F/R Locked TRD Sport DCLB Build & Colorado Wheeling

Clean build.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Recap of Memorial Day Weekend 2024 - Moab, Utah

A few weeks back I texted @LunarTaco13 about making some wheeling plans for the long Memorial Day weekend. I was incredibly stoked when he responded that he too was planning on hitting Moab for the long weekend. From there, I started watching & reading about the trails that we should hit during this trip. After much research, we landed on Poison Spider Mesa and Top of the World as the trails we'd attempt to explore during this trip.

I started getting more & more excited as the week leading up to the long weekend got closer to Friday. Luckily, I work for an awesome company who gave me Friday off as well, so I got an extra long weekend this year . Given I had Friday off, I decided to make my grocery run Thursday night & meal prep breakfast & some taco stuff so I could more quickly enjoy meals while simultaneously watching Theo. On Thursday night a buddy of mine texted me asking if I wanted to do something & mentioned I couldn't join for anything that evening, but he was welcome to join me for the trip to Moab if he wanted. He quickly responded & confirmed he was in for the weekend, which was awesome. He's in the market for a 4th gen 4Runner, so this outing to Moab was going to be a great intro to the incredible & expensive world of wheeling & truck modifications. Anyways, I got the truck all loaded up & meals prepped Thursday night.

Friday morning came & I woke up bright & early to walk Theo, make coffee, and throw some final items in the truck. My buddy arrived around 7:30 and we hit the road at 8:00 am. We got into Moab around 3:30 pm & immediately began the search for a campsite. Luckily, Ryan & his wife put together a nice list of sites that we could checkout. We started w/ Gemini Bridges, but unfortunately those sites were full. Beautiful drive back to them though! After that, we attempted the sites along the CO river on the east side of Moab. All were full... at this point I started to get a bit anxious & frustrated. One of my least favorite parts of camping in the summer is how busy sites get. I love that other are enjoying the outdoors, but it's so challenging to randomly attempt checking out a site just to find out it's full. To me, it just wastes so much of your time in whatever place you're trying to explore. Luckily, the third campsite location we checked out had site available - score!! It's a designated campsite, but I'm going to keep it secret for now since it seems to get a little less traffic .

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After setting up camp & before heading into town to meet up with the larger group for dinner & to watch the Mavs vs. T-Wolves game 2, I tried deflating my tires to soften the ride out of camp. I have the ARB easy deflator & it has worked great for me so far. Very simple tool that removes the valve core & has a built in pressure gauge that allows you to air down accurately. Unfortunately, one of my valve cores was installed way too tight or cross treaded upon install, so I always have to swap out the ARB easy deflator for an old school tire pressure gauge that has the tab on the back that presses the core in. Comparatively, it's super slow & not fun to use, haha. So this time I decided that I'd try to add some leverage to the easy deflator core remover by putting a vice grip on it to see if I could knock that core loose. BAD IDEA. I sheared the core in half and jammed it, which no longer allowed me to remove or add air. Luckily it was holding air. After breaking the core, I decided to not mess with it anymore since it was holding & just take it into a tire shop first thing Saturday morning. We ended the night back at camp & enjoyed some good times around the campfire before heading to bed.

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Saturday we woke up, made breakfast & coffee, and rolled out of camp around 8:30 am. Most of the tire shops were closed for the holiday weekend, but luckily Point S Moab Tire & Auto Service was open. Long story short, it took them like 3.5 hours to change the entire valve stem & TPMS sensor out. The TMPS sensor they swapped in didn't communicate with the other 3 tires & they couldn't reset the tire pressure dummy light manually, so now it's on constantly and I need to take it in to somewhere here in CO to get it fixed. Annoying to spend $85 on a half way / temporary fix, but I was happy I could get it fixed at all and also properly air down for the upcoming trails.

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Due to the late start, we didn't hit Poison Spider Mesa (6/10 rating on the RR4W website) until like 12 pm, which was not optimal. I felt bad I had burned so much of our day due to a stupid mistake, but the boys were super cool about it & we were stoked to hit the trail. We got to the trail head, aired down, and hit the trail. Man, does Poison Spider live up to the 6 rating. Easily the most challenging trail @LunarTaco13 and I have attempted to date. The trail starts almost immediately with a crazy ledge on one of the switchbacks. There's a single line that a Taco w/ 33s can take and it's narrow - about the exact width of the truck. One side has a 1.5-2' drop and the other is a 3-4' rock face that you could easily slam the side of your truck into. It took us a while to get thru this obstacle, but we made it without damage.

