Lefty's golden taco.

Pictures!!
First alignment #'s.

You can see the rub marks on the CV.

The offset vs symmetrical spacers.

What's left of my dust sheilds.

New aliment #'s


Oh and I forgot about this lovely tidbit tell looking through my pictures. Since you basically have to pull the rack to replace the lower control arms ,I put on some poly urathane bushings for the rack and when reassembling I striped out one of the bolts for the passenger side brace. Just retapping wasn't going to work this time. I Initially had striped it out years ago reinstalling the bolts with a impact hammer. Lessons learned. So I happened to have the tap handy. Since that wasn't working I ended up helicoiling the bracket. That was an adventure all on its own.

 

Since I was waiting for the 2nd alignment I did change my transmission oil. I don't rember if or when it was changed last. I have enough left to do the transfer case so I'll be doing that soon. I went with redline mt oil. Seems to be working well.
My pre trip follys.
Had pretty much everything ready to load up in the truck and go. Except I forgot the good camera and I didn't charge the gopro batterys.
I don't have my skids installed before the alignment thinking it would make there job easier. So whe I go back home I dragged them under the truck and was about to start lifting them into place I remembers I needed to put in the front nutstrip...... which was no where to be found. If you've seen my garage you'd know why. I didn't have time to tear apart the place and this was supposed to be an easy trip I gave up on them and move onto the next issue.
Loading up the truck I pull out my 12v plugs and my breaker isn't lighting up. Its a blue sea 2 plug with a breaker plate. There's a USB adapter in one of the plugs, so I pull it thinking maybe it was causing the issue. Still no light. I make sure my pannel breaker isnt triped ,it was good and the fuse on the back of the blue sea panel was good too.So I wiggle the wires in the back and my breaker lights up. So I stick the USB adapter back in and the lights go out again. But doesn't actually trip the breaker. My guess is that the pannel has gotten banned around to much and is down for the count. I had saw a 12v plug somewhere in the garage the day before ,so I go through trying to find it without any luck. See earlier post about messy garage. I ended up just putting power to one of the plugs and hoped for the best, Danny had said I could borrow a portable battery anyways.
My hope of leaving by 12 ended up being on the road at 145,after picking up coffee.

 

Trip to the Kofa's !!
So some background. The Kofas lays between two cities ,Yuma and Quartzsite in Arizona near the California border. I grew up in and around Yuma and went to Kofa high-school. Ive explored a fair bit of the area. Never really spent any time in the Kofas. So as much as I loath Yuma, I was excited to see a new area. All I have really ever hear of the Kofas was people going to hunt big horn sheep
The little tacoma was sporting new suspension front and rear and this was my first time to get to see how it preformed. I tried a new arrangement of my water and fridge placement in hopes to ease my bed set up and take down time. I figured with the new heav load alcan's I'd be ok with a lot of the weight in the rear. Maybe I should have speicked them for more weight capacity. Either way the truck was not handling well on the freeway ,with a twitchy front and a heavy ass it was a white knuckle ride. I had topped off the tank the night before and added a can of seafoam I got and amazing 10mpg. I didn't even make it to Yuma before having to top off the tank for fear of running out of gas on the mountain pass before entering town. I popped in to see my mother who lives in the foothills before Yuma, I needed to drop off her birthday presents from earlier in the month. We road into town to pick up some dinner. It was world famous Chilly peppers Mexican food. It really is famous, I think it's the salsa because honestly the rest of the food is kinda bland. I picked up enough burritos for everyone to have 2 one bean &cheese and one machaka. I figured it would be a long day for everyone and a easy dinner would be a nice treat.
I parted ways with mom and stopped to fill up the tank and I was on the road I had about a hour drive to the camp spot. I was in good spirits despite all the hiccups I had getting upto this point, happy to be going camping with my friends and a break from work.
As I was getting closer to the turnoff for camp it had gotten pretty dark and I was on a back road so I had the opportunity to finally adjust my off road lights so they were actually working together. I got a call on the grms from Danny saying that they, him and Glen were at camp . I asked if I should air down and stated that the road wasn't to bad and I should be fine only the last part was a little ruff. He must have been there for a bit to had forgotten how ruff it was.
The new suspension defantly came to life on that bummpy and rocky road.

