92Shawman's 1992 3VZ-E SR5 Pickup

I missed out on a few that had potential but there are others that turned out pretty good. There are only a few blurry ones from the first little ledge in steel pass but luckily I realized it pretty soon after you went through. I'm hoping to get them up today!

 

Some pictures of the truck during the last trip:

Left Hand Collet Canyon Trucks_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0197_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0276_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0465_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0636_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0648_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0687_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0802_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

Some of my favorite scenery shots:

Walked through this slot canyon
DSCN0062_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0116_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0237_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Bryce Canyon Overlook 2_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Camped here:
Zion campsite view 2_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0515_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0643_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Artist's Drive 1_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Eureka Dunes were amazing!
IMG_0761_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0784_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And, of course, Racetrack Playa
IMG_0841_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

Some flora and fauna:

A wild Pliny in the slot canyon
DSCN0061_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Bigfoot!
DSCN0040_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Watch your step
Juvenile Great Basin Rattlesnake by 92shawman, on Flickr

Jealous of their climbing skills...
Common Side-blotched Lizard by 92shawman, on Flickr

IMG_0073_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Violet-green Swallow by 92shawman, on Flickr

Super fast lizards. Seemed to hover over the sand
Zebra-tailed Lizard by 92shawman, on Flickr

Soldier Beetle sp. by 92shawman, on Flickr

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher by 92shawman, on Flickr

Death Valley has some weird plants!
IMG_0604_edit_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

Oh, and by the way, this trip went like this:
Day 1: San Diego, CA to Escalante, UT to meet up with Pliny
Day 2: Hole-in-the-Rock Road and assorted short hikes in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Day 3: Left hand Collet Road to Smokey Mountain Road to Big Water for gas to Cottonwood Canyon Road to Dixie National Forest for a camp spot.
Day 4: Bryce Canyon National Park then head to Zion National Park
Day 5: Zion National Park with Angel's Landing hike then head towards Beatty, NV
Day 6: Meet up with Chris (Dedhead) then into Death Valley for Titus Canyon, Devil's Golf Course, and then over to Saline Valley warm springs
Day 7: Steel pass to Eureka Dunes to Ubehebe Crater to the Racetrack Playa to Homestake dry camp
Day 8: Head out through Lippincott Pass, gas and air up at the road, then head to Lone Pine only to find out that the south half of CA is being blown off the map so we called it a trip and went home.

 

Nice pics Kevin! Looks like a great trip.

I remember stopping in Lone Pine for gas thinking that unless I stood there, the nozzle'd get blown out of the truck. A little North and it's all good tho.

 

Fixed up my cb today to make sure the radio was still working okay.

Inside the mag mount itself, I steel wooled some of the corrosion away, thought I doubt that would change anything. More importantly, I ground down the bolt that holds everything in place and is part of the antenna ground so that it isn't so close to the main wire that it might short.
Before:
Wilson 1000 mag mount corrosion by 92shawman, on Flickr

After:
Wilson 1000 mag mount remedy by 92shawman, on Flickr

I also soldered on a new pl-259 connector onto the radio end of the coax and bought a 90* elbow so that the coax itself isn't forced to bend sharply coming out of the radio due to the close proximity to the air ducts behind the radio. The soldering doesn't look very pretty, but it's holding strong so far.
I tuned the antenna and then tested the radio, just transmitting between my handheld cbs, and everything seemed to work just like it used to before death valley, so hopefully my radio's fine and I can move on to my plans of roof-mounting the antenna on the shell!

 

Tested the cb listening into truckers at a quarry near one of my work surveys and was hearing them just fine about a mile away on the other side of a hill, so that's promising.

 

Remember how well I could hear you guys on the trails....and then how "well" you guys could hear me

 

Yeah whenever the velociraptor noises came on I was like

 

Finally tested tx over about a half-mile distance with houses and a slight hill in between and everything worked great! Now I wait for the new mount and coax to get here in the middle of next week.

 

That Breedlove 3". I read some forum posts elsewhere that said that people looking to use non-wilson roof mounts with their wilson 1000 antennas went with that one.

 

Nice photos and trip report. Looks like a lot of fun was had.

 

Thanks! Timmy was talking about maybe starting a full trip report sometime. We'll probably be on the next trip before we get all the photos up, though!

 

Breedlove 3" roof mount and rg8x coax by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The breedlove mount is even better than expected! The uhf connector is just threaded through the mount so I can adjust it to whatever depth I need to fit with the wilson antenna! I originally thought it would just be hard mounted in the mount and I'd have to live with whatever depth it was.
I'll have to cut one pl-259 connector off of the coax so I can attach it to the mount properly but that works perfectly because it'll be so much easier to thread through the truck without a connector on, too.

 

Installed the new mount today!

Wilson 1000 Breedlove roof mount by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Wilson 1000 Breedlove roof mount by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The roof mount is extremely solid, and the surprising thickness of the insulation provides a nice counter-sink for the inside part of the mount. The coax is ziptied in place along the inside of the shell and goes through a new hole in the bed, down along the underside of the cab, and in through a plug in the driver's side. Was a bit of a pain to route but it's awesome now! Tuned it and got an swr of 1.0 on both 1 and 40 right off the bat, didn't even have to adjust the antenna.

 

Just did a quick trip out to Valley of the Moon for a one-night camp. I haven't done that trail since installing the locker, so it was really cool to feel the difference! And boy did it make a difference. It was awesome!
The cb seemed to work pretty well, too, but my friend only had a hand-held hooked up to a mag-mount antenna. Need to test with a normal-powered cb to really get a feel for how well it works!

 

Awesome man!

 

Brief update: Been crazy busy with work, but I managed a one-night trip out to Valley of the Moon with a friend from high school. Watched him almost roll his truck two or three times...that was fun. Pick your lines well, people! That or don't hesitate to call for a spotter if you can't handle it!

Then did another trip with Pliny up to Mojave road last weekend. Four nights in Mojave was a stretch...there's not a whole lot to do there. It was really nice to get out and camp, though! We were able to find the nice, more scenic areas of the preserve, which was good because the mojave road itself only has a few good spots and a fair bit of it is just annoying and frustrating. Pictures to come for that later.

To do:
I want to redo the front end setup a bit. Remove the ball joint spacers, sway bar, and possibly the front diff drop and swap in the OME torsion bars. My thought is that the sway bar removal will help keep things about like they are now when I add in the stiffer OME torsion bars and I hopefully won't need the ball joint spacers to keep the ride height up. We'll see if that pans out.
I'll also need to replace my tie rod ends at least on the driver's side, possibly on the passenger side, too. Might as well do both sides while I'm in there with the suspension, anyways. The driver's side one is making a lot of noise, though, so that one's quite urgent.
I'm also all set to take the Ham test this saturday! Then I'll need to get that setup going.

The list never ends...it just gets longer!

 

Keep me posted! I'm studying for the general license, too, and then I might be able to use my grandfather's old 10m rig that my parents say they still have. No idea the condition, though... We have all of his old contact records, which is pretty cool. He started in 1948!

That's some mad flecks, man!

Almost as good as this on the work truck I had out for the past few days. Always lovely to hit bump stops on dips in the highway...

(Sorry for the turd phone pic)