The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Great build and excellent color choice! Im curious about how you mounted the PVC pipe to the roof rack. You mentioned tarp straps, but how did you secure those together?

 

Thanks. The tarp straps have s-hooks on the ends. Just wrap tarp strap around the ABS pipe, then all the way around the yakima bar, i.e. under, over and then behind the tarp stap itself and connect s-hooks. Hard to explain verbally, but in this post there is a picture. What you can't see is behind the Yakima bar where the s-hooks are connected. Hope that helps.

 

In October 2014 I had a hell of a day trip when I connected with a great group of folks from OAUSA.net for a guided 4x4, hiking tour of some private mines in Oriflamme Canyon, and Rodriguez Canyon in San Diego County. This is at the base of the Laguna escarpment. Extremely steep, and very rugged terrain.

This run was led by Dave, K6DTK. He secured written permission from all legal land owners to conduct this run. He was incredibly cool and it was a real pleasure to meet and wheel with him and the group. We were treated by a San Diego back country history expert and author of several books on the region, that explained the history of the mines we were visiting. He rode with Dave in the hummer and would speak to us over 2M radio. It was super fun, fascinating and I'm grateful for it.



We went to Rodriguez Mine where the owner explained the history, showed us architectual drawings of the mine and showed us the stamp mill and other parts of history.





After that mine we went to another location where we had to climb a small cliff face using a cable to hold on. We parked at the end of a destroyed road, and had to hike cross country to a use trail then up the cable.

Climbing up the cable.

I've been in more mines than I can count and these days I don't really like to go in too deep anymore.
I prefer the stay out, stay alive philosophy. On this day it was a little hot, so I ventured in a little bit where it was cool.


We ate lunch back at the trucks and then we needed to turn around to get out. Dave spotting.


After that we visited a third mine, but this one was reactivated recently. (no pics).

Finally we explored another private mine which was right next to this amazing pool of water.

The last mine


Lastly, on the way home I stopped at the top of the Laguna Mountains for some quick pics.

It's a 4,000' drop into the desert from here.

The Potrero in (Anza-Borrego Desert State Park)

 

I found some canopy ties at the home store and they are awesome. So fast and simple. I got (8) for less than $4. I tried it with a 8x10 tarp and I'm very pleased.

 

During the Second World War, the United States built machine gun bunkers near the top of Otay Mountain (3,566 ft) in San Diego. They were built with the anticipated Japanese attack on the mainland. The mainland attack never happened, but the bunkers remain and are now part of history. I did a quick day trip and wheeled the truck up there in November 2014 to check them out. I explored for about an hour, and after I had my share of the bunker complex, I drove the Otay Mountain Truck trail from West to East. It's a very scenic drive on a graded dirt shelf road with plenty of drop offs. The U.S. Border Patrol use this road 24x7x365. It's always monitored because the International border with Mexico is less than a mile a way and the area gets traffic.

What sucked on this trip, was that I became trapped while trying to exit the trail. The U.S. BLM has locked the exit/entrance route from the East. To get back to pavement, I had to search for an exit. I ultimately found one on a power pole easement road that went through a vineyard. I felt like an ass going through the easement, but I was trapped and needed to return home. Locking up the back country is something that makes me pretty mad. When I talk to U.S. gov. officials, they say to me, "It's for law enforcement purposes", or "Fire hazard" or whatever other B.S. story they come up with. Okay rant over.

Anyways here are some pics of the day trip.

Otay Mountain Truck Trail


The bunker walls are nearly 3' thick heavy duty concrete.






The mountain is also one of (3) major wide-area radio sites for the county.

 

Interesting stuff! I love finding history in the back country.

 

I'm very grateful for the numerous varieties of local geographical locations within my reach. A friend of mine once said that being born in San Diego is like winning the geographical birth lottery.

• Pacific Ocean, 20 minutes away.
• Local Mountains, 30-60 minutes away. High point 6,535'
  
• Colorado Desert Region, 60-90 minutes away Low point -234' below sea level.

Huge downside of living here is how ungodly expensive it is to live here. It's the 5th most expensive housing market in the Unites States.(May 2015)

I dig the Dakars! They are working fantastic. Love them.

The OME front is good and the upper a-arms are working great too. Sway bar is still out and I'm not sure when it's going to go back in... I like it too much with it out.

I did have to alter my driving to compensate for the lack of down travel in the front shock though, and that has taken some time to get used to. I think I may do the all-pro LT kit in 4-5 years when the OME wears out.

Hiking is my first passion.

Me too!

 

Cool pics!

 

Great build man, love all the functionality of everything you do to your truck. Definitely one of my top 10 favorite trucks on here.

 

My solution to trash storage is somewhat amusing, I think. Like many others, I didn't want to store trash inside the truck and I don't have a spare tire or tire gate to hang a canvas bag from. But I did have an unused-12 year old-dusty pelican 1550 case in my garage.

I dusted it off, drilled some holes and bolted it to the roof rack with some 3/8" hardware and was done.

I only put it on for extended trips. It has worked great. And I got the case for free a long time ago, so the cost was perfect.

 

I finally got around to swapping the factory front bumps to the super bump stops. Easy job. Like everybody else, I had to cut the Wheeler's supplied hex key for install.

 

Looks good as always crom very inspirational truck!

 

I didn't have to cut it. But my truck was on a lift and had the control arm hanging straight down to install my Kings lol

 

I'll take that as a good sign.

 

I like your style.

 

Ok so this might be a really dumb question -- please forgive me.
I'm wondering about the dual battery setup. Why not have them completely separate? Just charge the aux battery from the solar panels? Is it just so that you can always have a full aux battery even if it's cloudy (assuming you're driving)?

I'm wanting to set my truck up to dirtbag for a while. And I want panels to run an ARB fridge (and laptop and cell phone), but was originally just looking at having the panel/ battery system completely separate from the charging system of the truck -- figure less things to go wrong...

Comments?

 

Great truck! I'm Sub'd for more adventures.

 

Sweet build and pics Crom!

 

Good question.

The Tacoma with tow package has an alternator that will deliver up to a theoretical 130 DC amps, which is very good! The CTEK can take up to 20 amps of that and upconvert the voltage, and charge the aux battery with it.

The 75w solar I have at delivers about 3.5 amps under normal sunny conditions.

Now to compare the two charging sources directly I'll use an example. I could drive the truck for one hour and put back into the aux battery about 20 amps of power. To put that much power back into the aux battery with solar I would need about 5.7 hours of full sun.

To elaborate further, My battery is a 96 Amp Hour deep cycle battery from walmart made by Johnson controls. Bought for less than $100. I can safely draw 48 amp hours from the battery to discharge it to 50%. From that point of depletion it would need about 2.4 hours of driving or 13.7 hours of sun to fully recharge.

Now some might say, well with 75W solar panels wouldn't you expect to see 6.25 amps from them in full sun? The answer is no. This is because with solar there are serious inefficiencies. I am not an expert in that field but I would hazard a guess and say if you get 50-60% from your panels in full sun, that is considered normal.

So bottom line to all this is the alternator charging source rocks and solar picks up the slack when the truck sits.

I did it this way so I never have to worry about the battery, it's taken care of.

I hope that makes sense.

Here is my model diagram I made.

 

Interesting! Darn, I guess this will be more complicated than I had originally imagined...I had thought all I needed was a 95W panel, a regulator, marine battery, and inverter.
Thanks for the diagram. That makes it alot clearer!
BTW, what brand solar panels are you using? I had found GoPower! recommended on RV forums.

$573 Go Power! Retreat 100W Solar Kit with 30-amp Solar Controller

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0028W4P18?ie=UTF8