AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

We had shit conditions. Muddy wet shit. In the dry that would be easily do able. Probably could have more than doubled our speed.


For reference Brett drives like me Dan. Pedal down questions later haha

 

Brett put it pretty well. I'm often driving my as fast as it'll go.

Toyota has a 1 year warranty on parts. I'm hoping to be able to keep cashing in on that.

4000lbs is light! Lol

 

I should really start saying 2.5tons haha, that's unloaded (4880lbs). I'm gonna make it heavier with armor and some 35s soon :/

 

Excellent.

 

They fit stock on LCs so it's no major feat haha. The one thing I'll regret not getting around to on the Taco.

 

and long travel..








its not too late

 

It's too late, it'd stay around if I still had an interest in it. It needs to go to someone who will use and appreciate it. It's the end of the line with me though, I'll put some UBJs in it for the next guy and replace the CB. Maybe sell the SC separately.

 

What are you selling off?

@turbodb @Blackdawg
There is a time and place for speed in my opinion.
The last 2 times I went to fast, I rolled my 94 as I crested a hill on a easy double track parted and scraped it. The cause one side had a deep rut at the right spot.
The other I jumped a razor back and hydrolocked my motor at the Oregon Coast. The cause Beer and the challenge to make boobs bounce.

 

The grey Tacoma

 

well..considering both Zane and I have both rolled our trucks once..id say we get it haha

 

I bet you won that challenge while you were rolling!

 

Never was a quitter!

 

Fabricating a (Prototype) Table for the Rear Bumper Swingout
August 14, 2018.

It's been about six months since I drove over to eastern Idaho to pickup and install the CBI Outback 1.0 rear bumper with dual swing-outs on my way down to The Maze in Utah. In that time, the bumper has performed well - I'm generally really happy with it, save a couple niggly things that I should probably write up as a "what do I think six months later," sort of post.

But, one thing that I've been missing - and knew I was missing when I purchased the bumper - was a fold-down table on the swing-out. This was a purposeful omission on my part - @cbi offroad fab wanted $350 for tables, and I knew I could do better.

So, it was finally time to get started.

My criteria were several-fold.

1. The table needed to be big enough to fit my Coleman propane stove.
   
2. It needed to fit on the passenger side swing-out.
   
3. It needed to be "removable" - since I'm sure I'll want to tweak it going forward.
   
4. It needed to weigh as little as possible.

I started by taking some measurements of the passenger side swing-out when the tailgate was open. This showed me that I had 15-inches of width to work with - so the table wouldn't overlap the tailgate or interfere with the dual-swing-out latching.

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Clearly, not enough to fit the Coleman stove, which is 21-inches wide and about 14-inches deep. Hmm, my design would need to take that into account. Perhaps a fold-out table on my swing-out bumper?

So, it was off to the steel yard where I picked up two 15x15-inch pieces of 16ga aluminum - that would become the top(s) for the table, giving me a work surface of approximately 30x15-inches - plenty big enough for the stove.

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Then, I spent a bit of time with a hammer, the rounded corner of my workbench, and then a dowel to round over what would become the front edge of the table, making it a bit stiffer and also a bit nicer "to the touch" vs. a sharp aluminum edge.

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Of course, with two pieces to the top, the next trick was to get them to sit side-by-side when deployed, but to sit "overlapped" when put away, since I only had 15" of space on the swing-out. This I accomplished with a pair of hinges that would allow the table to fold over on itself when not in use.

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That seemed to work well enough - better than I thought actually, since the wood mounts I used for the hinges also stiffened the top and allowed space for the rounded front edges when the table was closed. (lucky me!) But of course with a folding table, I now needed some way to keep it from folding when it was deployed - enter the sliding supports!

These sliding supports run in tunnels on the bottom of the fixed side of the table, and they can be pushed under the swinging side of the table after it's been swung out; keeping it in-plane with the fixed side of the table.

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Whew! Now all that was left was to mount the table to the swing-out and make sure it fit!

