The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Maybe subjective...
Could be a difference in suspension... I do carry weight above the cab and roof rack...

I certainly don't feel safe taking my hand off the wheel. I am running even less caster now with stock UCA on. 0.3 pass side and 0.6 driver side...

 

Running 4* caster and at nearly 6000# empty and 35's it rides decent on the highway.

 

Holy caster batman! Did you have to chop 4 inches out of your cab to clear with that much caster?

 

lol

I'll have to visit your build thread and see what's going on in there.

 

On Saturday I took the family to the back country, dirt, and nature. We all had a great time exploring the Mount Laguna Recreation area.



Love the fall colors coming out.


Really funny to me was my youngest going off trail in the wild grass. Because she is like 3' tall it would be a lot like an adult in a corn field. She was going on about not liking big grass, and exclaiming that she only likes short grass! lol!



We met some horseback riders on a trail and they were super kind and let my oldest feed one of their Arabian horses, who like to eat everything it could find, lol.


From this location, looking west, it's about 60 miles to the Pacific ocean, and on a clear day you can see it.


These next 3 photos were taken from a lookout on the side of the road S-1 (sunrise highway) at the edge of the Laguna escarpment (5,600') and is looking down into Storm Canyon which leads into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (1,600').






On another note, it's amazing how dry the landscape is. The (+4) year drought is really gripping the vegetation. It feels like the whole place could burst into flames at any minute.

To end the adventure, we went North about 10 miles to the famous Gold mining town of Julian, CA and had delicious apple pie before returning home.

 

Here are some pics of the Toyos where they should be on the trail, and in the dirt. Aired down to 40 psi

I am really impressed with the road manners, they handle really well on street / interstate. Traction in dirt was excellent. I need to get them in rougher terrain though... I'm still tuning the tire pressure. I suspect I'll end up around 33psi for street. The Dyna beads are still working great, tires are glass smooth at all speeds as far as I can tell.



The winning combination of 40psi load E tires, and OME suspension doing it's job of shooting the tires out like a cannon ball on 2" obstacles sold my wife on why we need to swap to a performance coil-over suspension. Unclear is the timeline, though.

 

Mmmmm Julian apple pie! Now that's some good stuff.

 

Looks like a great trip. It's so awesome that you and your family get outdoors so much!
I just showed the pics to my wife and kids and they want me to get my truck ready so we can get back to doing the same thing. That's no problem as my icons, t/c uca's and dakars just came in on Friday and will be going on in a week or so. It's funny that you just mentioned going to Julian as we we were just talking about heading there for some cider and apple pie at Mother's.

I saw your issues with the OME and uca's and know that it's frustrating. I ran the OME system on my former Tundra (after running the 5100 pogo sticks) and had the same issues that you have experienced. I hated not being able to dial in the SPC uca's and the front shocks were constantly topping out. We were able to correct some of the handling and alignment issues by switching to a uniball uca which was day and night over the ball joints. My wallet learned the hard way that uniball gives you the needed extra 3-4 degrees of caster that you loose when lifting that the ball joint uca's just do not offer. However after a year more of putting up with the OME shocks constantly topping out i wound up replacing them with Fox coil-overs. The truck rode great afterwards on the street and performed even better off road. I feel that the OME system is fine for some folks but after my experience there is no comparison to it vs the performance of coil-overs paired and uniballs.

I hope things work out better for you and you can swing some good coil overs in the future.

BTW I noticed that you took off the rear mudflaps but left the fronts on. Was that the only place that you had rubbing issues with the 255's? Also did you notice any decrease in acceleration or mileage?

 

Excellent to hear that. Getting out and making memories is what it's all about for wife and me.

Thanks. I'm sure it will. I think 'm going to rock the OME at least for the next 8 months or so, until funding is ready for suspension 2.0. I definitely want to get it right for the next and final version.

About six years ago I lost a rear mudflap in Canyon Sin Nombre, in Anza Borrego (I had forgotten about that trip, so thanks!). I took off the other one to match.

The only thing I had to do in the front to clear the larger tire is use a single zip tie to pull back the mud flap towards the cab mount. My mud flaps are trimmed shorter, but that's not related to fitting the tires. Mud flaps are essential in the front to prevent damage to doors from gravel and slinging rocks etc. In '09 I did a few hundred miles in Death Valley with no mud flaps, and it pitted my doors real bad. Upon returning and washing I spent a few hours with touch up paint repairing them.

That said, I am having difficulty finding time and a place to properly flex the front out to check for other areas of concern. It's been said by others that the pinch weld under the fender liner must be flattened out in order to stuff the 33" tires without rub, but most folks are speaking to the 285 wider sized 33" tires). I am prepared to flatten it out, it its an issue, but it doesn't seem to be critical at this time. The reason for this is the OME suspension is pretty stiff up front with no extra weight like @zscott said, and it's true my truck has no extra weight up front, all stock, unless you count the baja rack above the cab (~50lbs ). Regarding the pinch weld mod, NVdesert's pics show the mod pretty well, IMO.