 

I'm at work so that's why this is broken up.

Everyone else showed up as a group later in the evening. Alan,Brent, Mike, soon to be mrs mike and Will. Got parked said our hello's and hung out for a bit and then turned in for the night.
Views in the morning!
After breakfast, packing up and airing down. We started on our tour of the Kofa's. First stop skull rock! What a cool little drive and a awesome spot. We met a 2nd gen "I think " tacoma with a 4wd camper. He said it was mounted pretty much the whole time he owned the truck and that was the ruffest road he had been down. Skull rock is definitely worth the visit wha a interesting formation.

After exploring for a bit we headed out,backtracking for a bit and then regrouping at a gondola.

 

After the group was all back together our route was discussed ,the main group was going to continue on a gas line route and Glen decided that he need to get gas and food headed off to Quartzsite and would reconvene with the group at a different intersection since we would near an access road. He missed out ,gas line roads are fun to bomb down. I got to see how my new setup would on the faster sections with the occasional G-outs. I should have turned up the compression a bit, but it cycled well and handed great. I did change my cargo layout so all my water and fridge were in the front of the bed. Majes for slower packaging but the truck handles so much better.
Some typical AZ desert.

Eventually we made it to our intersecting roads and Glen was running late and without proper mapping. This ended up becoming an issue latter on.So Danny said he would try and find him while the rest of the group continued on with the planed route. They were able to catch up a bit later as we continued on. As the day started to get later we began looking for our camp site. After passing up a few sites it was decided to try an off shoot canyon and see what it had available. Man was that a great decision.the canyon delivered.

We found camp shortly thereafter.

 

Into the heart of the Kofa's.
The Kofa monument

After lunch we headed off again
Some Sonoran Desert landscape. Rements of the super bloom still present.

Wilbanks cabin was our campsite for the evening. We were treated to an excellent dinner by Will.

I was still messing with how everything is loaded ,but this is what the back looks like in transit.

Everyone's in camp mode.

Found this little toad.

Some of the foliage around camp.

 

Next morning we set out our destination was Hovatter homestead . Which had a really cool drive way.
A cactus in bloom on the way.

The drive way.
#arizona crazy things you find in the desert . Someone had a lot of time on their hands. Was such a cool spot.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrJAyxIREJ6/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
Grave site of the owner and his daughter.

Next stop was a graveyard. I didn't get any pictures I believe Danny split off sometime before or afterwards. He had some family plants to attend to. I believe we soon lost Glen afterwards due to a missed turn. We hike up to a natural dam.
Some flowers I found interesting on the way back.

 

Afterwards we visit another mine and home and then head for our next camp site in Big Dick Canyon. Where 2 more of our group decides to head out due to mechanical issues and personality conflicts. Which is unfortunate but happens occasionally.
Morning came early at 0630 .
My view when waking up.

 

It was time to say goodbye to the Kofa's. As we the final 4 make our way out ,down from 7. The roads were wide and decently graded so we made good time. After airing up we said good by to will who went north, then myself Alan and Brent headed south toward yuma . My little truck is pretty thirsty as it is,I had added my extra 5 gallons 3 days ago. It didn't take long for my gas light to come on. About 25 miles from the next gas station. Thankfully the group was kind enough to hang with me at a slower speed than they would have probably preferred .
275 miles from when I had last gassed up in yuma, to the same gas station. Thankfully under my own power.


The tacoma tank holds a claimed 16gal from the factory. And I've got a pretty decent dent in my tank too.
So that came to about 13 mpg. Not to bad considering about 195 of the miles were aired down off road with intermittent usage of 4wd and the occasional AC. It was pretty warm a few times in the middle of the day.
A note I had ended up inflating my tire to about 40 psi. which is up from my normal 34psi.ish.
About 1/2 way back to Phoenix we parted ways with Brent who had the long ride back to New Mexico.
I ended up home sometime around 2pm with a quarter tank of gas left. I believe my new road trip tire pressure is going to be 40psi.the wear pattern on the tires looked pretty good so I'll see how it pans out.
Thanks of reading.