Following the trend so far of mixing materials, I played around with the hinges I'd picked up and decided that the best way to secure the table was going to be to mount a piece of wood to the swing-out, and then hinge off of that (and to the wood securing the runners on the table). So, I set about drilling holes for a couple of bolts in the wood and in the swing-out, and then tapping the swing-out to accept the bolts. In a future revision, I may use the Astro 1442 Rivnut tool instead of directly threading the swing-out; but this worked splendidly for now.

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So now the table was attached, swung down appropriately and seemed to generally fit. But, I needed a way to keep it level when deployed. This of course is generally accomplished using some cable between the outer corner of the table and the bumper swing-out - and I accomplished it the same way. A couple of eye-bolts threaded into the appropriate places were all I needed.

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That left just one more step - a hole for a thumbscrew to hold it all to the back of the swing-out when not in use; an easy enough install the same way I'd drilled and threaded the other holes in the swing-out. Then, the table could be folded up and put away - so clean!

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And with that, I was done! It seemed to work quite well, and will easily support the weight of the stove; though, probably not a ton more - it's definitely not something to sit on! In future revisions, my primary goal is going to be better support of the fold-out section of the table - as it is now, that side is a bit...diving boardy.

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For $20 in aluminum and a bunch of scrap wood and hinges I had laying around, I'm currently mostly happy with the result. The next test, obviously, is to put it to use on a trip!

 

Turned out nice, and way cheaper than mine I'm sure.

 

Have the skids been getting some use since you installed them? I am inquiring with them about getting a set - from what I can see they're only 2 pieces yes?

 

Yep, there are only two pieces.

They've definitely gotten good use on my truck. I've got my coilovers set pretty low, so I don't have a ton of lift...and that means my skids definitely see rocks.

Couple things I'd say, and I'm due for a "two years later" review of the skids:

• I like the beefiness - they are gusseted in a lot of places, and though I've bashed them, they have held up well without bending out of shape or being difficult to install
• I like the coverage - everything I feel like needs to be covered, is. This may partly be due to the fact that I have a CA truck, and so my mid-skid is something like 8 inches longer than the non-CA truck, to cover the second catalytic converter.
• I don't love the "tigtness." When I look at my skids next to a rig running BudBuilts, the BudBuilt skids look much tighter - almost as though they allow more clearance. I don't think it actually has more clearance, since they are both tight to the undercarriage, but there are a couple things that I think make it appear to be the case:
  • The angle on the front skid is steeper on the Relentless, so the skid sticks "further forward"
  • The mid-skid has a shape like this (front) /-------\_____/ (rear) which I worry means there's a place where I could "catch" on rocks. Note: I never actually have.
• The attachment of the mid skid doesn't seem ideal. The rear-most holes rely on self-tapping bolts into the frame (which failed for me, so I installed rivnuts to solve that problem) and the center support for it attaches to the cross-member but is a weak point for the design.

Edit: worth reading: https://adventuretaco.com/my-skids-saved-my-truck-servicing-the-skids/

 

The Re-Tour (Aug 2018)
August 24, 2018.

How does that saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, ..."

If you've been a reader of previous trip reports, you may recall one of the craziest trips to date - The De-Tour - which occurred almost exactly one year ago (but that just finished writing up and posting). That trip was a great one for many reasons, but it had gone nothing like we'd expected - snowing or raining every day - eventually forcing us to abandon our Tour of Montana and Wyoming for what we hoped were clearer skies, in Utah.

...where it also rained on us.

Even so, upon our return, Monte @Blackdawg, Mike @Digiratus, and I almost immediately started talking about doing it all again - as originally planned - able to see the sights in Montana and Wyoming this time - "next year."

Well, "next year" was now - this time three weeks earlier in the season to give ourselves a better chance at warmer weather. And, we'd recruited two additional buddies - another Dan @drr from the Puget Sound, and Zane @Speedytech7 who would join us from Arizona.

