Burt, The Old Man With friends Daryl and Donna

My wife and I have taken 3 road trips to CO the last 3 summers, and have flown their several times in between. Our friends relocated outside of Denver about 4 years ago. We all like to explore when we visit.

I am not an extreme off-roader. I like taking dirt roads to wherever they may lead.

I may have to use this thread as a guide for our next visits.

 

Nice! I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have about exploring Colorado, I have explored a good part of the state and an always finding new places to go.

 

@CoWj Cool man! Appreciate it. I would like to see the SW part of the state (Ouray, Telluride, Durango, etc) on our next road trip out there.

 

Hit another milestone while out camping and fishing this weekend. Here's some mild phone pictures since I haven't taken the photos off my camera yet.

 

Finally got around to grabbing a few photos off my camera from the last weekend of fishing and camping with my dad.
In other news, the new tires have been delivered, ARB Bumper has been delivered. I am making the trip back to the front range this weekend to install them.

 

Quick alignment was done this week in prep for the new tires. I had done an eye ball alignment about an year ago when I put the 5100s on, since them I have taken the front end apart a couple time and so the alignment ended up being pretty sub par.

 

Couple teaser shots of Burt after this weekend of work.

 

First things first, the first broken bolt...
A lug stud. At 10pm with a tire change scheduled for 9am the next morning.
Last tire, last lug, just hand tightened and it snapped.
Upon further inspection, it had be over tightened at some point. It has been stretched and cracked long enough for a nice bit of rust to from inside. I check all the other front studs and found 8/12 were also stretched.

I went ahead and knocked them all out in prep for the morning when I would run out and try to find some new studs.
Got lucky and Mountain Truck and Equipment in Longmont had 14 so I bought them all since it's always good to have spares. And just like that I could get the wheels mounted and make it to the tire appointment with a few minutes to spare.
On last drive on the rotted bald KOs one was flat after sitting for a year and a half.

 

Burt 2.0!​

After a couple weeks of waiting and a few hours of wrenching Burt has been transformed.
First up Friday morning was getting tire mounted. As I had that snafu with the lug studs I woke up early and got it done with only about 15 minutes to spare before I had to leave for the appointment.

It came out perfectly, the wheel color was exactly what I wanted.

I am very excited to try these out and see if they live up to all the claims of snow traction.
Next up was the bumper.
As my last arb bumper came with a hardware pack that seemed like a handful of bolts out of a random drawer I decided to organize it first.

Then it was time to start,
Step one remove all the things!!

Then the assemble all the things!

Then it was time to clock the winch again, Because ARB can't just have the cutouts be the same.

Then it is time to mount it, I don't know who many of you have tried to install a winch into an
ARB bumper on your own but it sucks. Until the directs had this tip, Place the winch on a bench and lower the bar onto it. Well I didn't have the spare for that but I tried a bucket and it worked perfectly.


Once that was done I got it mounted up with a little help from my dad.
90% done 90% to go.
I wired up the winch, turn signals and had time to throw on some LED pods I had laying around from a previous build. They are nothing special and not the lights I plan to run forever but for now they look good and add a little bit of light.

And just like that its complete. Just in time for the sun to go down and photos to look like Crap.

 

Here are some higher quality photos.

 

Cool truck. Mine is a 98, bought new as DD and I just started my build. I got 300k on mine. Arb Bumper is in process, finishing today. OME lift next week. Did some door handles, tailgate lock, window regulator (new window also since I broke window sash) and new driver side switch panel. Before that I dropped nearly 3k on maintenance, timing kit, Ac evaporator$$, battery. I have also put in a new window washer fluid res. Main focus after lift is underneath cleaning surface rust and working to make more money I already have an nice rtt. Oh yeah, been working on my 21 year old ARE topper. I might drop 800 bucks and get some windoors..ug! Good luck with your build, looking good!!

 

Photo dump from this weekends Fruita Mountain biking trip.

 

Photo Dump of some recent exploring up spring creek in Taylor Canyon.

 

Great pics! The valley pic is cool with the sun stripe.

I got my ARB bumper on and the OME lift is half done. Gonna have to figure out a front skid plate as my stock skid plate....( well, wife took it to dealer for oil change and they took it off and kept it because of rusting cross member). That was ok but why they kept my skid is unknown. I was in Japan so.....fact is I need to weld a new cross member and fit a skid.

 

The Arb Skis goes between the stock skid and the bumper. Honestly if you don't have the stock skid any more it's probably better to get an aftermarket one since stock is more or less some glorified sheet metal.

 

Ran home this weekend to do a couple things at home before winter starts.
Burt got new belts, well 2/3 since Camelback Toyota sent me the wrong belt for the power steering but it will be resolved tomorrow hopefully.
Visited the Jeep and it's new owner of the Jeep to give him a couple extra parts.

I had to get the lawn tractor set up for the plow and reteach my dad how to use it again.

Rolled 262,000 miles at the top of Monarch pass. Which is now I think the 3rd time I've rolled a milestone at the top of the Monarch this year. So here's my current favorite picture of Burt.

Turns out fitting a 90lbs lap dog fills up the single cab more than expected.

 

Ripped out to Moab for the weekend to ride some trails with friends, but not without testing the truck in some sand as I don't get to drive in it too often. Burt did great in the sand, pretty soon it will be time for a snow test.

 

Monday Snow! First snow of the season up here in the high country, I ran up to Crested Butt to go see what was still open and what was closed. To my surprise the road to Gothic wasn't closed yet nor was Schofield pass so I decided to see how far up I could get.
First stop to Air down just after leaving CB.


Past the town of Gothic the snow got heavier as the storm continued to roll in.


As the road climbed higher I passed a few hunting camps and the tire tracks started to disappear and the snow got deeper, now in the 8-9" range.
This made the shelf section very sketchy. A small waterfall that normally run across the road caused some nice slick ice under the snow.

Once I hit emerald lake the one track in front of mine stopped up against a 2' snow drift that was at the start of the next narrow shelf section. I took this as my time to turn around. Could someone push through to the top yes, could you make it over Schofield No, Devils punch bowl is not doable with the level of snow on the pass.

First trip out in the snow in Burt was awesome, last year I got to drive in the snow for maybe 3 days but only in town so I am excited to have it up here for the winter.

 

And back from another Moab trip, seems to be a weekly occurrence, I guess living 4 hours away.

And Burt rolled another 1,000 miles.

 

Got the new (to me) KTM home and prepped for the winter. Burt on the other hand needs a good wash after this last trip to the front range, I got stuck behind a Plow spraying for 15 miles so its sufficiently covered in road grime.