January 15, 2019. What can I say? It's the end of an era, sort of. Really, it's the end of a transition period for the Tacoma - a time when it was transitioning from daily driver and home renovation hauler to a more dedicated exploration vehicle. It was nearly three years ago that this transition started, one of my first modifications being a new Toytec BOSS lift in order to support the Relentless armor I was soon to install. Over the last three years, that @Toytec Lifts setup has done everything I could have asked of it. No, that's not right…
10 CommentsMonth: February 2019
With Christmas vacation in full swing, we've been having a great time. There are lots of new toys to play with around the house, there are activities to keep us busy during the day, and the newly introduced household chores - and associated weekly allowance - have @mini.turbodb in high spirits. Oh, to be eight years old. But, when @mrs.turbodb suggested that we get bundled up and head up into the mountains to get in some sledding and enjoy the snow, the child was having none of it. "I hate the snow, it's too cold." - The words spilled out…
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December 29, 2018. I get asked by a lot of folks, some flavor of, "What do you pack when you go on a trip?" So, I thought it'd be a good time to run through what goes into the truck for an adventure. In fact, I think that a post once a year outlining the gear could be a great thing, so that's the plan. Oh, and taken with the Rig Reviews that I've started, it will give a good sense of what's working and what's not with the setup. So, without further ado, let's dig into what's on and…
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Not only functional, but they look good too!
TL;DR - the ADS setup is working great. We didn't do much dirt travel this time, but what little we did do was no problem at all. More to come in the future.
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Those are a lot of promises in one marketing picture.
TL;DR - if you ever feel like your RTT mattress leaves a little something to be desired, don't buy a foam topper to try to increase it's thickness. Get an Exped MegaMat Duo 10 LXW. You won't regret it even though it's pricey - this is the most comfortable sleeping experience I've ever had.
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People often assume that everything is easy for me. That I just go about doing things, and usually doing them well. That's sort of the case, since I've had a lot of experience doing different things in my life and I tend to pick things up quickly, but I think it's important to recognize that even for people who seem "good at everything," not everything is easy. Getting in there and trying things can still be both hard and rewarding, no matter who you are... I don't know why, but I've been super nervous about changing my spark plugs and…
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December 17, 2018. I'm generally pretty good at building things with my hands, but in relocating the rear shocks on my first gen Toyota Tacoma, I'd royally screwed up. If you haven't read about that, I'd recommend checking out the previous post in this series - Rear Shock Relocation - Fabrication and Failure, where after I'd permanently welded a bunch of stuff to my truck, I'd discovered that I couldn't go over bumps taller than about 2-inches. Not good for adventuring out on dirt roads. But, failure is a great learning tool, and I'd spent some time figuring out why…
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The rain did seem to tail off sometime in the middle of the night, and the breeze did definitely continue on into the morning. All of this gave us hope that we'd climb out of the tent to a similar situation as the previous morning - overcast, but mostly dry. Nope. It was overcast alright, but it was also super foggy. I mean, it was a pea soup-type fog that really felt like more of a windy drizzle. The tent was soaked, and we decided that we didn't even really want to eat breakfast it was so wet out. Instead,…
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Excited to test out the rear shock relocation I'd just completed with the help of Zane @Speedytech7, I headed north toward Las Vegas to pick up @mrs.turbodb who was flying in for a two-ish day trip along the Old Mojave Road - a historically significant trail through the Mojave National Preserve in southern California. Passenger acquired, we made a quick dinner pit stop at The Habit Burger - a place we'd never been before but had heard had amazing burgers at drastically low prices ($3.50). The burgers were actually quite good - I'd recommend them over any other fast-food burger -…
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December 3-4, 2018. Rear shock relocation day was finally here! Zane @Speedytech and I were up bright and early so we could be at ADS right around their opening time of 8:00am to pick up the rear shocks they'd been holding for me for the last couple of months. As generally seems to be the case when it comes to truck parts stores, we were both like kids in a candy store as we ogled around the ADS facility. Definitely quite the setup they've got going on there! Tyler, who'd been helping me with my shocks, walked us around for…
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December 1-2, 2018. For years now I've run what I'd call "work shocks" in the rear of the truck. First a set of Gabriel Hi-Jackers that I put on to carry heavy loads, then a set of Monroe MaxAir MA820's (now replaced by the MA728 model) when I installed the rear lift - these shocks were great for carrying heavy loads since I could add air pressure to push the rear of the truck higher. But as truck use has changed to more exploration (perhaps even the overused "overlanding), it's become clear that the ride provided by these shocks is…
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