 

Dang it! Somehow I have the worst luck writing updates. I just lost all the crap I just wrote, time to barrow works internet and computer so i can type a little easier. Sorry it’s not going to ready aNY BETTER.LOL


Life's been keeping me busy and taking away all my truck mod time and money. Our family member who is a contractor/handyman had some availability so we jumped on the opportunity and had our kitchen fully remodeled. Since i was getting the family discount i ended up being the helper which meant when i wasn't at work i was working on the kitchen. I had been working on the 4runner replacing the steering, this was in late June. It’s still apart. Partly because I’ve been waffling about just rebuilding the whole front end since its 1/2 way apart all ready.


Onto the tuck.

The Tacoma’s steering has still been an issue. Since my white knuckle ride back from the Kofas I’ve been pondering on the issue. The issue is that there is just to much free play in the steering on center then when it catches WAM!! instant response and then tries to rollover. This is only an issue at freeway speeds or on pavement.

I believe I’ve narrowed it down to either I was experiencing some tie rod roll, the rebuilt rack needs adjustment or a different guide or my steering column has a ton of play. Since just about everything on the front has been recently replaced or rebuilt except for the tie rods which were a couple years old I figured it start with them. One was a AC Delco the other was a parts store that replaced one of the AC Delco's because the boot was torn and kept falling off. I found a set of OEM Toyotas on eBay from someone who had bout the wrong set for their 4runner. the old tie rods were super lose, I got the new ones on and took the truck to Firestone to get the toe corrected , all they were supposed to touch was the toe but they messed with the caster a bit too. It’s almost at stock specs, it wasn't too much different from where it was and the truck was driving better so I let it go. I still have some free play but the transition isn't as dramatic.it was enough so that I didn't have to focus a 100% of the time on the steering… To be continued, but I have a tone of other projects so it’s going on the back burner for a moment.
https://youtube.com/shorts/LobNZ5NQTlA?si=6YpUEi5T0J1seC94

A trip was planned and I wasn't sure how tuff the trail was going to be so the skids needed to go back on. The problem with the skids aside from being bent to all hell from messing around on Crown King is when I took them off to beat back into submission and work on the front end. I lost the nut strip to the front cross member. Which is why I didn't have them on the Kofa trip. So I attempted to make my own. I really suck at welding, after slanging a couple of bolts I had something that sort of worked. The front lip of the skid was no longer at the correct angle and when I went to snug up the last bolt it went about 3/4s of the way then strips itself. On a high note it’s stayed on for about 2k miles so far


Unloading everything out of the truck every time i want to set up camp is kind of a pain, the biggest is my freezer. While it’s been awesome due to its size it’s been regulated to the bed of the truck, which means anytime I want a cold drink I have to stop and when it’s time to play Tetris I have to lug it out. Being in the bed of the truck means I’m unable to monitor it, which has been a issue because the plug isn't that great and I’ve had it go without power. Thankfully the shell is insulated and everything has stayed cool. Something had to change! I was discussing my issues and Danny suggested that I use a ARB style cord which has a treaded plug and the fridge side is pretty universal. So I ordered up the new cord and plug ends.

The fridge that I have is a 55L which is kinda over kill for my needs but it was the smallest and cheapest at the time that I bought it. So I took some measurement's and I found a 43L that looked like it fit behind the passenger seat while still being able to have room for my wife to be comfortable. Luckily she doesn't like the seat reclined.

Even has an app.
One of the outlets that I ordered came with a wire harness so it wasn't too difficult to hook up to my power distribution thingamajigger it has a constant hot so the fridge could run even with the truck off . Well that is if I had wired it up correctly, maybe a few days before trying to leave instead of the night before. I believe I have the spades mixed up in the plug because it has power and when I use the plug in a regular 12v receptacle it works fine.

Since I was pulling 1/2 the interior out I fixed the platform so that it now sits correctly and the seat will slid all the way back without interference. It was nice to not have it pressing into my back this trip.

 

Musings

So some quick take always. No major projects or home renos that get done right before a big trip!

IDKN this seems to be my MO but I plan on changing. Also I’m not sure if I’m going to have a passenger anymore big off-road trips.

