BimmerTim's Tacoma Build (tdi swap) and Trip Reports

Hey everyone,

I posted a similar (the same) story in the welcome threads a while back. I kind of stalled starting a build thread, because I hit a deer shortly after that post. But, it's back, so now I feel good about starting my thread.

Anyway, to my truck story.

I've always wanted a small, diesel, 4wd, manual truck. Well, this is America, and we don't get the fun stuff. So, having been into cars/trucks my whole life, countless engine swaps and mods later, I'll just build my own tiny diesel pickup.

Initially, I was pretty dead set on a newer Ford Ranger. In hindsight, I was wrong. With an idea of what I wanted, and all vehicles in the midwest being composed primarily of rust, I decided I would make a trip to visit my sister in Seattle to find a truck. I had a ton of airline miles from travelling back and forth to Florida every week for 6 months for work, so I picked up two one-way flights to SEA-TAC.

Once we arrive, my sister picked us up. She was kind enough to let me drop her off at work, and use her car all day. With the car and I plan, we started looking at Rangers in Seattle, Tacoma, and even two in Portland. None of them were what I wanted.

After a couple of days with no luck on the Ranger front, I started to search Craigslist for other trucks that might fit the bill, none of which were named Toyota Tacoma. Seemingly out of nowhere, after a great deal of time shlubbing through CL, my buddy suggested a Toyota. The link he sent me was for a Hilux Surf Diesel up in Vancouver, BC. Holy moly, it was perfect, except one thing. That stupid Canadian title. Having been into all sorts of cars from Europe and Japan, I know about that pesky age rule for importing vehicles to the US. I don't if that applies to cars being imported from our hat, but I wasn't willing to risk paying that much money only to not be able to register it when I got back home. However, the 1st gen Toyota seed had been planted.

I found about 10 different 1st gens all around the area. Oddly enough, only about half of the people I reached out to actually responded, so I was able to test drive 5 of them. Two of them were super hammer, I mean, just abused. One was a single cab, which I didn't really want. I had had a single cab silverado a few years back, and I always struggled for space in the cab. I test drove the single cab, but I ultimately decided against it.

That left two more. A white 2.7 and a black 2.7. The white one was really clean, with about 180k on the clock. I ended up driving it twice. The engine felt good, but the suspension and brakes felt pretty spongy, and it had manual locking front hubs. The black one, even with 240k, felt much better in every way, plus it had auto locking hubs.

Being prepared to buy a truck on this trip, I had cash, which I thought would really help with haggling. As it turns out, this little dealership wasn't super thrilled about it. Maybe it was because I offered them 25% less than asking? When I made the offer, the salesman had to go talk to the owner about it. I'm pretty sure he was gone for 30-40 minutes. When he came back, he told me they would accept my offer. Fantastic.

Paperwork and payment and all that behind me, I drove the truck back to my sisters place to get ready to drive 2500 mi back to Minnesota in a 20 year old truck I just bought, which has 240k miles on it. Nothing like an adventure. The plan was to head south, as far as I could stomach, and then find our way back to MN on some roads yet to be determined. We would be dispersed camping the whole way.

We ended up leaving that night, but we didn't really make it far, only to Vancouver, WA. Really, we just wanted to reduce the next days drive. The next morning we got up pretty early and headed into Portland to find brunch village. I'm not sure if we found it, but we did find an alley full of food trucks, one of which had breakfast burritos the size of a small child. From there we headed south toward Crater Lake. It only took a few hours to get there, but I didn't even take picture there, because there were forest fires pretty close, so you couldn't see anything. Determined not to suffocate in my sleep, we continued south for some time. I have no idea where we were, but we pulled off on some forestry road and found a little pull off and set up camp.



In the morning, we cooked up some breakfast burritos and we were off.



We head down into California, through Avenue of the Giants, which I have pictures of somewhere. We kept driving, and ended up in Sacramento by around lunch time. Being a bit worried about being able to get home on time, I decided that it would be a good time to start heading home. We were pretty far south, and I thought it would take a good 5 days to get back. So, we started northeast across Cali via I80. Somewhere East of Reno we stopped for the night.



The next morning we headed out, through Nevada, up into Salt Lake City. While there we stopped at Trader Joe's to stock up on burrito fixin's. While waiting in line to pay, my buddy realized he forgot to grab something, and kind of quietly exclaimed, "shit!" to himself. Now, I've never been to SLC, but I love that punk movie about it, and the reaction of pretty much everyone in the store, took me aback. I swear to you, every single person in the store turned to the both of us and just scowled. It may have been the most uncomfortable I have ever been. We bought our beans and vegetarian chorizo, and were on our way.

Again, I have pictures somewhere, but the location eludes me, but man the salt flats were something to behold. I mean, I've read a lot about them, and watch the top speed trials, but I'm still just amazed at their expansiveness. It really is incredible.

That night we were able to make it just into Wyoming. We found these bluffs overlooking a small town and a set of rail tracks. That night was a real treat, one I wouldn't understand the rarity of for some time. Off in the distance, as the sun was setting, two wild horses ran across the crest of the bluff immediately adjacent to us. It was pretty neat.



The next day we headed north through the Tetons and into Yellowstone. One of my favorite things about Yellowstone is Beartooth Pass. We head up and around the north side and out through the East gate. Every time I make that drive, I find more things to be amazed with. I'm really in love with mountains. It probably has to do with the fact that I grew up in a part of the country that doesn't have them. Once through the pass, we hopped on I90 and toward the Black Hills. We made it as far as Deadwood and decided to try to find camp. We did, next to a tiny pond, and made up some dinner burritos.



From this point on, the trip was pretty mundane. We made out way up to Dickinson, ND to hang out with a buddy I don't get to see very often. The next day we jumped on 94 and casually cruised into St. Paul.

All in all, the truck performed amazingly. The only issue I had was that it couldn't maintain speed through some of the passes and steeper inclines, although, that's to be expected from a 2.7 with 240k.

Thanks for reading.

 

First thing I did after getting back was sort out the bald tires. I picked up a set of Diamond Racing steel wheels in 15x8 and some 31x10.5r15 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx. At this point, I've put about 30,000 mi on these, and they have been great.

I also picked up a set of Cooper Discoverer M+S, also in a 31x10.5r15 and put them on the stock Tacoma wheels. I put about 1000 mi on in the winter. I kind of regret buying these, because I don't plan to drive this truck in the winter. If you are not aware, winter in Minnesota is the number one killer of cool cars.

Next up was some new shocks, as mine were quite blown. I opted for the Bilstein 5100. Being new to Tacoma's and not being 100% sure what I wanted out of the truck, I thought they were a good compromise. They also allow for leveling the front end with the adjustable front lower spring perches. What I didn't know at the time, and have yet to address is the infamous Taco lean. That will be sorted.

Now that I was set for tires and new shocks, I wanted to plan my first offroad trip. I had heard from some local guys about a Border-2-Border offroad route that was being developed across Northern Minnesota, from the Canadian border at the North-East to the North Daktoa/Canada border at the North-West. Now, I know this is nowhere near the excitement or level of some of the trips on here, but being my first, I was pretty excited to start outfitting for camping. Here is the route I was planning to take. I used Gaia.



There were a number of places I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get through, so I made sure to find alternate routes, and I also downloaded all of the maps around my route, just in case.



First, the RTT. I found a Yakima Skyrise on a local forum for a few hundred bucks. Once home, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, because summer was running out, so I tossed together a really, really basic rack for the tent.





I picked up some other bits and bobs as precaution; Traction boards, manual infinite rope come-along, gas and water tanks, some additional tools, and a few spares. I also borrowed a Garmin InReach Mini from a friend, partially for safety and partially so my friends could follow my progress. As it turns out, it was pretty rad to have, and my friends really enjoyed it.



As you can see from the tracker, I didn't actually go all the way to the NoDak/Canada border, because it was 100% farm fields from Thief River Falls, MN to the end of the route. That's not totally true, as they did switch to county ROADs shortly about half way between TRF and the border, but I wasn't really interested in on-road driving for half a day just to say I made it to the border.

