Ryan's Tacoma Build and Adventures Thread

Another 3 day weekend spent out at Moses Lake in my normal camp spot. Good news was that the Ace ran flawlessly, no lost exhaust or blown tires! But of course things couldn't go completely smooth...



We thought we'd take a quick trip around the sand in the Tacoma, as we had never done it before and we were way ahead of schedule on getting loaded up and ready to leave... I stuck a flag in my rear window as I have done many times before to keep myself legal, simply rolling the rear window up against a flag sticking out... Well with the awning on the side it now stuck up out the window and under the awning... no big deal... Til you decide to open the rear door... window exploded sending safety glass over 15 feet. All my fault... I should have properly bolted the flag to one of the 3 holes I have specifically for a flag/antenna mount...




Luckily my wife and I only got a few small cuts from "shrapnel". It was a louder than normal drive home, that's for sure...




And 53 nights for the Habitat.


O yeah, and randomly ended up behind a fellow SAR buddy on I90. He was heading to Montana to pick up a GFC. Looking forward to seeing it!

 

I think these guys have been hanging in my shed for about... 10 months now. Finally got around to painting them so I can get them installed. Unlike my bumper, I painted these outside. Weather was far warmer and there was a bit of a breeze off and on. For some reason the primer ended up having a bit of a textured finish. You can see in the close-up below after it was painted black. If it holds up, should give me some good traction. If not, I guess I'll be adding more spray paint. No big deal.

 

My mother-in-law is a Wyndham "owner" and has set my wife and I up with a few nice stays at different places. We had planned to take a trip to Hawaii, but with Covid those plans had to change. We decided to stick closer to home so changed the reservations to Bend, OR. It was Sunday to Sunday reservation, and since we had already taken the Friday before off we decided to do a couple nights camping on the way.




The plan was to hit Springfield, OR Thursday night and hotel it, then head out on a section of the Pacific Crest Overland Route south towards Crater Lake. But all of 2 miles off the pavement, we found this Gem of a campsite. So much for the overland route. We stayed right here for two nights and it was great.








55 Nights in the Habitat.

 

This little pull off had a short set of stairs down to the water... some of the clearest water I've ever seen. And the water was extremely shallow, I could walk out several yards without getting to my knees. Sure was cold though!





$30 and some smoke inhalation later we made it down to Crater Lake. Smoke wasn't really too bad at this point, just lessened the view a bit. We stopped at a number of viewpoints, but wanted to steer clear of most of the crowds. The one visitor's center that was still open had a ridiculous line to get in, which we avoided by driving directly back outta the parking lot.

 

Had to do some hardcore offroading to get a parking spot at McKay's Cottage in Bend. It was well worth the dust on my shoes.

 

Installed a Balloon on my Habitat in the hopes we could float over some of the smoke. Worked pretty well.

 

I need to make a trip out here once the Covid craziness settles down and everything isn’t on fire

 

Saturday we decided to cut out a day early due to the smoke. It got thicker and thicker as we headed back north-west towards portland. The first picture below was taken at 6:18PM, the two below at 6:21PM, only 3 mintues later. Hopefully it'll rain soon and these fires can be contained and put out.

 

Absolutely. I'd just suggest waiting til at least next Summer though. Found a bunch of campsites on FS land right across from the resort we stayed at in Bend. Was right in among the mountain bike trails. Definitely let me know if/when you start planning something up this way. Maybe we could do a mini Habitat meetup somewhere!

 

Yep for sure. I’m not planning on doing much of anything until Spring / Summer. I’ll definitely let you know once it gets closer!

 

Buddy welded my Brute Force Fab rock sliders on a little over a week ago. Finally got around to taking a couple pictures. I went with keeping them flat and pretty far out to make the best steps. I don't have a roof rack yet, but plan to in the future. Also makes it easier to pack in the front of the Habitat when closing it up. We thought it might be a little too far out at first, but then realized it's pretty much perfectly in line with how far the BFF rear high clearance bumper sticks out. Altogether it's perfect for my needs. Also, that messed up paintjob worked out PERFECTLY. The wind caused it to have an odd sandpaper texture, which for a normally slippery surface has been amazing.

