d.shaw 2012 DCSB build

I have done this in stages over the years, floor and firewall / back wall was first, then more recently did the doors, that was a major advancement and in my wife's 3rd gen its is very quiet below 45mph.... so I had very high hopes for the roof, is it better ~ yes for sure but it isn't as great as I had really hoped. Looking back I wish I had used the thicker sound deadening everywhere, and I think ill now get some of the sound deadening mat material for behind / under my rear seat delete..

The thicker material I used on the roof - although the more expensive stuff that doesn't require 'flattening' might be nice in the doors etc..

$75 Siless Max 120 mil (3mm) 30 sqft Car Sound Deadening mat - Butyl Automotive Sound Deadener - Noise Insulation and Vibration Dampening Material (30 sqft)

https://www.amazon.com/Siless-Max-s...utomotive+sound+deadening,aps,210&sr=8-4&th=1


What ill likely add (or something like it)

$45 Siless Liner 157 (4 mm) mil 36 sqft Car Sound Deadening Closed Cell Foam & Heat Insulation mat - PE Foam Sound Deadener Material & Heat Barrier

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Deaden...ve+sound+deadening+fabric,aps,148&sr=8-6&th=1

 

So I drove the truck this week and decided the roof was maybe better (quieter) than I had given it credit, but the truck was still loud. Friday afternoon whilst doing something else in the truck and dropping a razor blade behind the seat delete, I realised I had not put good coverage on the floor under the 'seats'

So last night and this morning I lashed out at those areas and put double layers all over the place - I think in some spots I had originally used a thin sound deadening - my advice would be to only use the MAX....and just put the stuff everywhere ~ oh well (yes I use pool noodles to fill some voids)

~ In other news the truck is "Mr June" in NickLeeCreations Calendar (forum)

 

Returned from a trip (to New Zealand) and found my washer fluid motor had given up, so removed the reservoir - which is rather hindered by my Slee air compressor mount - to find a bracket was broken on a electronic connector, strange but true, and the connector was just laying there - so had to go and pick up and a new 'motor' (as its such a pain to get into this area I may as well do it 'right' the first time, rather than glueing it and hoping for the best) - hot tip (picked up from a YouTube) remove the grommet from the motor and put it into the reservoir first, then slide the motor in.....




Also found this Goose Gear drawer on FB Marketplace, been on there a while and it is 3 inches shorter than the 'Tacoma 60% delete drawer' - so decided to low ball the dude and - $300 and 20 mins later I had a drawer. Put some elbow grease into cleaning it up (drawer slides were sandy, and inside the drawer was a mess) but super stoked on this....

 

My son asked if we could take his girlfriend camping, so in a twist of fate I couldn't take my truck - not enough seats, so I removed a seat from @prof.jones and put in my old 40% delete (for the fridge) - gathered up some stuff and we set off to DV.
Day one - Trona - Ubehebe Crater - Teakettle then into Hidden Valley - was windy as so had to find somewhere slightly sheltered.....



Day two - Herd of Big Horn Sheep (im pretty sure?) - Racetrack playa - Lippincott Pass - Salt tram - Hot Springs - camp


- Had the iPhone zoomed in all the way^^



Day three - Bishop (I ran out of propane - well in the 10lb'er) - Revised plan as were gonna meet a mate at Eureka dunes - Ancient Bristlecone forest - Camp



Day four - leave the Valley - get treated to some jets flying by - drive home

 

Good Job Dad.

 

Cheers mate !

Yeah I even slept in a ground tent, although I have a 4 inch tri-fold memory foam mattress in there, which was a game changer (oh the joys of vehicle based camping)

 

Inspirational thread/blog/whatever, I just finished a binge of the whole thing. Good god, I need to get out more.

I note that at some point you switched from a Solo stove to a propane fired unit. I have one of the former, given to me by my new wife last Christmas that has yet to be put into service- been using my deluxe Maytag washing machine tub since forever. Thoughts?

 

Ha thank you. When Sally was finishing her Navy career and I had a consistent schedule we were able to get out and about a lot more, brought a house and slowed down quite a bit....

I love the Solo Stove, they are mega efficient and have purchased the cook top which I reckon make them super great - the move to propane was as much to comply with fire bans and occasionally carry less stuff - although I find figuring out how much propane I need stressful -but the convience of just 'turning it on in the morning for 30 minutes while drinking coffee is awesome - having said that there is nothing like some steak cooked over wood I reckon. I was a 'content creator' for Solo Stove for a few years, which was really just a result of loving the thing and then posting pics on Instagram - it seemed pretty organic, they were good to me.