The front half of the trip, however, was AMAZING!

I started out driving from the cities to Duluth, MN, where I needed to stop off and grab an OHV trail registration. I have a few friends that live in Duluth, so I called my buddy Devan to see if he wanted to grab lunch before I headed out. Turns out, not only did he want to grab lunch, but he was really interested in tagging along. We stopped off at his house, and while he packed up, I made some room in the truck. I've known Devan for a long time, through a local car club, and I knew he would be great entertainment on this trip.

The official route starts just outside of Grand Marais, MN, but that's still 50 miles from the border. Plus, there was a hike I was really interested in doing to a waterfall on the Pigeon River, so we pushed on into Grand Portage, MN. That was last pavement we'd see for some time. Our first stop was Old Hwy. 61, which was the original road into Canada along the North Shore of Minnesota from 1926 until 1991, when they established the new route.











I thought it was pretty cool that from the Minnesota side on the Pigeon River on Old 61 you could see straight across to where the road used to go through on the Canadian side. There were some pretty sweet little cabins in view on the Canadian side, while there was literally nothing around us on the Minnesota side. It was also pretty neat to find the little survey marker.

We headed off toward the hike to the Partridge Falls. It wasn't too far of a drive, just a couple hours. The hike turned out to be considerably shorter and easier than I was expecting. Not a big deal, as we were running a bit late after picking up my buddy. But, it was totally worth the trip. Just on the other side is Canada!



Fun side story; Later in the year, pre-COVID, another friend and I took a drive up to Thunder Bay for snacks, and hiked to the opposite side from this picture.

As we pushed through, we saw some sites I had never experienced in Minnesota. It was just about dusk and I wanted to make it out to this clearing where a couple of forestry roads merged to stay for the night. As we passed this bog area where an old cabin was being swallowed by the water, Devan shouted, "Was that a moose?!" I jammed on the brakes and backed up to the bog. He immediately jumper out, which seemed like a terrible idea, since meese aren't particularly friendly. I stayed back and snapped this very high quality photo of a moose cow. Girl moose? I don't know.



The next day we set off with a pretty steady rain all day. I didn't grab a lot of photos from the rest of the trip, because I was trying to focus on the experience. Here are just a few from day two.





Devan is a bit of a forager, so he wanted to stop at every potential for chantrels.





We stopped pretty close to here for night two. I believe it was called Elixer Lake. With all the rain and being near a lake, this was one of the buggiest nights of the trip.



I don't have a lot of pictures from day three, at all. It was almost exclusively OHV trails that were narrow and at points really steep and rocky. The trails from day 2 were really winding gravel forestry roads, but that was definitely not the case for day 3. However, we tried to push through some miles on day 3, so that we could camp near The Lost 40. We made it there around 10-11 pm, and searched for a good camping spot. Everything was either buggy, explicitly said no camping, or was the parking lot for The Lost 40. We ultimately decided that the parking lot was the best option.

We woke up early on day 4 and prepped some breakfast burritos before our hike.



I had heard about The Lost 40 a few years ago and had been trying to get a group to go for a while. Most of my friends aren't really into camping/outdoors, so my suggestions were usually met with "eh" or "maybe". I'll let you read the story of The Lost 40 from the placard below.





This was an excellent hike. 40 acres isn't much, so it didn't take long. At the back of the acreage there is a stream. As we were standing there taking in the view and the story, we saw a beaver swimming on his way to work. We stayed really still and he just paddled right on past us. It was really cool.

When we started on our way for the day, we had to take detour into town for an iPhone charger. I had no idea it would be almost impossible to find out here, but we had to stop at 3 different tiny stores before we did.



Once we pulled out of town and back onto the trails, it was pretty much back to gravel forestry roads. We did find some cool maintenance equipment, and made a few wrong turns, but we made our way.



Toward the end of day 4 we found these amazing Tamarack swamps in the Red Lake Peatlands. It was really interesting to see these huge straight trenches dug out for MILES and MILES and MILES, in crisscross patterns. Later I read into it quite a bit more. In 1905 a large-scale effort to drain the swamps to create more viable farmland in the area. The efforts were abandoned and considered a failure by 1926, but not without having done an enormous amount of damage to the wildlife in the area. Here is a link to more info, if this type of thing is interesting to you. https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/mcbs/peatland_poster

After the Peatlands we found ourselves moving into farmland, which is really boring to take pictures of. So, with that, here are just a couple pics to wrap up the trip.





This trip really cemented what I want to do, not only with this truck, but in my free time. I found so much more than I expected right in my backyard, so I can't wait to see what else I can find.

 

Shortly after this trip I got a new shop. I had to move some of my stuff over there, which the truck was perfect for. I had installed a trailer hitch before the trip as well, and I have a small 4x8 trailer, which move about 95% of my stuff. I had to get my motorcycles over to the shop as well. I borrowed a motorcycle receiver mount to try.



This wasn't a great fit for the Tacoma. After I loaded it up, my truck was about to do a wheelie. I didn't drive like this, but I did snap a picture for posterity.

 

Next up, Disaster!

I moved into a new house at the beginning of November, and we were having the hardwood floors redone right away, before furniture was permanently setup. I decided that since we needed to be out of the house for a week, and it was getting cold out, that I was going to head south to get one last round of camping in the tent for the year.

The plan was to leave early in the morning and drive straight through to Galveston, TX to camp out on the beach. From there I was hoping to head South to the Mexican border. I'd bring my passport, just in case I wanted to go farther. Ideally, I'd just camp on the beach for a few days and then stop at my mom's house in St. Louis for a couple days before heading home.

Well, I didn't leave as early as I wanted to on the departure day, but I wasn't on a schedule, so it didn't really matter. I made it through Minnesota no problem and into Iowa. It was starting to get dark, so I was hoping to get to the Iowa/Missouri border before finding a spot to camp. I was just about to Iowa City when I hit some traffic heading to some college football homecoming game. Sorry, I couldn't care less about football. Shortly after the Iowa City exits the traffic cleared and I was able to get back up to 75 mph.

Within about 1 mile of clearing traffic, I set the cruise and settled in. Just then I saw a quick brown blur go from left to right. BANG! Having grown up in the midwest, I knew that deer was done for. I shut off the engine and coasted to a stop, which was luckily at the last exit for Iowa City. I've never hit a deer, but I have seen many, many, many deer hits. I thought for sure that my truck was done. The coolant light came on and I could hear scraping as I coasted, and the passenger headlight appeared to have exploded on impact.

So, when I got out to inspect, I was (pleasantly?) surprised.



Unfortunately, coolant was leaking everywhere. I got under the truck and found that the bottom of the radiator was smashed into the crank pulley and the end tank was shattered. I called the police to get a report for insurance purposes, and they were on scene within a few minutes. I was just trying to figure out what I should do with my truck; have it towed into town and get a hotel, rent a dolly a drive it back home, sign up for AAA?

Ultimately, I didn't want my truck to stay in Iowa City, because it's a good 7-8 hours from home, and I didn't want to have to drive back down to get it after it was fixed/totalled. So, I was able to work with Uhaul to rent a box truck and dolly one way.







At least I got a souvenir?

I got home around 3am, to a house I couldn't go into because of the floors. So, I carried on to my new shop and made up camp.



I actually ended up staying in my shop until the floors were finished. It was a little cold, but I was prepared. Look at this cozy spot.



I got a better look in the morning (afternoon), but I didn't want to take anything apart until insurance was able to look at it.















The real issue that is hard to see from these pictures is that the inner fender and riser on the passenger side is folded over itself like a taco. No pun. And the radiator support is obviously no good.

Luckily, insurance declared the truck totaled and offered me jack-s*** for it. As you may have noticed throughout the pictures, I have a few cars, so I wasn't in a huge rush to take the offer the insurance company presented. Now, since I bought the truck out in Seattle only the year before, I sent them a LONG list of comparables from that area. They said that comps had to be local to me, and they made another similar offer. At that point I kindly told them to pound sand, and I decided to play the waiting game. Every time they called me, they offered me just a little more for the truck.

