Fenrir: TRD Off-Road Ragnarok Edition

Thanks Cole!

 

How I got here

Backstory...
Way back in 2004 I had an affinity for VWs and purchased my first dream car, a used '98 VW GTi VR6, which I named "Devyn." I absolutely loved Devyn. She was the first car I ever owned that wasn't rife with problems from the very beginning. Everything was "new" and just worked. She was super fun to drive, had plenty of power for steep Colorado mountain roads and enough room inside that I was able to move all my belongings from Colorado to Florida, back to Colorado, then to Washington, and finally to Texas. Around the time she hit 100k miles my family was about to grow and a two door simply wasn't going to be practical anymore.





At this point I should have done what I really wanted and bought a Tacoma. A truck had the utility that I knew I would eventually need. Alas, in 2012, the day my son was born, I took delivery of a "used" 2011 Nissan Juke SL AWD. My wife liked it and I thought I would eventually pass it on to her when the time came to replace her car in a couple years. (Dumb move.) I liked the features and tremendous value of it. It's hard to find a comparable AWD for the features and price. And I had dreams of painting it matte black and turning it into a little rally car. That never happened. The car was fun to drive but the interior space sucked. At the time I didn't realize the dramatic size difference between it and the GTi.





Fast forward to 2016...
We've just purchased our second home and the honey-do list is long. After borrowing a friend's Tundra to haul dirt for the new garden it doesn't take long before I'm longing again for a Tacoma and I started "looking;" with no intention of buying anytime soon of course. We just paid off one car with a massive check in order to facilitate getting a loan for the new house. I had already paid off the Juke the year before. No way we needed a new car payment...



I never intended to buy anything that day. I already had another dealer reroute a truck for me so that I could get exactly what I wanted. A plain, white TRD OR. I even took my 5-yo son with me as leverage so we could leave when I wanted. But the dealer that day wouldn't have it. And when they couldn't provide what I wanted at the price I had already been quoted at the other dealer, I began to walk when they pulled out a black 2017 TRD OR with 2 miles on the odometer. It was intended for another customer but they hadn't heard back from them since acquiring it. We did another test drive, this time in the dirt lot in order to play with the 4wd and Crawl Control features. It took several more hours to get them to come down to the price I wanted but eventually they agreed to stop adding in extraneous dealer crap and just give me the truck as it was. Btw, having me son with me as leverage to leave was no help. I was mad as hell by the time the deal was done for keeping me there so long. But damn do I love this truck.

 

Are you going to keep the orange d ring shackles? I think the combo of those and the orange prinsu sides on a black truck look great

 

We'll see if they grow on me. I gain a lot of attention with the orange but sometimes I get tired of it. I doubt I'll paint them. So I'll likely end up keeping them until I decide to bite the bullet and replace the hook with a flatlink or thimble.

 

^^^I second this.

 

BY TH ANCIENT GODS WE WHEEL. Good to see another viking enthusiast on here..haha

 

It's in my blood. My lineage has been traced back to guys with names like Erik the Traveler, Gudrod the Hunter, Halvdan the Black.

 

​

 

Ugh, you beat me. Would you mind requoting or removing the image. I edited out my mom's full name. Probably better not to post that.

 

Done.

 

Sharp

 

Hidden Falls
Aug 2016

Anxious to put the new truck to use (and start justifying its purchase) I met up with some people from the Facebook group, Texas Overland. If I was going to start adventuring I better learn how to do it properly. My first trip was a ton of fun but I was quite nervous. Small obstacles seemed like quite the challenge. By the end of the day, the park had left it's mark on me and several on the truck.









The creek bed of destruction. The innocent looking crick claimed several bumpers that fateful day. Including my own.

 

Anti-Sway Bar Relocation Installation

After the OME conversion I hit some light trails and was greeted by a terrible sound of metal on metal clanking from the underbelly of the truck every time there was a bit of articulation in the suspension. Bit of investigation and it was clear the sway bar was rubbing the coils.

This was a quick install: takes about 10 minutes. Requires the kit ( I used this one from Fat Bob's Garage) and a 14 mm socket.

Disconnect the sway bar at the frame on both sides (2 bolts each side). Once the second side is free, it'll drop so hold on to it and lay it on the skid.



Install the spacers so that the hole with the inset is closest to the rear. Use the old bolts to secure the spacers with these holes. Torque to factory spec 30#



Using the provided bolts and washers, reconnect the sway bar to the holes which should be in front of the bolts holding it to the frame



Make sure you remain in the garage for awhile afterward so that you can feign how hard this was when the wife asks you what took so long.

 

Inks Lake SP
Oct 2016

With a successful night of sleeping in a tent for the first time in our backyard, it was time to take the mini-me out on his first camping trip. I packed up the truck with all my old backpacking gear and on a Thursday afternoon in October we headed out to Inks Lake State Park. This was our first time out there and we got a nice large site with water access and away from any other people. After setting up camp, we quickly got a fire going, cooked hot dogs, and wasted no time getting to the best part... my son's first time making s'mores. I think it goes without saying that this is pretty much every kid's favorite part about camping.

Inks Lake is a nice area with lots of water activities and a couple hiking trails. There's a large number of primitive and RV sites available as it's one of the more popular parks in the Austin/Hill Country area. The site we got had clearly designated areas for fires and tents. The biggest drawback was the tent area was home to a few fire ant hills. It was also after this trip that I decided an RTT in Texas probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Inks Lake however is not well suited for RTTs unless you want to set up the tent in a parking spot.

 

Making a new list for links to download MVU maps

National Forest Trails & Dispersed Camping

US Forest Service Interactive Visitor Map

Southwest Collection
https://www.fs.fed.us/r3/gis/USFS_Southwestern_Region_MVUM_Repository.html

Arizona
Coconino NF - https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/coconino/landmanagement/projects/?cid=stelprdb5356224

Colorado
Roosevelt NF - https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5165768.pdf

New Mexico
Gila NF (SW) - https://www.fs.fed.us/r3/gis/mvum/GilaMVUM_WestHalf_SouthFront_100K_34x48LandOpt.pdf
Kiowa National Grassland - https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5430819.pdf

Georgia
Chattahoochee-Oconee - https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5210762.pdf


National Parks

Texas
Big Bend - http://npmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/big-bend-national-park-map.pdf

 

Subbed Looking good.

 

Replaced the Baja Pros with Baja Sports last night.



There still bright af




Maybe replacing the fogs wasn't a good idea after all...