NW WA Meet / BS Thread

And if it can be broken, Bob will break it!

 

check it out, nice truck. Info at https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/d/lacey-toyota-tacoma-extra-cab-sr5-4x4/6959415914.html

 

I've got Knipex wrenches on my Amazon wishlist in case anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas!

 

Did anyone else listen to the Dan Crenshaw JRE podcast? I dont Agree with some of his policies but i sure do appreciate that he’s open to new ideas.

 

The "Waterpump" knipex (just smooth jawed) are some of my favorite pliers. Nice to not chew up fittings until you REALLY need too

Just some of the clips of it. Dont have the time to always listen to the 2-3 hour podcasts. Ive always liked Dan though. But Joe also does a good job at letting whatever politician actually talk without it just turning into a shit show. Like when he had Bernie on, he just let Bernie talk. Which was nice since it just let things get cleared up without him or the media spinning things

 

He does have a tendency to steer a good interview in a crazy direction though. When he was talking to Elon Musk, Musk said something like "I do worry that I'm starting to do too much" or something like that, which is an incredible window into what his thought process is or what hes worried about and Joe Rogans stoned ass is like "How crazy would it be if there were a million Elon Musks?" and completely derailed his train of thought.

 

Listening now

 

yeah he does do that but its usually more in fun or randomness thoughts and not so much just attacking people though. Least in the few ive listened too. Ill have it on in the garage when working which means he only gets half the attention

 

No youre totally right, but in that specific instanace i really wanted to hear what he was going to say and it got derailed.

 

That’s why I bought these:

$60 Elgin Discord Bluetooth Earplug Earbuds, OSHA Compliant Noise-Isolating Safety Wireless Headphones, All-Weather Earphones for Industrial Work, and High-Noise Environments

https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Compliant-Wireless-Reduction-Headphones/dp/B07N98QPKD

I wear them at work and they work really good to listen to music and podcasts in a fairly high noise environment (commercial high rise construction) I also wear them while mowing the lawn/ tractor work and I can hear my music fine without having to turn them up all the way

Plus at work the safety guy thinks I’m just wearing ear plugs

 

its more i just tone out to whatever is playing. Either just thinking to much, laying stuff out or running equipment. I had a pair of the ear muff style blue tooth ones for awhile and even then would end up suddenly being like "wtf are they talking about thats not what i remember"

 

Hey totally random, I saw on another thread that you have or had a t@g teardrop trailer.... how do you like it? Any regrets?

I’m looking at teardrops because it’s a pain to load a RTT and unload it every time I want to camp. I want more of a hook up and go situation. Any build quality issues after dragging it around on Forest roads and such?

 

We have the T@G boondock from 2017 i think. The regular 5 foot wide version. They have made some good changes (and some questionable IMO...well really only one which was going from a 12v fridge to yeti cooler) since then.

We love it for what it is. We wanted pretty much the same thing as you...hook up and go. Which really it is great at that. We can get it hooked up and ready to go in ~5 minutes doing things by myself. Usually its me getting ready (brushing teeth, changing ect) while the girl would finish up dishes. Then swap while she got ready and i'd hook it all up be ready to go for the most part. It was also really nice pulling into places late at night. By the time the dog had been walked it was setup and ready for sleep.

We took it up to Deadhorse, AK and then over to Inuvik (and up to Tuk) in June and it did just fine minus a couple pretty small things. Most were just from use changing things on it though lol.

But both the girl and I like it. The "off road" ness of it is a good trade off between something specifically made for off roading and something only for really one road use. The main thing for off-road is just its size. Its a bit bigger and taller than some of the more "off-road" specific teardrop campers. But that also is nice as you can actually sit up in it. Just means you might get more pin stripping lol.

It tows great. It does have electric brakes which is just a nice thing even though not totally needed with it being so light. But nice to have for mountain passes. We had no problem feeling comfortable doing 50-60mph on the smoother "forest service" type road.

Feel free to ask anything else you are curious about

 

I was looking at doing pretty much that same trip in a year or two! I haven’t ever been out of the Washington/Idaho area and i really want to get out and see more of the country now that I’m financially able to.

I’m looking at used ones (most have had the fridge). One main attraction For me is that it’s pretty close to the height of a Tacoma so wind drag on the highway won’t hurt as much as other trailers. In my freeway experience with the Truck it doesn’t have much to do with weight, MPG’s are more effected by wind resistance.

Also great to see the trailer with an awning on it. Another thing I don’t like about the RTT is we don’t have shade, and an awning is just another thing to load before a trip.

I don’t have issue with my current setup for long weekends and trips, but for instance this weekend I have to drive to Idaho for a funeral, only staying one night, so I have to have a friend come over and help me load the tent on the truck, and I’ll have to call him when I get home to unload it.

Do you see a big MPG hit with this behind you?

Thanks for including the pics! Gives me a pretty good idea what it would look like goin down the road!

 

The fridge is the way to go IMO. Nothing against the coolers but its just another thing to have to deal with. We tend to do a lot of last minute "hey lets go here" so its nice to just turn it on, toss stuff in, and go. Wont be cold right away but it cools down pretty quick. We had no problems running things on the battery it came with for decent periods of time. The gf had it out at the Gorge last year for three days and the fridge still ran. We've since upgraded to two 6volt golf cart batteries though.

It will sit a little higher if you dont have any sort of lift/bigger tires. Im on 285/75/R16's and ~2.5" of lift. That has it pretty much even or slightly below the roof line of the truck.

We dont notice to much of a MPG hit on regular roads. Even going up like snoqualmie pass its not that bad. We did definitely notice it on the steeper passes. Some of the grades along our route were 12% and you could definitely feel it behind you. And notice in in the MPG's as well. A tank for me is generally around 250 miles, On this trip we were seeing more around 190-200 miles. I carried 20 extra gallons of gas and we definitely were using 5 gallons of it quite a bit. But wasnt a big deal as id fill up while the gf walked the dog or made lunch.

 

Well that pretty much settles it then. You’re a wealth of information, thank you very much.

 

You are more than welcome to come check ours out. Might even be able to talk the fiance into letting you borrow it for a night to try it out at a state park or something (have ot be after labor day weekend though). We definitely know what an investment they are and nobody lets you really test drive them lol

 

Hmm.

 

Least he was shooting at the tires

 

Getting prepped to do my CMC. From what I can find on TW I think these are my cut lines along the white tape. I haven’t found anything on where to cut underneath does this look correct? I kinda wanna bounce it off you guys before I just start Willy nilling my way through this. I have 3” of lift, Spc UCAs set at 4*. I’m planning on stuffing 8.5x17 Ray 10s 275/80/17 MTRs under here on Thursday. Thoughts? Am I going deep enough with my CMC?