A long trek east for Mike, Dan and I, Mike dipped his toes into route planning to find as much dirt as possible to get us there - ultimately taking us along the Nez Perce Trail - a combination of the Old Elk City Wagon Road and a path through the Magruder Corridor. It would take us three days along this route to reach Cooke City, Montana, our rendezvous point with Monte and Zane.

It was just before 7:00am when I headed out - the truck packed to the gills for two weeks on the road.

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All coming from slightly different places, Mike, Dan, and I decided we'd meet in Cle Elum - to top off our tanks and so Mike could get his morning cup of coffee. Pioneer Cafe was Mike's favorite spot here, and by 9:30am we were once again headed east.

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But only for a few minutes until Dan came over the CB, "Hey Dan, your jerry can fuel plate just came off. I'm headed back to pick it up!" And then a few minutes later - "I got it, but not before a big rig ran it over." Turns out that the butterfly nut had somehow spun it's way off, and then the 60mph highway winds did the rest. And it wasn't pretty; but I got it re-secured temporarily with some zip ties, and we were back on our way.

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We made good time for the most part, hoping that as we drove east we'd escape the thick smoke that had enveloped the Seattle area for the previous two weeks (the worst air quality in the world at the time). Over the Columbia River, through the grasslands of eastern Washington, and finally to Clarkston-Lewiston where we stopped for lunch at Arby's, the trucks looking shiny in the early-afternoon sun.

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A quick couple sandwiches later (this was my first ever trip to Arby's, and probably my last), we were back on the road for our last short stretch of pavement before hitting dirt - the Old Elk City Wagon Road - just outside of Clearwater, Idaho - where we'd air down for the first time.

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At this point, though our pace slowed, we were of course enjoying ourselves on the dirt and we soon found ourselves on a short spur to the Corral Hill Lookout - the thought of camping there for the evening at the front of our minds. That is, until we found it staffed, and a very "welcoming" sign posted:

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Despite the sign however, Bill (the lookout resident) soon called down to us, "You guys are welcome to come up and look around if you want." This was perhaps to be expected, because as we climbed the ladder he was immediately curious about the rigs. He'd driven himself up in a stock second gen Tacoma, so when three bad-ass first gen Tacoma's showed up...well, he couldn't resist.

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Turns out Bill had been in the lookout all summer (nearly three months), and this was the first day that he'd had more than 3 miles of visibility (and even today, he had only 5-7) - a very smoky summer indeed! He chatted our ears off for a good 20-30 minutes, telling us where various peaks were (none of which we could see) and where all the smoke was coming from. He also let us know that some rain was expected, and that he hoped that would clear out some of the smoke.

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Eventually, Mike excused us, explaining to Bill that we really needed to find camp before dark, and we made our way back down to the trucks, and then down off the top of the mountain and back onto the route - the Elk City Wagon Road following the Nez Perce Trail - in search of a nice place to stop for the evening.

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The road was well graded for the most part and we made quick work of another 50 miles or so - dust kicked up behind us as the sun fell in the sky.

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And, just after sunset, as light was fading from the sky, we found camp - a nice flat area next to the creek, with plenty of room for the trucks (though a bit close to the main road) - and we got to deploying camp and making a camp fire.

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It would be our first of many camp fires; we stayed up until midnight chatting about the trip - what we were looking forward to, what the weather would be like (hopefully a bit of rain just before we arrived, and then warm for the rest of the trip), and whether or not Monte would be on-time to the Cooke City rendezvous (or more correctly - how late he'd be).

Oh, and Dan declared himself a "Master Campfire Builder" - with a style significantly different than Monte the year before - "bonfires with as much wood as possible" was his strategy; stretching a bundle of wood across three nights was nowhere in his repertoire.

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Eventually we decided we should call it a night - it'd been a long day and there were a couple more in store before The Re-Tour even officially started - so we climbed under our covers, lulled to sleep by the gurgling creek.

 

A good friend Bryce and I have bastardized the Arby's "I have the meats" into code for "Pull over, I am about to ruin the upholstery" because of a likely similar trip to Arby's.

 

I have the Sheets?

 

Awesome.