October 17, 2024 Ever since I relocated my rear shocks, or at least ever since I got it right the second time, I've been running 2.5" ADS Racing Shocks with a 10-inch stroke and resis. They have been performed fantastically and after rebuilding and revalving them after a couple years of use, they worked even better! The first set of 10" smooth body shocks ADS made for the rear end of a 1st gen Tacoma, and the only trend I ever started. Really, I had no desire to ever run a different shock, and I figured that the ADS would…
10 CommentsCategory: Epic
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@mrs.tubodb had no idea what I was doing as I ran around outside the tent at 2:00am, but she knows I'm a little nuts, so after hearing me trip on a rock as I scurried to-and-fro, she confirmed that I was OK and fell back asleep. After about half an hour of stumbling, I too was back under the warm covers, where I stayed until well past sunrise, the camera I'd setup to capture the event mistakenly left on nighttime settings such that every photo of fantastic light on the mountain was both washed out and grainy. Amazing what Lightroom…
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When I first started exploring in the Tacoma, one of my buddies - Ben @m3bassman - mentioned nonchalantly that he had gotten out to camp at least once every calendar month of the year. That sounded amazing to me, and so for six years I repeatedly failed at actually accomplishing the same feat. Sure, there were some months where I'd get out two or three times, my annual average higher than the one-per-month I was after, but no matter how hard I tried, it seemed like I'd miss a month here or there for some lame reason. Finally - with…
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TL;DR - The new 1st gen Sequoia double 5-spoke wheels sit a little too inboard and cause some rubbing on my suspension components, so I've installed some wheel spacers to fix the problem.
The solution to my problem.
The rain that'd begun just as we were settling in for our post-sunrise, pre-breakfast nap only ended up lasting for about half an hour, a quarter of the time that our InAccuweather app suggested that water would be falling from the sky. And that meant we could stop - in the middle of the forest - for some sustenance. Breakfast time under nature's umbrella. After picking up a few aluminum cans that were strewn about, we figured that our proximity to Halfmoon Peak - and the fact that we could stay dry in the Tacoma, all the way to the…
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After a 12-mile hike through Tetrahedron Provincial Park, we'd planned only a single hike on the following day. That, and I'd also found a couple of extensive looking trail systems on Gaia, and figured that we could end up wasting away much of the day searching for overlooks as we wandered our way through the forest. It was 9:30am as we wound our way through the trees toward Mt. Richardson Provincial Park. Unsurprisingly in a region where logging is king, there were roads on the ground that were not on our maps. Newly graded and covered with bright 3-inch stone…
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Having had a successful first day on the Sunshine Coast, we hoped our second day would be one of the most dramatic - at least, from a view perspective - given the effort that was going to be necessary over the next several hours. With the amount of dew on the alders, the Tacoma started out the day with an organic carwash. Arrival at the trailhead. Our plan - a hike to the summit of Mt. Steele in Tetrahedron Provincial Park - entailed a 12+ mile (20km) hike along long-lost mining roads, through temperate rain forest, past a series of…
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A few minutes after setting off - just before 5:00am - I realized that we've been doing this whole exploration thing entirely wrong for the last eight years. That's because our first stop was only minutes from home, for half a dozen servings at our favorite healthy breakfast spot - Family Donut. Daily calorie allocation exceeded before sunrise. With a schedule to keep - we had a ferry to catch - we managed to eat only one donut each before climbing back into the Tacoma. And, with a strict "no eating messy food in the truck" policy - of which…
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TL;DR - I am not happy with the lifespan I got out of the X-Axis joints on my SPC upper control arms (UCAs), so I'm going back to the original polyurethane bushing-based SPC UCAs.