If you recall, this took place in November, and it wasn't until March that they finally offered me enough for the truck that I felt good about it. I promptly bought the truck back and started taking it apart to determine just what I needed to fix it.

Out of highschool I did body work at a GM and VW dealer for a few years, so I knew enough not to be intimidated by this work. Kind in mind, I am not a body guy, so anything I did through this process was a mix of what I'd learned at the bodyshop and years of just generally working on/building cars.

 

Once I got everything sorted out with insurance I was able to start tearing down the truck to find out the extent of the damage.











Until I started tearing this down, I had no idea that the front bumper was essentially made of cheese. The chrome bits are just for show. Silly. Well, that won't be what goes back on, so no problem.

What I did find was that the frame rails were still straight, which is a huge plus. However, the inner fender and riser were destroyed, as well as the intake box, radiator, condenser, headlight, washer bottle, and the fender was pretty bent. BUT, and this is huge, the front end wasn't swung over at all. The driver side fender and door still matched up perfectly, and so did the fender and the hood.

Initially, I spent a good amount of time trying to find a rust-free front clip from a salvage yard, since I needed so many front end parts, but they either didn't want to ship to me, or just wouldn't call back. So, I spent even more time on the phone with Toyota dealers trying to find the most current part numbers for the sheetmetal I needed. Even when I did, finally, they still weren't exact. Either way, I was able to get the inner fender and riser brand new from Toyota. I could have, and should have, gotten the radiator support from Toyota too, but it was almost three times the price of the Keystone. The Keystone was ok, at best. You could tell that the dies were old, because they were tearing holes rather than cutting them, and some holes were mis-shappen.

First step is to cut the busted parts off.





The radiator support was super easy to remove. The inner fender, however, was kind of a pain. Mainly I had issues where the riser met up with the door jamb/cowl/firewall. There were just a lot of layers stacked and intertwined. I did finally get it, though.

The next thing you should do, before welding in new parts, is test fit to make sure everything will be square and level.



Not too bad. Everything fit up pretty dang well. I had to do a little messing with the driver inner fender, since the battery sits there and is kind of heavy hanging out on unsupported floppy sheetmetal. The only part I was a little concerned with was how worn the body mounts might be, so I took the time before I welded anything to replace the body mounts with some PowerFlex Poly mounts. I was a little worried those might be squeaky, but I've got a few miles on them now, and I honestly can't tell the difference.

Now it's time to final fit, weld, and prime the new parts.







I decided to go with a full aluminum radiator for one main reason. This truck will be getting a VW tdi swap, and I wanted to make sure I could easily modify the radiator to suit the needs of the swap. Every bit of getting this radiator was a nightmare. The first two showed up damaged and had to be sent back. This one was the least damaged, so I just fixed it and moved on with my life.

Now that I know everything still fits and bolts in, it's time to sand, sand, sand, scuff, wipe with lacquer and paint.



All in all, it turned out pretty good. While I was in there cutting stuff up and drilling holes, I also installed a set of hood struts, because prop rods are for the birds.

I decided at this point, that I was going to straighten the fender the best I could for the time being. The reason is, the paint on my truck is not great. It was resprayed at some point and the clear has checking in it, likely from laying clear before the base flashed. I didn't want to get a new fender and have really nice paint only on that one panel. So, for the foreseeable future, there with be some jankyness with the passenger fender.

BUT, I installed the OG headlights from when I bought the truck and the grill, and took it for the first drive in over six months. It really felt good. Still no front bumper, but I still got to drive it.



I did end up spending a fair amount of time wet sanding and polishing the original headlights afterward. They turned out alright. I'll probably still pick up something better again, because the light output is pretty garbage on the OE headlights.

 

The aesthetics of the front bumper have become important to me. I looked at SOOOO many different bumpers. I liked bits and pieces of one, but really disliked something else about it, and liked another feature from another. Then I started looking at the prices. Those were pretty spendy, but doable. Until I got to the checkout and had to look at shipping. Alright, I'll be building one.

We have a Faro 3D scanner at work, so my plan was to drive it to work and get a high density scan of the front of the truck. Import the scan into Inventor and design my own bumper. Then I found Coastal Offroad. They offer a build it yourself kit for a fair price and really reasonable shipping. So, that's what I did. The looks and features were close enough, and since I was going to be building it myself, I could always add or remove what I wanted.

I should really start taking more pictures of the whole process. I just get so caught up in the excitement of new parts and just jump into the process.

Here it is about 50% complete.







My shop tends to explode as I'm working on a project. I have to take scheduled breaks to clean up and start making a new mess. In the middle of the project I started having issues with my old 110v Lincoln wire feed welder keeping up. As I was full welding the weld quality would drop off and the machine would force me to a lower duty-cycle. So, I decide to pick a new blue machine. I opted for the Multimatic 220 ac/dc. This machine should be more than capable of making me the limiting factor in the quality of my projects.

Anyway, with the new toy sizzling away, I wrapped up the full welding, grinding, and got it self etching primer.



I also took the time to open up the light holes for some surface mount lights. I think they fit the bumper pretty well. Once I was good with the initial mods, again I got to sanding, scuffing, and lacquer wiping.



It turned out pretty well. Being the first bumper "build", I definitely learned some things. Primarily, that I would do it differently had I designed it. Next time. For now, this is a perfect bumper to get the adventure going.

I don't have any pictures of it, but I also modified the frame rails for this. Originally, it just calls for you to bolt the bumper through the frame rails, but I didn't think that was strong enough, so I pocketed each rail where the bolt goes through to add approximately 9000 more strength. I would recommend that modification to anyone adding a winch bumper to a Tacoma.





I haven't received my winch yet, but I'll grab some pictures once that is installed as well. I don't really know about winches, but Warn was expensive, so I ordered a Smittybilt XRC Gen3 9.5k with the synthetic rope. On my last trip I stopped at a weigh station and I was about 6300 lbs loaded, so I assumed the old 1.5x truck weight would work out just fine.

There are a few little things I still need to address.
1. The intake is currently a piece of window screen zip-tied to the AFM. I'll just built a little aluminum dongle that I can put a cone filter on.
2. The skid plate that damaged way beyond repair, and it would look out of place with the new bumper. I'm planning to fab up my own front skid for sure, maybe more if I dare. We'll see how that goes.
3. I really want to run a dual battery setup. With the winch and the aforementioned tdi swap, I think it would be smart to start planning for that now. I'm having a bit of trouble navigating the battery isolator systems and how/why they need the alternator energizing signal. I don't know. I really want a system that I don't have to have switches for. Isolate on ignition off, charge both on startup.

 

The astute among you may have noticed the little black VW golf turd in several pictures.



Well, it's not just there for its looks. It's there because it's a 1999 golf tdi AUTOMATIC. That part is kind of key. See, the mk4 jetta/golf tdi was equipped with what is known as an ALH. This is simply the engine code for the 1.9 mechanical injection tdi. What's special about the automatic is that the injection pump size was increased from a 10mm piston to an 11mm piston. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but I do know that more bigger is more better. In this case, it's means more fuel. So, when upgrading to larger turbos and injectors, the pump is capable of more power.

As handsome as she is, I didn't want it in my shop for any longer than necessary. So, engine comes out.





And if you haven't been able to tell from the various angles of pictures in the shop, I have too many projects.



I do love them all equally, though. (Not really, the E30s are better)

With the engine out, I also wanted to take the entire wiring harness, so I could have everything I needed to mate the VW to the Toyota. Obviously, it had to be pinned to the wall like a body world exhibit.





One by one, I removed only the parts I knew I would be using.



