0210 Crawls Starbucks

She'll stay in the cab. No way I'm hauling 80lbs of dog up/down a ladder!

 

What no cool dog lift? What kind of do parent are you!

 

Awesome build. Awesome dog. All I want to say is, love that mutt with everything you have, every day. You already know this, of course. Three years have passed since my best friend Hans moved on. I miss that SOB every day. Sorry, not trying to bring the thread down...

 

I was in Moab a few days ago and decided to head up to the Top of the World trail, rated as "difficult." It was a lot of fun, and I got over the hardest obstacles. Unfortunately I somehow managed to get turned around and headed back down without realizing it. Figured out I went the wrong way around 30-40 minutes after the fact, so there was no going back that day.

Here's as far as I ended up:



The obstacle in question is a tight s-curve with probably 8-10 fairly large ledges. Very steep ascent, likely in the 30-40 degree range. Had someone shown me a photo of it ahead of time, I would never have believed this truck was capable of going through, much less with me at the wheel. Incredibly impressed with what this truck can do. "Get an Off-Road," they said, "you need a locker," they said, "double cab, long bed is too long," they said .

Here's a video of me going through the first (much easier) part of the obstacle, and my walk up to the top, which gives you a glimpse of what the upper part is like. As always, it's 10x worse than the video makes it out to be. Unfortunately my camera's battery died at the worst possible moment and didn't capture me climbing up the rest, but my dash cam was on, so I'll pull that video when I'm home in a few days. Hopefully it has some decent footage.

My sliders got a hell of a workout, one of them got ground on a rock for a good two-three feet. My rear driver's side wheel also met a rock and now spots a huge scrape/dent. Don't really care about either. On the (other side) descent from this obstacle I managed to clip both my lower control arms and then my diff on a huge, flat rock. No real damage, just some scrapes. Oh, my front, driver's side mud flap got outright torn off.

I'll be getting LCA skid plates, though.

Best of all, after climbing up and down this thing, I saw that there was an easy, gravel-road bypass that I could have taken instead. FML.

On the flipside, I'm suddenly more interested in rock crawling. The taco is a fucking animal, 'nuff said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR3vCXy8lFA

 

Finally home. Checking out the dash cam footage... this is the harder part of that obstacle:



Video is fairly decent. Will clean it up and upload tomorrow!

 

Looks like you had an amazing time down there! Someday I hope to take my truck Down.

 

yes the sports are quite the capable trucks, I'm more an more impressed each day I drive mine. How much lift do you have on that truck by the way? Looks to be about 3" lift give or take.

I have a few weeks off coming up here soon, and I am planning on doing some off roading/overlanding around the island, although I may head south into Oregon and play in some sand/dunes or go into the interior a bit, depending on trail conditions, presuming they would still be snowed in on a lot of them though.


regards

Steve

 

I've got the front set at just over 2", and I've got about 4" in the rear.

I got really bad weather when I was in Oregon, but I hear the dunes are a ton of fun. Just be ready to have sand EVERYWHERE. I'm pretty sure I'll be spending the next two weeks cleaning the truck.

 

The truck is already covered in thick heavy clay at the moment and there is mud on my headliner (I may or may have not gotten a wee bit stuck in a field and had to do some questionable driving to get it unstuck). I am fighting spring thaw where I am and trying to get some work wrapped up here. It has been a struggle to say the honest. Mind you I am learning that the tacoma sport is great in wet, thick, greasy clay as long as you shut of the traction control and by that I don't mean just hitting the button, you have to hold it in as well when your fully stopped. World of difference as you already know. shocked our trucks with lockers were not making it through and I decided to try mine, we were all shocked, sadly the little girl is lacking in the towing out the large f350's everyone has here.

 

Here's the dash cam footage. I cut out all of my self-spotting, so that's why the timestamp will jump around here and there. Don't mind my exhausted, overheated panting.

https://youtu.be/Pr2n3q7KCeg

 

Well someone's been busy since I picked up dog carrier v1! Keep up the great work man, build's looking amazing!

 

Thanks, Brent. You've got to get a build thread going, too!

I suspect I'll be making v3 of the dog platform this summer . I put the seat-backs in place for v2, but once I get my RTT deal figured out, the dog will be sleeping in the rear seats and I want to give her more room again. Will probably also raise the whole platform by 5-6" to allow for underneath storage on one side, and a slide-out dog ramp on the other.

The ideas just don't stop and literally keep me awake at night.

 

Saw your hi-lift on the rack in the bed.... maybe a headache rack is needed?

 

A headache rack wouldn't have fit with the canopy. The canopy is for sale now - the new setup will have the hi lift on either the swingout bumper, or the rack that'll sit above the tonneau. Haven't really decided yet.

 

What are you going to replace the canopy with?

 

Current plan is a retractable tonneau + a custom-fabricated rack that sits overtop and holts a hard-shell RTT.

 

Why not a RTT on your cap?

 

I'd love to, but can't fit into my underground that way. Plus I plan to put on larger tires down the line which will lift the truck even more. 6'8" garage clearance is killer.

 

Makes sense now. I was wondering as I may go that route.

 

Love your setup man!
I went with Icon Stage 4 as well with the add a leaf; ended up swapping out for Allpro Expo leaf, timbren bumpstops and Radflo shocks in the rear tho. (flipped ubolts as well.)
Did you end up going for the 700 lb springs up front? Was thinking of doing this.