the one thing that had been mildly stressing me while driving it, the infamous Tacoma lower ball joint. Being that Burt has 254k Miles, I was curious as to weather or not they had ever been replaced since the front shocks were factory.
So while making an order on Camel back Toyota for some parts for a different Toyota, I picked up some OEM lower ball joints.
Thus the replacement starts, I through Burt up on the lift at work and started pulling the front end apart.

By apart I mean, well the front tires came off, the tie rod came off, and well that's it.

With a puller and a couple mild hits of a hammer the ball joint popped loose, the bolts in the hub came out no dramas.

New LBJ's on, hub bolts got red lock tight and torqued to spec and the lower caste got torqued and the cotter pin.
All and all it took just over 2 hours, on a lift, and taken apart with power tools,and taking my time to take pictures.
No stripped bolts, no seized bolts nothing went wrong, man what a dream to work on.
Also I picked up Burt's new rear bumper! Lots of assembly required...

 

Adventure time:
Water crossings?​

After completing the lower ball joints, I still had most of a Saturday afternoon so I thought it might be nice to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park as it was the final day of my annual pass before it expired.

Went as far up Trail Ridge road as I could, unfortunately the entire road opened about a week later but at this time there was still 20' at the top that had to be plowed.

In the right lighting you can't see scratches, however you can see Burt became a target for the local birds.

This thing was super rad.

They seemed to be using it to move 40' Iron I-BEAMs around the alluvial fan area to rebuild a bridge that was taken out in a flood.
After leaving the park I went to a local are I had been last year soon after buying Burt. However do to high run off the entrance was now a bit of a water crossings.

After slowly easing in to see that the depth was only about hub deep and had a hard bottom Burt cruised through it. While nothing hard it's the first water crossings I've driven Burt through.After driving a few more dirt roads looking for new areas I hadn't been, and doing a couple other shallow water crossings, I came across a high centered Silverado on a large dirt hump in the side of the road. Not having a rear recovery point I opted to use the Maxtrax to get him out, they worked a treat and I finally got to use them after having them for a few months. Unfortunately no pictures of that. But it's time to build that rear bumper I designed a while back.

 

Rear Bumper build:
Finally gets a recovery point​

So Burt has been lacking a rear recovery point. It's been on my mind since buying the truck. Having only the factory chrome bumper, of which I hit multiple times just doing some light wheeling. it had a hitch that was seized into the bumper and was starting to get a little rusty and ugly.
I made a design a month or two back of what I wanted it to look like.

I picked up a 5' piece of 2x4" .25" wall rectangle tubing from the local welding shop, and set to work.

I originally thought about cutting the original bumper brackets inline with the sheet metal and welding the new bumper to that, but after mocking it up I found it would have had the bumper sit about 3" lower than I wanted.
So custom mounts were needed.

I took some 2"x2" 1/8" wall square tubing I had left over from a tire carrier build, cut it down the center and made 2 L brackets to weld the bumper to. They got cut about a 1/2" from where the sheet metal ends above it.

Next up was the hitch, I grabbed a 2.5" to 2" hitch reducer to use as my hitch which turned out to work great. I cut a 2.5" square hole in both side and got ready to weld the hitch in. It got welded on both sides of the bumper for maximum strength.

Next was to cap off the ends of the tube.

I cut out a plate that was just a little smaller than the end of the tube and welded it on.
Rinse and repeat for the other side.I did a test for to see how close I could get it to the tailgate and got it to where I was very happy with the look of how it sits.Next was welding on the frame mounts. I tacked them into place while on the truck to make sure a proper fit that fully welded them out of the truck.
After welding it, then retest fitting it to satisfaction, I decided to put bracing in both sides just to help make it overkill for a light truck like Burt.
And then it all got painted flat black.

And it got installed.


Super happy with the outcome, it's very plain and simple. And plenty strong enough for what it will be used for.

 

Quick install of some blue sea USB and 12V outlets in the factory locations to replace the 21 year old Toyota ones.

After removing the factory plugs you are left with the holes which are too small for the blue sea outlets. You have to drill them out to 1 and 1/8th inch hole, using a step bit this is super easy.
You are left with this.
Then you can slide the outlets in the from the front.

Surprisingly the screw on collar fits in side of the plastic ridges without much issue and you can tighten the outlets from the outside.

The factory plugs won't work with the blue sea outlets so the ends have to the cut off. And new spade connectors must be crimped on.
I also cut back the vinal cover about an inch.
Stripped and crimped both sets of wires.

And put everything back together and have a USB outlet and a high end matching 12v outlet as well.

Both are still linked to the accessories key position so they don't drain the vehicle battery.

 

Teasers of the last couple trips in Burt, when I find time I'll do a couple quick posts about them.

 

So it's been a little while since an update, between work and trips I have gotten a fair amount of work done to Burt but also haven't had much time to update the thread.
As I am selling my Jeep, Burt have become my full time adventure rig until the Jeep sells and I buy something to replace it, which will very likely be a first gen tundra access cab V8.
But as far as upgrades
I put in my trusty ARB single under the hood.

New headlights to replace the gross awful original ones that basically did nothing at night.
Bumped the front bilstien 5100s up for 1" of lift.
Even tho I have nearly zero pictures of it, I installed a set of OME leafs in the back minus one overload and a middle leaf.
And to finish it off the entire frame for a coating of POR15 to prevent the surface rust from getting any worse.
Before...
After


By no means is it perfect however there was no serious rust on the frame and this will stop any more from growing, expecially since it looks like Burt is staying up in Gunnison with me this fall and potentially through the winter.