- From our DM - loving the Bronco, it looks fantastic and I bet a ton of fun. When I lived in NZ the guy that owned the planes at the dz also had an RV4 - those things are super cool, no doubt a great way to get around and explore. The Skydance photos were awesome - I actually went there when I first came to the states in 1999, we arrived late and there was people there bbqing, first thing out of their mouths was 'you guys want some hot dogs?' how cool

 

A couple of months ago, and as @prof.jones wasn't able to make it out when Oscar and his girlfriend were here, she asked if she took some time off work if we could get out and camp. It's been a while since just her and I spent more than a night out camping, so I was stoked!! Given the time of year I decided on a 395 trip, given our timeline. I had seen some talk and YouTube of Coyote Flats and was pretty keen to make my way there and had a couple conversations with @Prayn4surf and @hoarder23 about some spots in that general area (cheers)

We left early to beat traffic in Riverside County and my plan had been to hit Coyote that first day, but having chatted with @yoloflyer a few days prior who had not had a great experience up there due to some biting bugs, I had decided to perhaps play it safe and hit up somewhere familiar to us, originally headed to an spot my mate Shittco and I call #rollofthedicecamp (where we just go and figure it out) and a spot he had found, we found ourselves getting up the 395 too early. We have never made it to camp before 3pm and the time we did that we totally didn't level the truck and goofed off until climbing into bed and realising the truck was way off from being even remotely level.... so I decided I wanted pancakes. Little Pine had nothing open, Independence was the same - so we made it to Big Pine, where I decided I wanted a Ruben Sandwich instead, and Sally had Waffles.

Leaving Big Pine we had already passed Shittco's camp so we headed up to Papoose, and as we were still early, we looked at a few spots we have never considered before (usually to get there and camp by the wonderful big old rocks). We found a couple of definite 'maybe's' and went and looked at the classic spots there, wasting time as much as anything else.



We went and hit up one of the new spots - choosing one that had both great views and some shade, we relaxed and took in the sights. Sally read another book, I fussed around checking out some of the new additions recently made to the truck / camp setup (pretending to be doing something)



Staring at the Sierras made me really really want to go over there so I made a deal with Sally that if the bugs were terrible I would drive us back - and we left late in the morning and headed west....

After grabbing fuel in Bishop, I started the climb up to Coyote - where several things happened at once, first one of my 'Bosses' from work contacted me abut something I had forgotten - so I had to contact someone else to get something shipped out to him, and at the same time the truck's transmission started to get hot, luckily I paid enough attention to it and was able to get it under control - I had not realised just how much of a climb the road was just out of Bishop.



The landscape was sick though, kinda that 'classic' California look to me, big old rocks, mountains.....

We continued the scenic drive getting wowed at every turn, me very nervous the bugs were gonna be a shit show, but the views were just absolutely fabulous!


^I had grabbed our Sony AE6300 camera to get some better quality shots but forgot the first fundamental - set it up correctly - so yeah - bit shit ^


We avoided the lakes as we figured they were likely buggy, and @Prayn4surf had given us a spot away from the lakes and we were pushing time a little bit, we stopped a few times for photos and to stretch our legs. One of these close to a marshy area had massive flies getting up in our s*it really quick so my concerns about bugs was at an all time high, we made it to the spot, but decided we liked an area with a better view a mile or two back down the road, we are now chasing a bit of daylight and Sally wasn't feeling the best - a combo of being a passenger in the truck all day and likely not drinking enough water to help with the elevation. We made camp, very chuffed with ourselves and the view.



The next morning we woke and decided to head back to Papoose - perhaps the view was too much for us to handle - we packed up and headed towards the southern exit, completely unsure how the road conditions was and well everyone talks about the north entrance - start seemed fine steep but easy



^not the steep part^

We quickly came up on a long off camber section, and having walked a bit of it decided to turn around, mostly as I didn't know what lay ahead and the truck is 6000lb empty and dont want to freak Sally out and we are solo.... we headed back out the way we came in....



We decided on a camp we had seen a couple days before, which was nice to not go back to some of the old favourites - we enjoyed a super chill afternoon - checked out this wild Bristlecone tree, that was seemingly growing sideways out of the ground and then at some point had done a 180* turn....