At this point, there were a few relays I wasn't sure how were triggered, and a few loose ends (ha) to tie up. I don't have pictures on the harness out on the table and all the test equipment, but you can probably guess. At the end, I was left with a harness that required constant power, ignition power and ground, and a few wires for gauges in the cluster. I still need to sort out how I'm going to get the cruise working, but that's pretty minor. I boxed everything up so it's ready when I am to start on the swap.

At the moment I'm just researching what I'll need, and planning how I'm going to do it, and then collecting parts.

 

Awesome build I’m hoping to pick up a 1st gen this weekend. Nice work on the bumper and the engine swap is going to be pretty cool to follow

 

I got my winch this weekend and got it installed.

Apparently, so says my neighbor, that I broke the UPS guy. I guess one truck showed up, and was parked outside with flashers on for like 15 minutes. He finally drove away. Like an hour later another UPS truck showed up. He had my winch on a dolly and my neighbor showed him where to put it. My neighbor asked what was up with the first truck sitting there for like 15 minutes, and the UPS guy said that he tried to lift the winch out of the truck and threw his back out. Sorry UPS guy.



I initially just set it in place and found that I had to trim the passenger side of the bumper about an inch on the top to fit the motor side of the winch. No big deal. Trimmed it up and tossed a little paint on. Now it sits great. I really like how tucked back and in the winch sits on this bumper. That being said, there was no way I was going to be able to keep the control box on top of it. So, I made a mount that sits just on the other side of the firewall by the intake, next to the radiator.

Don't laugh, but my aluminum welding needs some work. It does hold the box really steady, though.





When I ran the larger cables through the firewall, I drilled 3x 1in holes and used rubber grommets to make sure the wires wouldn't chaff on the metal.

With the winch and control box mounted, all I had to do was trim the front grill to fit. I was a little aggressive on the trimming, but I was in a little bit of a hurry and this grill was damaged when I hit the deer so I'll trim a new one much nicer.





There we go. Bumper and winch complete. For now.

I also ordered a later 4runner headlight switch with fog lights. I wanted a really OEM looking solution for the bumper lights. I'll do a little write-up when I do that installation as well.

 

I have been working on another project as well. Immediately when I bought my Tacoma I hated the seats. I did a lot of research about seats that fit, but I wasn't super excited about any of the options. Also, being into Volkswagens, I've been sitting on a set of Recaros from a VW Corrado for several years. No pun. They are in really great shape, not that it will end up mattering in the end.

I started to take pictures when I started this project, but I got so frustrated building them, that I just forgot. Initially, I finished the passenger seat, and with no cushions on it looked great. I tossed the back on and installed the cushions. Still looked good. I jumped in the truck and was met with my head nearly touching the roof. Crap.

So, I had to cut all of my work back apart and I ended up lower the seat another 4 inches almost. I physically can not go any lower, or the sliders and seat pan with be trying to occupy the same space.

Anyhow, here they are actually finished and installed in the truck.





I'm really pleased with the height now, and the bolstering is just about perfect. I found the 4runner center console and mounting brackets at a self-pick yard locally. It's in great shape, just not the right color. I check every time I go to the pull yard, but I haven't come across one in the right color yet. Worst case, I'll paint it to match until I do find one.

I'm also going to have a buddy that does upholstery for a living redo the seats. The original seats were grey 60/40 cloth. I really like the pattern, so I want to have the seat centers done in the OEM grey cloth pattern and the bolsters in grey leather. I'll also have him do the center console lid in grey leather to match and minimize wear.

All in all, this was an excellent upgrade, and worth the time and effort.

Also, on my first outing with these new upgrades, I came across a donkey in the woods of Northern Minnesota. I'm 90% sure donkeys aren't native to Minnesota, but I didn't grow up here, so I'm not sure.

 

A few weekends ago my friend texted me on Saturday to ask if I wanted to hit some trails Sunday. I was in the middle of a timing chain job on an Audi B7 S4, but we ran into a snag with one of the new cam adjuster gears being bent, so my Sunday had just freed up.

Pic of S4 timing chains for a sympathy. (Note that to do timing chains on this car, step one is to remove the engine...)



The plan was to leave the cities around 11:00am or so, stop for lunch, and be at the trail head around 1:30pm. We were heading to Nemadji State Forest, just South of Duluth, MN. I had never been there before, but I hear people talk about it often enough. Most of the routes within Nemadji aren't marked for OHV use, but primarily ATV class 1 and 2, which is anything <50" wide, aka not trucks. This leaves us to exploring mostly minimal maintenance forestry roads. We did find a little water feature to dick around in for a while.





The fall colors were really great. It's not quite peak, but close. I also got to use my winch for the first time, pulling that white F150 out of the mud, so that was fun. On our way back to the main trail from the water hole we found my alternator light started to flicker, and eventually just stayed illuminated. I have a little volt meter on a USB charger, and I noticed it was at about 12.7V. We stopped and I cleaned up the battery terminals and the plug on the alternator, but I didn't have much else with me to help fix or repair the alternator. So, the plan became drive until my voltage was at about 11.7V, then swap batteries with the Xterra behind me until that battery voltage slipped below 11.7V, then swap back. We only had to swap twice, with headlights on during a 2 hour drive back to the cities in the rain. Ha. Luckily, I think was really helped is that I'm running an Exide AGM deep cycle battery. Given my line of work, I know that that particular battery has one of the highest charge-densities available in a standard lead-acid automotive battery.

Once home I was able to snag a new alternator on Monday. I got the truck back to my shop and threw the new one in without my fanfare. Annoyingly, on the way to the shop the alternator began working again intermittently. By the time I had made it to the shop, the alternator was charging again no problem. So, when I pulled it out, it was sooooo grimy. It's possible that it could be original, or at very least, really old. I pulled it apart and grab some numbers to get a new set of brushes and bearings. It will make a good trail spare.

I mapped out Nemadji and where we could go on Gaia. I'm planning to head up there again this weekend to do some camping and a bit more exploring. Should be fun.



I also have some clunking in my front suspension when moving through a larger range of motion. I haven't done lower ball joints yet, nor have I done upper ball joints, so I figured I'd take care of that this winter while I'm not driving the truck. It would also be a good time to do control arm bushings. I found replacements for the lower, but the uppers I was only able to find poly replacements, which requires a bit of nonsense with removing all the rubber from the original metal liner sleeve. Seems tedious and a bit janky, honestly. So, I decided to just go for aftermarket UCAs. I've opted to go with AllPro arms. I like that I can get replacement parts really easily. I also ordered some front end reinforcements; spindle gussets and upper control arm braces, as well as a rear u-bolt flip kit. I found that Whiteline makes a lower control bushing kit and a steering rack bushing kit, so I snagged those too. I've used Whiteline on a few of my previous cars and I've always had good luck. While I have the front end all apart I figured I would also replace the wheel bearings too.

When the UCAs showed up I took everything out of the box and began to play with it like a little kid. While assembling my new Legos I found that one of the upper spindle adapters that came with the kit looked funny.



I'm guessing they just fly through a bunch of these with a CNC machine and one just barely ran out of material before finishing the part. I gave them a call and sent over this picture, we had a chuckle about it, and they've already got one on the way. Really easy to work with for sure. I'm not planning to install until the snow flies, so having to wait a few days for a replacement wasn't an issue for me.

I'll put together another update when I install all my new wares. I was considering upgrading the brakes to the Tundra calipers and rotors. They're not that much bigger and I would have to move up to a 16in wheel, which is fine. I was actually eyeing up the FN Five Stars anyway. Does anyone have any opinions one way or the other on the Tundra brake upgrade? I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, and sorry about the lack of pics in this update.

 

So many people love the tundra upgrade it’s hard to say no to. Now the thing to know is the feel of the pedal has different feedback between guys with the double diaphragm booster and the 1” mc and the single diaphragm booster and the 13/16 mc. The first setup is more often said to have a spongy pedal after the tundra upgrade and is found on all 95-00 trucks and 01-04 non-ABS trucks. The second setup is meant to have a better pedal feel and is found on 01-04 ABS trucks. I didn’t even bother with experimenting with the dual booster setup in my truck and have a pedal, booster, and mc out of an 01 to go with. The older pedal won’t work without making an adapter plate to mate up with the single diaphragm booster. It was easier for me to just get the matching pedal after a couple prototypes that I wasn’t happy with.