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As we continued, the trail consistently challenged our trucks. We did the mini wedgy & the large ledge obstacles further along the trail. I made it up the stair step ledge obstacle thanks to my front locker. Ryan attempted it as well, but due to his wheel base, which caused him to get hung up on the trans skid, and only having a rear locker, we had to winch him up. Kinda fun getting to use all the toys haha.

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Made it through tie rod flats, which is a head bobbling section of rock, to the first major obstacle called waterfall. This obstacle was a fun, but easy challenge for the trucks. After climbing up waterfall, we made our way through a narrow, steep rocky section to the most difficult obstacle of the day. It's not named anything specifically, but it's a steep and off-camber climb with some deep holes. Got a couple new marks on the sliders & the skids on this one for sure. My front locker again came in handy here. Ryan got up as well, with his A-Trac coming in clutch. That system works so well.

At this point, we had taken about 2.5 hours to get 1/3 of the way through the trail and it was nearly 3:00 pm. We started making our way to the v-notch, but instead of pushing on, decided to turn around, stop for lunch, and just head back down the trail. At the pace we were going, we would have been on the trail until late evening & we just didn't have the energy or the courage to put our trucks through the rest of the trail. Lunch provided some amazing views, but while were eating a storm rolled in. The winds picked up like crazy & it was like being in a sandstorm. Then it started sprinkling / raining. We got in the the trucks & made our way back down the trail. Luckily, the storm passed in about 20 mins and we got sunshine the rest of the day. We stopped for ice cream on our way back to camp. That night we enjoyed dinner at camp, some beers around the campfire, and some incredible views of the stars.

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Sunday morning rolled around & we got up for another awesome day in the desert. We fixed breakfast & coffee and discussed our plan for the day. Due to the challenge of Poison Spider and having some additional folks joining us for their first or second time offroading, we decided to replace Top of the World with Fins & Things. It was a great decision. I know I ran it recently, but that trail simply rocks (pun intended). To me, it's quintessential Moab. It has slick rock fins, rocky climbs / descents, sandy high speed areas, amazing views, and is just the right mix of challenge, beauty, and fun. I wont spend a ton of words recapping this trail run, but here are some pictures from the trail. We had an awesome day.

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Unfortunately, weekends like this always have to come to an end. We had breakfast at camp Monday morning & stopped in town on our way out to grab some coffee and air up the tires to highway pressures. Made good time on the way back to Denver and even had some time to reset before the short work week. I know this is a long read, so for those who made it to this point - thank you for reading!!

Also, HUGE shoutout to my buddy who joined for this trip & Ryan's wife for being the photographers. They took some incredible shots. I just love looking back at the photos after the trips and reliving the moments.

 

Great read and awesome pictures.

 

Thank you so much for the kind words & taking the time to read thru the whole report!

 

Did some exploring out around Buena Vista yesterday. I brought the DSLR and grabbed a few shots. The lighting wasn't terrific and the truck wasn’t clean, but I think these turned out pretty decent!

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Just ordered a couple small additions to the truck. Purchased a set of

$90 Auto Ventshade [AVS] Low Profile Rain Guards For 2016 - 2023 Toyota Tacoma DOUBLE/EXT CAB ONLY | Window Vent Visors, 4 pcs. - Dark Smoke | 994036

AVS low profile vent visors for the windows. With how much Theo rides around in the truck, I've been wanting to snag a set of these for a while now so that I can keep the windows cracked while I'm away from the truck, even while it's raining. I also bought a pair of

$146 Auxbeam 3" Led Pods Amber Fog White Off Road Driving Light XP-Ultra Series Spot Flood Combo Offroad LED Bar Cube Lights 80W Auxiliary Ditch Lights with White/Amber Light Covers, Pair

AuxBeam's 3" X-Pro LED pod lights, which come with interchangeable amber/clear lenses. I will be mounting these on the pillars to serve as additional spot/flood lights. I've been wanting some additional lighting on the truck for a while now, but wasn't ready to commit to anything expensive and these Auxbeams have great reviews online. I'm stoked to try them out! Lastly, I ordered up a new double push button switch from CH4x4 for the cab so I can run both my reverse lights, which are in the rear bumper, and the new ditch lights off a single switch.

 

Made an appointment at AA Performance Muffler & Brakes to get the truck's exhaust re-routed so that I can finally install my @RCI-Offroad transmission & t-case skids, which will complete my full underbelly skid system. I am currently running their steel engine skid and have had the other two sitting in my garage since the fall. I'll post pictures once the exhaust is re-routed & skids are installed. I am also targeting to get my new AVS wind vent visors & AuxBeam ditch lights installed this week/weekend as well, but we'll see what we can do.

 

Nice. I need to buy skid plates for the tundra. It would complete my build.

 

Do it man! RCI runs sales pretty much around the clock; you could snag some for 20%+ off if you buy during one of their big sales

I dig your Tundra build btw. Are you running 37s?