In the morning we decided to head home, we were thinking about repositioning ourselves to Big Bear to combat Friday afternoon SoCal traffic but neither of us were mega excited for BB and thats an easy trip from home so we can save that one for later (we have also been away travelling for work a bit lately so)





Was super happy about all the changes to the truck - the sound deadening has helped more than I thought, we were easily able to hold conversations esp on asphalt roads (the grooved concrete SoCal ones are just loud) I have a couple extra ideas to try to help that (spray sound deadener in the wheel wells??) - the doors sound amazing when you close them - new bed mat (factory 3rd gen for $80) was so much better than the cheap off brand one I had in there (since I purchased the truck) - the new strip of ESI ROK Block tailgate gap worked so much better then what I had there before - the drawer on the goose gear seat delete was rad, and we used the water thingy to actually shower - what a life! Was a great reset for us - needed that

 

Damn! What a journey! Absolutely jealous.

A rear seat delete is absolutely worth it, wished I had gone with some goose gear in the beginning. Great product.

I put an extra layer of heat insulation on top of the sound deadening. The heat insulation unexpectedly dampened sound a tiny bit more. Might want to consider it or just throw another thiner layer of SD on there. Just make sure not to cover up the cabin air hole.

I would give the heat insulation material a seven out of ten due to my truck being black. Still worth it IMO.

Keep living the dream bro!

 

Cheers @theolee you are right, I wish id done a bit more research originally and done things right the first time, I have some of the

$45 Siless Liner 157 (4 mm) mil 36 sqft Car Sound Deadening Closed Cell Foam & Heat Insulation mat - PE Foam Sound Deadener Material & Heat Barrier

Siless Liner 157mil but I honestly needed to use it more, doors and rear wall etc, at the time of doing things I thought I was good (I have done the floor / rear wall twice in both trucks cause I didn't do it right the first time...) and I def could have used this under the seat delete more - but instead ill just shout during road trips and have the stereo at 32 (Rage Against the machine sounds best there...) - heat wise I have the camper as a massive sun umbrella covering most of my roof and with the Ceramic front windshield tint that really helps keep the heat down, mostly meaning once im able to cool the cab a bit the AC is only on one or two in 100* plus

We should go camp soon -

Also -

 

Makes me want to pack up and go back up to the flats, thanks for the post! When we were up there almost 3 weeks ago it was 85° at 10,000 feet and only cooled off into the high 60's overnight with no breeze. Perfect bug-hatching conditions. Glad you didn't suffer the same fate! Also you've inspired me to return to Papoose. We almost went that way instead of back to Queen Canyon but because of the high temps we decided to get as much elevation as possible.

I think you made the right call not exiting via the southern route. There are more off-camber loose sketchy spots after the one that stopped you. A couple of those places had me wishing I was in my Bronco.

 

That would be great!

Awesome! Share it on IG please

 

Yes but without your info I would likely have gone toward the lake and likely have gotten eaten as well, or not have been as cautious - I think we got lucky. Not sure what the daytime temp was but in the 50's at night which was pretty perfect (I dont have my rearview mirror anymore which is where my temp was displayed) Papoose was great, pretty perfect temps, although when we left 5-6 jets flew over as we were airing up by the 168, so we missed the real show

The Southern route seemed doable but in different circumstances for sure, watched a couple of YouTube videos since and people getting stuck etc, so I dont feel so bad about it - Bronco would eat that place up!! Cheers mate, thanks for the info etc - always appreciated

 

I should have had the Lavabox lit

 

Tired of having 13 cup holders and not one cup I use fits any of them, and Nalgene bottles rolling around as I drive, I took a stand. Purchased a

$16 Seven Sparta Car Cup Holder Expander with Adjustable Base, Compatible with Hydro Flasks 32/40 Ounce, Compatible with Yeti Ramblers 20/26/30 Ounce, Other Bottles in 3.4"-3.8" (Black)

cheap cup holder thingy off Amazon that im not committed too but will see how it works, - but I think my real triumph was (after an insane amount of searching) this

$39 Widefoot LiterCage - Stainless Steel Bottle Cage for Large Bottles - Made in The USA (Polished)

WideFoot LiterCage for a touring bicycle that Ive mounted to my GooseGear drawer.....made in the USA, I had to expand the mounting holes a touch to use the hardware I had at home but im currently pretty proud of myself....




I also picked up some

$18 Design Engineering DEI Boom Mat Damping Spray | Spray-On Sound Deadener for Cars | Eliminate Road Noise | Dampen Vibrations | Enhance Car Audio | Covers 20 Sq Ft

DEI Boom Mat sound deadening spray for the wheel wells....shall see how that goes