 

I don't have a truck update, because I live in Minnesota where they turn the roads into salt-licks in the winter and so I put my truck away unless I need it. I did just drive out to Seattle from Minnesota to visit my sister for Christmas and decided to do a little exploring while I'm here. It's not quite the Tacoma, but it does have aluminums skids on it, which I definitely used today.



This is the Steel High Bridge just north of Shelton, WA over the Skokomish River. It was originally constructed in 1929 as a rail bridge for the logging industry, but was converted use auto use in 1964 due to logging moving primarily to the use of trucking. It spans 685 ft and sits 375 ft above the river. That's roughly a 30 story building! I'm not scared of heights, but when I first walked onto the bridge it was disorienting. After spending a little time taking in the views that feeling slipped away. I was hoping to do some exploring in the area, but there were signs posted all over to avoid doing exactly that. Usually I take those signs with a grain of salt, but I had zero cell service and I was alone, so I didn't feel like the risk was worth it today. I did a bit more reading when I got home about it and as it turns out that area, along with the Vance Creek Viaduct, actually responsible for dozens of injuries and Search and Rescue efforts each year and at least one death per year. I'm really not surprised, given the amount of traffic I saw to and from the area and how steep and slippery it was.

 

Things I've learned about myself in the last two years:
1. I don't like bears.
2. The thought of bears makes sleeping in a tent too stressful.

So, a camper shell and platform bed I shall build. Now, I've never had a platform bed, and I wasn't sure I'd like having it, nor did I have any idea how I was going to build it. Knowing that I though it would be wise to buy a used topper as cheaply as possible. Since it was winter when I started looking I had time, but I didn't realize how hard it would be to find what I wanted for a 23 year old truck. I was really hoping to find an ARE MX with sliding front window and sliding windoors. I wasn't too worried about the carpet lining, because I think I could add that later. These things should be everywhere for pennies, right? Right!? lol. After a couple of months I decided I'd lower my standards, which ended up dropping even farther pretty quickly. Finally I found one. Standard height, no sliding front window, not windoors, really poorly spray painted black, but at least the guy assured me that it came off of a 1st gen xtra cab! Plus, it was only $200!



It was a pretty long drive to get this thing, I mean, like an hour and a half each way. I got there after dark, but I brought flashlights so it would be fine. To be fair, it totally was fine, except one thing I noticed after we set it on...



Yup, definitely not for an extra cab. Oh well, I'll build out the platform bed and test camping in a topper compared to a tent. Not mad, just annoyed. I went through the whole toper and replaced all of the hardware and screens. I also got these super low-profile clamps to make sure I didn't have obstructions for the platform bed.

The process of building the side cabinets was 100% trial and error. Luckily, it ended up with very little error, as I tried to cut small and open it up as I went along. The only hard numbers I had were the bed length and the mattress width. I really wanted to go with the Exped Megamat Duo based on the glowing reviews by turbodb. The only problem I ran into with that is the ability to get camping gear during the pandemic has been super easy... For the time being I found a mattress company in Michigan that made a custom dual density foam mattress to my exact dimensions for like $200.



























Woof. In the middle of the build I decided that I wanted to have power and charging and lighting back here too. So I added quite a bit of safety and work for myself, but with the way I have it wired up I can turn power to the bed on and off from the rear or up at the front of the bed, same with the lights. This was I can have the lights on as I'm getting things ready for bed or cooking or whatever, and then easily turn the lights off after I'm all cozy in the back. All in all, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.







Oh yeah, I also bought a 3/16" plate of aluminum and made a nice tailgate plate.



The last part of the camper build is to add the house battery up front. I ran all of the cabling front to back, and I have a Blue Sea Systems battery isolation setup, but I have a few things to move around under the hood before I can place the second battery where I want it.

 

The very next trip was a ton of fun, but I learned a few more things...
1. A standard height topper isn't going to cut it.
2. I'm really tired of getting my dash all muddy with the windows down.

To rectify the first I started looking for a mid or high topper. I think it was the first week of looking I found one local for $75!!!!! It's still missing the front slider and windoors, but I think I'll keep my eyes peeled and find a cheap topper with those and just swap them into mine.



I had been planning a roof rack, but this new high topper barely fits into my garage, so it's out. Here's what I was thinking, though...



Now to address the muddy dash. I had been looking for OEM flares from a new truck, but they're hard to find in nice shape and they tend to be a bit spendy. I ended up taking a chance on the slightly wider than stock Bushwhacker flares. Man, I'm glad I did, because they fit and look so perfect.







Then I decided to try them out. This was an actual trail last time I was up here, but the beavers have been hard at work and washed the whole thing out. It was way easier than I thought, so the video is kinda boring.

 

Do you have a model/ part number for the flares?

 

Yeah, they are

$343 Bushwacker 31911-11 | Fits 1995-2004 Toyota Tacoma 4WD w/ 6.2' Bed

Bushwacker 31911-11. They fit so well, I was impressed.

 

I've had a few adventures since my last post, and made a few changes.

I had found some info about Backcountry Discovery Routes somewhere here, I think. I did a bit more digging and the routes look amazing, and an easy introduction to mapping and planning trips to parts of the country I haven't been before. I ended up mapping a bunch of them in Gaia.



This looks daunting, but I'll hit them all, but I started with the Colorado BDR.



The COBDR in standard form is just over 700 mi from Four Corners at the Southwest corner of the state to North central Colorado just North of Steamboat Lake Wilderness Area. Very few miles were on pavement through the entire route, maybe 30-40 mi, and that was just to connect from one trail to the other.

Before setting off on a 9 day trip through the mountains of Colorado, having only a small idea of what to expect, I thought I should do a little prep work. The first thing I did was order up a Garmin inReach Mini. I borrowed one from a friend when I did the MN Border2Border route and it worked well. I was able to leave breadcrumbs so friends and family could follow along and worry less knowing I was on the move. The second thing was to address that fact that my skid plate and mounts had been destroyed by the deer hit and I never got around to getting a new one. Like the bumper I decided to make one. Give me a little slack as I don't have a lot of experience fabricating/welding aluminum and I've never built a skid plate. I still haven't learned my lesson and have minimal/zero pictures during the process, but have a few of the after. That being said, I plan to add quite a bit to this plate as well as adding a mid-skid and a bit of transfer case protection, so there will be more.









This is actually after the CO trip, so it did take a few pretty good hits, and it held up really well. My goal was to make it strong, light(ish), keep water out of the bay, and with minimal points to hang up on obstacles. I think it turned out how I planned, but I do need to paint it black. The raw aluminum really sticks out like a sore thumb.

On to the COBDR! While I didn't take a ton of pictures, I did film the entire trip via dashcam. I'm not entirely sure how to present that at this point, but I'll try to piece something together. In the mean time, here are some of the pictures and story for the trip.

We got a later start on Saturday than I would have liked, leaving at around 10am. We kind of just booked it south through Minnesota and Iowa, then turned West on I80 and into the exciting state of Nebraska. We got about half way through Nebraska before it started getting dark and decided to stop at this little wildlife management area I had found not too far of I80 just before Lexington. One of the "rules" I had for this trip was, No driving at night. I wanted to hold to this rule, because the last time I tried to drive through the night to get to a camping spot I ended up with a frontend full of venison.