 

And now what everyone wants to see, trip photos!
First trip of the summer was a mountain biking trip, that was cut short after my riding buddies left early.
Started in Salida then went to Gunnison and explored a bit, rode my bike, and camped with my boss for a night.
Turns out the new rear bumper hold the bike up really high...

Am I an instalander yet?

After my friends left and I was hating the 97° heat of Salida I booked it to Gunnison for some colder weather.
Rolled 256,000 miles at the top of monarch pass which is always fun.

Parked next to a rad of FWD truck with a massive SnoGo snow blower on the front with the auxiliary diesel engine mounted on the back.


The blower is nearly the same size as Burt.
After getting into Gunnison I went for a ride at hartmans and enjoyed the slightly cooler 85° heat. Then jumped into the Gunnison river to cool off. Proceeded to drive west towards the black canyon looking at how full blue mesa reservoir is compared to last year when it was nearly empty.
I continued to the Arrowhead Mountain Lodge to meet up with a friend I hadn't seen in a year.
Local music, good food, and a long dirt road to get there? Count me in!



By now it was time for a campsite and this turned into a bit of a cluster, as it was Saturday night in the summer and well to say it is busy is an understatement. I had a lead on a site from the last time I was exploring the area, and it turned out to be beautiful however, the mosquitoes were brutal. This was early June, in one of the wettest springs and summers we have had in the Gunnison valley in the last decade.

While I really wanted to camp there the bugs were so bad it seemed like they were going to find there way into even the cab of the truck.
So I high tailed it back to Hartman's and began to search far and wide for a site that wasn't taken.

I slowly made my way deeper and deeper into the recreation area to no avail. Other than some cows everyone was asleep.

Finally after 4 hours and the time approaching midnight I found a site.
After many mud holes, wrong turns, U turns and scouting. I went through a couple holes that really ended up being a lot deeper that I originally thought. But Burt would put through in first gear low, never had to gas it out Burt would just put his way through them all. They go deep enough to coat the bike rack in a nice layer of mud.

You bet I had more balancing issues after this

Yes I washed the truck halfway through the trip...
I then went full tourist.
I went and walked though the old pioneer museum in Gunnison.
Here are the highlights.




Turns out BFG all terrains haven't changed much in the last 40 years.
Then I sat with my feet in the river and for few hours just doing nothing.


A couple hours later Matt from Off Grid Engineering showed up for a night of camping.

Lucky a site was found right off the bat before a couple storms rolled through.
The next morning it was time to return home and well hard to argue with a rainbow like that.

 

Next up was a shop trip to Ouray, Matt and I decided to head down for a couple days mid week, this was the week of FJ summit for before is actually started. After camping in Hartman's for the night.
Matt was in the Off Grid 4th gen 4runner with a new Autohome RTT.
We drove down to ridge way and scouted a couple camp sites that were unfortunately taken but still snagged a couple photos with MT Sneffels.

Ultimately we found a site that sits above Ouray that requires a bit of Low range and wheeling to get to. But it was easily worth it ten fold.



Next up was Brooklyn Road, I wanted to try it but we were unsure if it was open all the way through since a majority of the roads were still snowed in.
And yup, it was snowed in at the top.

So we turned around, single can for the win!

The drive out wasn't exactly awful either,

Then we stopped at the Brooklyn mine on the way out.
Next up was Ophir pass,
Nothing hard but as it was my first time in the area I couldn't wait to see the top.
First snow bank!
Got real big up towards the top which was awesome to see.

We started down the other side but ultimately only to the start of the scree field as we didn't have the time to do ophir twice and other trails back to Ouray were will closed.

Thus concluding my first Ouray trip
After another nights camp and some awesome burritos made at camp, we out Ouray in the rearview and headed back to work.

 

Went out earlier this week to test clearances with the new suspension set up, it's night and day from before. Even driving around Gunnison, any drainage dip that I hit at over 3mph would just bottom the rear out.
Without driving like a full a$$hat I haven't gotten the truck to bottom out yet. On dirt roads it's a bit stiffer but airing down to 11psi helps a ton with E-load tires.

While I never got to full rear bumps I was close enough to confirm that there is no clearance issues.

Checked and at full droop it comes within 1/16" of the exhaust but no contact so far.


When installing the OME leaf pack I reused the shackles but with bolts out of a Wheelers off road 1" lift shackle I got used.


Front full droop.

Front almost on bumps.

 

Sneak peak of refinishing the factory wheels. Yup that's right, I'm ditching the 2nd gen steelies and going to back to 31x10.50R15s
With my Jeep being on the market to be sold. Burt has become my main adventure rig, meaning I am going to increase my level of "build" and finishing it off with an ARB bumper and slap my Warn 9.5XP-S in it. Maybe a set of lights and heavier OME front coils depending on how it holds it.
More to come for Burt soon.

 

Before

After

31x10.50 Duratracs are on order and will be here Thursday, and will be installed next weekend and hopefully along with the ARB Bumper and Winch.

 

ARB bumper will be on order by the end of this week. And is getting the WARN 9.5XP-S out of the Jeep.

 

Nicely done.

These are my favorite style wheels. I have 16"s on my Tacoma. Got the set for $40. I need to refinish mine as well.

 

Couple update photos, going back to the front range next weekend for a few updates so I wanted some nice before pics.