 

Thanks for the heads up.

Thank you! Yup got 37s on the Tundra and 35s on the 4runner.

 

Dude I’m dreaming of the day that I can have TWO builds on that level. Awesome job with both. You’re making me want to trade the taco in for a Tundra

How is wheeling the Tundra compared to a 4Runner or a Tacoma?

 

Haha thank you. Having a wife that makes the big bucks definitely helps haha.

Hardcore wheeling I wouldn't recommend it because of the size. But wider trails and beach days are a blast with the V8.

 

Got my new AuxBeam Pros installed this evening. They look great and are very bright. I’m stoked to test them at night.

The install went great, but I am leaving the push button switch wiring to the pros. Right now the lights are switched by their “stock” switch that came with the kit, but I’m going to have my shop replace my current push button reverse light switch with the new double push button switch I ordered. I studied mech engineering in college but electricity / wiring still intimidate me. I really need to study some 12V wiring tutorials to bring that into my skill set too.

Here’s some pics from the garage.

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And here is my best effort at keeping the wiring clean in the engine bay. The wires are quite long, so I had to do some looping & zip-tying to keep it decently cleaned up.

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AA Performance Muffler & Brakes got the exhaust re-routed last Friday. The guys there were great - they really made you feel valued as a customer. It was fun going into their shop; it really felt like going back in time. They were super cool & let me come out to the shop floor and look at the truck on the lift to make sure I was happy with their work. I definitely recommend these guys for Tacoma exhaust re-routes if you're in the Denver area. They've done a ton of them.

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I've got pretty long list of to-dos on the truck this weekend in prep for a week long Colorado wheeling & camping trip that my dad and I will be taking this July. The prep maintenance checklist is as follows:

• Wash truck & clean interior
• Install RCI transmission & transfer case skid plates
• Install window vent visors
• Replace front brake rotors & pads (have OEM Toyota rotors & pads sitting in garage)
• Replace differential gear oil (have Mobil 1
  $28 75W-90 Synthetic Gear Lube - 1 Quart (Pack of 2)
  75W-90 synthetic gear lube coming in the mail tomorrow)
• Perform rear differential breather re-route mod (this likely wont happen this weekend, but planning to follow this write up)

My dad & I's week-long wheeling trip will include hitting Red Cone, Webster Pass, Deer Creek, North Fork Swan River, Mosquito Pass, Tincup Pass, Engineering Pass & Mineral Creek, and finally Imogene Pass. It's going to be a hell of a trip. I can't wait to share pictures from that trip with you guys. Let me know if you have any questions or recommendations for stops along the way. We'd love to checkout any cool history you may know about!

 

Let me know what you think about Red Cone. That's a pucker factor there. Might I recommend you add Black Bear Pass to your list, might as well do the memorable ones while one is there.

 

Will do man. I'm hoping my dad will be fine w/ the heights on this trip, haha. He's not a huge fan of them

 

Quick recap of last weekend out near Aspen. We departed from Denver Saturday morning and made our first stop in Buena Vista, one of our favorite towns in Colorado. We hopped out at the park & enjoyed some live music thanks to an event that the library had coordinated. The band was really good & Theo got to enjoy a dip in the a calm area of the river, which was absolutely surging with water. All the land (at the least the land I've seen) in Colorado right now is saturated with mountain snow melt. Its stunning.

After hanging at the park for a while, we made a pit stop at a local deli and enjoyed a couple delicious sandwiches, some potato salad, and a Dale's Pale Ale.

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We then made our way to Twin Lakes where we saw some of the recent fire damage that took approximately 600 to 800 acres of beautiful landscape due to a fire not being put completely out. A friendly reminder to make sure your fires are 100% out before leaving your campsite!! We also captured a "then and now" photo of us with Theo. We took him out to Twin Lakes when he was a pup and we thought it'd be fun to snag the same photo now that he's full grown. After the pit stop, we began making our way up and over Independence Pass. What an absolutely epic road. It used to be the highest paved road in CO, but was surpassed by Mount Blue Sky Road once it was paved.

To get to camp, we followed an unpaved, but pretty nicely graded road for about 6 miles. We rolled into camp later in the afternoon and got setup, took a small hike, let Theo splash around in the lake, and proceeded to make dinner & hang around the campfire. What an epic day.

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Sunday morning we woke up and made coffee and breakfast, broke down camp, and hopped in the truck to drive further up the mountain road and reach the trail head. Both the drive up and the hike were stunning. We will certainly be making our way back to this area for more camping and hiking!

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Killer build man! Wheelin the DCLB like you do gives us Tundra guys hope. Hope to see you out on the trails some time!