The new fridge worked out well despite the plug issue. A duel zone would be nice otherwise I just need to be careful with my loading and tempter settings, went from freezing everything to not quit cold enough. The lid can open from both sides which was nice and a pain at the same time. Being able to access the fridge while on the road was great!!
Alpicool IR42 Portable Fridge 12...

$224 Alpicool IR42 Portable Fridge 12 Volt Car Refrigerator 42 Quart Fast Cooling Freezer for Fishing, Camping, RV, Truck, Boat-12/24V DC(Red &Yellow)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSCVW4R8?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

If you buy anything from REI don’t lose or throw away the box. My Domestic go pump quit working correctly and was thankfully within the 1 year replacement window. Rei gave me a hell of a time because I didn’t have the box. Thankfully they just exchanged the pump which is all that I really needed.

Also the Go system is pretty slick. As long as the battery last in the pump. Thankfully there are other cheap pumps out there that work well.


I recently found out that 2. 5 L Scepter cans will fit in a large action packer. Which worked out well as I happen to have an extra, Walmart had a sale on the a while back .thankfully I didn’t need them but is was a nice reassurance.

***This guy has new caps for Scepter gas cans they worked great and didn’t leak while laying on their sides.
https://jagmte.com/collections/scepter-mfc-accessories

While this worked out well for this trip I think I’m going to look into a long range tank. The Jazz jeep speed tank will fit nicely were the spare was and has 36 gal capacity

I need to do something about the rear setup I still only have like an inch of up travel when fully loaded. I’m thinking spring under or linking it.

I’ve been compilation ditching the tall shell or the shell altogether. I’m just too tall to sleep in the back. As much as I’d like the get a super pacific they don’t really fit the first gen well and I’m not really a fan of the fact that you have to move the panels around to use the go-fast. All are big wind blocks and I’m getting crappie gas mileage as it is. I’m really contemplating just using a cot and possibly a swag bag on top of it.

Speaking of bad gas mileage the supercharger is back from being rebuilt. gonna knock out a couple of projects and then it’s going on. Also of course I finally get my hands on one and get it rebuilt what happens … Magnuson release a new and improved unit Grrrrrr. Bastards. Whatever I’m happy I have one period.

Some new seats!! Man the stockers are getting worn out.

 

t minus 8 hours.
this is where i called it for the night, its pretty much all loaded except for the food tot and a couple of bags.One of the the action packers and water would change places but this was how we rolled. over packed as always.

after a much later start than i had originally planned ,loaded up with coffee and breakfast we hit the road heading north out of phx.
The plan was to go the long way to Moab via New Mexico and 4 corners. my wife had never been to 4 corners and the last time we were in the are they were closed due to covid. Going through the different parts of the reservation was interesting we passed by Lupton which was super pretty. it was fun to find out later that one of my co workers grew up in the area a little further to the right on the mountain/hill.

after stopping in gallup for some coffee and gas we headed towards shiprock. while ominus in the distance we didn't have time to stop not realising that its about 50+ miles off the main road.
4 corners has definitely changed since i was last there as a kid. there's now a fee to get in, but its definalt way nicer from yester years. also there a decent line if you want to get a pic for the Gram

don't for get the view from the back .

it was about 9 when we finally rolled into Moab.

 

Day 3
Day 3.

 

Day 4

 

Days 5,6&7

 

Looks like a great trip Chris! I am excited to visit it myself one day.

 

Thanks pictures just don't do it justice. It's definitely worth it. It's a pretty easy drive. The only sketchy part was towards the end . We were on a shelf road the was really only I vehicle wide. Thankfully we didn't run into any on coming traffic. There are some pull overs but they would be tight. I have some videos to upload still that shows it.

 

Finally getting some time to start working on my videos.
I still need to do some editing. I'm trying to use the go pro editor for windows so that I can keep the video quality but its clunky and I'm still learning it. I've ran out of room on my phone so I have to use the laptop now. Which of course needed to be updated. Let me know what you think.

https://youtu.be/ZTEnJNAl7IU?si=Yu0xYzVJu4uHYloI

 

What is your review of the Solo LCA's and Total Chaos LBJ's?

I am looking at the Solo's and the BFT Fab lowers.