This site was nothing fancy, but it was pretty quiet. As would become a theme for this trip we got rained on pretty decently overnight, at which point I learned that the front glass of my topper leaked and if I wasn't careful with my pillows my face got pretty wet. From Lexington, Nebraska I wanted to get as far through Wyoming as we could on Sunday and maybe even start South into Utah. Ultimately, my 280,000mi 4 banger Tacoma wasn't a huge fan of the 6+ thousand foot elevation of much of Wyoming, and wasn't keen on holding freeway speeds. This didn't keep us from getting through Wyoming on Sunday, we just didn't make good enough time to start into Utah. Sunday night we camping at a spot you may recognize from my trip home from picking up the Tacoma. There is a bit of BLM land just North of Green River, WY up on the bluffs overlooking the town, and I was more than happy to stay here again. If you haven't been to Wyoming, do yourself a favor and go.





And here you can see my little buddy and his 5th gen T4R.



Monday was one of those days where you expect one thing, based on pictures and the internet, and you are taken aback in real life. I had seen so many pictures and videos over the years of Utah, but it was so much better in person. The colors and the scale was just something that the Midwest doesn't offer. I've obviously driven across the country and through the mountains, but Utah is just different. We headed south into Utah pretty far East of Salt Lake City and snaked our way down through Canyonlands and Moab. Moab was a little bit of what I expected and a little not what I expected. I expected there to be tons of people acting like jerks on UTVs in the desert, which was true. Moab was so tourist-centric I felt bad for the people that live in that area and moreso for the land in that area. What I was wrong about was the landscape of Moab. It is the desert, but not flat and far-reaching, Moab was almost in a boxed canyon, with bright red sandstone walls.

We didn't stop in Moab or Canyonlands as we didn't really have time, patience, or permits. As we continued South Utah only got more impressive, with buttes/mesas and canyons for hours. As we got closer to Four Corners I knew that we didn't have much for planned options for camping, but we didn't have a ton of daylight left, so we stopped for gas and for me to look through my Gaia maps to find an interesting camping spot. I found this amazing spot just outside of Bluff, UT in Snake Canyon that I had mapped out for the Utah BDR and it wasn't far off our route to Four Corners, so we took the detour and set up camp. We were not disappointed.



This was one of the best camping spots we'd have all trip. The view went on forever in either direction, and there wasn't another soul around us. This also really got me amped up to plan our trip on the Utah BDR. The next morning we head out and tried to beat any crowds to Four Corners. If you don't know, the four states are Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. I'm not really a gimicky guy, so I didn't need to sit on the corners for a picture. I did, however, buy a shirt to support the local economy and I am oddly wearing it as I type this 6 months in the future.





From here we are officially on the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. The first time our tires would hit the dirt was just outside of Dolores, CO in San Juan National Forest. It started out easy, just is little dirt path through the woods. Something I had never come across before, which I will learn is very common, was a gate across the trail meant to keep cows in. Ha. We crossed several gates as we made our way through this relatively mild section and on to more fun gravel two-track that eventually put us on this nice little outlook at about 11,006 ft. The peak on the left is called Groundhog Mountain (12126 ft) and the peak on the right is called Lone Cone (12585 ft).



This was our first taste of actual mountains on the trip and I was super excited. As we moved on it was still just some nice gravel roads and switchbacks and a small bit of pavement that would connect us to the road that brought us into Ophir, CO. Now, before this trip, nor during, had I done much research into the various passes and trails through Colorado. I now know that when we passed by Telluride we were near one of the most iconic passes in the country, and had I known, I totally would have made time for Black Bear Pass and Imogene Pass. In our future, though, was Ophir Pass, and it was amazing.







This was just a little switchback with some parking where you could grab pics of the main portion of the pass. It wasn't really challenging, or intimidating, or high (11,789 ft), but it was really beautiful and impressive. From here its just a short jaunt to the top.





At his point it's a pretty smooth drive down to the next section of connecting pavement. I really thought this would be the highlight of the day, and had we stayed at one of the camp sites I had planned it would have been. But, when we got to the next trailhead at Corkscrew Gulch it was still pretty early, so we decided to keep going through the next section. Boy, that was a call I would later regret and appreciate.

We made our way up Corkscrew Gulch Road which was undoubtedly one of the best and most fun we would drive on this trip. It was steep and twisting and smooth, which I would later realize I had taken for granted. We made our way through Corkscrew Pass (12,217 ft) with relative speed and ease, though the last section to the top was probably the steepest section we'd encounter on the trip, or so it felt at the time. My hope was that we could make it all the way to Lake City, which from Corkscrew Pass is only about 30 mi. No problem, right? As we came down from Corkscrew I saw that there really wasn't much in the way for camping and the road started heading back up, way up. I noticed a UTV coming down, and he stopped to say hi, so I asked if he knew the area and how long he thought it would take to get to Lake City. He kind of laughed, and said "Probably about 5 hours if you can make decent time". Shit. We were not going to make that, because the sun was quickly heading below the mountains, and I didn't have any camping scoped out until just before Lake City, so we'd have to figure something out on the way. So, on we go.

Next up was Hurricane Pass (12,407 ft). Similar to Corkscrew, but less steep, just a rocky shelf road that went up and up and up. As we made out way down there was a newer Jeep Wrangler creeping very slowly down, and they nicely moved over and let us pass them when it was safe. Then we realized that there was a spot where three passes joined, so we definitely had at least one more pass before we were through this section. Where the trails join there is a nice little flat area for parking that overlooks a little lake. We stopped and talked for a bit and decided that we'd sleep here and move through the next pass in the morning.

However, that black Wrangler we had passed had other plans for us. As we were prepping to get some food going and hunker down for the night, the wrangler pulled up and out jumped a small guy with no jacket, it was like 45-50F and starting to rain, with a paper map and started asking if we knew how to get to Silverton. We pulled up our Gaia, but he wasn't sure where it was, and searching for towns in an area you don't know on Gaia phone app isn't easy. We did our best to try to help, but he said he would figure it out. As he was about to jump into the truck we realized that his wife and two young children were along for the ride. We stopped him and asked if he had any gear with him, or if he wanted to stay here with us for the night and carry on in the morning. He said he had no gear at all, that the rental place had given them a paper map and said to have fun. Yikes. It was starting to rain, it was getting dark quick, and none of us knew the area, so my buddy and I decided that we should convoy with the family to make sure that they don't end up in a bad spot. So, on we go, breaking my only rule, no driving at night...

We headed up through California Pass (12,930 ft), and luckily the rain was light and grip was still good, because that was a pretty steep decent. Now, California Pass goes down and down and down, forever. Well, until you get to Animas Forks anyway. Here is where we had to make another call. We were headed North through Cinnamon Pass, but the Wrangler thought he needed to keep heading South to get to Silverton, I mean, he had the map..... While I was working on getting turned around to follow, the guy in the Wrangler took off South. My buddy and I went as fast as we could to keep up, but that road is no bueno and the rocky trail had me running pretty slow. It didn't help that I had picked up a light clunking in the front end that hadn't been there before. As we made our way along, only able to catch glimpses of tail lights in the distance from time to time, we finally rolled into Eureka. As soon as we crossed the bridge the road turned to gravel and was smooth sailing, so we just let the Jeep go on his way since a nearby sign indicated that Silverton was only a few miles up the road. So, we turned around and parked off in the rocks near the ruins of the Sunnyside Mine, which is actually a campground. This was my first time camping at about 10,000 ft, and let me tell you, I slept terribly.

The next morning we woke up pretty early, got packed up, and headed out. We had to backtrack only about 4 mi to Animas Forks where we had a quick look around and then head up to Cinnamon Pass (12,640 ft). Cinnamon Pass was easy, but the rain made a few sections a little sketchy. The road down from Cinnamon dropped down into a valley and turned into a pretty nice gravel road that took us right to Lake City, where we would grab gas, lunch, and keep moving. Sike! Turns out the electricity in the town went out that morning and nobody knew how long it might take to get back up. I wasn't in huge need to gas, and we had 10 gal in jerry cans, but I don't like being low and reliant on reserves if I don't have to be. So we carried on, but we didn't run into any gas stations before our next turn off at the top of Slumgullion Pass (11,529 ft). We stopped to talk about it and decided that we would head down into the town of Creede, a short 40 mi each way. Hey, we did get a few things we needed in town and grabbed some brunch. With the tanks full we head back up to the top of Slumgullion to head down through Cebolla Creek, which was a really nice drive and we saw a group of older Land Rovers/Cruisers out for a wheel.