 

Decided to go out for an overnighter with just the guys on Friday night. Had a great time driving out and getting to sit around the campfire for a couple hours. Was still 60 degrees out late into the evening. Was super rainy overnight, and COLD in the morning. Little bit of snow was falling mixed in with the rain.






Luckily my buddy has a great shop and offered to let me dry out the Habitat inside (I barely fit). I had to open the Habitat and back in, which was fine. HOWEVER, last night on the way out of the garage I caught the door and put a 4 inch tear in the top of the tent... Right along the hoop. I slapped a Gear Aid patch on it, and next time I open it up I'll add some of the seam seal around the edges to help it seal as well as possible... FML




Live and learn... $#!% happens...


56 nights in the Habitat.

 

Where did the water run in?

I’ve been in some pretty heavy rain and haven’t had more than a couple drips.

 

It's the small skirt along the edge of the Habitat, on the front half... On the opposite side from this picture, the skirt has been permanently UP, making a gutter. literally catching all the water and channeling it DIRECTLY into the sleeping platform. That is, if the sleeping platform is angled down towards the back. If it's sloping the opposite direction, with the natural rake of the truck, the water simply pours out the front. I knew it was an issue, and I just wasn't thinking about it when I parked. I'm also gonna see about getting some velcro or something and hooking it down so it's more like the side shown in this picture (not creating a gutter). Some still can flow in if parked the wrong direction, but it would be negligible, or at least far less than with my gutter...

 

Ohhhhh

Yeah that would suck. I typically pull mine down when i set up, but ill definitely have to keep that in mind and make sure it doesn’t flip up

 

The driver side always stays down, but the passenger side, i think maybe the stitching is off somewhere cause we've tried repeatedly to hold it down but it always flips up. Including like making sure it was down when closing the habitat to hope that it gives it some memory of being DOWN. no such luck. So yeah, thinking of some velcro with adhesive back along the length of it.

 

Picked up two 2 gallon Gen 2 Rotopax on their blemished sale. Was 50% off the standard blemish price, so it was reasonable to me. Took me quite awhile to figure out what made it blemished. Each had a small dimple near an edge, but hard to notice even looking. Prolly lose 0.01 gallons of volume!

Btw, if anyone wonders, they do fit in a jerry can holder. This is a Brute Force Fab dual basket. Fit perfect.

I won't normally leave them on. I haven't been on a trip yet I was worried about fuel, but I do want to hit up the Oregon Outback, so will definitely want them for that.

 

And the AT Habitat has found a new owner... Sad to see it go, but a new chapter in our Tacoma's life has begun!

 

This morning I emailed Auburn Car Repair and Offroad about getting some work done.

• Re-gear to 4.56
• Change Transmission Fluid
• Change Transfer Case Fluid
• New rear brake-shoes.

Prolly be a month+ til they can fit me in, but I'm definitely looking forward to that re-gear!!

 

Been talking to my buddies for awhile about getting into RC Crawling. Picked one up last night. I think this is gonna be a ton of fun. I used to have a high speed gas powered RC monster truck (Revo 2.5) and while fun, it took a lot of space to run, and when you crashed it was likely you were breaking stuff. This thing should be good just around the yard. Hoping to setup a little course in the back corner of my lot. A friend is going to be modding the battery connector away from the proprietary Traxxas connector, then I'll be ready to run it. I'm excited. Never even driven a crawler before.

Also think this will be a lot of fun when I head out camping. Lots of great trails to drive it on.

Traxxas TRX4 Defender
2 Speed Transmission
Portal Axles
Locking/Unlocking front and rear axles








This thing has some good flex!






I saw a scale Trasharoo in a pic online. I might have to pick one up to go on the spare. It'll look good with the Rotopax and Hi-lift! Maybe some MaxTrax, too!