3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

Is that because this is post #420

I don't think I could move back either. There's way too much fun to be had out here.

 

Woo hoo! Post #420!



I think I'd get bored back on the east coast...I wheeled every fire road in parks of Central PA over the course of 2 weekends and probably only used 4wd twice. Rausch Creek is fun, but the scenery just doesn't compare to out here and there's no risk of rolling your truck into a gulch 1000 feet below on the east coast. Where is the fun in that?

 

I’d love to be a days drive from Moab...

 

Move out here?
WAIT!



COlorado is full. But I hear Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming have room

 

Welp...it's been over five months since I've posted here in my own build thread, and I've been back to Moab twice on top of weekend snow wheeling trips so I figure it's time to share some of my recent adventures... starting with Rock Therapy back in October with @50 amocaT and my cousin @Navar.

Similar to last year, the highlight of my trip was the journey out to Utah and a few days in Canyonlands. This time it was the Kokopelli and the Maze district. I've forgotten some of the details of what we did each day, so forgive me it'll just bet the highlights I remember and have pictures of.

Kokopellii Trail

It had recently rained, and the trail was muddy as hell. It was some of the the nastiest mud I have ever experienced.


Kokopelli - Cisco wash

We were the first ones to attempt this since the last major rain fall. It was an epic fail. I went down and got stuck and we ended up having to strap up and get drug out. The unfortunate part is that the wash was in between us and our campsite that night. We had to back track to the highway and reconnect with US128 after the wash.



Kokopelli - Rose Garden Hill

By far this was the most challenging obstacle on the Kokopelli. The ledge at the bottom is easily a 3-4ft drop on the passenger side, and an off-camber drop on the driver. We spent a good hour stacking rocks and I was ready to send it, but @50 amocaT called a time-out and said even if I made it, he wasn't following me. It was late in the day, and I wasn't about to split away from him and be on my own so we back tracked to the nearest campsite.


Unfortunately camera settings resulted in all the pictures from the Lasal loop coming out in airbrush, but that was a gorgeous section of the ride after bypassing rose garden. We basically just got cleaned up in town and camped at Behind the Rocks before meeting up with my cousin.



Canyonlands - The Maze

Make sure you bring fuel, water, fuel, a bucket to shit in, and more fuel. There is absolutely nothing available to you in the park. It's 45 miles on dirt roads just to get to the ranger station. We were supposed to head to the Maze overlook on the upper rim, but we were advised by the ranger that with rain forecasted overnight, we might get stuck up there due to mud. He said it would be a shame for us to miss the Wall and Dollhouse on the lower rim, so we skipped the overlook and headed straight down to Wall. It's a long, slow drive with lots of ledges and tight turns...but epicly beautiful. It was cold and overcast for most of our trip.


The Wall

We had a full day to hike around the Wall area, but it was overcast with the constant threat of downpour all morning. We did not want to do anything strenuous, so we figured we'd start down the Chocolate Drops trail without having any real idea what it was. I didn't bring phone and don't have any pictures of the hike, but it was pretty amazing and did not disappoint.

The Chocolate Drops are four huge stone pillars of Organ Shale that divides to sections of the canyon.

The Dollhouse

This is one of the most beautiful sections.


Dollhouse - Spanish Bottom

Someday I'd like to hike down to the river, but it wasn't in the cards on this trip. We just walked out to a nice scenic overlook.


Dollhouse- Granary Hike

You might be tempted to skip this little hike, especially if you've seen granaries before, but don't do it. The view is amazing. Looking across the dried up river bed to the plateau across the way was breathtaking, view you cannot get unless you take this hike. It's short and easy, and well worth it.


I can't for the life of me recall what this arch was called, but it was a short hike we hit on our way out of the Dollhouse and ultimately the Maze.


Off in the distance, you can see the Chocolate drops. If you would have told me beforehand "Hey, we're going to hike to that today" I would have told you to f-off. But I'm so glad I did.


Heading out the south end through Hite was gorgeous, and the nicest day we had weather wise. The scenery lasted until we hit highway.


It's going to take me a few more visits to do everything I want to in the Maze. There's so much hiking and driving to be done that you just can't do it in a single trip. That's all for now!

 

Dropped a bomb post...