Our next turn off was towards Los Pinos Pass (10,509 ft), which was another pretty nice and easy route. Most of the day we spent in the high mountain prairie, which was so expansive and beautiful. At one point while stopped, my buddy mentioned that he was getting kind of bored on this section, because it was just graded gravel roads, but that changed pretty shortly. A quick turn into was seemed like a random field ended up being a pretty cool drive through some rolling hills where the cows grazed as we opened and closed gate after gate trying to miss all the cow pies as we went. That fun was pretty short lived, though and we were back onto the gravel. Sorry buddy.



Good time being made today, we ate up the miles and the views. We almost didn't notice, except for a few switchbacks, that we had made our way up to and over Waunita Pass (10,311 ft) and into Pitkin. This was such an interesting town, as it was very small, with just a few shops and not many more houses. My buddy swears there was a Dominos or Little Caesars, but I didn't see it and I think he just wanted pizza. I mean I know he did, because he had been talking about it for days. As we made our way North out of Pitkin it started to really feel like the Rocky Mountains, mostly because I thought my teeth were going to rattle out of my head. Now, I've been aired down to about 12 psi for three days at this point, but I could not find a pace that soaked up any of this road. I ended up pulling over and dropping down to 8 psi. This helped, but not a lot.

I could actually use some help/recommendations on this topic. I'm running springs all around with Bilstein 5100s. I have the fronts on the groove one down from the top. I'm running 31x10.5r15 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx, which a C load rating. My buddy is on completely stock suspension and only aired to 18 psi on some 17in Cooper STT Pro and said his ride was great. I want/need to do something to make my ride better in this truck. I seriously almost broke down and cried from hours and hours and hours of that ride quality.

Slowly, because I like my teeth, we made our way up through Cumberland Pass (12,015 ft) and into Tincup. We tried to stop to get some food and trinkets, but the general store was closed when we came through, so we kept on. We ended up turning off again near Cow Creek. This was another dirt two-track section, but I was surprised to see some pretty large campers deep into this area. At this point it was starting to get darker, starting to drizzle a bit, and the track we were on looked like it would become a huge pain when went as was evidence by the huge ruts from past rains, so we kept truckin. It didn't take long and we popped out onto Cottonwood Pass Rd. I had a few trailheads marked for quick camping picked and we pulled into a really nice looking one. We cooked up some food and filled up chips and brats, and explored the trail for a bit down to a creek. When we finished my buddy said he'd like to keep going a bit since it wasn't getting dark as fast as we thought. We didn't get much farther before pulling off, but the view was pretty solid anyway, even if it was busier than I would have liked.



Throughout the trip I had been making really basic breakfast burritos and coffee. This morning I was planning to jazz it up a bit by adding some spicy black beans into the mix. I must preface this with how terrible I am at cooking. Like, I make some really basic stuff, and I have no real want or need to eat anything else. My buddy, however, gets bored with food almost as he's still eating it for the first time. Well, I drained and rinsed the beans, heated them up and set them to the side while I prepped the eggs. By prepped, though, I mean I cracked them in to the pan and almost immediately added the beans. As soon I a had dumped all of the beans into the eggs I realized that was the wrong move. Again, not really much for cooking. The eggs turns dirty brown, and they never firmed up the right way. The burritos weren't a hit, believe it or not, and they really tasted a lot like beans. On the plus side my commentary of the situation did make my friend somehow spit beans out of his nose, and I'll remember how not to do it forever. Win win.

Having slept nearly at the top of Cottonwood Pass (12,126 ft), I again slept like poo, but I jammed a Red Bull down and made more coffee, and off we went. Pretty quickly we ended up pulling into Buena Vista. Gas got, we kept moving, but the day would get more interesting. As we heading straight out of town on this gravel road in the middle of a field the road just kept getting less and less maintained, but there were apparently hot springs all over the place, or so said Gaia. At the end of the field, just before we were going to enter a bit of aspen forest, there was a guy on a dozer just driving along. I have no idea where he came from, because there were no vehicles around, no buildings or houses, and we were pretty far out from the main road. But, as we approached he pulled over and let us pass, waving as we did. The aspen forest was really a nice change from the conifers we'd been surrounded by for days. The trail we were on was something like a 4wheeler trail, and mostly dark dirt and mud, but I wasn't complaining because it was beautiful.

This next bit is where things get a bit more interesting. The next turn is to the right, and I don't see anything abnormal, so we keep moving on. I'm loving it, aside from it's starting to sprinkle, the road is great and the scenery is top notch. The trail is getting more and more tight and technical, and as the rain gets a bit heavier the mud is starting to form. The mud isn't the interesting part, though, but some of the hills we descended in the mud were pretty fun but sketchy. Just a few more corners and we'd be back on a gravel road to the next section, but I see a few signs that look to be recent, that mention a bridge being out up ahead. We pull up and see that the bridge is in fact out, but there's a bypass with a water crossing just to the left, but there is also a sign that says driving off the trail is prohibited and punishable by law. I don't like disobeying these type of signs, so I grab my phone and start looking for a way around. I hadn't noticed earlier, but there was a heavily tinted truck on the trail across the bridge, and it kind of sort of looks like it could be DNR or similar. Gaia shows that we would have to backtrack a pretty long way and the only route that might take connect without costing hours was pretty iffy on the map. At that point I really wanted to just cross the water and carry on, but after talking with my buddy we decided to turn around and not risk the potential ticket and just generally being a jerk for ignoring the signs.

When we got back to the entrance to this trail we came across a group of adventure motorcycles stopped at the turn. We pulled up and started chatting, at which point they asked if the trail was actually closed. I asked how they knew it might be closed... They pointed at the sign 10ft from where we stood that said in no uncertain term "BRIDGE OUT AHEAD. NO THRU TRAFFIC." FML. I showed them the potential reroute on my map, and offered for them to follow us, which they took up. They were a little hesitant at one of the turns due to the road looking really muddy, so they stayed back to see if I could make it through. It was certainly muddy, but they would have no problem with it, and they ultimately didn't. They followed us through the rest of this section and the the next gas station a few more miles up the road. Turns out that they had been on the road for a few weeks and were from California and also riding the COBDR! I'm not surprised as the BDRs are generally more popular amongst the adventure bike riders. After our chat and gas up, we parted ways and wished each other safe travels.

Now heading West of Leadville we quickly found ourselves approaching more "real" mountains. The deciduous trees thinning and the conifers taking their place, we started to see signs that talked about 4wd and high-clearance vehicles only ahead. Having seen similar signs around Ophir Pass I wasn't too worried. We came up to a spot where a bunch of cars were parked, but I kind of just assumed that it was a popular trailhead. Later investigation would inform me that it was Carlton Tunnel, something we should have stopped to check out. Next time. We carried on toward Hagerman Pass (11,925 ft) and very quickly found out that the 4wd and high clearance signs weren't joking this time. Hagerman Pass was the most fun pass of the trip and the only one that even hinted at the need to pay close attention to wheel placement and routing through obstacles. Near the top we ran into two vehicles, one occupied and one not. The occupied one was a nice guy in a 3rd gen 4runner. The other though, was an unlucky Honda Pilot that debeaded on the pass.





The way down was way less technical, but still really fun, with the first deep water crossing I've ever done. And then, out of nowhere, the craziest thing I could have expected. A new Lexus LS450. At the time I was amazed and in a little shock that someone in a Lexus car to get where they were. There was no chance they were going to get much farther, but I had no idea what they had gone through. A few odd notes about this car, aside from the obvious; 1. the passenger window was broken, but the interior wasn't too wet. 2. The passenger rear tire was debeaded, but not full of water. These two facts were strange, because it had rained the night before, so this car hasn't been here long. 3. There was a huge bong in the back seat. 4. It had Utah plates. I'm thinking that this thing was stolen, someone went for a joyride, destroyed the car and ditched it as far up the mountain as they could get it. Behold.