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It was 8:40am when we finished airing up at the Rady Creek FSR (Forest Service Road) trailhead. Still reasonably early, we weren't in any rush as far as our daily itinerary was concerned, but I knew that it took about 45 minutes to reach the Galena Bay ferry - departing for Shelter Bay at 9:30am - from our current location, so we zipped along at a good pace on our way toward the terminal. The N52010 Fire smoldered at the base of Mt. Murray in the Lardeau Range as we passed by. Terminal - in the case of Galena Bay…
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In all my exploring, there are few places that I've returned to for a third time. Off the top of my head, I can list only a few: a special little spot in the California Sierra where my Dad and I meet each year, the Alvord Playa in southeast Oregon, and Butte Valley in my favorite National Park. I first visited Rady back in September of 2021 after hearing about it from Mike @POSTacoMike and watching a video that Shaun put together about the deactivation of the road that climbed high into the Kootenays of British Columbia. At the time,…
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I'm not a huge fan of airing up tires, so once we've aired down on a trip, I generally try to stay aired down until the trip is over and we're pounding pavement towards home. Today though, we had 350 miles of pavement - and a ferry to catch - between Lillooet and our next item on the agenda along Upper Arrow Lake, so we took the time to run the ARB compressor and get the new Kenda Klever RTs up to full pressure before speeding along at 100 mph. Err, km/h, which is basically the same, right? Just outside of…
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One of the greatest things about the Pacific Northwest are the summers. While many months of the year are cool, wet, and gray, summers are defined by blue skies, pleasantly warm temperatures, and lush landscapes - the perfect combination for adventures into the unknown. Looking for the perfect getaway, wildfires blazing from Oregon to Montana made our usual spots a little less appealing. Widening our search area, I wondered if Canada - which I've visited a few times, but @mrs.turbodb has never explored in the Tacoma - could be the perfect solution. And so, we're headed into British Columbia, to…
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I've never been a fan of mud. I'm not a fan of driving in it, camping in it, or hiking in it. And, I'm definitely not a fan of getting it all over - and in - the Tacoma on a trip. Not my idea of a good time. As such, I've always tried to keep my tires pulled in, under the fender flares. This worked reasonably well with the stock wheels and tires, but when I bought some 16" SCS Stealth6 to fit the larger calipers that come with the Tundra brake upgrade, I ended up pushing the wheels…
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For the last 5 years, I've very much enjoyed the wheel-and-tire combination I've been running. Not only did the 3rd gen 4Runner 5-star wheels look great - especially after I went to all the trouble to paint them - but they fit the larger calipers I installed as part of the Tundra Brake Upgrade and are the lightest OEM wheel manufactured by Toyota! Likewise, while I felt that the Cooper S/T Maxx were a little stiff and heavy - largely because they are only available in a 10-ply, E-range rating - they have been a great tire from a performance…
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I like to keep the cab of the Tacoma tidy. And, I'm not great at keeping the cab of the Tacoma tidy. Really, I think most folks would say that the inside of the Tacoma is amazingly clean-looking given all the adventuring I do, but to me it always feels dusty and a bit of a mess. I've added various containers in order to contain some of the chaos - largely in the extended cab area, with the 12v house battery box and some cardboard storage containers for our clothes - but one of the things I haven't ever done…
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July 31, 2024 I've fallen behind with Rig Reviews since there are lots of trips to write up and share (and I think people like them more), but I'm hoping to do better. This will cover things that have happened over the course of the following trips: So, let's get into it! Seemingly solved from previous Rig Reviews I didn't solve much from previous rig reviews this time, but I waited long enough to write up this review that all of the new issues were resolved! I'll chalk that up as a win. Unchanged / Still an issue…
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After climbing into our tents under smoky skies, we awoke to a morning that was much brighter - and much bluer - than I think any of us expected. No one mentioned it - we're all too superstitious for that - but I'm sure this raised our spirits dramatically, as it meant that we wouldn't be going home until the next morning. One of the camera-shy marmots I've ever encountered. For now though, our focus was elsewhere. Today, Mike was one of the first out of his tent, the potatoes that he contributes to the group breakfast requiring more prep…
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It rained on and off regularly during our night at Pear Lake, with gusty winds buffeting the tent and making me glad that I'd tied down the ladder to keep the entire contraption from folding up on me while I slept. With earplugs in and knowing that the tent would have plenty of time to dry out in the morning, I slept well, the patter of rain on the roof a soothing - rather than worrying - sound. There were still a few clouds in the sky when I awoke for the first time, about 40 minutes before sunrise. When…
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For being a fallback location - and but for some flies the previous afternoon - our night at Long Branch Lake was hard to beat. Overnight, temperatures dropped down into a pleasant range for sleeping, and our sheltered location along the edge of the glassy lake meant that we didn't descend our ladders until nearly an hour after sunrise. Good morning, mountains. In fact, a few of us had awoken earlier - when it sounded like one of the dogs was out playing in the lake - but only Ben's van was positioned to witness a cow Moose slosh across…
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