Awesome stuff Bry.

 

@cynicalrider @Chux @Wheelspinner @MY50cal @6 gearT444E @V5ioV

 

Long overdue. I'm nowhere near as good of a writer as @cynicalrider but I know how much you enjoy these posts Homey.

 

Epic, I’ll be back out there one day

 

The little thumbnail for your thread on the main page had me tripping. I thought that was a picture of my truck at first. Looks sweet!

 

Thanks Randy. Just subbed your build thread for some additional inspiration. I've seen a couple of white 2nd gens with dual rifle cases on a prinsu rack lately causing me a double take too.

 

Whatcha carry in yours? I have recovery gear in one and spare parts in the other. It’s very handy having the recovery gear easily accessible, and not having to open a swingout on the trail.

 

Epic trip cuz!! When are we doing the next one?

 

My rifle cases are full of recovery gear mostly for the exact same reason. You never know if the truck is going to be level or up against a tree to open your swingout. With recovert gear on top it will always be accessible. I also keep my camp chair and spring rods for the RTT up there as they are the first two things I need at camp and its convenient to grab them out as I'm climbing around my truck.

I'm headed out to Moab in August with @HomerTaco and again in October for rock therapy for sure...I'd like to squeeze another weekend trip in may after I get my springs on. What's your summer looking like?

 

I'll shoot you a text

 

Been busy over the past few weeks with upgrades and maintenance and dealing with typical truck fuckery.

I replaced my tired old dakars with a set of custom built alcans. The scale told me my truck is weighing in at over 6200 lbs fully loaded, with an estimated 3400lbs on the rear axle with 1300lbs of gear. With the dakars rated at 600lbs, its it's no wonder I've been riding my bump stops. The alcans are slightly longer, so I had to slide my shackle flip back a bit to keep my 45* angle. Another reason I'm really happy with my archive garage flip kit...so easy to adapt for new springs.





Dakars:




Alcans:




No pictures of it, but I also upgraded my extended rear brake lines to unnecessarilly super extended 30" brake lines in preparation for my shock mount relocate and 14" kings that will be going in later this year. I also ordered the relocate kit from archive garage.

The brake line install went pretty sideways...drained my reservoir and had to bench bleed the master and the whole system. While bleeding the fronts I snapped one of the bleeders off. Then I snapped off a bolt extractor inside the bleeder. End result is a new set of duralast calipers and $200 I didnt want to spend. Thought about going for broke and doing the big brake upgrade but I'm running 16s so that's a project for another day. I lost the cap to my brake fluid reservoir somewhere in the engine bay and had to buy another one. Way more fuckery than I had hoped for on a simple brake job.

Last item on the list was tracking down the source of my truck loosing alignment on the last wheeling trip. @johntoyota helped me find a torn steering rack boot, torn tie rod end boot, and ultimately determined that at a minimum my passenger LBJ was toast. So I figured I'd replace both ball joints and upgrade to whiteline bushings. Pulled the LCAs and found one bushing completely separated from the LCA so it was definitely time. Then more fuckery...

Found a shop to press everything for me and went home to install. Well neither LCA would fit back on the truck with the white lines. I held them side by side and the driver was obviously bent. The shop did what they could to straighten it and I tried to install again, but they still didnt fit.



@chenbro was kind enough to donate a set of original Toyota LCAs to my project and I further determined that either a) my moog LCAs were manufactured to different tolerances than Toyota lcas, or b) I need to stop running into shit and bending important parts. Below are the moog lcas with whiteline bushing compared to the Toyota ones from chenbro. Easily 1/4" difference between the arms.



The shop I went to was very patient and took care of me by re-pressing everything into the Toyota LCAs free of charge. Truck was down for about 3 weeks for the whole thing. Everything went back together smooth after that. So hopefully I've got a nice solid front end for at least the next season or two.

I will have everything I need for my dual battery setup by july... so stay tuned for that install and the shock mount relocate...that may wait till winter.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to hitting some dirt this weekend!

 

Me too, man. Me too.

 

Do you have the specs on your Alcans? How long did it take them to build the springs after you ordered? I was thinking about replacing my Dakars in the near future.

 

How did you come up with that estimated weight on your rear axle? I think 55% of my weight was in the rear.