As we moved on the rain was a little on, a little off, but never really stopped until we got to Gypsum. That road, though was pretty fun. When we came down from Hagerman Pass we turned on this dirt/mud road that warned that it was impassible when wet. We were not deterred. Luckily, it must not have been too wet, because there were really only a couple of spots that were a little slick with mud but not to the point where I ever thought we wouldn't make it. This route felt like it climbed forever, but in reality we just climbed and dropped between 8,000 and 10,000 ft. The trees had again changed back to aspens and other deciduous varieties. At the turn for the last track before Gypsum the trail was blocked with signs warning of forest fires in the area. As we looked around we could see evidence on the hillside nearby. As disappointing as it was for us, I feel terrible for those who live in the area. I can't even imagine what kind of stress caused knowing that with a change in the wind you could lose everything you have. With that we stayed on the main track up into Eagle, then followed alongside I70 into Gypsum, where we finally indulged my buddy's need for pizza at this awesome little food truck on the North end of town. 10/10.

As I mentioned at the start, I did film this entire trip, but I didn't take anymore pictures, so I'll keep the rest brief until I can figure how to include some videos. They'll probably just end up being snippets of the passes with links to YouTube or something.

In any case, in was getting dark, so we headed straight north out of Gypsum. I'm sure that some of you may be familiar with the area, but the route I mapped had us turn down this wash and into what looked like a UTV park area, but it was marked for OHV as well. The start of this trail was intimidating and I used the crap out of that skid I made. I think all of the damage in the skid pics was from this part of the trip. The wash was super rocky, then the trail took a few sharp and steep turns up this very steep hill, then back down where the turns were so off-camber that I legit thought I might tip on one of them. And just as quickly as we got into that area we were back out onto some pretty normal two-track. Having not expected what we just did, I was more jacked up on adrenaline than I should have been. I also didn't really have any camping scoped out in this area, so we decided to push on for a bit longer. The closest spot I had mapped out ended up having a building at it that had vehicles at it, so I didn't really feel comfortable taking up camp, so we kept moving.

Soon we came into what looked like a valley with a shelf road, but it was getting pretty dark and hard to tell. The road we were on had several washes across it with some pretty large trees and logs that appeared to come down in a flood through the wash. Since it was still sprinkling and the sky cloudy, this kind of made me uncomfortable. I checked Gaia a little closer and found that we were in fact in a valley with a pretty elaborate alluvial system feeding it, which was where the washes and evidence of flooded came from. Given the weather and the condition of the road we decided that camping in that area was not a smart choice. So, we kept going. Finally after another hour or so we came to a paved road and headed in the direction of the next track. It wasn't long before the pavement ended and gravel started up again. I had told my buddy that as soon as we hit gravel again we'd pull over for sleep since it was getting pretty late. The road we were on was Colorado River Rd and we ended up pulling off right next to the river for the night.

Then next morning we got up kind of late, and hit the trail right away. Today was to be the last day of the COBDR and would turn out to be the easiest by a good margin. Every bit of the last day was gravel roads pointing North through small town after small town. The largest we'd hit was Steamboat Springs only a few hours before crossing the border into Wyoming.

With that, we had completed the COBDR in just 4 days. We ended up arrive back in the twin cities late Saturday evening, with one day to spare. In hindsight, to fully appreciate the COBDR, we should have taken a few more days and budgeted time to stop and explore some of the more interesting areas. The hardest part about that was having no idea what to really expect from a BDR, not knowing much about the areas we would be passing through, and not knowing how much time it would really take to complete. In the future I will give myself at least a few extra days on each trip. This should serve to reduce the stress of a timeline, give more freedom to explore, and also add a buffer in case of a breakdown.

 

Skid is nice! Looking forward to seeing more of your updates, glad you're back.

 

So, I want to start out by saying that I’m a bit of an idiot. Ever since I installed the 33x10.5R15 on the the black Diamond Racing wheels I’ve had rubbing on the rear of the front wheel wells. I really want to go to 33s, but I already rub on 31s.

When I ordered the wheels I had to order via phone. I expected them to ask about offsets, but what they asked about was backspacing. Knowing that I wanted ET0, I just assumed that meant that the backspacing was half the width of the wheels, so being 15x8 I said I wanted 4in backspacing. FML. Don’t get me wrong the offset looks great and I love how they fit the truck.

What I know now is that 4in backspacing on an 8in wheel is actually between ET-12 and ET-13. So, each wheel is poked ½” farther out than I intended, and over 1.5” farther out than stock. I’m really glad I figured this out when I did. I’ve been looking into buying 16s and 33s so that I can do the Tundra brake upgrade.

Last year I went to Seattle to visit my sister for a month or so, but I drove my car and couldn’t do much real exploring. I decided to do the same thing this year, but in my truck. My plan was to leave after work on Thursday 12/30 so I could be in Seattle to spend New Yeats with my sister. However, Wednesday someone tried to break into my garage. Rather than losing my mind I just moved all of my stuff to my shop and made sure there wasn’t anything to steal if they came back and got in while I was gone.

I ended up leaving really early Saturday Jan 1. The roads were dead empty leaving the Twin Cities which was amazing. It was super cold and supposed to be much colder as I moved along. I was originally going to take 94 up through North Dakota to hang with a buddy on the way, but when I left on Saturday it was about -27degF in Fargo, ND. I’d rather travel in the more balmy -12degF weather in South Dakota.

I have a long-standing tradition of stopping at this little gas/convenience store outside of Sturgis, SD, called Howdy’s. As per the rules, I stopped in to check in with the curmudgeonly old guys behind the counter, but as I pulled in I was met with the fact that Howdy’s was no more. I texted a few friends about the situation, grabbed a few pictures (as per the rules), and kept moving toward Spearfish to get gas.





Oh yeah, I wrapped my topper before this trip. I’ve never wrapped anything, so it went poorly, but I do really appreciate that my truck is all black again.



I also resealed the windows and put in new screens. Unfortunately, the front window still leaks, but I’ll handle it this summer. I want to properly paint the topper and install a carpet liner at the same time.

The first half of the drive to Seattle through the Dakotas is pretty uninteresting. Don’t get me wrong, the Black Hills and the Badlands are amazing, but the drive straight through the area in January isn’t mind-blowing.

Wyoming on the other hand is where the mountains start, and they look amazing as the sun starts to dip behind them.



The rest of the drive into Billings, MT was dark and slick. What I learned from this drive is that crossing the US through the Northern states in the winter isn’t the smartest idea.

When I left Billings in the morning there was a high cross-winds warning from Big Timber to Bozeman, which is about a 60 mi stretch. I’ve driven through some windy conditions being from the Midwest, but this was next level for me. About halfway we were redirected off the highway and through the town of Livingston, MT. As I was getting close to the exit I was pushed into the next lane from the snow on the road and the cross-winds. At that point I was just fine with pulling of the highway for a minute and maybe changing my pants.

Beyond that Lookout Pass was amazingly beautiful, and Fourth of July Pass was uneventful and beautiful coming into Coeur d’Alene, ID. The area between Coeur d’Alene and Missoula will never cease to amaze. Some of the most spectacular roads and views I’ve driven through. I tried to take some pictures, but the roads were iffy and I needed to make up time from the slow going earlier in the day due to the wind and snow.

I made it into Spokane and through Eastern and central Washington with no issues or excitement. My sister kept giving me updates about Snoqualmie Pass and the impending weather. This was another reason I needed to keep moving, I didn’t want to get stranded on the East side of the pass. I started to get worried that the pass was getting weather as I pulled into Cle Elum and the snow was coming down pretty good. I grabbed gas and headed toward the pass.



Chains or 4wd ended up being required and traffic was sloooooooow through the pass. As soon as I got to the West side of the pass traffic picked up, back into 2wd, and quickly made my way down into Seattle for the next few weeks.