The larger size tire does affect the transmission a little bit. I drive defensively around the surface streets, and it's fine there. No issues. On the hills the back country truck did fine, I was carrying 400 lbs. more than every day and it was still fine. I think if you are a defensive driver you'll be fine, if you're heavy on the pedal you may not be as happy... It's still early to tell. Next month I'll have a better update as we have a trip planned and will have the truck full.

 

This has nothing to do with the truck but more to do with my desire to get out... Over the last few days I've witnessed enormous explosive cumulus clouds over the desert. Much larger than the standard variety we usually get in August / September. It turns out its part of hurricane / tropical storm Linda. I don't have any pics of the thunderheads but I did manage to capture this awesome sunset yesterday. And below I quoted two weather alerts from the last two days.

 

Awesome picture!

 

lol I hope he stays real busy and forgets to break TT. One can hope!

Thanks!

 

This next post is a trip down memory lane for me.

In December 2009, I took a solo 4x4 tour of southern Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in my stock Tacoma. I love Anza and the purpose of my trip was to scope out an attraction called "Pinyon Mountain Drop off" or in some circles it's known as "Heart Attack Hill". My plan was to come from the South and travel North. I started out exploring a mine on BLM land in the Coyote Mountains, them moved North into Canyon Sin Nombre which connected up to Arroyo Seco Del Diablo, went down Diablo Drop off, through Broken Shaft Gulch, then up to Fish Creek. I took Fish Creek up to Hapaha Flat and finally stopped just past Split Rock where I camped for the night.

It's such a fun place to explore. Here are some pics from the trip.

Unknown named mine on BLM land

Unknown named mine on BLM land

Powder room at mine?

Looking South from mine

Looking South-West from mine

I think this was the entrance to Canyon Sin Nombre

Found a desert Tarantula

In Canyon Sin Nombre on way to Diablo Drop off

Loved my super simple stock setup

Found some black birds

I watched a jeep go down the drop off

I shrugged my shoulders and drove right down.

It's pretty steep, but not too much to it.

Then it was onto Broken shaft Gulch

Looks intimidating! Stock truck, no skids, sweat some bullets!


Very careful wheel placement and self spotting worked for me.


To be continued

 

Anza-Borrego Dec. 2009 Continued

I drove until I found an obstacle I could not negotiate. As far as I know it does not have a name but it is super sketch and not for stock trucks. After finding this next drop off, I backtracked and found a place to camp for the night.


Unamed drop off


With sun setting I went to find a nice place to camp.

Sunset at camp

I camped in my truck, super simple.


Next morning I made quick breakfast and was on my way.


Check out these rocks in these holes. Any idea what put them there?



Awesome looking alien landscape!


Broken shaft gulch was so fun I decided to run it in reverse!


And I decided it would be fun to go up Diablo Drop off!


4x4 with ATRAC and Locker made this super simple climb.


Here is somebody going down it.


Found a place to flex my stock suspension and my 32psi tires.


Look at all the stocker flex!


And stuffing those stock BFG Ruggedtrail tires! OMG!


I finally found Hollywood Blvd and Vine St. intersection. (you can read up on the history of this artifact, it's cool!)


Then I found a natural palm spring which has a long historical significance.




After this I hit pavement over to Mason Valley Truck Trail and Oriflamme Canyon, and took that trail up the Laguna Escarpment all the way into the mountains.

Looking back down to the desert floor.


The dirt road in the picture on the left is the remnants of the Butterfield Stage coach mail route from the 1800's. We can't drive it anymore due to state park rules, but there it is.


I drove all the way up on the dirt trail +4,000'!



Made it to pavement and boogied home 90 minute drive!

 

Looks like a good time!

 

lol Maybe. But really it was ignorance and inexperience. I'm lucky my wanderlust didn't kill me. Back then I carried no off-road tools and I don't think I could have even swapped to a spare tire in the dirt. All I carried back then was a +12v air pump.

 

Ooooo that's my favorite area of the park. Still haven't made it through Oriflamme Canyon, though. I think that's what I'll do next time I'm out there!
That super steep drop off that you turned back on doesn't look familiar, though. Was that up towards sandstone canyon and pinion dropoff?

 

Great write up Crom. Thanks for sharing.

 

As soon as it drops below 90*F, that's where I'm going.

 

Thanks, it was!

If your traveling from West to East as you're supposed to, on Pinyon Mountain Valley trail, it goes, The Squeeze, Pinyon Mnt Drop off, a rock garden, then the unnamed hill climb.

Here is a link to the exact location. It doesn't look like much from overhead satellite view, but it's quite steep.

Here is a pic of a vehicle going up.

My pleasure.

Hell yeah! So much opportunity for exploration.